No Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty Four

Jay chuckled, folding his tall body into one of the dining chairs, one of his trainer clad feet resting on the opposite knee, while Nate pulled out the chair opposite.

"Franchetti was here this morning," Nate started grimly, hearing the shower turn on in the bathroom, "Sebastienne is linked up - he's got a Russian import, with big figures riding on it."

"Fuck," Jay drew out the syllable, pulling a deck of cigarettes from his back pocket and throwing them onto the table, "Who?"

"Dobrev."

"Shit. How did that pan out?"Jay laid his arm across the chair next to him - seemingly at ease and comfortable, but there was tension unfurling behind his eyes.

"I don't know, actually," he muttered, with a sudden heavy frown, "There's more. Apparently he's put out feelers."

Jay's eyes widened, as he ran his palm across the light stubble that dusted his jaw.

"On you?" Nate nodded, leaning back in his chair to cross his arms over his bulky chest, "Presumably because of Asylum? What exactly are these fucking figures that he's willing to go to that extent? A hit on you would cost him at least a hundred thousand, maybe more, because of Franchetti - the offer would have to be good."

Nate shrugged, "Tony reckons three mill."

"That makes no sense!" Jay spluttered, "That's got to be wrong - we saw the shipment details that Franchetti had for the girls, and Dobrev's main deal is drugs."

Nate kept his eyes trained on the doorway behind Jay's head as he spoke.

"He's keeping the girls high, remember."

"Yeah ... but he must be getting the gear at a cut price, Nate," Jayden spoke slowly, as though running figures in his mind, which he probably was - that was his speciality, "But to justify those kinds of figures, he'd be massively overspending by at least ten grand a day - there has to be something else."

"Like what? Tony said he was bringing girls over as well?"

"Can we get another shipment list? If it's just the girls and drugs, then he's paying a high rate."

"What are you saying?" Nate asked curiously, not having really considered any of this earlier - what with the raging lust clouding his brain, he was off his game.

"My guess? It's a drug ring, or he's paying high rates for something ... extra special."

"You mean, like what, virgins or something?"

Jayden pulled a cigarette out of the packet slowly, tapping the tip against the wood a few times before pulling out his zippo.

"He's actually sick enough for it to be young, teenage girls," Jay clenched his jaw, staring into space for a few seconds before nodding ever so slightly, "Fuck knows, but if he's bringing in a hundred kilos of smack, that's still only about 1.5 - 2 mill, so you're talking - for 50 - 100 girls, about a grand each. He's not going to pay that for what he could pull in from Poland or Latvia."

"Unless it's a power thing? Getting Dobrev on side?" Nate mused - clutching at straws that shit wasn't that twisted.

"Nah, he's too arrogant - besides Dobrev barely has any hold over here, since he moved base back over to Croatia - at least from what I hear. Wouldn't be worth it."

"Remind me again why we can't just fucking torch the place," Nate muttered, nausea rising in his stomach at the sick, twisted lengths that this perverted prick would go to in order to make a few quid. These girls were just kids, for fuck's sake! He was hooking them up with smack and selling them for profit! "I feel fucking sick," he muttered, getting up from his seat with a grimace, "I'm just going to stick some pants on - Clarke will be here in a bit."

He walked away disgusted - why the hell hadn't he ran those numbers through his head earlier? Of course there was more to it than surface stuff - what Nate wanted to know was how had Sebastienne - who was basically a fucking newbie for all intents and purposes - got in touch with Dobrev who'd hot footed it out of the country at least three years ago when half of his crew got busted in an undercover import deal? It made no sense, it's not as though there was a fucking International Directory of Drug Dealers for God's sake - something had to have prompted it.

Dragging a pair of fleece tracksuit bottoms over his legs, he popped his head into the bathroom to see Shannon still wallowing in the hot water from the power shower - her delectable body all curves and silhouette behind the frosted glass partition. Lazily he brushed his teeth while leaning back against the sink watching her sing softly to herself, completely oblivious to his presence.

He was trying not to panic over this hit - trying not to let it affect him, it never had before. Before, he'd have laughed at the idea of it - and had faith in his abilities to get out of any hot wired situation, and even if he couldn't, he wouldn't have cared. Now that he had something to live for, it suddenly seemed so much more terrifying to consider that the Russian might actually get his money's worth.

The air in his kitchen when he walked back through was significantly more tense - more than likely due to the presence of Clarke, who was eyeing Jayden across the dining table. Both men had notoriously suspicious natures, as well as unpredictable reputations, and they were each as silent and taciturn in new company as each other, so it came as neither a surprise nor cause for alarm as far as Nate was concerned. He just nodded simply to Clarke, and pulled out a chair.

"Found us then?" he started on small talk, but it got him no more than a flicker of Clarke's dark green eyes and a quick silent nod - and a sneer, it was impossible to tell with that imposing scar across his features that tugged on his top lip. The man would still wear the same expression if he was watching an episode of The Teletubbies for Christ's sake - he'd still have you wondering if he was about to tear you limb from limb with his bare teeth at any second.

"So ..." God, sometimes it was really awkward to make a conversation with this guy. No matter how much respect he had for the man, no matter how long they'd worked together, he never knew how to start, "What do you know about Tourniquet?"

Nate wasn't quite ready for the depth of anger and rage that was rolling in those green eyes as they turned on him directly. Clarke was - despite his appearance and his reputation - mostly a void of emotion; this was definitely not a void of any description.

"I know that nobody comes out of that place without rot setting in on their souls - however they walk in there."

Well, fuck.

Wasn't that just exactly what they'd all been trying to say?

Jayden said nothing, but Nate watched him turn the files over in his hands, before laying the first open on the table, turning the picture to Clarke.

"Clara Kennedy," he said unemotionally, "She's been gone just over a fortnight. Last person who saw her was Davies, outside the club on the 14th of this month as she was leaving. Apparently she was going for a few drinks with a girlfriend, and then home."

"You didn't look?"

Jay scratched the nape of his neck, kicking his legs out in front of him under the table.

"She's flighty," Jay mumbled, "We just thought she'd done one. And this," he turned around the second folder, "Is Sophie Montgomery. She's been gone five days. Nobody knows anything about her last movements, she was kind of an under the radar sort of girl."

Clarke's eyes never left the picture, and his fingers unconsciously moved up to the scar on his lip - running over the ridged flesh. He reached out to touch the curve of Sophie's cheek in the picture, as though he was a blind man and she a piece of Braille.

"I've seen her face somewhere," he murmured quietly - almost too quietly, as Nate and Jay looked at each other puzzled. How the hell would Clarke know a girl like Sophie? And from where?

"What do you mean?" Nate shifted in his seat, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table, "You know her?"

"No," Clarke looked up suddenly, as though just realizing they were both still in the room he shook his head, "I've seen her picture."