Chapter Finding Closure
Randall Meechum’s POV
Miami FBI Field Office
Today was the day. In twenty-seven states, FBI teams would conduct coordinated raids of over two hundred people tied to sex slavery in the Island. We were going at 0500 Central time, so we had briefed at three and our teams were sent out. Almost every agent including the Special-Agent-In-Charge of our Field Office had been paired up for this.
The women and documentation turned over to us had been a gold mine. There was plenty of evidence against them, and the dates had been validated with Customs and Border Patrol records of people leaving and returning to the United States. The FBI Director had taken a personal interest in this investigation, seeing it for the public relations bonanza it was going to be. The highest priority targets were the ones we had evidence used girls under age sixteen; the next wave would be everyone else we could identify. The US Attorneys were throwing the book at them, and they would face hard time.
I was driving my vehicle, one other agent with me. Dressed in black combat gear, we were on our way to the Residences at Stoneleigh, an ultra-exclusive high-rise condominium tower in the city. Our target, software CEO Todd Martinn, bought the twenty-second floor a year earlier for a cool six million dollars. We had studied his photo; he was in his early thirties, a good-looking guy who was often photographed around town with different hot women. With his looks and wealth, he could crash land in the middle of the Sahara Desert and be neck-deep in pussy by sundown. Why would a guy like this would visit the Island every other month?
Because he liked to whip young girls while he fucked them, and he thought he could get away with it. He’d even used Tania a few times until she became too 'developed' for his tastes.
I was going to enjoy this.
I was hoping he would be dumb enough to resist arrest, but I doubted it. Guys like this, who got their jollies off by using sex slaves, would cry like little pussies when the handcuffs went on. I consoled myself by thinking about how even in prison, child rapists had a tough time.
With that face and hair, I bet he’d be nightly entertainment for the cellblock.
“You all right, Randall?”
“I’m fine, Rebecca. Just thinking about this guy. What do you think he’ll do when we go in? Run, resist, clam up or cry for his momma?”
She looked at his picture again. “He’s an executive, a rich guy with connections who thinks he’s untouchable. A guy like this facing twenty years, he’ll clam up and ask for his lawyer, thinking he’ll be out in time for lunch.”
“Twenty bucks says he breaks down crying within a minute of the cuffs going on,” I said.
“You’re on.” I turned onto the street and parked the black Suburban in front of the grand entrance. A parking attendant in a gold-trimmed jacket opened the door for Rebecca, freezing when he saw her combat gear and FBI badge. I joined her a few seconds later. “Don’t call anyone,” I said. “Do you have a supervisor on site?”
“Yes sir, at the security station inside.”
“Bring us to him.” He led us through the revolving doors and to a station at the front of the entryway. Looking at my watch, it was ten minutes to five. “FBI business. You are not to call or warn anyone or you’ll be subject to arrest, do you understand?” The supervisor nodded. “Is Mr. Todd Martinn in his rooms?”
“Yes sir, he came in about one in the morning, escorting a young blonde.”
“Is this typical behavior?”
The doorman looked at his supervisor and nodded. “Most nights, never the same woman twice,” he said.
“What time does he come down?”
“On a Saturday, he doesn’t. He’ll order a breakfast delivery around nine, then send the girl down to catch a cab and he hits the gym.”
Perfect. We’d pull him out of bed and his date could be the first to hear she’s double the age of the girls he really likes. “Do you have a key to his floor?”
“Yes sir, but it’s only for emergencies.”
I unholstered my Glock, pulling the slide back and ensuring it was loaded and ready. I pointed at the doorman. “You’ll follow me with the key. If he runs or refuses to come to the door, you can either open the door for me or I’ll kick it down, I really don’t care.” I turned to the supervisor. “When we exit on his floor, you lock the elevators down until your man here tells you I said it was OK to let them go.”
“Yes sir.” The doorman took the key and led us to the elevator. “The floors have a fire escape?”
“Yes, a stairway at the back,” he said.
“Take us to a floor where Agent Smith here can get across to the stairs.” He pushed the button for ten. “When you are in place, let me know,” I said.
The doorman and I exited the elevator on his floor into the vestibule with a single large wooden door and a few chairs. “In position, Randall,” Rebecca said over the radio into my earpiece.
I looked at my watch. Four minutes. It seemed like forever, but soon I was counting down. “Five seconds,” I said over the radio. Stepping to the door, I rang the doorbell and pounded hard on it. “OPEN UP! FBI!”
I listened carefully for activity, I could hear a woman yelling and people moving around. “OPEN UP! FBI!”
The radio in the doorman’s hand came on. “I’ve got a balcony door alarm on his unit,” the supervisor said.
“HE’S RUNNING,” I said into the radio. Raising my boot, I kicked hard at the door and busted it open. I was through the door, my gun out, as I heard Rebecca break through the back door. Seeing a flash of movement in the room ahead of me, I raced through to the dining room where the large French doors were still moving. Getting outside, I saw Todd to my right on the long narrow balcony, climbing over the rail. “FREEZE,” I shouted as I ran towards him.
He looked at me, then looked down, trying to decide. “You’ll die if you run,” I said as I held the pistol sights at his head. He looked down once again, and I could see him deflating as he realized he was caught. “Climb back over the rail.” He was already crying by the time he was on his knees with his hands on his head.
Rebecca was inside with the woman, who was pleading ignorance about the cocaine in plain sight. I cuffed him and pulled him to his feet, bringing him back through the door. “Todd Martinn, you are under arrest for multiple counts of entering a foreign country to engage in sex with underage girls and now possession of a felony quantity of cocaine,” I said. The coffee table in the living room had a pile of it along with a razor blade.
