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Bradley turns from the back door to the group behind him. Natasha, Reuban, and Bob are behind him, a few other guys a few feet further behind, and they’re all tense. They all have their guns drawn and look to Bradley for the go ahead. Mav and some others are at the front door, ready to break it down at the same time Bradley takes the back door down.
Bradley finishes the count in his head and signals to the group, counting down from five with his fingers. On one, he pushes away from the door and lifts his leg and slams it into the door, near the doorknob.
The door slams open and hits the wall and Bradley rushes through, the others all following him in. Shouts of surprise come from the room to the right and Bradley turns to it and shoots a man already going for his own weapon. The man falls to the ground with a thud and blood starts to seep into the thick rug underneath him.
More gunshots sound from throughout the home and everyone spreads out, eager to make sure all the threats are neutralized. Bradley sees movement further into the house and steps quickly through the sitting room, moving around the bodies lying dead on the rug and beautiful wood floor.
He jogs the final steps through the open doorway and sees the reason they’d had to do this raid.
Cain is rushing down the stairs, looking disheveled like he’d woken up from the gunshots, unprepared. There was a reason Mav had suggested they attack in the early hours of the morning. Less people around, less chance that their group could get hurt.
Bradley lifts his gun and fires a shot. Cain slips down the last few steps and lands on his back on the last stair.
He’s grabbing at his shoulder where Bradley’s bullet landed, and blood is spilling over his fingers and soaking into his bed shirt.
Cain looks up and fixes an ugly glare at Bradley. “You son of a bitch.”
“You should’ve kept your men out of our territory. You were warned.” Bradley growls. When Cains men had started encroaching on Bradleys territory, Mav had made sure to double their people working in the area. When that didn’t help, Bradley had approved of Mavs request to give a show of force. Three of Cains men died in the shooting, and still, Cain allowed his people to get comfortable.
“You can’t handle your family, Rooster. Ice was able to hold his enemies off with respect. You think I’m the only one who wants to take your land? Kill me if you want. The other families will come for you.” Cain says before groaning at the pain in his shoulder.
Bradley knew the other families didn’t respect him yet. Ice had only passed away a little over six months ago. He had prepared Bradley the best he could for him to take over the mantle and told Bradley that the other families would test him. Maverick had done everything he could to help Bradley take over as leader of their family, while also grieving the loss of his husband.
After multiple discussions about what to do about the problem that Cain was posing, they came to the conclusion that Cain needed to be taken out. Mav had assured him that the other families would step aside and leave him alone if they cemented Bradleys leadership.
Taking down Cain, who had been stepping on two other families territories, should do the trick.
Natasha walks up then, and stands at Bradleys side, her gun lowered. There’s a splatter of blood on her sleeve but she looks fine. “Downstairs is secure. Mick got grazed in the leg, but he’ll be fine.”
Bradley nods at her and looks back at Cain. He lifts his gun back up and points it at Cains head and takes a deep breath. Cain grins at him for a moment before closing his eyes in acceptance.
Bradley takes the shot.
Maverick comes around from the kitchen and sees Cain lying dead at the bottom of the stairs and nods. “We need to clear upstairs.” He says, before stepping over the body and climbing the stairs.
Natasha puts a hand on Bradleys arm and squeezes before following Mav. Bradley takes a moment to try to settle the adrenaline pounding in his body and follows.
Up the hard wood stairs, the second floor is open, on the right, there are three doorways, Mav already going through them with his gun up in front of him. Natasha is on the left, opening one door and disappearing for a moment before heading to the last door.
She opens it and steps inside quietly.
Bradley takes a step forward and looks around. Cain ran drugs and got a lot of money out of it and his home represented the amount he’d earned. It was a huge house, gaudy in the way it had been decorated, and Bradley couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a home decorated like a hotel.
“Rooster?” Natasha calls from the last room. “You should come in here.”
Maverick walks up after finishing going through the other room and Bradley heads to where Natasha called from.
When he steps inside, he sees it looks to be the master bedroom. There are drawers and other furniture made with a dark heavy wood, and glass bowls of jewelry sitting on top. Cain always had been one for overstating his wealth in how he dressed.
Bradley turns to Natasha who is standing at the end of the bed. “What is it, Nat?”
She turns to him and hesitates before pointing at the bed frame. Given that the whole house is decked out in thick rugs and rich hard wood, the metal bed frame holding up the luxury mattress does stand out. Bradleys brow furrows and he steps further into the room, trying to see what has Natasha hesitating.
At the end of the bed, on the right side, there is a cuff attached to the metal bed post. Bradley takes another step and his eyes widen when he sees the other cuff is attached to an ankle, which leads to a leg.
