Hunter's Rise (22 page)

A muscle jerked in the man’s face, and Sylvia watched as he took a deep, slow breath. “What do you want… money? I won’t be blackmailed. I’m not doing anything illegal here.” He curled his lip and shot both of them a dark look. “People like you, you see in black-and-white. Life isn’t black-and- white— it’s all shades of gray. If there weren’t places like this, then the people who need these fantasies? They’d go looking for their own— they’d
make
their own.”

Toronto cocked a brow. “Is that how you see it?” He shrugged. “That’s fine. You say to-may-toe. I say to-mah-toe. You see this as all fucking kosher. I see it as a disgusting enterprise where kids who are barely old enough to be called adults act like kids so men old enough to be their daddies can sit in the dark and jack off while they fantasize. That’s fine. It’s legal… and nobody gets hurt.” He smiled thinly and added, “Trust me… I’ve been watching.”

“I’m aware.” Ben leaned back, his eyes narrowed on Toronto’s face. “Hassling one of my customers. I saw. I wasn’t pleased. If you do it again, I’ll call the cops.”

Toronto burst out laughing. “Oh, please. Spare me.” He leaned forward and said, “You go ahead and do that. They’ll come out here to look for me. And I’ll wait for them.”

The smile he gave Ben was one that would have given grown men nightmares, Sylvia thought. To Ben’s credit, he didn’t look away, didn’t blink.

“After all, I’m a law-abiding citizen. Can you say the same for all of your… clients?”

A hiss escaped him. “I don’t think I like you, Mr.… ?”

“Don’t worry.” With a friendly smile, he leaned back in the chair. “Not many people do. And as to your customer? You can say Bobby and I go way back, and he’s got… problems. I’m sort of his probation officer.”

Ben’s lids flickered. “Probation officer. I wasn’t aware Robert had a criminal record. If he’s violating the conditions of his parole—”

“I said
sort of
. I help keep him in line, let him know when
he’s close to slipping. And I’m there to jerk him back in line if he thinks he might slip, or if I see it happening.” Something dark moved through Toronto’s eyes as he watched Ben. “You know what happens when somebody with the wrong kind of hungers slips, don’t you, Benito?”

At that, the man went white.

“Get out,” he snarled, shoving upward. But the cool, collected man was gone.

In his place stood a man who was scared and
pissed
. And there was hell in his eyes. Glaring at Toronto, he said again, “Get out
now
.”

“I can’t.” He continued to watch Ben, his eyes unreadable. “They slip sometimes. Even those who try not to, don’t they?”

Ben swallowed.

Sylvia felt sick to her stomach. She could hear the poor guy’s heartbeat, all but taste his terror… and his humiliation. “Tor…”

He ignored her.

“Sometimes, they don’t care if they slip, though.”

“I don’t let those in my house,” Ben said, his voice raspy and low. He leaned forward, desperation and defiance in his eyes. “I made this place to help, you stupid son of a bitch, don’t you get it?”

“I think I do.” Toronto rose from the chair, slid his hands into his pockets, and the menace in the air faded.

Sylvia didn’t even know how he did that— sucked all of that back inside him. It shouldn’t be possible, but he did it and he managed to stand there like some easygoing dude who didn’t have the ability to turn deadly in a microsecond.

“I think I get it better than you realize. And I just realized something… you hate them.” Toronto glanced around that sleek, sexy office and then looked back at the man with pity in his eyes. “You hate this place, you hate this job, you hate what you do and you hate those ‘customers’ out there more than I do. You just hide it.”

Ben stilled. Then, he closed his eyes and turned away. “Who in the fuck are you? What in the hell do you want?”

“I’m looking for somebody.” Toronto glanced at Sylvia.

She reached into her pocket and drew out Pulaski’s picture,
rising from her chair. Like she was approaching a wounded animal, she eased up to the desk. When Ben tensed, she simply waited until he turned to face her. “This man. Do you know him?”

Ben’s face darkened. “Alan Pulaski. I don’t know him, never have. But his kind wouldn’t have been welcome here.” He took a deep breath and then looked up, studied Sylvia for a long moment before shifting his gaze to Toronto. “There are varying degrees of men who fantasize about children. There are those who will offend, those who will hurt. And then there are those who have the fantasies… but they control the urge, never cross the line. I opened this place to give them a safe place to indulge in those fantasies.”

“What if indulging them here tempted them to go over the line?”

A dark smile slanted the mortal’s face. “I’m good at recognizing that, too.”

Violence had a scent. She wondered what had inspired the rage she sensed within him. But they’d intruded on enough of his secrets. Let him keep this one. “So you’ve never had him in here.”

“He wouldn’t have been welcome. I would have made sure he realized it, too, should he ever try to come in.” He gave them a cold smile and Sylvia decided that the mortal had a pretty decent freaky thing of his own— if she’d been human, that look in his eyes might have scared her.
Just what do you do
, she wondered,
about those who cross the line?

Ben reached up and straightened his tie, smoothed the lapels of his already impeccable suit. “Was that all?”

“No.” Toronto took the picture and handed it back to Sylvia and as easy as that, nudged her back into the passenger seat. “There is a… group of people who are getting a little heavy into their fantasy shit. I don’t think it’s fantasy anymore. Getting into hurting their partners and most of the partners are kids. I don’t know if the kids are volunteering in exchange for money, if they are being forced into it or what. The only name I have is Kit, and it was happening at a house in Cordova. It’s been shut down now, or maybe moved. Do you know anything about it?”

