A-Cup Angst Ch. 15

He used the Force to open the side door and dashed into the dorm. Cutting straight through it was the faster way to the back door. He let the Force guide him as he parkoured his way through the narrow corridors and bounded over furniture. In seconds, he made his way through the whole dorm and was out the back door. He saw two SUVs with tinted back windows turn a corner in the distance. The madam, the goons and Mara had to be in them. Jamie nearly panicked as he realized Mara was most likely in mortal danger. He ran after them with all the speed he could muster. He retreated into his calm center and forced himself to analyze the situation calmly and rationally.

The madam must have been told that he and she came in together and that probably sent her into a frenzy of suspicion. She charmed Mara into coming along for questioning later on at a secure location. He didn't want to think what the madam would do with Mara after she told her all about him and their connection. He hoped his terrible reputation as the Bludgeoner would give the madam some pause and make her spare Mara as a bargaining chip, but he feared most that the witch would just kill her and cut her losses. She had been so blasé about having girls killed. Plus, he had told Mara that he didn't have magic anymore. If he had still been a magician, then he could have hoped for this witch to crap her pants and let go of Mara. "She might disbelieve Mara about me being a mundane," he told himself, but he didn't really buy it.

Jamie rounded the corner they had turned, only to find the road empty. He gasped for breath and cast his gaze about. The cars were already too far away and he couldn't follow them. He saw no security cameras nearby and he retraced his steps towards the dorm. There were no cameras overlooking the dorm's parking lot or the access road. He went back into the dorm itself and found Mara's room. He was shocked to find that all of her belongings were gone. He found nothing he could take and give to someone who could scry on her location. His face took on a grim cast. The witch was probably going to kill Mara and dump her corpse where it would not be found. Why else would she take everything that could be used to scry on her?

Jamie breathed through his rising rage. "I've fucked up," he told himself. "I should have split skulls as soon as I came in and left the mess for the cops to sort out. I should have gotten Mara out, whatever the cost." From his inner place of calm, he let the rage and guilt fade away. This wasn't about him. This was about Mara. He needed to find her and save her. He needed to think about the situation calmly and without passion clouding his judgment. He needed to get into the woman's head and discern her motives and future actions.

"In crime," Jamie thought to himself, "the motive was always either passion or money, or sometimes both." This witch probably got off on enslaving and pimping out young women, but she charged for it. Jamie nearly slapped his forehead and said, "D'oh," as he realized he could trace the money.

He dashed out of the dorm, parkouring his way across and around the furniture and the still half-asleep young women milling about the halls. He went out the side door and ran to his car. He got in and powered up his laptop to trace where his money had gone. It was an anonymous, numbered account, just like the one he had paid her from. He winced. The bank it was in was renowned for its electronic security measures. He had next to no chance of hacking into its database of authorization codes and taking the witch's money to ransom it for Mara's life. Even if he did, she could fix it all in minutes with just a phone call. He probed the network with Nova's algorhythms and managed to find out that the account had been opened around the time Mara came to Florence. He examined the account's activity log and saw that it had no withdrawals. There were only payments to it.

He traced all the payments back to their owners and identified the witch's client list. Now he had something he could bargain with, exposing all of her clients. Jamie paused, not letting his sense of triumph overwhelm him. Why had there been no withdrawals from the account? He cross-referenced the bank accounts of her clients and soon found another thing they had in common in recent history. They had all made similar payments to a different numbered account that had been closed since and had its balance transferred to a bank in Luxembourg, where the funds had been withdrawn in cash. As he looked further back in history, that previous account had more people depositing money into it and he then found records of yet another, older account that the witch had been using to collect her payments. That account's patrons were almost completely different from the ones patronizing her current account.

Jamie wiped his face in disappointment. The witch changed her customers over time. If he threatened her with exposure, she'd likely just retrieve her funds, cut her losses and set up shop somewhere else. And she'd definitely kill Mara in retaliation. He couldn't call the cops to raid the dorm out of fear for Mara's safety. If the girl was even still alive, the only thing that would keep her alive was if the witch didn't know what Jamie's game was and what he was going to do. The witch would be wise to keep her around as a bargaining chip. Jamie chose to proceed as if Mara was still alive. He had no other option. If Mara was dead, than she was dead and there was nothing he could do. But, if she was still alive, then he had an obligation to act accordingly.

