The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

Seems more suspicious than both of them dropping off the map. We empty out their house, make it look like they fled to Mexico. Leave a paper trail of gambling debts. He’ll earn his keep. He’s a little rough, but not bad looking. And you should see the pair of them together.”
    A long, horrible pause. A pendulum swinging between life and death. He didn’t mind death so much, but leaving Dougie behind, that terrified him.
    “Fine, get the brother. You have thirty seconds to convince me.”
    Receding footsteps again. Approaching ones, too. The van dipped under someone’s weight. Key in the lock, cage door swinging open. He gritted his teeth and lashed out, felt the impact reverberate up his half-numb leg and shred his joints like broken glass. He screamed. So did whoever he’d kicked. From the sound of the thud and the bounce of the van, he’d knocked the guy right out the back door and onto a hard floor.
    “For fuck’s sake , you idiots . Do I have to fix all your messes?”
    The van dipped again, not as much this time. Mat tried to back out the opened cage door, but Jesus, he couldn’t move, couldn’t move at all and oh my fucking God he hurt . Couldn’t even turn his head to assess the situation, but then a delicate, manicured hand came into his field of vision, followed by an equally well-groomed head. Pretty, maybe, if she weren’t such a goddamned bitch . Mid-forties. Expression that made it clear she was used to getting her way.
    She locked eyes with him. “You’re not really helping your case, you know. They’re the ones who think I shouldn’t kill you. Maybe you should stop beating them up.”
    If Mat opened his mouth, he’d tell her to go fuck herself, so he kept his lips clamped shut.
    Her mouth twisted into a curl of distaste. “Yes, well, I suppose fighters aren’t known for their brilliance. So let me speak as plainly as possible, hole.”
    Hole. If he never heard that word again, it’d be too soon.
    “You’ll come quietly out of this cage, or I’ll shoot you full of heroin and have these morons here dump you in Mexico. Do you understand?”
    Bitch . Not a word he usually used, but if she was going to call him “hole,” he wasn’t gonna feel guilty about returning the favor. “Yes,” he gritted out.
    She disappeared from his line of sight. “Grab his feet,” she said to someone. He barely felt the hands on his half-numb ankles. Felt the tug plenty clear, but then they pulled both legs straight and everything whited out for a moment, drowned in a roar as punishing as the Taser, and when the world finally faded back in, he was writhing on the floor by the van’s back tires, cramping everywhere and wishing, just for an instant, that he’d hurry up and die already.
    Then that faded too, and the woman was squatting by his head again, poking at his shoulder like it was some particularly offensive bit of gunk on her shoe. “Get up, hole.”
    “I fucking can’t ,” he growled before he could stop himself.
    “Then you’re no use to me.” She stood, dusted her hands. “Shoot him up and dump him.”
    Somehow, he climbed to his feet. Grit , Darryl called it when he was pleased with him, or sheer fucking stubbornness when he wasn’t. Whatever it was, it’d seen him through to victory in more fights than he could remember. He wouldn’t lose this one.
    As soon as he stood, he saw Dougie. Dougie, kneeling between two of the bruisers, frozen and sickly pale. Mat knew that look from the ring. He was going to pass out.
    Hold on , he willed his eyes to say. Just hold on for me.
    “Oh,” the woman sighed, sounding distinctly touched. Her hand rose to cover the string of pearls that rested over her collarbone. She looked between them with the eyes of a predator, disassembling the scene, translating it into the raw data she needed. She looked back to Mat, some kind of decision there. “Hole,” she said. “I see these animals in my employ have had their way with your brother.”
    No shit.
    “He looks disgusting, and frankly, I and my clientele don’t abide by ugly things. A very ugly business with a very beautiful face is my policy. And the state of him . . . well, it’s just not acceptable. Not remotely acceptable. I’ve half a mind to toss him out before he pollutes the whole operation.”
    Heroin. Mexico. His body left in some dumpster to rot. We’re nothing to her, neither of us are anything to anyone but each other.
    “Well, at least you understand what I’m driving