The leg disappears onto the floor and Bradleys gut clenches when he realizes that whoever this is had tried to get away when he’d heard the gunshots downstairs. A flash of anger hits him at the thought of the shots waking both this person and Cain, and Cain not bothering to unlock the cuffs so this person could try to get away. He had been left behind.
The leg in the cuff shifts, hardly a centimeter, and a muffled whimper is heard.
Bradley looks at Natasha and her eyes are wide. There had been stories of what Cain did to his bed partners, mostly rumors about how unwilling they were, but to see it is different.
Bradley steps the rest of the way around the bed and sees a man lying naked on the floor, half under the bed, with his right leg held up from the cuff on his ankle. It looks like he’d done the best he could to get away, or at least to avoid getting shot.
He’s shaking, lying on his stomach with his arms over his head and Bradley sees the bruises on his hips. Handprints on either side, and on his cheeks, like someone had spanked him. The ankle that is still cuffed to the bed is red and purple where the cuff is digging into his skin.
Bradley crouches down and reaches out to touch the mans leg. “Hey.”
The man jerks and whimpers at the touch and pulls his leg as hard as he can. The cuff doesn’t budge from the bed frame.
Bradley looks up at Mav and whispers. “The key?”
Mav nods and he and Natasha start going through the bedside table looking for it.
Bradley turns back to the man. “Hey, it’s ok. You’ll be ok. Can you tell me your name?”
The man tightens his arms around his head. “Please. Let me go.”
His breath seems to hitch, and Bradley realizes the man is crying quietly.
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear. I didn’t see anything, I don’t know anything.” The man begs.
Bradley shifts closer. The man sounds familiar.
“We can’t find the key, Rooster.” Mav says, pulling his attention away for a moment.
Bradley looks down at the man still on his stomach. “Do you know where the key is? Hm?”
The man is still shaking. “The top drawer, to the right of the door.”
Natasha opens the drawer and yanks clothes out and throws them onto the floor before finding the key at the back of the drawer. She rushes over and grabs the mans ankle to unlock the cuff and the man gasps and jerks.
“It’s ok, she’s just unlocking the cuff.” Bradley reassures him.
The cuff releases his ankle and the mans leg drops the rest of the way to the floor and the man grunts.
“Can you look at me? What’s your name?” Bradley asks.
The man starts to pull his arms away from his head and places his hands on the floor. With his arms out of the way, Bradley can see the ring of fingerprint bruises lining his throat and he cringes.
The man turns his head, and Bradley sees dirty blond hair, sharp cheek bones, a hell of a bump on the mans cheek, a split lip, and Bradley gasps. “….Jake?”
Jake Seresin had moved to the city about a year ago, finding a job working in a popular restaurant. He had been brazen and funny the first time he’d been Bradleys waiter and Bradley knew he had to keep coming back to hear the southern charm.
It had only taken a month of them playfully flirting for Bradley to wait for Jakes shift to end and follow Jake home to his apartment. Jake had looked so beautiful underneath Bradley and Bradley wanted to spend hours bringing those soft breathy sounds from Jakes mouth.
Bradley had done his best to be gentle, and they had started nice and slow, Bradley determined to be the best Jake ever had. Slow and soft didn’t last long once Jake had looked up at him, the bedside lamp casting shadows across his soft eyelashes, and whispered, “That the best you can do, sweetheart?”, and grinned at Bradley like he knew he was going to get exactly what he wanted. Who was Bradley to not give Jake everything he could?
In the afterglow, they had spoken about Jakes past, how he had left Texas looking for a better paying job. The underlying feeling that he wasn’t saying the entire reason he had left his home was easy for Bradley to overlook.
Bradley, himself, hadn’t told Jake the entire truth of his own work and couldn’t fault Jake for keeping some things private. Over the next month, Bradley had continued to go to the restaurant as often as he could, even with Ice’s worsening illness, and endured teasing from Mav about where he could be disappearing to.
A month after Ice had passed, Jake was gone. Bradley had gone to the restaurant and asked for him, but the managers all told him that Jake had no called no showed too many times, and they’d had to let him go.
Bradley had called him enough times and left enough messages for Jakes voicemail to fill up, so he’d gone by Jakes apartment. After knocking on the door and calling out for Jake to open it and to just talk to him, Bradley had started to take the hint and left.
The ache he felt in his heart had been hard to work through. Bradley had thought he and Jake were doing good, even while Bradley hadn’t told Jake exactly what he did for work, and to be cut off with no explanation hadn’t ever settled well inside him.
“Jake?” Bradley called again and reached forward to grab Jakes arms.