He quickly ran through his options. He could go visit all the cemeteries of Florence and the surrounding area, but that would only lead him to the discovery of her corpse after it was too late. He could stake out the account and wait for the witch in Luxembourg after she chose to empty it, but that would also probably only happen after it was too late for Mara. He could try and do a blood scry on the girl, but he feared that wherever she was kept, it would be warded against it. Still, it was an option. He looked up Mara's mother online and found out that she lived in New Mexico. He could call Caitlin Ford in California and have her find Mrs. O'Donnell and obtain a lock of her hair and then fly it to Florence to do a blood scry for him. It was a long shot, but one that would be worth a try.

Jamie had a better idea he wanted to try first. He hacked into the telecom's records and tried to find out how the current clients received notice of when the brothel was in operation. He soon learned they all received a text message with a time and date from a pre-paid burner phone. The phone would be turned off as soon as the messages were sent and it never popped up on the network again, meaning that it was probably immediately destroyed. Jamie retrieved the info of which tower the cell phones had been using during that time and projected it on a map. During the past few months, those burner phones had been used in the center of Florence.

After some more hacking, he managed to find out that the phones in question had been bought just minutes before their use at various shops in the center of the city. He drove to those shops and used the Force to break in and look at their security footage. It was of no use. Half of them didn't have any security cameras, and the other half recycled their tapes so they only had them from the day before. Jamie had no image of the buyer of the phones to run through databases. His lips drew down in a displeased grimace. Their choice of shops was most likely intentional.

His only real option of finding the witch was if he went around and asked her most recent clients how they had heard of her in the first place. He hesitated. That might lead to them calling the witch and telling her that he was looking for her. Jamie weighed the pros and cons for a few minutes. If they did have a way of contacting her, then he'd simply have to beat it out of them first and trace it to the witch madam's location. He looked up the most recent client's address and drove there. It was a villa on the outskirts of Florence. The man, Guido, lived there with his family. He was some kind of big shot, Jamie guessed, based on his security. Jamie parked, got out of the car and walked up to the gate where the armed and armored guard challenged him. Jamie sensed he was new at his post.

"I am invited in," Jamie said, putting all of his Force ability behind his voice.

The guard looked uncertain for a moment, then opened the gate and allowed Jamie to go in. Jamie let the Force guide him to the dining room where Guido was having breakfast with his family. He shook his head grimly. Guido had a teenaged daughter that was only a few years younger than the girls he had been violating all night long. Jamie couldn't fathom how the man rationalized his actions to himself. As he gazed at the man with his enhanced senses, he detected that Guido was carrying an emergency beacon. He sent his senses out and detected that the hub for the system was in the den. Jamie took a photo of the family and then went to the den.

After he disabled the alarm system, he sent the photo to Guido, accompanied by the text, "Come to the den, or I kill them all." He sensed Guido receive and view the picture. Guido then activated his alarm, excused himself from the table and went to the den. He paused in the hallway, looking around for his security staff that should have met him there already. Jamie opened the door and dragged the man inside. "Be quiet," he hissed. "If your family comes here, I'll kill them all." Jamie had no intention of harming Guido's family, but he had to make a very convincing show of it if he was going to get any info out of him. He deposited the scared man into a chair. "The brothel from last night! How did you first come to hear of it?"

"What?"

Jamie grabbed Guido's arm and twisted it, making him yelp in pain. "I told you to be quiet," he said. "Unless you want me to rape your wife and daughter?"

"No," Guido hissed in panic, "please, no!"

"If you don't want me to hurt your loved ones," Jamie said, "then tell me how you first came to hear of the brothel from last night!"

"I don't know what-" he started saying. He was interrupted by Jamie giving him another painful twist of his arm.

"Are you trying to stall for time," Jamie asked. "Your security detail isn't coming. And even if they were..."

