Repo (The Henchmen MC Book 4) (27 page)

"Thanks," I said, ducking my head a little as I dashed into the bathroom and closed the door. I chose not to lock it, trying to inspire him to not get suspicious of me as I stripped out of the clothes from the day before and into the black skinny jeans and white wifebeater I had grabbed along with fresh undies and my boots.

I checked the phone with still no contact from K, the pit in my stomach growing. I made sure the sound was off, then powered it down, knowing that whatever battery life I had on it was going to need to last until I got somewhere I knew we would be staying long enough to warrant some kind of rescue or whatever. I tucked it into my boot and tied them up tight so it couldn't be spotted, fixed my crazy hair into a tight top-knot, and opened the door.

Rus was standing against the sink vanity inside the door holding my stash of cash and fake IDs. "These are yours," he said, handing them to me. "You need anything else?" he asked, waving toward the disaster of a room.

"Um, I'm just gonna grab a sweater," I said as I took and stashed the IDs in my pocket and the cash into the boot that didn't have my cell. At that, I grabbed a sweater and turned back to him with a small shrug.

His head tilted to the side as he reached to open the door, looking at me for a long second. "I kind of like the hair."

With that, I followed Rus into the hall then down to the streets to a pickup that wasn't familiar to me. It was either rented or maybe bought outright with whatever obnoxious sum of money he took from his and his brother's stash. It was a late model black truck with a cab and short bed. He walked up to the passenger side door, opening it for me and actually helping me inside.

Then I tried to force myself to calm down as I watched us drive out of Philly to God-knew where. And, well, with nothing to do but think, I did a whole helluva lot of that.

First, I was present enough to try to assess the situation with Ruslan. And, well, the only real conclusion I could come to was that he was genuine. If I had been paying closer attention to the details back when I worked for them, I would have seen how deeply unhappy Rus was anytime Vik sent him off to do some job. I would have seen the way Viktor talked down to him and the way Ruslan's jaw would clench like he was struggling to hold back his words. For someone as laid back and even-tempered as Rus, that really said something. He'd wanted out. Maybe it was just the money that kept him there for as long as he did. Granted, he didn't seem to spend it as lavishly as his brother, but Rus had some nice things. He had a nice apartment. He took lavish vacations. He ate at nice restaurants to impress the women he fucked. So maybe that had been enough to hold him there.

I wasn't delusional or naive enough to think that Viktor was the only violent one between them. I was sure there was blood on Ruslan's hands as well. But maybe whomever he had been told to beat or eliminate had been men who had, in some way shape or form, deserved it: people who tried to steal their business, people who tried to take them down, people who threatened what they had worked for.

While a part of me still cringed away from the idea of torture and murder, having grown up in a relatively non-violent cushion of the world, the older, more worldly part of me understood it. Fact of the matter was, some of the men I had come to love and respect were men with blood on their hands. First, K. He never expressly admitted to killing anyone, but it was alluded to. Still, he was the most selfless, giving, skilled, amazing man I had ever met. Then there was Reign who the reports proposed he had done his fair share of murder and mayhem. Hell, Wolf was a wild animal when he felt the occasion called for it. Cash had killed and he was sweet, good-natured. Christ, even Shooter. He was a fucking contract killer but the most easy-going, charming, sweet person I'd ever met.

Then of course, there was Repo.

At the thought of his name, the stinging sensation in my chest amplified until I had to rub my hand over my heart again to try to ease it.

Repo had admitted to killing men in awful, violent ways.

But Repo was a
good
man.

There was no question in my mind about that fact. It was in every thing he did. It was in him cooking for me. It was in the way he took care of his brothers. It was in the way he made sure I understood where I stood with him. It was in the fact that he shared all his ugly details with me, without even hesitating. He didn't hide himself. He didn't lie. He was upfront. He was loyal.

And, well, let's not forget that whole 'I don't come until you come' rule with sex.

So it wasn't hard for me to accept that while Rus might have hurt or killed people, it didn't necessary make him a bad person.

The selling the women thing though? That was never going to sit right with me.

I didn't care what they tried to convince themselves that the women willingly signed up and it was a mutually beneficial situation, that it was a new type of arranged marriages. I called bullshit. They knew better.

It was human trafficking plain and simple.

It was no better than stealing a woman off the street and selling her.

But, yeah, I was pretty sure I was okay with Rus. At least for the short-term. He could have easily beat or raped me back in that hotel. Granted, I'd have put up a hell of a fight, but chances were... he would have overpowered me.

He didn't.

Not only didn't he even attempt to, but he had seemed insulted about the whole frisking thing.

He would only want me willingly.

And, well, there would be no willingness from me.

But that was just another hand I had to play.

I trained for it.

I trained to make and keep a cover.

The fact that I let those rules slide a bit with Repo was beside the point.

It would not be a problem with Rus.

I just had to sit tight and wait for my chance at getting away.

"How does Miami sound?"

It sounded like a seventeen fucking hour drive was what it sounded like.

"I could use to even out my tan," I said instead, giving him a smile that was at once flirtatious and shy.

Judging by the way his eyes got bright, he bought it.

I took a deep breath, and silently repeated a mantra in my head.

And maybe, just maybe, that mantra had something about Repo in it.

But I was just going to let that slide.

Eighteen

Repo

To say we didn't handle the empty and trashed room well would be a bit of an understatement. K managed to punch a hole in the wall and I had frantically looked through the mess to try to find something that might have some kind of clue as to what had happened, who had been there, where they had gone, if she was hurt.

While I was glad I found no blood, I also didn't find a God damn thing else either.