Ben looked away. “I can’t say if I’ve heard the name Kit or not— you hear a lot of names in this business and it’s best if you just forget them. But I did have somebody ask me if any of my boys would be interested in making extra money— they said ‘anything goes’ and I won’t let my boys do that. If they go into it on their free time, I can’t stop them, but I won’t tell them, I won’t mention it to them and I won’t let them be approached on my property.” He shrugged restlessly and moved over to the bar. “I hope you don’t mind— actually, I don’t care if you mind or not. I’m having a drink. I’m not offering you one.” He splashed something into a glass— judging by the smell, it was whiskey, potent and expensive.

As he turned, he lifted it to his lips and sipped. “I can’t say if any of them were approached off property. But if they went, it must not have been too bad. I would have heard.”

“Are you sure?”

He glanced at Sylvia and then nodded. “Yes. The men here… they trust me. I make sure of it. And none of them have been hurt. That’s another thing I watch for. I take care of them. It’s my job.”

Those last words were spoken with deep, intense passion. Sylvia felt an unexpected lurch in her heart. This man had been through hell. She had a bad suspicion about just what had happened, but it was his private hell. She understood all about private hells, too.

“Is that all?” he asked, his voice dismissive.

“Yes.” Toronto reached into his pocket.

“If you pull money out of that pocket, I’m going to cut your hand off,” Ben said, his voice neutral. Cool.

Sylvia smiled. She hadn’t expected to like anybody she met in this place. But she decided she might like Ben. He had balls.

Toronto laughed. “Okay. I won’t pull out money. How about a card, though? If you see or hear anything about more of these parties, I’d appreciate if you’d let me know.”

Ben watched with impassive eyes as Toronto approached the desk and laid the card down.

Hunters. Carrying business cards. Handing them out to
unsuspecting mortals. Shit, the world was a weird place, Sylvia mused.

“Why should I?” Ben asked after staring at the card for a long, silent moment.

“Because I think you have a good idea what happens when ‘anything goes,’” Toronto said, his voice gruff. Too gruff.

Sylvia tensed and chanced a look into his eyes. But they were perfectly normal. A little too intense and that in and of itself was spooky, but they weren’t all glow-y and that was good.

“Once I find out who is responsible for these… parties,” Toronto continued. “I’m going to stop them. And I’m going to hurt the people responsible.”

Ben picked up the card, studied it. Then he tucked it inside his pocket and nodded. “I’ll think about it. If I hear anything.”

“H

“I’ve had it for quite a while.” He slid her a look and shook his head. “And no, I’m not telling you. He had a hellish time when he was a kid. Leave him alone.”

She made a face at him. “I wasn’t going to go give him the third degree or anything.” Sympathy twisted in her heart, but she shoved it aside. No time for it now, no room for it. “You can tell he’s got hell trapped inside him. If it was that bad, maybe somebody needs to pay.”

“The guy did pay. Little Benito snapped when he was fifteen and killed him. It was his mom’s little brother. Nobody knew. But Mom and Dad stood by him, even after the rest of his family tried to blame the kid.”

“Everybody tries to blame the victim,” Sylvia whispered.

“Sometimes even the victim.” Toronto stared off into the night. “I’ve known about it since he started running the place. He’s not doing anything illegal— the men who strip there
are
of age. They just don’t look it. If it makes it easier for some to control whatever fucked-up fantasies they have?
Fine. And it makes it easier for me to keep an eye on a problem of mine.”

“A problem?”

“Yeah.” He sighed grimly. “The were I was talking to the other night— weak-ass son of a bitch. The Change does bad things to people. Can warp the hell out of them. He’d always liked them young— the pretty-boy college type was his favorite. But the Change made it worse, twisted him.”

“The Change usually doesn’t make them want things they didn’t already want.” She stared off into the night.

“It can warp the mind something awful, though. Especially if it’s somebody who never should have been turned to begin with— Bobby shouldn’t have been. But feral wolves don’t care. They just attack. That’s a different problem, for a different night. We need to talk to some of Ben’s dancers. See if any of them were approached. By who. Where. See if they have names.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ve got a list of them actually. Although it will be easier to hit them tonight. You can do the whammy on them. I’ll just make them piss their pants. Both can make them talk, but I’d prefer the subtle approach.”

Sylvia glanced at the sky. “No time tonight. I need to get back to my place.”

He watched her for a second and then said, “And that’s… close?”

Sylvia just stared at him. He smiled. “I didn’t think so. I’ve got a better idea. I know a place— we use it sometimes when we have… guests.”

“I don’t want sanctuary with the fucking Master,” she said, curling her lip at him. She needed to be away from him. Very desperately. “I have a place.”

“I’m sure you do. But if it’s outside the city… and I bet it is… then you’re wasting time traveling that we could be using to investigate.” He shrugged and said, “And it’s not sanctuary at the Enclave. This is neutral ground— Rafe doesn’t own it, but it’s vamp-outfitted. You can sleep safe from the sun, and it’s only three miles from here. So as soon as you’re able to be out tomorrow night, we can hit the streets.”

Shit. Shifting her eyes away from him to the dark streets,
she scowled and resisted, barely, the urge to kick at the ground. He wasn’t lying— she’d know if he was. And shit, she’d already figured there was a vamp-safe haven somewhere around here. Most decent-sized towns had them, and if there was an established Hunter presence, it was pretty much a given.