Whatever the Cost (45 page)

Jacen tests the give of the metal handcuffs clasped to his wrists. The edges bite into his skin painfully and he can’t move much. He’s sitting in the Lincoln, one of the armed guards beside him, the cold barrel of the pistol in the man’s hand pressing into Jacen’s ribs. Della is in the front seat, turned around sideways to watch him.

His breath is coming so fast, bordering on hyperventilating; his feeling of faintness only gets worse. Trying to calm down, knowing it’ll be harder to find a way out of this and handle himself if he succumbs to fear, Jacen tells himself he’s been in worse situations than this, even if part of him knows it’s a lie, if only because now he has Liam to watch out for. Everything Jacen does from here on out depends on one thing—keeping Liam safe, even if it means sacrificing himself to do it.

“So if I come back to work for you, you’ll leave William alone?”

“Yes,” she says with the gleam of triumph in her eyes. “You play nice and nothing will happen to William.”

“How do I know that’s not bullshit? How do I know you don’t have him in another car, telling him the same thing about me?”

She laughs. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to take my word on that, won’t you? Unless you want us to swing by your place, pick him up and let him watch you work.”

“No,” he gasps. Dark spots crowd at the edges of his vision, pushing inward, overtaking the light. “Don’t. No. I’ll... I’ll cooperate. Just. Just leave him alone. Please.”

They’ve only been driving for a minute or two, not nearly long enough for him to regain any sense of self-control or get his bearings. The car rolls slowly into an alley in a part of town he doesn’t recognize. It pulls up bumper to bumper with another black Lincoln, already parked there, and Jacen’s tenuous hold on consciousness begins to slip from him at the sudden certainty that they have Liam after all, that he’s in the other car and they’re each going to be pulled out in the street and executed with two shots to the head for the crime of daring to try to live their lives in peace—made an example for the other employees of The Company who might get similar ideas.

Groaning around bitter bile that rises in his throat, he tumbles into the darkness of his mind, an inky abyss free of pain, when a sharp blow to the head from the butt of the pistol awakens him with excruciating explosions lighting up his brain.

“Don’t fall asleep on us just yet, darlin’,” Dellas says with warning. “Not ’til your client is satisfied.”

They drag him from the car. He fights them, twisting and kicking, struggling to break free, even as thick blood oozes down his temple.

The sun is stark and blinding and he can’t make out who it is climbing from the back seat of the other car. He doesn’t care; he just wants to get away.

The next blow from the butt of the pistol splits the skin above his eye. Grunting thickly, another stream of blood running in his right eye and making it even harder to see, he keeps fighting for survival, pulling away, the handcuffs slicing skin away from his hands.

“No! No!”

“Again,” Della says tiredly from somewhere nearby.

“NO!”

A knee connects with his gut, twice, sending the air rushing out of his lungs. Doubling over around the hurt, his fight leaves him with the third blow to his head. Ears ringing too loudly to make out any words, blind and limp, his legs given out, choking and coughing in his struggle to suck down air, he is helpless to resist it when they drape him belly-down over the front of one of the Lincolns.

Distantly, through a dense white fog that he recedes back into gratefully, hoping that if he lets go completely he’ll lose consciousness and not even be aware of what they do to him, there are voices having civilized conversation. He doesn’t know what they say. He doesn’t care. White is folded into black and he lets go. He’s gone.

The strong, stinging aroma of something—some chemical—fills his nostrils and he bucks, gasping and trying to get away from it.

“What did I say? No sleeping until the client is happy.”

Della
, he thinks, unwilling to focus his good eye to check to make sure it is her.

Something cold and hard presses against the back of his skull. When the barrel of the gun sends tongues of fire licking out through his skin as it grinds in deeply, he sobs and cries out.

“You gonna cooperate?” It’s a male voice, laced with cruel laughter.

“Yes,” he manages, trying to be still, his injuries screaming.

Hands pull at his clothing, ripping it off of him. His pants are pulled down to his ankles. Bent over the car as he is, he has nowhere to escape as something, maybe fingers, maybe something worse, are forced up his rectum. Clenching around the violation, hyper-aware of the gun now resting against his gashed temple, he sobs quietly against the gleaming metal of the car’s hood. Distorted reflections are all he sees.

“You remember Spencer, don’t you?” Della says from a few feet away, sounding bored as his body is invaded more deeply. So helpless and humiliated, he wants to die; wishing it, praying for it, feeling flashes of memory overlapping, of being so very young, being held down and raped much like this. “When we offered him the chance to have you again, and to do whatever he wanted to you, that wouldn’t cause damage
too
permanently, he was quite interested and paid
handsomely
for the opportunity.”

Buzzing, white noise fills his senses, threatening to drown everything out as his weakness only grows with blood loss. It becomes difficult to make out the words. He wonders, deliriously, if there are any pedestrians nearby, as it is the middle of the afternoon after all, just going about their business as he’s beaten and molested only steps away, his whole universe ripped to shreds and shit on. There is no help for him now, he knows. There is only this, and the desperate prayer that somewhere, somehow, Liam is all right.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM. NOW!”