After ten minutes, we made our way back downstairs, K twirling Maze's knife absentmindedly around in his hand, completely unconcerned about the people who watched him like he was a lunatic. We rounded the front desk where we had talked to the spineless shit earlier, the guy who had been easy to bribe for us and, well, likely for whomever had Maze as well. He grabbed the kid by the throat and pushed him through the office door behind the desk, almost slamming the door in my face in the process.

Apparently when K got angry, he got
angry.

"Now you're going to tell me every fucking thing you know about the comings and goings in room 28B or I am going to take this knife," he said, angling it so the point was digging into the man's Adam's apple, "and I am going to start slicing off parts you've become attached too. And I won't be starting with fingers..." he warned.

"There was another man," the guy immediately rushed to say through clenched teeth, careful to not let his throat move too much as he spoke lest the knife dug in.

"Details," K demanded, slamming him back against the wall hard enough for his head to make a sick cracking sound.

"Tall, wide. Dark hair. Jeans, t-shirt. Nothing too distinctive except..."

"Except?" I prompted.

"He had an accent."

"Russian?" I asked.

"I don't know. I suck at accents. Maybe?"

"Ruslan," K concluded, letting his hand with the knife drop down by his side. "Maisy said Viktor only ever wore suits. Rus was the jeans and tee guy."

"Did you see them leave?" I asked the guy who was watching K like a grenade without a pin, like he might explode at any second. I had to say, I barely knew the guy, but that seemed exactly what K was when he was worked up.

He held up his hands when K turned his attention back to him when he paused to swallow. "Willingly! Willingly. I might be an opportunist, but I'm not a monster. I'd have called the cops if I'd seen a woman getting dragged out of here. He went up there for I dunno... maybe half an hour. When he came back down, she was right behind him out of the elevator. She... she didn't even look freaked, I swear. When he opened the front door for her, he put his hand on her lower back. Like they were friendly."

I felt myself stiffening a little at his words, my guts twisted in a way that made me both want to puke and haul off and hit something despite my crusted-up bloody knuckles. K said Maze had a crush on Rus. Maybe if he slipped her the right words she'd have followed him blindly, willingly.

I didn't like that one fucking bit.

"Car?"

"Pick-up," Mr. Accommodating supplied immediately. "I saw it because he illegally parked it right outside the doors. Black. Had one of those mini backseat things."

"We're going to need a plate number," K said in a way that brooked no argument.

"Um, we have cameras up front..."

"And you're still standing there like a fucking idiot because..."

The guy rushed toward a computer, hitting keys frantically and having to retry three times before he could get his shaking fingers to cooperate. "Okay here," he said, turning the monitor.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and punched in Janie's number, rattling off the number before she could even finish saying 'what's up'. "They're paper plates. The truck is new. Find out where it's from. Try to get it on cameras heading out of the city."

"On it," she said, hanging up.

"You got anything else to tell us?"

"That's all I know, man. I swear. I have noth..."

"Shut it," K said, turning to me. "How long until they find something?"

"Ten, fifteen depending on where he bought the truck."

"Alright. Coffee then we'll get out to the highway until we get a direction."

Ten minutes later, inside his truck with coffees in the holders, my phone started screaming. "Tell me you got some good news, Janie."

"He bought the truck outright in New York. The plates will do nothing as they're temps. But, get this, the truck came with six months of On-Star."

"That's supposed to comfort me because..."

"Because On-Star has tracking," she declared like I was an idiot. I drove bikes and vintage cars. I was clueless to all the bells and whistles of late-models. "They have major security, but with me and Alex on this... we should be able to pinpoint a location."

"How long?"

"An hour? Can't say for sure. But Alex said they headed south out of Philly so it won't hurt to get on the road and head in that direction so they don't get too much of a lead."

Janie's voice drifted off and I heard Reign pick up. "Repo, got Duke, Renny, Cash, and Wolf out looking for Viktor. Called in Hailstorm, Breaker and his crew, and the Mallicks. Even put a call out to the Grassis to let me know if they see him. They're no fonder of the Russians than we are. Someone will find him and bring him to us. From there, well, I guess that's up to K and Maze to decide what to do about him."

"Right. Thanks, Reign. I really..."

"Fuck off. This is what we do," he brushed off my gratitude and hung up.

And, I realized, not for the first time, that he was right. In our little, albeit ever-widening circle, there didn't need to be questions and explanations. All one needed was a phone call and the others were on board. It never occurred to me before how thankful I should be for the whole fucking lot of them. When all was said and done, I owed everyone a couple rounds at Chaz's.

Hitting the lowest corner of Pennsylvania, the last sign we'd seen was for some bumfuck town called Stars Landing, we pulled off the highway and waited for a call from Janie before we got too far out of town.

Half an hour after parking, both of us knowing we should get some rest but neither of us willing to do so, the phone screamed in the quiet space, making both of us jump.

"Janie..."

"Yep, all us bitches are interchangeable," came a voice that was distinctly not Janie.

"Hey Alex, you got something for me?"

"Aside from very possible carpel tunnel?" she asked and actually laughed at the growling noise I made in response. "Touchy. Anyway, yes. That's why I'm calling." I switched the phone to speaker at K's impatient snap. "Janie is tracking them now. They're in Maryland." With that, the SUV turned over and peeled out of the lot we were parked in. "They're not slowing down so we can't really pinpoint anything helpful. Besides, you're behind them by a while. Best bet is for us to keep guiding you in general directions until they pull off and call it a day. But it's early and they haven't been on the road that long yet so I wouldn't count on them stopping until nightfall."