Trying to appear like I haven’t been fucking sliced and diced in the last six hours, I slip my arm around Abbey’s shoulders, drawing her closer to me, and gently leading her away from the containers that are now acting as a fucking prison block.
The further away we get from the containers, the more I let go of my façade, and I start to limp, needing to lean on Abbey.
“Shit… I’m sorry.” She wraps her arm around my back, trying to help me.
My hip hurts more than the gash in my fucking side. I was worried when the knife went into my gut that it would hit something vital, but as far as the guys could tell, I got fucking lucky.
“We need to get you back to bed,” she whispers as we start crossing the yard, but I shake my head, and redirect her towards the container that sits over the dungeon.
“I wanna speak to Lewy first. He told me he has the hard drive Smitty was selling to Banes. Apparently, Nate had asked Lewy to try to access the files.”
“Oh… What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, limping up to the door and tugging it open.
Lewy’s head pops up from behind a screen in the back end of the container, and I hobble in with Abbey closing the door behind us.
“Sarg… I mean, Prez. Do you need something?”
I chuckle. “Shit, man. I don’t think I’ll get used to being called Prez. I’ve been Sarg for so fucking long.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Lewy waves me off.
“The hard drive. Any luck with your tech geeks getting into it?”
“Ringo!” Abbey scolds me as I lower to a seat, and Lewy chuckles.
“It’s okay. Theyaregeeks.”
Abbey smiles, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.
She’s clearly exhausted. I guess she couldn’t sleep earlier, but I need to get her into bed. There are some serious decisions that need to be made tomorrow… or I guess it’s really later today given the current time. But either way, she needs to be clearheaded, and the best way to achieve that is sleep.
“One of my guys has been able to get through the encryption on some of the files, including the one Smitty was worried about.”
My fucking brows shoot up, watching as Lewy stands, holding out a file for me, so I take it, hesitating to open it.
“I’ve ahhh… blurred out certain things,” Lewy explains, “but youreallyneed to see who’s in the pictures with him.”
I don’t tell Lewy I think I already know, my eyes flicking up to Abbey’s to silently ask her if she wants to look away, but she just nods towards the folder, so I slowly open it.
“They are screenshots from videos…” Lewy trails off, and even though I was expecting to see younger versions of Nate, Celina and Wendy, I wasn’t quite prepared for just how young they were.
“Oh my God,” Abbey gasps, her hands flying to her lips as tears gather in her eyes. “They are so young. Are they even teenagers?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, Angel. Fuck…” I hiss. “I should have known. How didn’t I fucking know?”
“How could you?” Lewy asks. “As far as I can see from the first video, the girls were purchased at some sort of auction. But Sarg… shit, I mean Prez…” Lewy scolds himself, but I don’t even care about that shit.
“What is it?” I ask, knowing whatever it is, won’t be good.
“Look at the other pictures.” He directs me, and I flip through them until I see what he needs me to see.
“Spud and Tups,” I mutter, and Abbey stiffens.
“Spud is locked up, but where is Tups?”
“Video surveillance had him going into his bungalow after Spud was dragged away. I haven’t clocked him leaving since,” Lewy offers, and I slowly stand.