"Who sent you?!"

Jamie punched Guido with all his might. It felt good, in a way, for him to be able to vent his frustrations like that. He forced such feelings out of his mind and refocused on the task at hand. He seized Guido's almost insensate form and put him in a stress position on his knees. He applied torque to Guido's shoulders and the man clenched up in agony.

"Wait," Guido begged, "wait!"

Jamie activated the stopwatch feature on his phone and held it up before Guido's face. "You have one more minute to tell me how you came to hear of the brothel in the first place," he said. "After that, I cripple you and drag you to the dining room so you can watch me violate your women, just like you did all night long."

"Are you with," Guido said and groaned in agony, "with the police?"

"Tick, tock," Jamie calmly said.

Guido struggled futilely some more, but he cracked when he saw the timer count down to ten. "Carlo told me about it," he all but yelled in pain.

"Which Carlo," Jamie asked. He could sense Guido was telling him the truth. The man was envisioning a meeting he had with this Carlo where he had been told all about the brothel after they had a few drinks to celebrate a business partnership.

"Carlo Tomassi," Guido said.

Jamie could tell he was telling the truth. He stopped the timer. "And how do you get in touch with the madam of the brothel?"

"I don't," Guido said. "None of us do. She sends us a text message telling us when the place is open for business. We're not allowed to visit there otherwise. She's dangerous! You don't want to cross her!"

Much to his distress, Jamie could tell that that was also true. Guido definitely knew of no way to contact the madam, even if he wanted to do it. "And how does she let you know that the brothel has changed venue?"

"In the texts," Guido said through gritted teeth. "If the place changed address, she'd send us the new address when she sends us the time and date. Let me go! Please!"

Jamie let go of Guido and the man collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap. He nearly cried with relief. Jamie crouched by his head and said, "If you try and tell anyone about my visit and what we just discussed... If you call the cops, Carlo Tomassi, your priest, anyone at all... I'll come back here, slaughter your security, cripple you and make you watch as I rape and cripple your family. All of them. Are we clear?"

Guido nodded frantically. Jamie could sense he had made quite an impression on the man. He stood up and left the villa, giving the guard at the gate a jaunty wave goodbye. As soon as he got to his car, he took control of every number Guido and his family had. Whatever call they made, it would get routed to his laptop first. He also had his server continually record the audio the phones' microphones were picking up. He set one of Nova's old voice recognition algorhythms to transcribe all the conversations and identify keywords in the recordings almost simultaneously as they were being made. If Guido tried to tell anyone about Jamie's visit, Jamie would know about it instantly.

He checked the address of Carlo Tomassi in his list of clients and drove off towards him. He had barely rounded the corner from Guido's street when his daughter's cellphone dialed Tomassi's phone. Jamie put his bluetooth earpiece on and said, "Very well, Guido. I'll be back later to violate your family. Don't worry, I'll bring some friends and we'll make it a real party."

He heard a frightened gasp on the other end of the line and then Guido's tearful voice said, "No, please! Don't! I'm-"

Jamie ended the call and drove on. He received no notices about Guido making any more attempts to tell anyone about Jamie's visit. He found Tomassi at his workplace, feeling smug and satisfied. The receptionist at the front door didn't even look up as Jamie walked right passed her. Tomassi's personal secretary saw him coming and sat up straight to challenge him. Jamie could tell she was too focused after her three early morning coffees to fall for a Jedi mind trick so he smiled a charming smile and said, "Please tell mister Tomassi that Guido Salvatore sent me on a private matter. I'll only take up a minute of his time."

The secretary asked him to have a seat as he waited and then relayed his words to her boss through the intercom. "Mister Tomassi will see you now," she said, after a minute, and indicated the door.

Jamie nodded gratefully and went in. Tomassi was sitting behind his desk, still basking in the delight of last night. His defenses were completely lowered, helped by the fact that he thought Jamie was there on an errand from his trusted friend and valued associate.

Jamie out all his power behind his voice as he said, "I am a close friend of Guido's. I am trusted with the secret of the brothel from last night." Carlo smiled serenely. "I wish to know how to join in the fun."

