Sin grabbed a desk chair and turned it so she was sitting straddling the back. “I might not get out of here alive, but I sure as hell am not going anywhere alone.”
Veloz exhaled another lungful of smoke and was about to say something when Sin shut him up.
“You and I are going to have a conversation,” she said.
Veloz squinted and glared at Sin. “Fuck you!”
Sin waved her gun in front of Veloz. “Judging from my vantage point, you don’t have what it takes.”
Veloz flicked his cigarette at her and went to yell when she fired a bullet into his other shoulder. Before he could scream, she was off the chair and smothering the fat man with a pillow.
“I would love to suffocate your fat ass, but I have questions that you’re going to answer.” With a final shove, she removed the pillow from his face.
Veloz struggled for a breath like a drowning victim coming up from the deep. When he opened his mouth wide, Sin stuck the barrel of her gun in his mouth.
She thumbed the hammer back and applied slight pressure to the trigger. “Do I have your attention, asshole?”
Veloz nodded as best he could with the barrel buried in his mouth.
“How are you getting the girls to Heap?”
She removed the barrel of the gun, so he could speak.
“What you talking ‘bout?”
Sin lowered the gun and shot out his right knee.
“Fuck!” The word was guttural and weak.
His agony was stifled by the barrel back in his mouth. “I have more bullets than you have joints, is that understood?”
Veloz’s extremities began to quiver as did a slight facial twitch.
“I will ask you again, how do you get the girls to the Keys?”
Veloz’s strength seamed to wan as the twitching and trembling increased. “A fish . . . fishing boat picks them up from pier behind building.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard. Next question, when is the next shipment?”
“Sunrise, a boat will come.”
“Where are the girls now?”
“How fuck I know. I just know they be here at sunrise to meet boat.”
“Then what happens?”
“The merchandise is inspected,” a perverted smirk swept over him, “maybe I keep pick of litter for myself, and money is exchanged for whores.”
Sin backhanded him with the butt of her gun. “They are innocent young children, not whores.”
Veloz sat back up in the bed and steadied himself. “Maybe in your world, but in this one, they are what I want them to be.” He spoke without emotion. It was enough to make Sin’s flesh crawl. “Even their parents don’t want them. Do you think the parents don’t know what is going to happen to their babies? Hell, they dress them up and make them look pretty just so my men will pick them.”
Sin knew this to be true but hearing it still hurt.
“They would rather have the money we give them than their own children. When money is paid, they are merchandise,” he sneered. “If you kill me, what do you think will happen? Do you think this all go away?” he said. “Another one just like me is going to come along and do the same thing.”
Sin ignored his last comment. “Tell me about the girl in the other room.”
“Ahh,” he smiled. “She is special. She is to be a gift to El Presidente.”
Sin shoved her gun forward, pressing the end of the barrel to Veloz’s forehead. “Who the fuck is El Presidente?”
Veloz laughed. “If I told you, I would die a much worse death than you could ever imagine.”
“What is the girl’s name?”
“It will be whatever is chosen for her. For now it is Tia.”
Sin kept a stone-cold demeanor, not letting on the name meant something to her. That was why Alejandra couldn’t find her daughter, she never left Nicaragua.
Sin shook the thoughts from her mind. “I’ll ask you one more time, who is El Presidente?”
Veloz spewed a frothy laugh. “You are very good at your job,” he said, “it’s too bad we couldn’t have worked together.”
Sin held her pistol toward Veloz’s other leg. “I’m pretty sure I won’t miss from here. Care to change your answer?”
Sin could see that Veloz’s color was completely ashen and looked cold and clammy. “I don’t know. All I know is that he is part of your own government and he calls the shots along with Black Widow.”
“Stop with the bullshit and give me names.” She pressed the muzzle of the gun against his forehead.
Veloz gurgled a blood frothed laugh. “Names? You know how game is played. If I knew names, I would be dead a long time ago.”
Sin became flush with anger.
She knew the mole had to be high up in the chain of command, but she didn’t know he was part of the human trafficking ring.
Her expression must have given her away.
“What’s the matter, Angel? They are no different than you or me,” he nodded toward the woman crawling on the carpet, “or the whore over there. We all want something and will do anything to get it.”
His words got Sin’s attention. “Care to explain?” she said.
Veloz, feeling superior for the first time in this exchange, sat a bit straighter. “The whore will do anything for her next high.” Sin followed his eyes. “Look at her, she will crawl naked across the floor just to try to get to the cocaine on the table. Pff,” he mumbled, “for the needle, she will spread her legs or open her mouth for anybody.”
Sin watched the woman as she reached the table and stuck her face in a bowl of coke, snorting with her remaining strength. Lifting her head, she looked like a kid eating a powdered donut.
“Me,” Veloz said totally unfazed, “I do what I do for power.”
“You mean money,” Sin said.
“You insult me, Angel. I have more money than I can ever spend. Power is my―how you say in English―my aphrodisiac. Drugs, girls, guns,” he paused, an evil expression flushed his complexion, “they are
