What the fuck?
Clarke had never been to Asylum, and as far as the background check had mentioned, Sophie had never lived anywhere but Manchester. She hadn’t been abroad, and she didn’t hold a passport. There was no reason for Clarke to have ever seen her face, even in print.
“How do you mean, you’ve seen her picture? As in, you’ve seen it where?” Nate’s eyes were narrowed on the other man, who still hadn’t looked up from Sophie’s warm blue eyes staring back at them from the page.
“I’m not sure yet,” he murmured, but the shifty look in his eyes said otherwise, “Can I take these?”
“The files?” Jay nodded, “I’ll get you a copy sorted now. We need to work out the MO – you’re going in as client, which means we got you a fake ID and a backstory.”
Nate took a large manila envelope from one of the kitchen drawers, and threw it onto the table in front of him.
“And keys for a newly plated BMW X5 in there, it’s got GPS tracking, and a few added security details, so it’ll come in handy if you’re in a pickle,” Nate added, “Plus they can’t trace it. It’s at Caine’s Motors, just off the end of this street, just give the details to Matt, and he’ll see to the rest.”
Clarke just nodded, not picking up the envelope, barely glancing at it before his attention was back on the small picture. What the fuck was it with him and that photograph? Nate shot a quizzical glance at Jayden, whose jaw was tensed.
“Is there some sort of problem here?” Jay drawled, “You’re not even fucking listening.”
“You need my eyes to know you have my attention you little shit?” Clarke muttered quietly, looking up to Jay with a menacing glare from underneath his lashes.
“There’s a lot riding on this,” Jay grated back at him quietly, “Sophie won’t hold herself there – fuck, I don’t even know if Clara will. I want Sebastienne torn limb from fucking limb, but I need those girls out first. You fuck this up and you’re just another complication I don’t need.”
“I know what I’m looking for,” Clarke assured him, before quietly chuckling to himself at some private joke.
Nate clenched his own teeth at Clarke’s freaky behaviour – it felt like he was trying to hold something over Jay’s head. It was what Clarke did, every time – he wouldn’t appreciate the restrained authority that Jay radiated, wouldn’t realise it was just a knock back on Jay’s own fucked up background – Clarke would see it as nothing but some random guy pulling rank. And Jay no longer had rank, so Clarke was playing with his head.
Hopefully.
That didn’t help from their perspective though, because Jay was holding in on his anger with a silk thread – his demeanour might still be entirely casual; muscular arms crossed over his broad chest, long legs stretched out in front of him with his feet crossed at the ankles – but Nate could see the urge to leap over the table and tear Clarke’s teeth out was riding him.
“You can reign in this bullshit right now,” Nate pulled out the back of Clarke’s chair until he was facing him, “If you know something, you spit it right out on this table. If not, you shut the fuck up and listen to what we’re saying.”
With a smirk, and calm as a cucumber, Clarke turned his head to spit on the dining table, and Nate grunted in disgust just seconds before Clarke opened his mouth.
“She’s Russian descent,” Clarke said quietly, “I’ve seen her picture so many times it’s ingrained in my head – except she’s younger in all of them, by about ten years, and her hair is copper, not blonde. I don’t know who she is exactly, or why they want to find her so fucking badly that they’re offering up to eight mill for a contact. Her name’s not Sophie, and your checks don’t mean shit. She’s connected.”
“It’s not a random take,” Jay said grimly, “Clara was a decoy.”
How many more layers of shit was going to fall into this? Sophie was a kind, sweet girl with an incredibly sick mother, and five children still living at home. If she was connected, his guess was that she was fleeing. That was probably the connection between Sebastienne and the Russians – he’d clicked onto the first name he could think of to report his new bounty, and waited for Dobrev to come to him.
Fuck.
“Nate,” a small, shaking disembodied voice came from the hallway, and he quickly snapped to attention, “Give him the MO,” he barked quickly at Jayden, before growling round at Clarke, “And just. Fucking. Listen.”
Sprinting from the room, he found her on the corner of the bed wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel – her hair hanging damp and tousled around her desolate, beautiful face.
“Babe?” he asked softly, stepping closer to her slowly, his hand moving to take her iPhone out of her clenched hands, “What is it?”
