After Joselyn, the woman who had opened the door for us, introduced herself and the other woman, Kristen, to us, she led us to the kitchen. It was also on the first floor. There we found Andrea, but she was not cooking as I expected her to be. No, she was strapped naked to a table with her arms bound above her head, a latex mask over her face, and her legs bound in a butterfly position. Candles burned all around her, and from the amount of wax on her body, they were not there for the aesthetics. In front of her was a single chair, like she was the meal set on the table.
It took several long minutes to get her unbound, and by the time we did, there was another knock on the door. I had no idea where Dover was, but I doubted it could be Aero and his Atlantic City brothers so soon. Leaving Maisy with the three women, I went to the front door to deal with Arnold and company.
The rope that had once bound Andrea to the kitchen table now held Arnold and his three sons captive. For good measure, I also shot each of them in the knee to keep them from trying to flee. While I would have been more than happy to put the bullets in their heads, I was sure Aero and Hurricane would want a run at them to see what other information they had. This was their territory after all, and they could hash out who went after whom once Maisy and I were on our way back home.
In the guest bathroom on the first floor, we found Maribelle. A young woman in her early twenties who was tied on her knees over a drain.Piss Slutwas written on her forehead, and I prayed to whatever god was listening that it wasn’t permanent. Her mouthwas held open with a ring gag that also suppressed her tongue. While her feet were not bound, she could not stand or escape due to her arms being forced out into a T by rope attaching them to rings on either side of the wall from her.
From the smell, she’dservicedat least one person since being tied down. Like Jocelyn, she had nipple clamps attached to her breasts, though hers had weights attached. As we got her unbound, I also discovered that she had a clit clamp as well. I stepped back, allowing the woman privacy as Maisy and the others helped her.
I was so ready to kill these fuckers, but we still had to get to the six women Jocelyn said were upstairs waiting to be sold like livestock.
I hated myself for that analogy as soon as we entered the room on the second floor that Jocelyn had called the Donovans’ dungeon.
All six women had nooses around their necks, attaching them to the beam on the ceiling above them. Naked, their legs were spread over a construction horse, forcing their genitals down onto the wooden edge. Blocks were placed under their feet, and so long as they could keep themselves balanced in that position, they would be able to keep from either hanging or having to sit on the top of the construction horse. To add insult to injury, their hands were also bound behind their backs and they had horse bits in their mouths.
It was fucking slow-going to get them unbound, and I hated that we had to go one by one to do it. But one slip up could harm or kill one of them if we rushed, and unfortunately for them, I was the only one strong enough to lift their body weight while the others worked to get them unbound.
I vowed vengeance for every one of their tears.
A man stepped into the doorway, and I had my gun trained on him a moment before I saw his Royal Bastards cut. I wasn’twearing mine, because this was supposed to be a quick snatch and grab of Maisy’s parents.
“Aero?” I inquired as the man came forward. He’d attended Aloiki’s wedding, which I’d been more or less absent from. He likely recognized me from standing up with Aloiki before Lu’s emergency bathroom break, but he could have been any one of the bikers who attended.
“Introductions later,” he snapped, jumping right in. “What do you need from me?”
“Get mywahineoff that fucking ladder,” I growled, pissed Maisy was the one who had climbed up to start cutting the nooses.
“Excuse me, pretty lady,” Aero said up to Maisy as two other men came into the room, also in cuts.
I noticed how Jocelyn placed herself in front of the other women, and thought that very admirable of her. “They’re with me,” I assured her as I lifted the third woman off the construction horse.
“That’s not the vote of confidence you think it is,” she snapped back, though I saw her relax slightly. “I’ve been raped twice today and flogged for someone else’s sick pleasure. Forgive me if I’m a bit wary to believe you. You could just as easily be rivals looking to gain our trust before turning around and selling us yourselves.”
That was a fair enough statement. None of the women had reason to trust me anymore than they did a stranger on the street. In hopes that it helped her anxiety, I handed Jocelyn my pocket knife. She could keep it if it made her feel safer.
With the help of Aero and his brothers, we were quickly able to get the rest of the women down.
“I’m leaving you four gifts downstairs,” I informed Aero. “The parents are coming with us. We have four more packages to pick up, then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“You’re certainly Paniolo’s,” Aero said with a crooked smile. “We’ll keep you informed of any information we find.”
I nodded my appreciation, and then waited patiently as Maisy said goodbye and gave well-wishes to the ten women her parents had been holding captive.
Deepin the Florida Everglades was a commune filled with an anti-government militia. While their beliefs were quite radicalized, I completely understood the distaste for a government who had no respect for the culture they’d trampled over in their quest to gain mineral, food, and/or land rights. No apology would ever change what had been done to my people, or the indigenous people of many lands.
The leader of the militia was called Bubba, and while I knew that was not his real name, I respected his choice to not offer it to me. Just as he only knew me as Ano, which could be either my first name, last name, or pseudonym. This was the first time I was meeting him in person, though we’d had various dealings over the years. His people often found buried or hidden treasure in these parts that helped them fund their operation.
The large air boat taking us to the commune held myself, Maisy, our six captives, and Bubba, who was driving. Maisy kept eyeing the rifle strapped to Bubba’s back, but I did not fret. He let me keep my weapons after all. In addition to the money I had offered him, I also had gifted him a crate of grenades for allowing us onto his land, something very few outsiders had ever been allowed before. Here,wewere thehaoles.
Bubba’s people met us to help us unload our cargo. I glared at the man who offered Maisy a hand down off the boat, but did notvoice a protest because my hands were full of her bound and gagged father.
Since Maisy could not remember all the last names of her tutors, it took some doing to track them down, including having to question her parents, but we finally got them all.
Multiple times a day, weFaceTimedwith Samantha. Maisy was missing her something awful—I was too—but Maisy had never been away from her daughter like this. Thankfully Unko Saga was treating Samantha like she was royalty, and was spoiling her rotten. We got endless pictures each day, including one of Samantha meeting a little boy at the playground.
I was ready to cut the kid’s balls off for touching my daughter before Maisy reminded me that his hadn’t even dropped yet. I wasnotgoing to handle puberty well.
Maisy wanted more kids, which I was very open to. I’d grown up an only child and would love to have a house full of Little Bastards running around. But with the news of my low sperm count, there was little chance that I would genetically be able to father any children. We still had other options, including sperm donors or adoption, but we also agreed that that was a conversation for another day when we weren’t plotting her parents’ murders.