Carlo gave a small, dismissive wave of his hand. "We just bring you with us the next time it's open and you are vetted at the door," he said. "All we have to do is vouch for you. I vouched for Guido, you know."

"And how do I contact the madam if I wish for something special," Jamie asked.

"You don't," Carlo said. "You won't need to. The place has everything you could possibly want. And even if it doesn't, it will be provided for you the next time you visit. They figure out exactly what you want, even if you don't know it yet yourself. And then they give it to you." He sighed in delight. "It is heaven."

"And how did you come to learn about it," Jamie asked.

"Giovanni told me," Carlo said. He smiled as he revisited that glad memory.

Jamie snuck a peak at it. He gleaned Giovanni's identity and confirmed that Carlo had been telling him the truth. "There is no need to ever tell anyone about this meeting," Jamie said, putting all the power of his mind behind his words.

"No need," Carlo said and nodded.

Jamie left the man's office and checked on the location of this Giovanni character. He was from Milan and was staying in a hotel in Florence. He belonged to an older set of the witch's patrons and he apparently came here just to visit the brothel. Jamie drove to the hotel and was surprised to find that the extremely wealthy man had stayed in a small room near the ground floor. As he went to the door of the room, he sensed the man's mind and gleaned two things: Giovanni was packing to leave for the nearby train station on foot and Giovanni was deathly afraid of heights and flying.

Jamie snorted a laugh and went to the elevators. He went to the top floor and then climbed up on the roof of the hotel. He knew that Giovanni would walk down the side street on his way to the train station. He stood on the ledge overlooking the alleyway and waited. Soon, Giovanni walked down the street, dragging his luggage on wheels behind himself and whistling softly.

Jamie extended both his arms towards the man on the street below and put all his power into seizing him. He felt the man's panic and fear overwhelm him as he began to float straight up in the air. To Giovanni, it felt like gravity had suddenly stopped working for him and it was his worst fear come true. He flailed his limbs uselessly as he floated higher and higher. He was silent as the grave. His voice quit on him in panic.

When Jamie lifted the man to the height of the roof, he made him float there in mid-air and said, "Hello, Giovanni. Let's have a little talk!" Giovanni just stared at him in uncomprehending horror. "You are going to tell me how you first came to learn of the brothel you visited last night and then you're going to tell me how to get in touch with the madam."

Giovanni just flailed his limbs about, looking like he was trying to swim to the relative safety of the high rooftop Jamie was standing on. Jamie let go of the man and he fell. Giovanni's voice came back to him and he screamed as he plummeted to his death. Jamie telekinetically stopped his descent midway and pulled him up to his level again. He gave Giovanni a questioning look with eyebrows raised.

Giovanni was hyperventilating and looking at him with wild eyes. "She," he gasped. "She, she, she, she came to me. Three years ago! She came to me in a hotel in Geneva! She asked me if I wanted to have all my desires fulfilled!" Jamie could tell the man was telling the truth. His blind fear had rendered his mind an open book. "I thought she meant herself and I said yes, but she took my number and then invited me to her brothel! I, I, I can't get in touch with her! No one can! She texts us! She sends us text messages when the brothel is open! It's in an all-girl dormitory next to this Piazza! I forget the address, but I can show you! I swear! If, if, if you want to come, too! I'll take you there! That's all it takes! I take you there and I vouch for you at the door! And you're in! I'll take you there!"

"No more brothels for you," Jamie said and let go of Giovanni. The man shrieked in dread and agony as he fell to his death. The street rushed up to meet him in a scene from his worst nightmares. Just as he was going to die, his descent slowed and he gently landed next to his luggage. He lay prostrate on the floor, his heart beating more wildly that he had ever thought possible. He hugged the cold, unyielding and dirty asphalt of the sidewalk and cried.

Jamie descended the fire escape jumping from landing to landing, using the Force to enhance his grip and strength. When he jumped down next to Giovanni, he stood over the man and said, "You're not going to tell anyone anything about this little chat, are you?" Giovanni shook his head as much as he could, considering that he was shaking all over. "Good boy."