Page 65 of Stay Toxic

And since I already had my gun out, I pointed it at his head and said, “You have a brother.”

“Yes,” he croaked. “In that freezer.”

“If you care about him at all, you’ll tell me what I want to know. Where’s Cayden?” I repeated my earlier question.

He licked his lips, his breaths still coming in gasps, and said, “Someone took him. Out. Not dead. Just out of the city.”

“On what?” I asked.

“A shipping container,” he answered.

“How do you know he’s on this shipping container?” I questioned.

I sensed movement behind me, but I didn’t pull my gaze away from the imbecile in front of me.

She was probably freaking out, but I had more important questions on my brain than whether or not she was calling the cops or not. If she did, I’d deal.

But for now…

“Chatter,” he whispered. “Couple of boys at the docks saw him get taken, put in a dog kennel, and loaded onto the ship unconscious.”

There was a small gasp from beside me.

“When was this?” I asked.

“Yesterday. Around one in the morning,” he said.

“What was the ship’s name?” I pushed.

He laughed hoarsely. “Do you actually think I got the ship’s name?”

I used my boot to step on his finger, and he gasped, his eyes widening.

“The ship’s name,” I ordered.

He swallowed hard. “It’s a retiring Carnival cruise ship. They’d already stripped the name and all identifying markers off of the hull.”

There weren’t going to be many of those.

“Anything else you would like to add?” I asked. “Do you have any more information about what’s going on?”

The guy’s eyes went wide, his mouth opened and closed, and I knew he was contemplating what to tell me.

“Just tell him already, Jesus.” Brecken threw her hands up. “You’re gonna get a whole lot less dead if you do.”

I looked at her, my foot digging into the man’s finger as I did, and stared.

She didn’t look scared at all. In fact, she looked impatient and exasperated, but not scared.

“I…I…” the man stuttered.

I bore down on his finger once again, and he gasped.

“The man that took him.” he drew in a deep breath. “He looked military. He had a shit ton of men that looked military with him, too. Everything that’s happening down here looks like a whole team of black ops is running it. The one that marched McCloud up the ship ramp, though. He looked like a cop.”

There was no way this was government funded. And the man that’d taken Cayden wasn’t a cop.

At least, not anymore.

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