His own hands froze when he saw a picture of the two of them coming into his apartment in Manchester. He swiped across the screen; more followed – the two of them eating dinner, watching movies – there was even one of the two of them kissing in his car on the side of the road on their way back just two nights ago.
“Safe to say he probably knows where I am now,” she said grimly, “It’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?”
“Fuck that!” he spat angrily, chills racing over him as he felt the walls closing in around them. Pulling her body against his, he leant to her ear, “He’s not getting anywhere near you, I promise.”
“What if you can’t follow through on that?” she whispered shakily, tears brimming on her long lashes.
“I will. Get dressed.”
He silenced her protests with a long kiss, drawing the sadness out of her – if only for a moment – with the tender touch of his lips on hers. “Go on babe, and we’ll work something out ...” he whispered against her.
“Like what?”
“Something,” he muttered, rising to his feet.
*******************************************
“So, what you’re saying is that each of the organisers in Eastern Europe are making money both from the immigrants, and from Sebastienne?” Clarke said slowly – at least he’d finally started listening.
“That’s right,” Jay muttered.
“So what makes you think that you can shut it down,” he sneered softly, “Sebastienne is as much of a puppet as any of the girls. You can slice him up, and the second you turn your backs, there’ll be someone new in his shoes.”
Sadly, what Clarke said was true. What they were working on destroying was the contact links with Europe – so that anyone starting fresh would need to basically work from scratch to build everything back again.
“We’re severing the links,” Nate growled, “They can step in his shoes, but it will be complete start up. For now, it’s enough to get Sebastienne off our turf.”
“Ah,so I’ve not been stuck with two pussy-whipped missionaries. Good to know.”
“You’ll do it?” Jay asked quietly, eyeing the other man with a faint tinge of respect in his gaze – something had come to pass while he was with Shannon – something had bonded them somehow.
“Yes.”
“Sorted,” Nate clapped his hands, throwing the envelope into Clarke’s burly chest, “Take the back roads – Sebastienne has surveillance all over my woman right now.” Clarke just nodded and left with the manila tucked into his black military jacket, after pulling out the keys to the X5.
Jayden lost his composure in less than a second – panic in his eyes, “What the fuck?”
“He’s just sent her MMS, all of us last week.”
“She can come with me. Tori’s cut up as it is, she’ll need her.” Jay ran his hand irritably over the nape of his neck – worry clear on his features.
Nate nodded bleakly, just as his phone trilled in his pocket.
The number was untraceable – blocked.
Nate didn’t say a word as he put the receiver to his ear – waiting for the words he was somehow expecting.
“So ... Nathaniel Casey – legend precedes you,” the Frenchman slurred, sending chills down Nate’s spine.
“Good to hear it,” Nate drawled, “And you are?”
“That little slut never mentioned me?” Sebastienne growled.
“Little slut?” Nate feigned ignorance, pausing for a second, “Doesn’t ring any bells to be honest.”
“You know who I’m talking about!” Sebastienne screamed, and Nate heard him thump something solid in the background.
“Steady – don’t have an aneurism,” he mocked.
“You’ve taken something that belongs to me!” he growled, “Don’t be expecting to get away with it you little cunt!”
Nate’s skin bristled at the words – his skin itching and burning hearing another man claim his woman, even in a sadistic I want to tie you down and rape you kind of way, but he kept his cool demeanour regardless.
“Your wallet or something? I think I’d have remembered that...”
“She belongs to me!” Again with the thumping – this prick really had no reign on his temper.
“Really?” Nate cocked his head to the side as if this prick was standing in the room with them, “She never even mentioned your name! Mine, on the other hand, she fucking screams it!”
To his barely suppressed amusement, Nate heard Sebastienne’s deep breaths – the struggle he was having to hold himself in check.
“You know you’re fucked right now Casey,” he muttered, “I’m about the only one that can get you off that hook. We have things to discuss – I want you in my club tonight.”
“I’m not into blind dates.”
“Listen to me, Casey...”
“No, you listen to me little boy, you’re not much more than a fucking runner – and listen to yourself? You think you have any control over anything?”
There was a pause, before Sebastienne started to snigger down the line softly.
“I have control over her though, boy. You come to me, or I come for her.”
The line went dead, and without thinking grabbed the keys for his R8 and sped out of the driveway.