Torched Read online

  All kinds of worst case scenarios ran through Torch’s head as he walked into the office and watched Biff close the door behind them. “What’s going on, man?” He didn’t wait for an answer before sitting down, elbows propped on his knees, and bracing for more shit to throw into the mix.

  Biff perched on the desk in front of him. “I made some calls, found an old friend who’s got somebody at Philly PD on payroll. He got access to all their reports for the week before you met her at Snoop’s. Took some digging, but he narrowed it down to a Jane Doe involved in an incident at a warehouse three nights before—”

  “What kind of incident? You sure it’s her?”

  “Yeah.” Biff handed him a photo from the desk. “That’s a copy of a picture they took in the ER. She had blonde hair then and her face was all fucked up, but that’s her. They tried to trace her after she bounced, but couldn’t find anything. No birth certificate, school records, nothing.”

  As he stared at the picture, a familiar thirst for blood filled his veins. She looked even worse than the day he’d found her.

  Biff kept going. “Emergency dispatch got an anonymous call reporting shots fired at the warehouse. When they got there, they found one guy with a slit throat at the bottom of some stairs. He was either pushed or fell before that happened. Jane Doe was on the ground, beaten and stabbed in the shoulder, and guy number two was pointing a gun at her. They took him down right as he was about to pull the trigger.”

  Torch leaned back in the chair. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, but listen, it gets more interesting. So, turns out the two assholes were brothers, Mitch and Vince Henslow. Vince was the one who ended up dead. The Feds got involved ‘cause they’d already been tipped off to them moving drugs and guns. There were reports of sex trafficking too. Surveillance videos in the area showed some girls running away from the warehouse that night, so it looked like they’d been held there but somehow managed to make a run for it. Couldn’t ever ID any of them though, it was too grainy.”

  Torch was trying to keep his cool, but his palms were sweaty from the thought of her being sold off as a goddamn sex slave. “She tried to run and got caught?”

  “Sounds like it. They found coke residue at the warehouse, so the DEA took point. But Liv claimed she didn’t remember anything about that night or know anything about any drugs when they came asking questions. Said she’d been picked up a week earlier and they’d kept her at a house. Claimed the last thing she remembered from that day was eating there, then nothing until she woke up at the hospital. Gave her doctors the name, Chloe James. They figured out later that it was actually Chloe Belman.”

  Neil and Lexi’s kid. She hadn’t been born yet, so they had to have named her after Liv. The real Liv. “She was drugged?”

  “It would’ve been out of her system by the time they ran labs, but yeah, that was the theory. They found some clothes in the basement of the house, her fingerprints and hair in the kitchen. Looks like she was allowed to walk around a bit, but uh…”

  “What? Fucking Christ, spit it out,” Torch demanded.

  “Shit... Okay, well, by all appearances she was mostly kept in the basement. There was a bed. And chains—”

  “Did they fucking rape her?” Torch didn’t know why he was so shell-shocked. Of course one or both of them had raped her. Hell, they were about to sell her into a life of being forced to spread her legs for the highest bidder.

  “I think so, brother. Sorry. Maybe not that night, but she admitted to the agent that it’d happened while she was at the house. That was pretty much all they got out of her before she snuck out of the hospital. They offered her WitSec but she refused.”

  Torch slammed his fist down on the desk, sending papers flying. “Let me guess, they let him off.”

  “Actually, no, they managed to build a case. A shaky one, but he wouldn’t talk and took a deal to avoid a trial. Pled down and ended up doing four years for manslaughter on his brother.”

  Torch scrubbed his beard in frustration, trying to calm the fuck down. He forced himself to remember that this all happened years ago and Liv was alright now, but the story had awoken a murderous rage that he’d need to put a lid on when he saw her.

  “And now? What’s he doing?”