He looked shocked as I read him his rights, and the tears were flowing. I smirked at Rebecca as I finished reading him his rights. She had just handcuffed the woman, who calmly refused to answer questions without her lawyer, and shook her head at me.
I didn’t get to rough him up, but I won twenty bucks.
We dropped them off for processing, then had two more raids before our day was over.
The media was going wild, it was wall-to-wall perp walks since the US Attorney’s office had tipped off the press and we were bringing in celebrities and the uber-wealthy all morning long.
Tania’s POV
I-90E in Wisconsin
I couldn’t stay still if my life depended on it. My hand was shaking as I sat in the back of the car with Bobby, leaning into him for all the support I could get. “It’s going to be all right,” he told me. “I’ll be with you, and your Pack loves you and misses you. They can’t wait to see you again.”
“Nothing that happened to you was your fault,” Alpha Brent said from the driver’s seat.
“You aren’t going to be alone in this if you decide to take it,” Patty said from the passenger side. “We will make sure you two have all the help you need, and you will have strong allies around you. All of the Packs in this region want a Stillwater back in charge.”
“Plus, you come bearing a gift,” Brent said. “It’s only fair that Todd Aldridge’s trial and sentencing goes on in the Pack he did so much damage in.” Todd was in the trunk, drugged and bound with silver. It had been a long drive up from Texas, but the trunk was more comfortable than the cramped cell he had been kept in since his capture. Alpha Brent had given up his right to try him for the attacks on his Pack, instead allowing the Tomah Pack to have their justice. Kidnapping, conspiracy to commit the murders of my parents, and stealing Pack funds were more than enough to have him executed.
My wolf was looking forward to it.
The drive up from Texas had been eye-opening for me. I stayed in the back while Bobby, Brent and Patty alternated driving, stopping only for gas, food and bathrooms. We kept our speed down, not wanting to chance getting pulled over with a man chained in our trunk. Todd wasn’t going anywhere; in addition to the silver, a pump was maintaining a sedative in his system so he wouldn’t wake. He also had an IV drip to stay hydrated, and a catheter to remove urine.
I smiled as I recalled Bobby talking about how much he had screamed and pleaded as they put that in while he was strapped to the table. Somehow the sedative hadn’t been started yet, and the nurse took three tries to get the tube inserted in his penis and inflated properly.
None of this was a shock, in fact I was transported in similar ways during my captivity. No, what amazed me was just how much work was involved with being an Alpha pair. Unless they were driving, Brent and Patty were always busy on the phone or their laptop. Brent spent a lot of time lobbying for the Council Chairman position, but also dealing with issues back home. Patty was paying bills, negotiating with companies that provided services and goods to the Pack, keeping up the books and checking on the investments and the running of our ranch. I remember my parents always being busy, but I wasn’t the heir and I was too young to be trained.
We all thought I had years before I’d be of age, and I should just be a kid a while longer.
Tears started running down my face as I thought of my parents and all the things I didn’t get to experience with them. My life had been ruined, theirs taken, because of greed and a lust for power.
Bobby didn’t say anything, he just unbuckled my seatbelt and pulled me into his lap. I cried on his chest for a while as he rubbed my back, letting his love for me flow through the bond. “You’re going to be great, just don’t think it will be easy or quick,” he told me. “We’re young, but we have lots of people who can help us find our way.”
“You want to be Alphas?”
“I want you to have your destiny. You were born for this, just like I was, Alpha bloodlines on both sides. Your Pack refused to consider anyone else unless you decide to abdicate. The Tomah Pack has been guided by a Stillwater for centuries, and you will continue that line.”
“I’ll be a Meechum though.”
“Nothing but human tradition says a woman has to take her husband’s name. Our children, the heirs to the Pack, will be Stillwaters because I will take your name instead of my own.”
My eyes watered as I looked up at him. “You’d do that? What about your father’s name?”
“He’s got five other sons, he’ll be fine,” he said and we both burst out laughing. Patty looked back, then smiled and went back to her work.
“I need to talk to my sister,” I said. He handed me his phone and I called her. “Talia?”
“Tania! Hey, how are you?”
“Bobby and I are talking about our old Pack. It’s yours if you want it, you are the elder sister and you were the heir.”
She answered right away. “I don’t want it, I want you to lead them.”
“Why?”
“Because Randall and I aren’t destined to run a Pack. If I was, I’d have been there already. Instead I can’t give them away fast enough.” We both had a laugh she’d been an Alpha four times already. “I have something else lined up if things fall into place. If not, I’ll be the wife of an FBI agent.”
“I’m nervous.”
“You should be, it’s a big job. Don’t let anyone blow smoke up your ass, it’s a lot of responsibility and a cubic buttload of work. It’s also the most rewarding job you can have in this world. The Pack is your family, you take care of them and help them become the best they can be.”
I laughed at her language. “Don’t sugarcoat it, give it to me straight.”
“You’ll grow into the job, Tania. I’m proud of you. No matter what they did to you, you survived and you’re going to be back where you belong. I love you, little sis.”
“I love you too, Talia.”
“Don’t do the ceremony without me. Now I have to go, this place is a madhouse and I can’t wait for a new Chairman to be elected so I can get out of here.”
“I won’t.” I hung up the phone, a smile on my face. They were right, I was born for this, and in my heart and my wolf I knew I was Alpha.