Read The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture for Free Online Page A

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 at, judging by your expression. So what do you think, shall I burn him like a filthy rag? Or will you crawl over there and prove you both deserve a place here?” She read his face again, waiting for something. “Not as smart as I thought, then, but oh well. Come clean him, hole. If he passes inspection, I’ll let you both through. If not . . .”
    Clean him .
    Clean him.
    Clean him.
    The words didn’t make sense. Ran together. Came out garbled, like they weren’t in English. He realized it was because he didn’t want to know what they meant. Because knowing what they meant would mean asking—
    “With what?”
    She smiled. “I think even you must know the answer to that.”
    The only thing he had, of course.
    Bile rose in his throat. “No.” Please no.
    “Mat, please . . .” Dougie’s voice was high and reedy.
    “No?” the woman asked him, quite politely, as if he’d refused her offer for a second helping of dessert. “All right, then. Gentlemen, dispose of them both.”
    “ Wait! ” Mat cried as one of the heavies said, “But—”
    “Did I ask for your fucking opinion?” the woman said to the heavy—ignoring Mat completely. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m richer than the queen. I can absorb the loss of these two. You can’t. Maybe it’ll teach you not to bring your dirty spunk-soaked trash to my door and tell me it’s valuable product. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Yes, Madame.”
    “No!”
    Dougie again. Oh God please stop