“Tell them all of it,” Fergus demanded, barely able to contain his anger.
The man continued, choking on his own words as he admitted his vile sins. Fergus wanted to shift. He wanted to tear him apart limb by limb, but he tried to stay calm. He didn’t need the scrutiny a bear attack would cause right now. Instead, he bit his lip and waited for the man to finish. The two women behind him made sobbing noises until he was done. When he was finished, Fergus walked over to them and pulled down their gags.
“Have you anything to say to him?”
The daughter continued crying, but his wife spoke in what was almost a whisper. “You’re a monster.”
When she didn’t continue, Fergus put their gags back in place and nodded toward Niall and Ronan.
“Take them home and stay with them there until I call you,” he said.
They disappeared out a side door of the warehouse. Fergus turned his attention back to the man in the chair.
“I’d really like to take my time with you, make you pay for what you’ve done to innocent girls, but I don’t have that kind of time to waste right now. You got anything left to say before you call it a life?”
“You promise you won’t hurt them?”
“I’d say you’ve just given them more pain than I ever could. I don’t know how I could do anything that might possibly hurt them more,” Fergus replied.
The man nodded and said nothing else. He was done talking. Fergus walked over to the table and picked up the hunting knife, returning to look him in the eye for a moment before walking around behind him and slitting his throat, letting the blood pour out on the floor in front of him.
“The truth will set you free, you gobshite,” Fergus muttered.
He and Olcan made quick work of cleaning up the mess, firing up the old furnace stove in the basement of the warehouse and depositing the lifeless body into it before returning to hose the floor and walls. They weren’t much concerned with the DNA left behind. Theirs would show up as animal and just confuse the tests, and the discovery of the man’s death would only lead to inquiries that revealed what he was and linked him to people that spidered out all around the globe.
Fergus didn’t know how they’d missed it. They were only looking to find out who was dealing hard drugs on their turf, and instead, they’d found a substantial human trafficking ring that went far beyond the usual pimps running a small corral of sometimes young, but legal, girls. The Bears didn’t approve of prostitution, but as long as the girls were taken care of and consenting adults, they looked the other way.
Human trafficking was a different matter, and though they weren’t equipped to take on the entire operation, they figured they could end a great deal of it by taking out the head of the snake. Sidney Austrelia was going to wish he’d never gotten involved when they were done with him. What had just happened to his associate was going to seem like a cakewalk compared to what Fergus intended to do to him when he caught him.CHAPTER FOUREimear
Three days! Only three days and she would be Mrs. Ciaron Doyle.
Eimear looked at her wedding dress, hanging beneath plastic on the outside of her closet door. With the alterations they’d made, it fit her perfectly. He was going to be so pleased to see her walking down the aisle toward him. She had tried to hide it from him, holding onto the tradition of him not seeing the dress before the wedding, but he had insisted on knowing what she had selected and she’d given in, as usual.
She had to admit she was nervous, but who wasn’t before their wedding day? There was still so much to do in these last few days, and Ciaron wasn’t of much assistance, seeming preoccupied with something else. She knew better than to be too nosy about it, as he didn’t care much for having her try to meddle in his business affairs. His business required confidentiality, he said, and that meant it was kept private from everyone, including her.
“Did you pick up your tux?” she asked him as he dressed for work.
“I had it picked up, yes.”
“And you tried it on, made sure the alterations were right?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
“Ciaron, the wedding is only a few days away. We won’t have any time to get it corrected if you wait until the last minute,” she told him.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.
“I need for you to know that it’s fine,” she snapped, losing her patience.
“I’ve got more important things on my mind right now, Eimear. It’ll be fine.”
“More important than our wedding?” she complained.
“It’s not an either-or proposition. Both are equally important.”