  “Now, according to a different source, Mitch is a fucking boss on the east coast. He’s built a huge network of some of the biggest players in the game on the east coast. He’s playing musical chairs, somehow managing to buy and sell from bitter enemies. Same shit, just on a bigger scale. It’s like a fucking deck of cards that miraculously hasn’t come crashing down on him yet. The law’s tried to stay on his ass, but he’s like a ghost, only comes out at night, and mostly has other guys doing his day-to-day shit. Goes by the code name ‘Mayor’.”

  He’d be going by ‘Dead’ in a minute. “Is he still after her?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. But from the sounds of it, Henslow holds a mean grudge. Maybe he thinks she’s a loose end and she knows it. With her skills, she’s probably read all the reports and knows how big his network is. It would explain all the moving around. Didn’t wanna ask too many questions and risk exposing her location if he greenlit her. I did check with our Pittsburgh boys to make sure they weren’t doing any business with him. They’re clean.”

  “I’m gonna fucking kill him, man,” Torch seethed. “I’ll pull his intestines out with my bare hands, wrap them around his neck, and hang him from a fucking bridge.”

  It all made sense, why she’d stayed a ghost and never called. Hell, it even made sense why she refused to talk to him about it, given that the club had a chapter in Pennsylvania. She was probably suspicious about any organizations that might be doing business with Henslow. But then Maric and his idiot soldiers had to go pull their shit and drag her out of hiding to warn them. By trying to help the club she’d put herself in a compromising position, and there was no question that she’d done it knowingly. She was smart and meticulous, beyond anyone he’d ever met. It was finally dawning on him how big of a sacrifice she’d made, all for a group of society’s castoffs that she didn’t even know.

  “I’ll hold him down, brother. What do we do in the meantime?” Biff asked. “Sounds like she needs protection. That’s really why I called her over here. Just got it all pieced together this morning. Figured you’d know what to do.”

  Putting her under the club’s protection meant he’d have to bring it to the table. And if the vote passed—which it probably would—it would be pretty fucking clear to her what they were doing. She hated being cornered, that much was obvious. How long would it take the queen of staying under-the-radar to slip out from under them? A couple hours at most?

  He shook his head. “I can’t bring this to the table. Not yet. If I lay her business out for everybody, she’ll get pissed and disappear as soon as she finds out. I’ll keep her close. Try to track down Henslow. Anything on Randy Sloan or Hess?”

  “Nothing on Hess, but all I really have to go on are Masters’ description and dates. I’m still working on Sloan, but so far there’s nothing to connect him either. He keeps a clean profile in the streets. Maybe there’s more on his work computers, since that’s what these finance guys hide behind, but I haven’t been able to crack his firm’s servers. The world’s changing, man. I need to know how to get around the technology, and Liv can do that shit in her sleep.”

  Torch wracked his brain, trying to come up with another option. If she got so much as a whiff of what they were doing, she might end up trying to tackle it herself again. He’d cut off his fucking arm before pulling her deeper into a potential turf war over. They may have taken Maric out of the equation, but now that Linwood had been noticed as ideal distribution ground, whoever was funding this shit would just find another group of willing morons to do the job. It wasn’t over by a long shot.

  “Yeah, alright,” he conceded. “Let me talk to her and see if she’d be willing to cut us a deal. I know she bills a fucking fortune. But this is nothing more than lesso
ns, you keep specifics under wraps.”

  Biff nodded. “Cool. It’s not ideal, but it’ll make it easier for you to keep her close. At least you won’t have to worry about her when she’s here.”

  The man was right, there was no way to keep her away and keep her safe at the same time. By asking her to help, he’d have a reasonable excuse to keep her under his watchful eye. Because, make no mistake, his eyes were wide open and watching now. And he couldn’t really complain about the view either.

  Biff stood up and gave his shoulder a squeeze as he passed by. “You’re nothing if not rational, Torch. Glad you and Buddha sit at the head of that table.”

  “Thanks, brother. Where’s she at now?”

