Page 13 of Riot's Thorn
The club’s VP looks around me and says, “Can we come in?”
“No.”
“Did you take that girl, Riot?” Killer asks.
“It’s none of your business.”
“Itisour business because the news is reporting what happened today is an abduction gone wrong. They’re saying the whole point of the break-in was to kidnap her, and when her dad tried to stop it, he was killed.” Rigger folds his arms across his chest. He’s fooling himself if he thinks I’m intimidated.
“So?”
“So?” Killer mocks. “Do you know what happens when a pretty, white college girl disappears? Everyone gets involved. It’s not just local PD; it’s state law enforcement, the Feds, the fucking National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, not to mention every single person who sees the news. They all rally together, leaving no stone unturned, and you can’t be sure no one saw anything that could give us away.”
“No one saw shit.”
“Does that mean she’s here?” Riot asks. “Or did you. . . take care of the issue?”
“Isn’t it better you know nothing? Plausible deniability and all that.”
“Brother,” he lays in. “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t need your help.” I try to close the door, but Rigger blocks it with his booted foot.
“I don’t pull rank often, but I’m doing it now. I haven’t told Cy what’s going on, but if you don’t cooperate, his place will be my next stop.”
“You’re an asshole,” I say.
“Never claimed otherwise.”
I blow out a breath. “I took her. But if I hadn’t, she would’ve been dead by now. I don’t need to tell you the man we killed today is just a pawn in a much bigger game. One sweep of that house will reveal what her dad was doing there, and his boss, fuckin’ Bart Banks, will want to silence everyone who was there, just in case.”
Bart became a blip on our radar when we opened the Honey Pot, and he contacted Rigger to let him know if we ever needed girls, he could get them for us. We haven’t spoken to him since; all our women are hired willingly and legally, but that offer was enough to pique Prez’s interest. We asked around and did some digging because knowledge is power, and you never know when knowing something like this will come in handy.
I guess that time is now.
According to what we dug up, Bart is part of a complex trafficking system set up in tiers. After the women and children are acquired, they enter the top tier of the system. The richest men, like Bart, are in this tier. They pay for the victims and use them how they see fit; whether that’s keeping them for themselves or renting them to their friends, like Bart did for Parker’s dad.
Since Bart is a businessman, he saw an opportunity to make a shit ton of money off the backs of these women and children. Once his friends are done with them and want a new crop, Bart sells them back, and they drop down to the next tier, where men with less money purchase them.
By the time they hit the bottom, if they even survive, they’re a shell of who they used to be. At that point, they wash their hands of them and drop them off on any city street, or, if they have even an ounce of humanity, they kill them and end their suffering.
It sounds fucked up for us to know this happens and not stop it, but if we intervened each time we heard about something fucked up going on, we’d end up broke and probably dead since it’s an unspoken rule that everyone minds their own fucking business.
Besides, Bart is just one tier. If we took him out, someone would replace him, and since we’ve never discovered who is at the top acquiring these women and children, there’s just no point. Until the traffickers are gone, this won’t end.
“Which is what you should’ve done,” Rigger says.
“So why didn’t you?” Killer asks. The petite woman cocks her head, trying to understand me. If anyone in this world could, it would probably be her.
The reason we were even at that house in the first place was because of her kill list. She seeks out men who hurt those weaker than themselves and kills them. Like most of us, she’s developed some unhealthy coping mechanisms from her trauma, but she never harms the innocent, and the little thorn hasn’t done a damn thing.
“She didn’t know what her father was doing. She still doesn’t, not really. But she’ll definitely pay for his crimes if I let her go.”
Rigger smirks. “When did you grow a conscience?”
“I didn’t.”
“Sure looks that way to me.”
