It felt good to finally be the one who had more experience with something.
“The man who hurt Jonas tried again shortly after Mace, Cole, and Jonas fell for one another. I knew he’d always be a threat to Jonas, so I made sure he wouldn’t be anymore,” Ronan hedged. “Your brother and I sort of stumbled upon one another. He was not happy with me,” Ronan said with a smile.
Dante appeared at my side. “I was looking for leads on you and Ronan had taken out the one lead I’d had in a long time. It wouldn’t have panned out anyway, because the guy hadn’t had any information on you, but Ronan offered to help me in my search. He had more resources than I even knew was possible.”
Dante looked pointedly at Vaughn, who ignored him.
Oh God, they were just going to kill each other at this rate.
“We haven’t been in this world for as long as you, Vaughn,” Ronan said. “But we’ve seen the same things. Some of my men more than others. But like you and your family, we’ve discovered that if you cut the head off a snake—”
“Two more will grow in its place,” Vaughn murmured.
“But we keep cutting and like you and Luca and your brothers, we try to get the kids out. Having more resources means we’ve learned some new tricks,” Ronan said. “We did what you did – we got some men in– we just did it on a bigger scale.”
Ronan motioned to a few of the men who were guarding the others.
I recognized a couple as men who’d worked the party or had been guests. One of the men had been one of the guards at the back exit near the bathroom. I also recognized the bartender. He actually waved at Vaughn.
So that was how Ronan and his men had gotten into the building. They’d had men already on the inside.
“What’s the plan?” Vaughn asked.
“The cops will be here within minutes of us leaving. We have a friend in Seattle, the captain of the Seattle Police departmentactually, who is going to call his brethren out here and mention an anonymous tip he got from a suspect about a bunch of sick fucks who like to abuse kids getting together for a drink. We’ll leave enough men here to make sure these assholes can’t go anywhere, and they’ll slip out before the cops surround the building.” Ronan motioned to the men. “Behind every man’s gag is a flash drive,” Ronan said as he held up a little stick that was about the size of my thumb. “Daisy’s been very busy collecting information on every single piece of shit here, and in the rare case she wasn’t able to find enough to make sure a lengthy prison sentence is coming, we did a little bit of photoshopping. Those men who manage to get off because of technicalities will receive a death sentence,” Ronan said easily.
Even I understood that.
And I couldn’t be anything but happy about that.
“What if they swallow the drive?” Luca asked.
“Well, if they’re lucky enough to get it past the rags in their mouths, the cops will just have to go in after it… the drives will survive that long. And if not, like I said, death sentence.”
Ronan reached out to brush my arm. “We should get going. We need to get those kids home.”
I managed a nod but nothing more.
The kids were safe.
Gio was safe.
We wereallgoing home.
“You go with Ronan and Luca, okay?” Vaughn said to me. “Your brother and I need to have a little chat.”
“What? No,” I said.
“It’s fine, Aleks,” Dante said with what I could only classify as an evil-looking grin. “We’ll be along shortly.”
Magnus was the one who took my arm. “Come on, Aleks. Let’s let them get it over with.”
I wanted to say there was no time, but Magnus was leading me away. I looked over my shoulder but it was hard to see past the men guarding the guests. I saw Vaughn say something to Dante and my brother’s face went from somewhat amused to downright deadly.
Then Vaughn pointed to Brian.
Dante looked at me, then back at Brian. I saw him stride forward and grab Brian by the arm and yank him to his feet. Brian looked terrified and I could hear him screaming through his gag as Dante dragged him from the group. I knew Vaughn couldn’t have told Dante the things Brian had done to me in such a short amount of time, but it was enough time for him to have told Dante that Brian was the first man who’d bought me.
And I remembered that I’d said Brian’s name when I’d told Dante that Brian had told me that my brother wouldn’t come for me if I didn’t behave.
