Page 7 of Slay Tricksters and Silent Skeletons
I just hoped that Anurak got to safety and he was able to call Rico. While I wasn’t keen on dying, as long as he was safe, I’d gladly give my life up for his, so he didn’t have to suffer. Anurak had been through enough in his life. After being sold and sexually abused for years upon years of his life, he deserved to be happy and safe.
I had no idea how long I paced, but eventually, the door opened, spilling light into the room. I blinked rapidly, hiding behind one of the animal carcasses as I tried to get my eyes to adjust. Only when I could somewhat see did I step out of hiding, facing my captor head on.
I had to do a double take at the two men standing in the doorway.
One was older with graying hair and fine lines around his eyes and lips and across his forehead. The other was about my age. Their brown skin was almost the same shade as mine, alluding to some kind of Hispanic heritage.
And both of them looked almost exactly like Rico.
What the absolute fuck.
6
Niran
Iwas getting a headache from all of Anurak’s crying, panicking, and his questions. Usually, I was calm and collected, even in the most stressful of situations, but I was on the verge of snapping at the boy. My patience was wearing fucking thin.
“Did you find him yet?”
“Any sign of him yet?”
“Where could he be?”
“What if he’s dead? Oh, God, it’s all my fault!”
Rico was doing his best to console him, but without Anurak’s anxiety meds, we were a little fucked. Bento had his meds, just as he always did when he and Anurak went somewhere. Rico had called in reinforcements, also known as Anurak’s boyfriend, Ace, who was part of the Ghost Born MC. The dynamic Anurak, Ace, Rico, and Ace’s husband, Gunner, shared was a fucking mysteryto all of us, but if there was one thing I knew about Rico, it was that he would give Anurak any fucking thing so long as it made his precious littleperritohappy, even if that meant sharing him with someone else.
Doing my best to tune out Anurak, I continued flipping through the cameras in the parking lot, trying to find a good angle to get a make and model of the unplated van that’d driven away with Bento inside. I’d already watched the footage of them beating the shit out of him. How he survived getting his head smashed through the fucking window, I didn’t know, but it was proof of Bento’s endurance and his will to survive.
Had he gone through that window wrong, he could’ve had his fucking throat slit.
It was clear in the camera footage that he’d been disoriented and unable to fight back. I’d seen the moment he shouted at Anurak to run, and I’d seen where he’d tried calling me.
He’d just been unable to do so in enough time.
But I was going to find him.No onewas keeping my man from me. And after this? Fuckeveryoneand fuck what was morally correct. I was claiming Bento as my own. I wasn’t capable of remorse, but I knew I’d hate every fucking day I didn’t get to have him as mine if I fucking lost him.
There. I slammed my finger over the space bar to pause the video feed. I could barely make it out, but it was there. A fucking Mercedes-Benz. Whoever had taken him had access to money, or they’d stolen the van. I didn’t know which it was, nor did I care. When I went in to rescue Bento, I’d go in with the idea they had money, which would mean they had access to high-tech security and military-grade weapons. If I got there and it turnedout they were dirt poor, then I’d resort to plan B, which would be to go in guns blazing and wipe out every mother fucker in my hunt to free my man.
“Anything yet?” Anurak asked.
“He’s working on it,perrito,” Rico soothed, but the look he shot me told me I’d better hurry the fuck up. I clenched my jaw and didn’t say a word, only continuing to focus on tracking the van through every traffic camera I could until I could get a fucking location.
My phone pinged with a notification that the front door had been opened, and then, Ace was sprinting into the room. The moment his eyes met Anurak’s, Anurak burst into a fresh wave of tears. Rico looked pained, as did Ace and Gunner, who finally walked in behind Ace. Without a word, Ace slid behind Anurak on the couch and tugged Anurak into his arms.
“Here,” Gunner said, handing a bottle of pills to Rico. “Ace brought his pills thinking they might help Anurak.”
Without a word, Rico uncapped the orange prescription bottle and tipped out a pill before handing it to Anurak. Grabbing the water he’d been using to keep Anurak hydrated during all his crying, he tipped it to Anurak’s lips, forcing the boy to swallow the pill. I barely bit back a sigh of relief. Maybe now my headache would go away and I could focus without listening to all his fucking questions.
The room went quiet, allowing me to work in peace. I flipped through more traffic cameras, watching every move the van made, and when it disappeared from sight, I flipped to the next one. It was a long, tedious process, but it was all I had to run with, and for now, it was my only hope of finding Bento.
The van made it to the industrial area, then turned into the parking lot of a meat packing plant, which was closed since it was now after five P.M. After putting the address into my burner phone, I closed my laptop. “Found him,” I announced.
Anurak had passed out and was comfortably sleeping between Ace’s spread legs with Ace’s arms wrapped tightly around him. Rico looked up at me. “Where?” he asked, pushing to his feet.
“Meat packing plant out in the industrial park,” I told him, opening my phone to call for a meeting so I could assemble a rescue team to go with me. “I need to get a team together, and then, we can go.”
Rico shook his head. “You don’t need a team. Alfonzo and I will go with you.”
