Derek Jonak was staying at a ritzy hotel in downtown Los Angeles under an alias. But I knew his face, and within two hours of arriving Tristan and I were following him toward Pasadena.
“He’s pulling over.”
“I got him.” For someone who was trying to stay under the radar, Derek’s bright yellow rental car stood out like a beacon as he pulled off at a Whole Foods and went down into the covered parking lot. Or maybe he wasn’t trying to hide. Maybe he had actual business here and was too fucking full of himself to realize who he was messing with when he took a girl like Sera. Maybe he thought he was above any kind of punishment because he made so much money. But money wasn’t going to save him this time. I didn’t care jack shit about his wealth. No amount of money would make her any less important to me.
I pulled in behind him and waited until he parked, then slowly pulled the loaner SUV up in front of his car so it would be directly in his path. Turning on the blinker, I pretended to wait for a space to open up.
Derek locked his car, checked his hair in the reflection of the window, then walked toward the side of our vehicle.
“Not yet,” I told Tristan as I watched him approach from the corner of my eye. “Not yet…now!”
Opening the back door from where he was crouched on the floor, Tristan grabbed two handfuls of Derek’s sports coat and dragged him into the backseat. “Got him. Let’s get out of here,” he said over the shouts of injustice coming from our new passenger.
I was already driving away as Tristan reached over our guest and pulled the door shut. My hands shook with the urge to turn around and wrap them around his throat and squeeze until his face turned purple and his eyes popped out of his head. But that wouldn’t help me find Sera. Between his shouts for help, I heard the soft click of a bullet sliding into the chamber.
In the rearview mirror, I saw Derek stiffen, his eyes on the barrel of the gun three inches from his face. “What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck are you?” Even with the threat of a weapon, he still sounded like a pompous asshole.
“Here you go.” I tossed Tristan the zip ties I had on the passenger seat.
“Turn around and give me your hands,” Tristan told him. His voice was deceptively calm, and much more frightening than if he had yelled.
“Tell me who the fuck you are,” Derek ordered. “This is kidnapping. And assault. I have people who’ll be looking for me. You’re both going to spend the rest of your lives in prison for this.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Tristan told him. He was deliberately keeping his attention off of me. “Now turn the fuck around or I’m going to shoot you in the head and splatter your brains all over that window.” Always blunt and to the point, Tristan stared him down.
It only took a few seconds before I saw Derek give and turn around so Tristan could secure his hands. “Thank you,” Tristin told him when he was finished. “Now do me a favor and sit there and keep your mouth shut, and you might actually make it all the way to our destination alive.”
The destination he spoke of was to head east out of the city on a lonely stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway. Somewhere along the way, I was going to pull off the road and interrogate this fucker until he told me who he’d given Sera to. And then I was going to rip him apart with my bare hands and bury the pieces.
Surprisingly, he did as Tristan asked, keeping his mouth shut even as Tristan searched his clothes. He smashed his cell phone and threw it out the window. Any identifying cards he kept. Throwing them out the window would only lead the authorities to what would be left of his body.
“Are you going to kill me?” Derek asked.
Neither of us answered.
“I have money,” he told us. “Lots of money. Just tell me your price and I can get it for you.”
Again, we kept silent. He tried a few more times before he realized he wasn’t going to get a response from us, nor could we be bribed. When he finally understood, he started to sweat, his eyes skittering crazily around the interior of the SUV as he tried to find another way out of his predicament.
We’d been driving for about an hour or so when I pulled off the road and drove down a narrow dirt road hidden between the trees. The area we were in was hilly and covered in trees and scrub brush, providing an easy way for us to get out of sight and hearing range of anyone traveling along the road. While we drove, the searing anger I’d felt had burned through my blood and left only cold ashes behind. I was calm. Collected. And focused on the job ahead.
Tristan dragged Derek out of the car as I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, then I got out of the car and walked around to the back and opened the hatch. Inside were plastic trash bags, a large plastic drop cloth, and more zip ties. I pulled out the bags and the sheet of plastic and left the zip ties. Let him run if he was stupid enough. I would hunt him down like an animal and rip him apart with my teeth.
When I came around the side of the car, Tristan already had Derek on his knees in the dirt near a large rock. Large enough for us to use as a table as I separated him from his fingers, one by one. I dropped the roll of trash bags and unrolled the drop cloth near the rock. Didn’t want to leave any DNA anywhere for the feds to analyze if they happened to come across this spot.
“What are you doing?” Derek asked.
I ignored him, placing rocks on each corner of the cloth to keep it from rolling up. When I was finished, I turned to face him. “I’m giving you one chance and one chance only to answer this question before I torture it out of you. Where is Sera?”