  “Clubhouse. She fixed the piece of shit in here, so I asked her to go check my computer. Better go find her before the boys get too rowdy.” Biff opened the office door to leave, but stopped and turned back around. “You know, my pops always told me… If you fall into a gushing river, there’s no point in fighting the current. You just end up wearing your ass out and drowning. You’re better off letting it take you downstream. Might get hit in the nuts by a rock or branch along the way, but at least you have a chance. Keep that in mind.”

  : : : :

  A few minutes later, an apprehensive Torch strutted over to the clubhouse, wondering what the hell he was about to walk in on. It was still pretty early, but there were probably plenty of people in there gearing up for another night of drinking, fucking, and fighting.

  But as he walked through the door, he felt an immediate difference in the atmosphere. And standing right in the middle of the vortex was Liv, her back to him.

  Buddha, Mace, Toto, and Squid surrounded a table—paying close attention to whatever she was saying—as she drew on a piece of paper.

  What the fuck was happening now? At least Grimm’s filthy paws were nowhere to be found.

  He took a few sleuthy steps forward, like a predator in one of those bloody nature documentaries, trying to get close enough to hear what they were talking about without being spotted. And then, he just stood there, watching, taking it in.

  But he wasn’t ogling at her jeans sliding down as she bent over, the amazing tattoo that was on full display in one of those shirts with a sheer back—they’d be discussing that later, by the way—or the long, porcelain neck that was just begging to be bitten and sucked. For the first time, he was getting a good look at her in his element, and he—not to sound like a pussy or anything—basked in what he was witnessing.

  “You have blind spots here, here, and here,” she explained to her captive audience. “And these two overlap. You don’t necessarily need more of them if you just move this camera about ten feet to the left, angle this one to the right about fifteen degrees, and move this to the other building pointing straight.”

  Buddha nodded and rubbed his cheek in serious contemplation. “Not sure how you calculate all this shit in your pretty little head, but sounds easy enough.”

  “It is,” she nodded. “Now, your biggest vulnerability is that fence lining the north side of the property. There’s not enough coverage and piss-poor street lighting. Physically, it’s high enough to keep somebody from carrying off scrap parts, but with a few tools it would be pretty easy to get in and out without being seen.”

  “For what?” Mace asked. “Every building has its own fence. They wouldn’t be able to get past these other ones to get to the garage or clubhouse without being seen on the cameras there.”

  She straightened up and looked at him. “Do you guys ever talk… business… anywhere on this property?”

  All four did a brow lift and slow nod, like they knew they were about to look like idiots.

  “Okay, good. Then you want to keep people the fuck away from a parts pile with a gazillion places to hide things. You wouldn’t believe the kind of shit they make to spy on people these days. I’m not talking your average microphone or nanny cam. I’m talking about a portable cell phone tower the size of a suitcase than can route every call you make through it. Even on a burner. Sound amplifiers that pick up whispers, body sensors that see through walls, RFID scanners that can read the strip of a credit card in your wallet if you walk by. Seriously, it’s incredible, and the law gets first dibs on the best stuff. It would take some effort and a lot of motivation, but it could happen. And you’d never know, because how the hell do you find metal in metal?”

  Toto’s jaw hung. “No shit?”

  “No shit. I mean, they could theoretically put those things outside the property, but then they’re battling with street interference.”

  “Huh,” Squid said, scratching his head. “So what about the cameras? They’re closed-circuit. That’s safe, right?”

  “They would be if you guys didn’t use a computer with an internet connection to watch them. So even though you’re not uploading anything to a cloud account, any decent hacker could theoretically get into your computer and gain access. One click of an infected link or email attachment and you have what’s called a rootkit embedded in your system. Gives a hacker free rein to everything on your hard drive. And I hate to tell you all, but porn is the most effective way we use to do that.”

  “Well, Grimm’s banned from all internet use,” Buddha smirked. “Toots, I don’t know what the fuck any of that means, but how do we prevent it?”

  By that point, Torch tuned out the conversation and just focused on her. The way she talked with her hands, smiled at their questions and patiently answered, and just generally seemed at ease in their presence. It was that same calm aura he’d noticed the last time she was here.

