Damaged (Boys of Winter #2) - Sheridan Anne Page 0,81

and the girls flinching while King drives as though today is any other day. A wide smile tears across my face as I sink down into my seat and enjoy the ride home, knowing that nothing could ever get better than that.

CHAPTER 20

My ass hits the chair as my elbows come down on the table between Grayson and King. “Where’s Lord of the Douches?” I ask, glancing across at Cruz who’s busily flicking through a black leather-bound book.

“Carver has some … built up frustrations that he’s currently working out,” Grayson tells me, a deadly sparkle hitting his eyes. He digs into his dinner and acts as though our morning didn’t just consist of rescuing four girls, killing a bunch of shitty guys, getting our hands on Sam, and ‘accidentally’ blowing up his house of horrors.

“So, by that, I’m assuming that you mean he’s using Sam as a punching bag?”

King meets my stare and winks. “You got it, babe.”

A sick, twisted enjoyment shoots through me as I relax into my seat. “Have you heard anything about the girls?” I ask, speaking to all three of them and hoping that at least one has an update for me.

Cruz keeps his stare down at the book resting on the table as he responds. “One of the girls was only taken last night and her parents have already been notified and are with her in the hospital now. The blonde was from out of state and her mother is flying in tonight, but the other two are struggling a bit. Apparently one of them hasn’t spoken a single word while the other is too emotional and refusing to see the doctors. They have suspicions that one of them matches the identity of a missing foster child, but they haven’t been able to confirm that yet.”

I let out a defeated sigh, hating just how broken they must be. I only suffered for three days, but those girls look as though they could have been there for months. “I wonder if they might talk to me,” I murmur. “I mean, I’m no expert or have any fancy degrees, but there’s already a relationship there. They might feel safer talking to someone they know they can trust.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” King says.

Cruz nods, still looking over the pages of the book. “Okay, sure,” he grumbles. “The doctor said that he’d give me another call in a few hours with an update. I’ll let him know that you’re down to help, but hopefully when he calls, he’s got good news.”

I nod, never agreeing more. “What are you looking at?” I ask, needing the distraction. “Did you take that from Sam’s place?”

“Sure did,” he says, raising his head and sliding the book across the table. “It’s his ledger. It has the information of every single sale he’s ever made. There are pages of names, girls and boys. Some of them as young as five years old.”

My eyes bug out of my head as I spin the book around to see what’s written. Both King and Grayson lean in to glance over my shoulders, each of them making a disgusted grunt. Just as Cruz said, there are names and ages along with details of where they were taken, who they were sold to, and for how much. “Holy shit,” I whisper, scanning over the countless names and flipping through the pages. “He must have been doing this for years.”

“Yeah,” Cruz says, reaching for his fork and playing with his dinner, his appetite completely gone. “You don’t even want to know what kind of shit I had to do to get that book.”

I glance up, meeting his eyes. “I can only imagine,” I murmur, my heart heavy and broken. “This book could put him away for the rest of his miserable life.”

Grayson shakes his head. “That’s not what that book is about,” he explains. “Sam is going to be long gone before the law gets around to putting him on trial. They’ve been trying to nail him down for years and he kept slipping through their fingers. So, if we wait for a trial, we’ll be waiting ages because they’ll want to cross their t’s and dot their i’s, but like I said, Sam won’t be getting a chance for a trial. Whether it’s you who finishes him, Carver, or one of us, he won’t be leaving this house alive. The ledger is here to help us locate the children who were taken and fuck over the bastards who purchased