“I-I don’t know.”
Roman sighed. “And I thought you were going to cooperate.” He released him and grabbed a pair of pliers off the tray on the floor. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” He grabbed onto the man’s pointer fingernail with the pliers.
“Wait!” Barney started crying. “Wait! Please! I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear. I swear.”
Rome released the guy’s nail. “If I think you’re lying, I won’t hesitate—”
“I won’t lie. I swear. I swear I’ll tell you everything.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
“I… I took them to this… warehouse where a witch met me and took them off my hands.”
“Where’s this warehouse?”
“It’s down by the harbor. I can show you on a map. I don’t have the address written down.”
“Okay. How’d you get the kids there? Didn’t they try to escape when they realized you weren’t taking them to your home?”
“I drugged them.” He nodded in my direction. “You should’ve been out of it by the time we made it to my car.” His brow furrowed. “Didn’t you drink your wine?”
Roman looked ready to murder the man on the spot. “You drugged my partner?”
The man winced. “I… um, they seem fine.”
A growl rumbled out of Roman’s chest, and I knew I had to calm him down before he lost it on the man and really did murder him.
So I stepped forward, placed my hand on Rome’s upper back, and started rubbing calming circles there as I spoke to Porter. “I’m a dragon. It takes a lot to knock us out, and if you used magic, it wouldn’t have worked anyway.”
The man sort of grimaced but didn’t reply. Probably for the best.
To Rome, I said, “I’m fine. Nothing happened. I’m safe.”
He leaned into my legs, and I felt him take a shuddering breath, gathering himself before he asked Porter, “Did you meet at the same place every time?”
“Yes, but they loaded them up into a van and drove away, so I know they’re not working out of that warehouse.”
Of course it couldn’t be easy. We weren’t dealing with stupid criminals, unfortunately.
“I need names, dates, descriptions, license plates, anything you can give me.”
Roman and I interrogated the man for three hours before we decided that we’d gathered all the information he had. It wasn’t as much as I’d hoped, but it was a start, at least.
We left the man, yelling after us, and closed the door on his screams. He wasn’t hurt. We’d given him water and food, provided a bucket for emergencies, a cot to sleep on, and untied him from the chair. He was still manacled to the floor, but he could move around. We’d never said we would let him go free. Rome had only agreed he’d leave him in one piece if he cooperated. A fact the man was just now coming to realize.
We’d be sending him all the way back home—our home in the capital—and locking him in the tower’s dungeon for the foreseeable future while we untangled this web of trafficking.
Roman engaged the steel door’s lock, then set the wards, and we walked into the living room. We both plopped down on the couch, and when I saw him mirroring my action of putting one leg, then the other up on the coffee table, I couldn’t help but snicker.
“What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just… never mind. Let’s call Dad.” He’d been waiting for an update, so I had no doubt he’d take the call even though it was the middle of the night.
Roman pulled out his phone, hitcall, and put it on speaker.
“Roman? Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. We’re both safe.”
