Shattered Love

Chapter 2

Maxten's POV

I stepped off the plane and the hot sticky air hit me. I hated it. I hadn't been back in over three years but when Conrad called me for help last night, I couldn't tell him no. The woman who saved him three years ago is missing. She usually spoke to Avery, Conrad's wife, daily, and they hadn't heard from her in three days and there was no trace of her anywhere. After looking everywhere, he called me for more help. I never wanted to step foot in this town again, but I wasn't going to not help him. I knew this girl was important to him. She saved his life and also Avery's, and so he will do whatever needs to be done to help her.

"This place is hot as f**k," Ian whined as we walked to the car waiting for us. He is Caleb's second in charge, and I am third. After I finished law school, Caleb approached me with a job. It wasn't what I had in mind when I got my law degree, but honestly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I made a new family, and I get paid extremely well and the best part is I continued to live in New York City, which is across the country from my family. It's not that I don't love them, but after our mother was arrested and charged with murder, she finally came clean about everything and dropped the bomb that she had an affair, and I was the product of that. The man who I always called dad didn't care, and my brothers didn't either and that I was still family, but it was different, and I needed time to think, and now it's been three years and I don't know how to close that bridge that has been created, and so I just keep my distance.

"Don't be such a little b***h about everything," Caleb snapped at him. That was normal between the two of them. They were raised together, and they were raised to take over the business and, when he hired me, I took a crash course in his business and learned how to fight and use weapons just on the off chance that I needed to, but I mostly reviewed contracts and I defended any of his employees in court. I'm technically a defense attorney, but it's not often that I have to.

We threw our bags in the back, and I unlocked the door and got into the passengers' seat. I had a text from Conrad giving me an address to meet him at. I knew it was Rush's office. As much as I didn't want to go there because Barrette worked for Rush and I wanted to see as few people from my family.

"Kev emailed me a report of everything he could find on the girl's dad. He's a slime ball and that's putting it lightly," Caleb said.

"Does it give any indication of where he could be or what he has done with her?"

"Not yet, but he is still looking into it."

"Well, he needs to hurry the f**k up. I want to get the hell out of here as soon as possible."

Caleb didn't say anything else as we drove through town. Ian, however, made comments the whole way about how this place was shitty, and I couldn't argue with that because it was.

When I pulled into the parking garage, Conrad was standing there waiting for me. He gave me a small smile as we parked, but when I opened my door, he was standing there and pulled me into a weird awkward hug. "Thanks for coming. I knew I could count on you."

"Always. I brought some backup as well."

"Good. We need all the help we can get. Rush is waiting for us in the meeting room."

We followed him inside, and I just prayed that Barrette wasn't there either. While we had similar jobs for similar types of people, he strictly stuck to the law part of things, and I got my hands dirty. As soon as we were in the meeting room, I was relieved to see that Barrette wasn't in there.

"Rush, you know my brother Max and these are his associates," Conrad said, not sure how to introduce them.

"Caleb and Ian," I said, and they shook hands, and we sat down at the table, and he turned the television screen on. "We don't have much to go on. This is William, the man we think took her. It's her father and he's not a good guy. He has debts that he owes all over the place and this wouldn't be the first time he has used her to pay them off."

"Do you know of any aliases?" Caleb asked.

"Yes," he said, and started listing off a few names. Caleb was quick to email those over to Kev. He was our computer guy, and the man was a genius at hacking. If we needed information, he could get it no matter what it was.

We sat around talking for the next two hours trying to decide what to do next. They had men on her apartment and his place and others just out looking for them and nothing was turning up.

"I think we should let Kev work his magic and see if he can find anything on his alias," I suggested.

"We've been looking into them already," Rush said.

"I get that, but I promise that Kev can find anything we just need to give him some time."

"We need to do it all. I can't let anything happen to her or her sister."

"Dude, chill out. You've done more for this chick than anyone. We'll find her." I told him, and it almost made me wonder if he had some sort of feelings for her. I quickly brushed that idea out of my head because I knew he loved his wife. He was obsessed with her. It was almost a little sickening how much. This is why I never wanted a wife or someone permanent in my life. I just needed someone to sleep with once in a while and never at my place and never overnight.

