The guys and I managed to find three promising vets during dinner, which we would be vetting and deciding sponsors for over the next few days. We cleaned up, and then the dozen or so of us who stayed late stuffed a cooler full of beer and carried it out back to gather around the fire pit and shoot the shit. Eagle and I got the fire going while the prospects started bringing out chairs for everyone. Keeping one eye on Julia, I chopped up some kindling as Eagle wadded up newspapers and tossed them into the pit.
“Julia, right?” Link asked, offering her his hand as he approached. “I’m Link. It’s good to meet you. Sorry I didn’t get around to introducing myself earlier, but I really appreciate you helping out today.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” she said, shaking his hand. “You looked a bit busy.”
“Yeah, these dinners are a shit-ton of work. Worth it, though. What’d you think of it all?” he asked, tucking Emily under his arm.
“It was a lot… different than I imagined. The people were nice and grateful, but there were so many kids.” She swallowed and took a moment before continuing, “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah, that shit’s rough.” He opened the cooler and started grabbing beers, passing them around the growing circle. He angled one toward Julia, but she declined. “It’s easy to forget how big and fucked up the problem is until we invite them in and get to know them as people. Everyone’s got a story, and their situations are enough to rip your goddamn heart out. I wish we could help them all, but our resources are limited, and our brothers are our priority.”
One of the recruits set a chair down for Link, and he sat, tugging Emily onto his lap.
“Family is everything,” he said, rubbing her back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He kissed her forehead before seeking out her lips.
Julia turned away from their public display of affection and rubbed her hands together before holding them out toward the growing fire. Wasp and I tented enough wood together to catch the flames from the kindling and I returned to Julia as Stocks offered her a chair. I introduced the two of them before stealing the chair and patting my lap.
She hesitated, glancing around, her stiff upbringing no doubt kicking in.
“It’s getting cold,” I said, offering a valid excuse. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees after the sun went down. June in western Washington was unpredictable at best. We were just lucky it wasn’t raining. Wearing only a thin jacket over her T-shirt, she had to be chilly.
Accepting the excuse, she slid onto my lap, sitting sideways, and sought warmth by sliding her arms between my T-shirt and cut. Her proximity immediately began siphoning the day’s stress and tension from my shoulders and encouraging most of my body to relax. Most of my body, because my dick hardened the second her fine ass made contact with my lap. I took a long pull from my beer and tried to focus on the conversation around us rather than the way her body curved around mine.
“Did you tell Julia what I found out?” Morse asked, sliding a chair beside us.
Julia sat up. “Tell me what?”
I hadn’t told her shit, because I was concerned about how she’d react. I flashed Morse a warning look, hoping he’d keep his trap shut, but his focus was on the electronic tablet in his hands.
“I followed the feeds from the cameras hidden in your apartment, and they all have something in common. They ping here.” He showed her his screen. “It’s a warehouse in the industrial district.”
Emily sat up as well. “There were hidden cameras in your apartment?” she asked.
“My ex,” Julia explained. “He’s… uh…”
“Creepy?” Emily provided. “Stalkerish? Perverted?”
“All of the above.” Julia pointed at the screen. “That looks familiar. What’s the address?”
Morse rambled off the address and asked, “Recognize it?”
“I think so.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and thumbed it on, scrolling through her pictures. “Weird. It’s not here. I transferred all my photos from my old SD card when I switched phones Thursday, but I don’t see it. I’ll have to go online to look for it, but I’m pretty sure this is where Wesley took the strippers.”
My stomach sank. “What strippers?”
“Before we split up, he started acting weird, like he was hiding something from me. So, I went through his briefcase while he was asleep. I found a strange note… descriptions of some girls and an address. I Googled the address, and I’m almost certain this is the same warehouse that search led me to. Anyway, the descriptions of the girls were graphic. Explicit. Measurements, piercings, tattoos, whether they were bald, had a bush, or sporting a landing strip. That sort of thing. Disgusted, I snapped a picture of the note. Then, I flipped out and confronted Wesley. He blew up about me going through his shit. Seriously, he went crazy. I’d never seen him so pissed. When he finally calmed down, he explained that he was hiring strippers for some out-of-town businessmen. That made sense, but at the time I didn’t understand why it pissed him off so much. Now, I know he was probably hiring hookers for himself. Cheating whoreson.”
The entire circle was staring at her as she confirmed what I’d suspected for the past two days.
“What?” she asked, her gaze flickering around the group before landing on me. Her body stiffened as she leaned away. “What’s going on? Why do I get the feeling I’m missing something?”
I had no choice but to tell her. “That’s one of the Kinlan warehouses, Jules.”
Her face went through a series of emotions: thought, realization, shock, anger, disbelief. Finally, she shook herself and said, “Sex trafficking. That was one of the charges, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
She leapt off my lap and started pacing in the space between Link and Emily’s chair and mine. “You think Wesley was involved in sex trafficking.”