  You could tell she respected them, but she wasn’t sitting there and fawning like some club slut either. Nor was she getting snippy or arguing, like she did with him every time they were in the same room.

  Not to imply that he didn’t love the way her nose twitched whenever she started spouting from the mouth, but in the club world, there was a fine line between banter and disrespect. Many a men had gotten their asses beat for shit their women pulled, himself included with Penny and her fucking psychotic episodes. But he should have known that Liv would be smart enough to figure it out on her own.

  Maybe there was just something about him that got under her skin. The feeling was fucking mutual.

  Speaking of club sluts, he hadn’t even noticed Nadia’s ass sneaking up until she’d planted herself directly in front of him. He couldn’t be bothered to look down at her.

  “You want a drink, baby?” she asked, her voice doing that annoying-as-fuck baby tone she thought was sexy. It wasn’t even close.

  “No,” he replied flatly, eyes still glued on Liv, who was now laughing with abandon, the guys beaming at her like goddamn orphan puppies on a leash. Christ, she had them so wrapped around her finger that they hadn’t even looked away and noticed him.

  “Hey, sorry about the other night,” Nadia persisted.

  He finally looked down at her, annoyed as shit that she was still there, never mind still talking. And as he got a good look at the bed warmer he’d been using as a substitute, then looked back up at the real thing—who was finally staring right at him—he realized there was no way that even an endless supply of club pussy could ever compare.

  Liv didn’t seemed fazed by the non-competition either. The corners of her mouth had turned up into the biggest, most beautiful smile he knew he’d ever live to see. On the fucking run and still smiling. She’d been through hell and somehow managed to not only stay alive and sane, but she’d taught herself skills that probably pulled in more in a month than all the club’s legit businesses combined in a year.

  He couldn’t think of the last time he’d looked at any woman with that kind of respect and admiration. It just didn’t happened.

  He was done. With that one smile, every last reservation just vanished into the smoke-filled air. Fuck it, Biff was right. He’d already been dropped in a river, there was no point in fighting against the current.

  He stepped around Nadia and to
ok long and fast strides toward the group.

  “Hey, To—”

  Before his name could even roll off her tongue, his mouth was on hers. Whistles and cheers filled the room as he devoured it. He didn’t give a shit.

  Not willing to wait another second, he picked her up and moved toward the hallway. With her legs wrapping themselves around his waist, he used his free hand to reach out and flip his brothers off.

  They just got louder.

  Just as he was about to pass through the door frame, Liv pulled her lips away and stretched out her arms, bringing him to a standstill before he broke her fucking wrists trying to go through it.

  “We’re on the same page, right?” she asked between heavy breaths.

  “Not yet. But you’ll catch up, baby.”

  “But—”

  “No,” he growled. “Shut the fuck up and kiss me.”

  Shut the fuck up and kiss him she did, all the way back to his room. The door hadn’t even slammed shut before he was tearing off her clothes.

  : : : :

  Torch woke to the sound of somebody banging on the door, barely distinguishable from the loud music blaring throughout the building. He looked down at the mess of black hair laying on his chest and smiled, thinking back to how it had gotten that way.

  After carefully sliding his arm out from between their bodies, he reached for his cell to check the time. Nine o’clock. Groaning, he dropped his head back down on the pillow and covered his eyes, hoping whoever the fuck was outside his door would go away until the damn morning.

  More banging. “Torch!” Goddamn it, fucking Zed.

  Liv sat up in panic, looking confused as shit by her surroundings. Quickly realizing where they were, she looked back over her shoulder over at him and smiled. “You gonna get that?”

  He shook his head, running his fingers lightly up and down her back. “It’s just Zed drunk off his fucking ass.”

  “I don’t think you locked the door, babe,” she pointed out.

  Shit.

  He jumped up, pulled a sheet over her, and bolted off the bed to grab his jeans from the floor, shooting her a scowl as she started laughing.