We had been discussing and looking into things for five hours when Caleb's phone went off. I watched as he read the email, and his face dropped. Kev had gotten back to him.

"What's your email? We have something," he asked, looking at Rush, who quickly rattled it off and within thirty seconds it was up on the screen. Somehow Kev had tracked her to a known human trafficker.

"f**k. How do we get her back from him?" Conrad practically yelled, but a plan was already forming in my head.

"You have two options. We find his holding place and go in and rescue her, or we wait and buy her at auction."

"No, we can't wait that long. How hard will it be to find their holding place?"

"My guess is that it won't be far from the place where the auction is actually taking place," Caleb said, and I just stared at the picture, ignoring the conversation around me. This girl looked so broken and ready to give up on life. I knew what had to be done to her, and I didn't know that she was going to make it a week longer.

"We're going tonight," I said, standing up. "Rush, we are going to need all the men you have and any others you can think that will help," I said, deciding for everyone what we were going to do.

"I've got fifty men, but I can make a few calls and see if there is anyone that is available, but it will cost you."

"I don't care, make those calls. We are moving tonight."

"We need to find the place and figure out what they have in there and the type of security they have. We can't just go rushing in there," Rush said.

"We can, and we will," Conrad said, and I could already see Caleb working on things. This is why I wanted him to come along. He had more pull than anyone I knew.

"Give me ten," Caleb said and stood up and walked out of the room.

Conrad started pacing the room. "We have to find the father as well. We have to find Kenzley," he said in a panic.

"We're working on that," Rush said, trying to calm him, but it wasn't working.

The door was pushed back open, and Caleb walked back in looking smug as s**t. "I'm in."

"In what?" Rush asked.

"In their holding place. I made a phone call, and they are getting me access to view the merchandise."

"I don't even want to know, but that's great. When can we go?" Conrad asked.

"We don't go. I go with Max and Ian. The rest of you wait for a signal. We will check things out first and make sure that it is something we can do. I'm not going to risk the lives of others for this."

Conrad wanted to argue but he didn't. He knew we were right. We spent the next few hours trying to come up with a plan, but it was hard not knowing exactly where it was at. We had a tentative plan in place and had called everyone when Caleb's phone rang again, and I knew this was his contact when he stepped back out of the room to take the call.

"OK, it's going to cost one hundred thousand to view the girls beforehand," he said as soon as he came back in.

"When can it be done?"

"Tonight, at ten pm. We have two hours to wire the money to them. It has to come from my account since I'm the one setting it up. You can pay me back later," he said, looking at Conrad, who just nodded his head and Caleb started sending text messages to get things in place.

Four hours later Caleb, Ian and I were walking up to this house that was large but not a mansion. It looked nice from what I could see. It looked like an ordinary home in the country but also looked like the perfect cover-up. No one would suspect a thing. We were an hour from the town I grew up in. I knew bad things happened in that town, but I would never have expected to have a s*x traffic ring running here.

Should we involve the police? Yes. Are we going to? No, we are not. We will kill them and burn the place down and let the police take it from there. Besides, by then we will be gone and back in New York. Rush can handle everything.

Caleb knocked on the door as I moved back and forth on my feet. I hated going into places without any type of protection, but we knew we would be searched and if we came in with guns or knives, they would kill us on the spot.

The door was jerked open, and an extremely large man was standing there.

"What?" he growled out. This wasn't a good sign. He would be hard to take down by hand, but not something that couldn't be done. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

"We have an appointment at ten pm," Caleb said.

"Name?"

"Caleb Ricci and these are my top two men."

The man nodded at us and let us in and led us into a dining room where two men sat drinking expensive whiskey according to the bottle on the table.

"Caleb," one of the men sang out. He must have known him somehow or at least known who he was, but most people in this world did.

"Samuel, how are you?"

"You know it's been a great day, and it's only going to get better. I didn't know you were in the market. I didn't think you dabbled in girls."