Jake gasped and cringed, trying to pull away before looking up at Bradley.
Up close, Bradley could see the remnants of a black eye, a swollen cheek and the fresh split lip, and up close, Bradley could see Jake lose any color he had left in his face, and his eyes widen as Jake seemed to recognize Bradley.
Jake pulled his arms out of Bradleys grasp fully and scooted into a curled up position by the bed and wall. “Please, let me go, I swear I didn’t say anything, I didn’t! I didn’t know!” Jake pleaded, wrapping his arms around his legs that were folded in front of him.
Bradley shook his head and leaned closer. “Jake, no. What are you talking about? Have you been here this whole time? It’s been almost five months.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know anything, I swear. Please, let me go.” Jake continued to plead.
Bradley is just about to reach forward for Jake again when Maverick catches his attention.
“We need to get out of here, Bradley.” He says calmy, even while he looks disgusted with the situation.
Bradley nods, at a loss for words. He stands up straight and watches as Jake flinches at the movement and curls tighter around himself.
“Nat, can you…?” He starts before trailing off. He doesn’t know what to say.
Natasha understands his lack of instruction anyway, and steps forward. She whispers something to Jake and although Bradley can’t hear what is said, he can see Jake starting to relax his arms around himself.
“We’ll meet you guys at the van.” Natasha says, motioning for Bradley and Mav to leave them alone.
Bradley nods again and walks in what feels like slow motion out the door with Mav.
The walk down the stairs feels surreal. Jake has been held captive by a rival family for almost five months and Bradley didn’t even know. Looking back at the last four months, the places in their own territory that Cain encroached on were all places Bradley had taken Jake on dates.
That was why Cains decision to bully his way into Roosters land was so odd. His men kept showing up on corners of easy going areas, not the best places for Cains men to sell their drugs. The realization that Cain was probably beating information out of Jake settles like a pit in Bradleys stomach.
Jake’s continuous promises that he hadn’t said anything, that he didn’t know anything, all fall into place in Bradleys mind. Jake gave up places Bradley had taken him. Cain had probably asked for information on Rooster, and once the confusion of who Rooster was passed, because like hell Bradley would ever tell Jake the name the family had given him, Jake gave what he could.
Jake is such a firecracker and to know that Cain had absolutely beaten him for information is heartbreaking. Bradley cringes to himself wondering if the rape had started during Cains interrogations or if Jake had thought he was finally free, only to be led to Cains bed.
Bradley comes back to himself when Mav grabs his arm and guides him into the passenger seat of one of their vans and shoos Mavs hands away before he can do his own seatbelt.
Mav settles into the drivers side and looks at him. Bradley isn’t brave enough to look back. “It’s gonna be ok, kid. We’ll get him back to our place and take care of him.” He pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing. “We need to talk to him, though. I know he’s gonna need rest and we’re not going to interrogate him, but we need to know what he told Cain and what he knew about the families.”
Bradley turns to look at Mav so fast his neck twinges. “Jesus Christ, Mav. We just found him chained to Cains fucking bed and you want to ask him about it? He doesn’t know anything! Cain took him from me! Cain had to have been watching me, and he took Jake because of me. I never told Jake anything about the family and I still put him in danger and he got hurt.”
Mav looks at him like he might break. “This is the man you kept running off to while Ice was sick right? You never told me his name, but this is him?” He asks.
Bradley exhales shakily. “Yeah. Yeah, his name is Jake. He was my waiter and I just kept coming back. I never told him who I was or what I did for work. He ghosted me, or I thought he ghosted me, about five months ago. I thought he just didn’t want to see me again. I didn’t know…I could never imagine that Cain had him.”
They’re pulled out of their conversation when the back door is opened and Natasha guides Jake into the backseat. He’s been dressed in Cains clothes, and they hang loose off his frame.
Jake was fit and well built last time Bradley had seen him and knowing that Jake had lost so much weight in captivity makes Bradley want to cry.
Natasha buckles Jake in and hurries around the van to get in the other seat. Everyone else who came on the raid can catch a ride in another vehicle, so Mav turns the car on and pulls away from the house.
It’s so quiet in the car and Bradley doesn’t know what to do with it. He wants more than anything to turn around and hold Jake, but how can he? He’s the one who put Jake in danger just by being with him, and Jake had flinched away when he recognized Bradley. Bradley realizes that Cain might have told Jake that if he ever got away, Bradley would come after him.
Jake had given up information, not important information, but Jake doesn’t know that. Does he think that he’s being driven to a new prison, taken to another nightmare, preparing himself to be beaten and raped again?
Bradley closes his eyes and leans back against the head rest. He doesn’t know what to do.