He hears it, the hoarse, barking shout penetrating his daze. And at first, all it conjures is dread and the desire for the forgetfulness of oblivion, because there’s not enough left in him to dare to hope. Not anymore.
Maybe
, he thinks,
if I keep fighting they’ll just shoot me
. It seems the best option, because he recognizes the voice. On some level, he does.

“Don’t be a fool, old man. Put the gun down and walk away. This isn’t your concern.”

“I called the cops already. They’ll be here any second. You morons were too fucking stupid to bother watching your asses to—”

A gunshot splits the air. Jacen screams and it turns into a low, rolling sob.

They shot him.

They shot Joe.

This is my fault.

Oh God, please.

“Any other bright ideas?”

Joe. Jacen gulps down a breath of air, straining his ears, not daring to look or move.

“Get the fuck away from him. Now. Back up. Hands over your heads. That’s right. Keep ’em where I can see ’em. No sudden movements.”

A pause.

Another gunshot explodes the air. Jacen jumps, cringing, wondering vaguely if he’s pissed himself yet or not. He stays close to the hood and feels the invisible, clammy fingers caressing his mind, telling him how easy it would be to stop fighting entirely and get lost in the serenity of unconsciousness once more.

“Jacen,” Joe’s familiar, comforting voice calls nervously. “Jacen, stay with me. Jacen!”

Jacen tells himself he’s just dreaming and lets go again. This time for good.

Joe grips the shotgun like his life depends on it, which, funnily enough, it kind of does. Two shells left and three targets. If they try to run for it, he would probably only be able to take down some of them, not all, and some isn’t good enough.

The truck is parked slantwise at the side of the road, at his back, his phone sitting on the dashboard and now showing two little glowing dots crowded together about two miles east of the bistro. He can hear the sirens getting closer and he wants more than anything to go to Jacen, who has just collapsed, slid from the car and crumpled to the asphalt. Not knowing if he’s breathing or alive, only aware of how much blood covers the boy’s face, Joe prays he’s okay. Jacen’s pants are pulled down as, when Joe approached the group of people in the alleyway, crowded around the beaten and bound figure of his employee, he was being subjected to something Joe tries not to comprehend with too much clarity. Joe can’t go check on Jacen without taking his eyes off of the three people he’s got at gunpoint, and the other one he’s already shot in the kneecap, now passed out cold and no longer a concern. The second shot had taken a good chunk out of the forearm of a hulking man in a suit who had dared to reach for his handgun.

The only woman in the group looks toward the sound of the approaching police, getting skittish.

“Don’t even think about it,” Joe warns. “You stay right where you are.”

He’s fairly sure she’d have run for it anyway had he not already shot two of her bodyguards.

The man to her left has his pants open and his genitals exposed. Joe’s finger twitches on the trigger, wanting to blow them clean off of the bastard for what he’s done to Jacen.

An eternity later, two squad cars pull up to the entrance of the alley. Men jump out and shout at him to lower his weapon.

“That boy needs help! Please! He’s hurt bad,” Joe begs them.

“The ambulance is on its way, sir,” one of the cops tells him as he’s restrained and his rifle is taken.

“Thank God. Jacen! You hang in there, kiddo! Just a few more minutes!”

“FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Joe turns slightly to see as the group he’d had his sights on is disarmed and wrestled to the ground, and handcuffs are locked onto them.

“
Jesus Christ
,” one of the younger policemen groans as he sees the bloodshed and Jacen’s poor body. “What the hell was goin’ on here?”

“Is he breathing?! Is he okay?!”

The young cop takes Jacen’s pulse and nods to his partner.

“Yeah, he’s going to be okay.”

But, somehow, Joe doubts the truth of that.

An hour and a half slips by, lost. Joe is taken by the police to be questioned. Jacen is whisked away in an ambulance for emergency medical treatment. No one is able to call Liam to tell him what has happened. Liam is first and foremost on Jacen’s mind when he
is
conscious, in fits and starts at first, slipping in and out of awareness. All he wants is to call Liam. Afraid that he’s been taken too, and is maybe even worse off than Jacen himself; the clawing panic of this fear makes it very difficult for Jacen to be still and let the EMTs, nurses and doctors treat his wounds. They wind up sedating him on the drive to the hospital, and more time slips through the hourglass, unaccounted for.

At the San Luis Obispo police station, Clay is on duty. When he hears of the Feds being called in to deal with a handful of suspects picked up in connection with a brutal assault downtown, he asks what happened. He has to question more than one officer before he gets a somewhat clear picture of what has taken place, the nature of the crime and the motive behind it: a prostitution ring, hired, armed guards, a man with a record of sexual assault charges that never went to trial, and a victim. Jacen. Jacen’s name is the most difficult to get as the department tightens up in preparation for the FBI who will be taking over the case as soon as they arrive. But when Clay hears that prostitution is involved, he does not stop until he knows if his friends are connected, praying that they aren’t but his heart telling him otherwise.