Page 41 of The Madman's Nightmare
“Where did their money come from?” Skid asked, and I realized that was a good question.
I opened the laptop I had and began searching through the banking apps we’d designed. The account number was routed outside of the country, and while I had a blank check in America, foreign accounts were harder to track.
Closing the laptop, I said to James, “We need to get a trace on the accounts and see who’s funding them and how much more they have before they’re tapped out.”
He nodded again as he entered the Flats and began to move through the familiar streets. We were kings in this area for years, but we weren’t cruel. He and I never hurt anyone for the hell of it and never someone who didn’t deserve it. As we passed the vacant lot where the whorehouse I’d rescued Elise from when she was a little girl used to stand, I started to think about something else.
“How many kids were in the house?”
“What house?” James asked as he took another turn to lead up to Rider’s Cross.
“Steve’s whorehouse,” I remarked. “I know Elise and Regan were there, but were there any other kids? Boys perhaps?”
“Are you thinking that Bradon is another of Steve’s illegitimate kids?” Skid asked from his position in the backseat.
“Maybe,” I returned. “Something about the way he was always watching, standing off to the side, and then the way he would bow down to Kendra. It just got me thinking.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” James added to the conversation. “Steve was a bastard, so it wouldn’t shock me that he had many kids out there.”
“Add that to the list of unanswered questions we have,” I said as we exited the Flats and drove through the woods into Rider’s Cross.
This was a tiny community that started dying years ago when the mills began closing. Most of the residents moved to find jobs, and the few who remained were living hand-to-mouth, I’d heard. There were more empty houses than full, less jobs than people, and crime was increasing. I hated that another community was struggling, but I couldn’t save the world.
We stopped to coordinate just outside the area where Regan believed the siblings were holed up. The three vehicles parked side-by-side, and we rolled down the windows so I could speak to the occupants of both cars.
“We’ll take the middle warehouse. Lucian, you take the closest one, and Rhys, you take the last one. We stay in contact with our coms, and if anyone finds them, you bring them to me.”
I got nods of understanding from Rhys and Lucian before I rolled up the windows and we began to move closer to the warehouses. Two were on one giant track of land that used to be a cotton processing plant, and the last was on the edge of the old grain storage facility. I had no guess which one they were at, but if they were here, we were going to find them.
James pulled up to the building we needed to search, and I heard Lucian state his team was ready to penetrate his building. I wanted to wait until Rhys was in position before we made our move. Another minute and Rhys let us know his team was ready to move.
The three groups entered the warehouses at the same time, whispering our locations and movements to the whole group. Something in the back corner of the second floor of our building caught my eye, and carefully, making sure to look out for an ambush or a trap, we swept the rooms until we got to the back corner.
I leaned down and saw what looked like a false wall covering a doorway, and I motioned for Skid, James, and the other two men to be on alert.
Softly, I pressed the mic to my throat and spoke to the group. “We found a false wall. Going in.”
“Roger,” Rhys replied.
Lucian followed with “Check.”
James raised his gun to the false door, and Skid stepped up, pressing a crowbar into where the board was held in place before he pried it off with a loud pop. If they didn’t know we were here before, they did now.
The five of us rushed into the room, and I was shocked to see what was going on in front of me. Kendra was riding Bradon’s cock, moaning and writhing as she bounced up and down. They didn’t seem to know we were there until I chambered a round and James pressed the barrel of his gun to the side of her head.
Her green eyes moved until she looked up at me, then a sinister smile broke out on her face. “I was wondering where you were, lover.”
Bradon laid there with his hands in the air as she pushed herself odd his cock and sauntered up to me. James kept his gun trained on him while Lucian’s man stepped up and kept theirs trained on the naked woman moving closer to me.
In my life, I’d never hurt a woman on purpose, but this bitch was crazy, and I had no qualms about knocking her over the head to get her to stop. When she placed her hands on my chest, I stepped back and lifted the gun to the center of her face.
“You’re not going to shoot me, Devlin,” Kendra remarked.
I lowered the gun, and her smirk grew as if she’d won, but she didn’t know me now and she never did. With little aim, I fired a round, striking her in the top of the foot, causing her to crumble to the ground. Bradon tried to jump up to defend her only to besmacked in the side of the head by James’s gun. He fell to the floor as Kendra screamed from her position at my feet.
“Get them dressed and load them into the van,” I instructed as I stepped back from the two people responsible for hurting my wife.
They were going to die today, but not here. I needed to get information from them, and I needed to control the scene. Looking at James, who was tossing clothes at their nakedness, I instructed, “Get them back to Portstill.”