His eyes widened when he saw my face fully for the first time, and I saw a flash of recognition. “I don’t know anyone named Sera,” he lied.
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. I gave Tristan a nod.
“Get up,” Tristan ordered. When he didn’t move right away, he jabbed the barrel of his pistol into the side of his head. “Up,” he said again. This time he got to his feet, and Tristan walked him unsteadily onto the center of the plastic. “Down.” Derek fell to his knees as a terrified sob escaped his lying mouth.
Reaching inside the back of my pants, I took out my gun and laid it on top of the rock. Then I crouched down, lifted my right pant leg and slid my knife out of its holder. It took everything I had to keep my movements slow and controlled when all I really wanted to do was scream my rage into his face as I carved the skin and muscle from his bones slice by slice. But that wouldn’t get any information out of him. If I allowed my emotions to come forth, if he saw how desperate I was to get her back, it would give him the power. And that wouldn’t get Sera back.
“You took her from the back parking lot of the club where she works.” As I talked, I strolled over to him, examining the blade of my knife and testing the sharpness on my thumb. “Does that ring any bells?”
Eyes on the weapon in my hand, he shook his head, keeping his mouth shut for once.
“You threw her into the trunk of your car and took her to a house in San Antonio, where you left her with a group of men. They waited with her until a truck full of woman who had been sex trafficked came to pick her up.” Grabbing a handful of his hair, I tilted his head back and pressed the tip of my knife into the pocket beneath his left eyeball. “How about now?” I pressed until I saw a look of panic cross his features. “Do you remember anything now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted.
Much as I tried to keep my anger under control, it rose within me, screaming through my blood with renewed force. I ground my jaw together and took a breath. Slowly, and with great pleasure, I sank the knife into the bottom of his eye socket and slid it from the outside to the inner corner as he screamed and tried to jerk his head away, cutting through the inferior oblique muscle. But I didn’t remove the eye. Not just yet. I pulled the knife out. “Where is Sera?” I asked him again.
“I don’t know!” he cried as he continued to struggle. Tristan knelt behind him, one hand holding his tied hands in place and the other arm wrapped around his neck to hold him still.
“Let me rephrase the question,” I told him as I moved my knife to his other eye. “Who did you give her to?”
“I don’t know their names!” He was crying fully now.
“What do you know, Derek?” I asked him. “Because we’re going to stay here all day until I get the information I need.”
“She’s just a whore.” He spit out the word, his fear transforming into a false sense of boldness. “She doesn’t matter.”
Tightening my grip on his hair, I leaned down and put my face in his. “She’s the daughter of a mafia man. And she matters to me,” I told him quietly. Placing the tip of my knife back into the outer corner of his eye socket, I enjoyed the sound of his scream as I slowly and steadily cut through the remaining muscles holding it in place.
A few hours later, I had a name and a phone number, and Derek was missing both eyes, three fingers, all of his teeth, and his tiny dick. I didn’t normally enjoy torturing others. Actually, I didn’t feel much of anything. It was business. Nothing personal.
But this time…this time I drew it out as long as I could, and I reveled in the pain I inflicted. Downright fucking joy flowed through my veins, increasing with every twitch and scream. Every time he begged for mercy. But before he bled out, I called a friend and had him trace the name and phone number he’d given me to make sure it was legit. Sure enough, it belonged to a man on the FBI’s wanted list for human trafficking. “I need everything you have on him.”
“Are we done?” Tristan asked.
Ending the call, I slid my phone into the front pocket of my pants. “Not quite.”
“Do you want help?”
I stared down at Derek’s prone body lying awkwardly on the plastic and shook my head. “No, thank you.” Tristan took a few steps back and pulled out his phone to call Luca. Kneeling down on the plastic, I let the rage I’d been holding inside explode inside of me as I finished the job with my bare fists. Then Tristan handed me a boning knife from the back of the SUV.
When I was done, Tristan and I removed our bloody clothes and boots and replaced them with the clean ones we’d brought along. Then we bagged up what was left of Sera’s spurned admirer along with our clothes, rolled it all up in the plastic drop cloth, and buried it in front of the large rock. While I double checked the area, Tristan called Milo, our cleaner, and—speaking in code—gave him the exact location of the body. He would take care of it for us. It was safer than driving halfway across the country to bury the body parts.
My phone rang as we were getting back into the SUV. It was my friend with the information I’d asked for, and it was enough to go on.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” I asked Tristan.
“To Mexico?” Tristan asked.
I nodded.
“Absolutely,” he told me. “Let’s go get your girl.”
My girl.
The words warmed my soul and sent a chill down my spine.
