and dropped off the radar. Shield hadn’t been able to catch him on any surveillance or traffic cameras around town, which made me think he’d split for the time being. I had no doubt he’d return for Lyssa, but at the moment something seemed more important to him. But what?
“Tony isn’t just after you, Tink. He has other women and girls he’s auctioning off. We’d assumed he needed you before he made his next move. Maybe we were wrong. What if the auction is already happening?”
“Those poor women.” She looked up at me. “Eric, we have to do something.”
“Your father’s club was working on it, with several others. If they haven’t found them yet, I’m not sure we’ll be able to do much better. They have Wire and Lavender. While Shield is great, he’s not on par with them, and he’d be the first to admit it.”
“So they’re just lost?” she asked. “We give up and don’t even try?”
I leaned down to kiss her, trying not to groan at the ache in my ribs. “Tink, I’ll make sure every club hacker I know or have even just heard of is working on it. We might not rescue them today, but eventually we’ll get them out of that hell. It will take time, if they’ve already been sold, but it’s not necessarily impossible.”
“I guess that’s an issue for another day,” she said. “For now, food. I know Mom watches what my dad eats, when he’s home. And I’m sure Carmella watches my grandfather like a hawk. So no pizza, and probably no Chinese.”
I ran my hand over my jaw, my fingers rasping against the whiskers coming in. No junk food, which meant no fast food either. Italian with the heavy sauces most likely was out too. It didn’t leave many options. Then again, I could order salads and soup with a pasta order.
“I’ll put a call in to the little Italian place and ask Kye to pick it up. Anything they can’t eat for medical reasons?” I asked, knowing some people had food allergies.
“No. They’ll eat anything. Probably shouldn’t, but they will,” she said.
“All right. Make sure we have enough beer in the fridge, and anything else they like, and I’ll place the order.”
She went up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine, flashing me a smile before she walked off. At least she was easy to please. I called in the order, then let Kye know he needed to make a run. I looked around the empty room again, getting an idea of what I’d need. One of the Prospects had worked construction and had some carpentry skills. I’d get him to start framing out the bathroom and adding the kitchenette. It wouldn’t get finished overnight, but it wouldn’t take too long. The last thing I wanted was to keep Lyssa from her family. I could tell they were close, and I wanted her to be happy. If she couldn’t visit with them at least a few times a year, I had a feeling she’d be miserable and maybe even come to resent being here someday.
Before I went to find my woman, I sent off a text to Shield.
Look into the auctions for the women and girls. Think it’s going down now.
It only took him a moment to respond. On it.
Since Torch would be visiting with his daughter, I didn’t want to bring up the issue of Tony. Not with him. Not right now. Instead, I pulled up Venom’s number in my phone and hit the call button before I changed my mind. He answered almost immediately.
“Who the fuck is this?” he asked.
“Don’t you check your caller ID, old man? It’s Beast.”
Venom snorted. “Torch didn’t kill you?”
“No. He tried, but Lyssa stepped in. Which is part of why I’m calling. I don’t want to take away from the time they have until Torch returns home. But Tony has been too fucking quiet after the scene he made when Lyssa showed up that first day. Something’s wrong. There’s no fucking way he just forgot about her, so what’s he doing? Or worse, planning?” I asked.
“I’ve been wondering about that. Wire detected some movement on that auction site for the women and girls, but then everything went dark, like they’d taken it down.”
“Which means they probably know someone is on to them, even if they don’t know who,” I said.
“That’s what I’m thinking. We’ve got nothing to go on right now, but if Tony hasn’t made his presence known there