He turned away and made a call to one of the three people stationed here in the airport. When the call was answered, Stafford told the man to get him a ticket for first class if possible. First on, first off. Each of his agents had the right fake credentials to purchase the ticket, but no photo ID was needed to actually board, so Stafford could remain where he was. Then he called Dingo and requested passenger manifests for every plane leaving in the next two hours, especially the ones getting ready to board for Italy.

Once that was done, he turned back.

And Joe Ledger was gone.

INTERLUDE 14

THE PAVILION

BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER

STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON

ONE MONTH AGO

Eve stood in the corner, her back squeezed into the cleft of two walls, fists knotted and held to her mouth.

The room was awash in blood.

Two of the Fixers—not her precious Righteous, but highly trained agents nonetheless—lay on the bed. And off it. And across the room. How could all those pieces ever have come from just the two of them?

She was naked, her thighs and breasts streaked with red. None of it hers.

The intensity was gone now, vanishing even faster that it had come on.

How long ago was it all different? She wasn’t sure.

At first, it was nice. Beautiful. Two of them—ripped, chiseled, hard, huge. Fucking her. Fucking each other. Doing whatever she told them to do even though neither was gay or even bi. They were hers, and she was Santoro’s, and no one said no.

She’d picked them because they were so straight. That was a game. Make the straight ones do what she wanted. Kissing, sucking, stroking, fucking. Coming inside each other. That had been an old game. One she used to play with Adam. Find the straight ones, male and female, and try to reshape them. Open them up, liberate their thinking. Expand their minds.

Some—more than a few—liked it.

These men did not, but what choice did they have? If they rebelled, if they walked out on her, Daddy would punish them. No one wanted that. Tougher men than these had broken down crying at the thought. One Fixer had hanged himself because he thought that Daddy was going to punish him in some special way.

Her sessions with them had grown beyond sex games, though. It was during her second or third week at the Pavilion that she’d started with the handcuffs and the riding crop. A week later, it was a bullwhip. Oversize sex toys, including studded dildos never designed for safe anal play.

And on and on.

Things that satisfied her needs one day were pedestrian and pointless the following night. HK let her play, because she, too, was afraid of Santoro.

As for Daddy? He never said a word. Not to her. Not to anyone with authority to stop her.

And now this.