Dex nodded. He couldn’t help his small smile as he wrapped his hands around Sloane’s wrists, his voice quiet when he spoke. “You know me so well.”
“So I’ve been saying,” Sloane replied, placing a gentle kiss on Dex’s forehead. “I’m right here, Dex, and I’m with you every step of the way.”
“Dex?”
Dex wiped at his eyes and stepped out from behind Sloane to see Wolf standing outside the room.
“I believe he’s ready to give you some answers.”
There was no going back now. Dex understood what Austen had been trying to tell him. What Sparks had warned him of on several occasions. This wasn’t a new skill Wolf picked up after he went rogue. This was a skillset TIN had trained him with, one he clearly had experience using to do what needed to be done. How many times had Dex condemned Sparks’s actions? Just the other day, she’d asked him how far he was willing to go to protect those he cared about. He’d been quick to stand on his soapbox, criticizing TIN and their methods. He’d been so naïve. Now look at him. Despite what Sloane said, Dex had brought in a killer to do to Fred what had been done to him. What kind of man did that make him? What did it say about him that this was the path he’d chosen? Maybe Sloane was wrong. Maybe he and Wolf weren’t all that different.
“Stop.”
Sloane’s harsh tone snapped Dex out of his thoughts, and he blinked up at Sloane, his chest tight at the heartache in Sloane’s warm amber eyes.
“I mean it, Dex. You two are nothing alike, and neither are the situations that led Wolf to you and this guy. That mercenary in there may not have given the order to kill your parents, but he works for the men who did. He chose to cause pain and misery, to kidnap people, make innocent people suffer. Maybe not all those people were innocent, but some were. Hudson is. Your parents were. They fought for what was right. Maybe they got in over their heads, but they didn’t deserve to die for it. They shouldn’t have been ripped from your life, from Tony’s life. You did nothing to bring on what Wolf did to you, but this guy?” Sloane thrust a finger behind him to the room where Fred was. “If he hadn’t been caught, he would have kept on hurting and killing. It’s time for him to pay for what he’s done.”
Dex nodded. Sloane was right. The words may have been difficult to hear, but everything Sloane said was true. Dex thought about his parents, about how the reason they weren’t going to be at his wedding was sitting in that room. How if he didn’t get some answers, he was going to lose someone else he loved. He couldn’t let that happen.
“You’re right.” Dex headed down the corridor to where Wolf stood. “I’m ready.” And this time, he had no intention of backing out.
Wolf hesitated, looking as if he were going to say something, but instead turned and walked into the room. Dex followed, closing the door behind him. He was surprised to find the needles gone. Glancing at Wolf, Dex expected a teasing comment or snide remark, but received neither. Wolf stood quietly with his gloved hands clasped in front of him.
Dex focused his attention on Fred, who was violently shaking. “Give me something, Fred.”
“The doctor,” Fred replied, his voice hoarse from the screaming. Saliva dripped from his bloodied mouth, his tears mixing with the fluids on his face. “We were going to take the doctor to the theater.”
“Keep going,” Dex insisted.
“We… were… taking him… to an abandoned theater. In Borough Park. From there we’d keep moving him around the city until it was time to put him on a boat.”
“Where were you going to move him after the theater?” Dex asked.
Fred shook his head, his entire body shivering uncontrollably and what was left of his teeth chattering. “I don’t know. We’d receive a message the night before the move and would have to get him there by morning. Same thing would happen the next night. The guys are scheduled to change shifts every night, so no one knows where we’d been before that night or where we’re going the next night.”
“Except for you,” Dex said. “You weren’t going anywhere. That’s why you had that nifty pill in your tooth.”
Fred nodded.
“Were the rest of the locations likely to be abandoned?”
“Yeah. We use a lot of abandoned places because of how many there are. Most of them are condemned, full of crackheads or feral Therians. No one goes in those places, especially at night.”
“Except you guys.”
Wolf stepped up beside him. “You said ‘put him on a boat.’ Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m getting tired of that reply, Fred.” Wolf grabbed a power drill from the toolbox, then walked around the table. He placed it to Fred’s leg.
“I swear! I don’t know! Again, we’d get told right before, and then we’d move out. It’s usually a shipping yard. We use containers to smuggle them out of the country.”
Dex narrowed his eyes. “Them?”
“Anyone the Makhai needs to make disappear.”
“Why did you try to kidnap Hudson?” Wolf asked.