A ship carrying women. Women from foreign countries, stolen from the streets, sold by their families for survival, coerced into signing their deal with the devil.
A horn sounds. I squint into the gloom as the ship pulls up alongside the docks. It’s big, larger than I expected. I swallow hard. I’ll never rid my mouth of the taste of their blood.
Men swarm the decks, doing what they need to do to secure the vessel and unload the valuable cargo. They wear the uniforms of the dock workers, but I know they’re really Brutus’ soldiers, here to make sure everything goes without a hitch.
Not Brutus’ soldiers.Mysoldiers.
Po mutters into a walkie-talkie. A truck pulls up, the doors open and a metal ramp is laid out. Men emerge from the ship’s cargo hold. They brandish guns and bark orders. The women step out, timidly at first, shaky on their legs. They wobble and hold each other as they descend the gangway into the waiting truck. Their feet never touch American soil – the home of the free is so close and yet impossible to reach.
My hands ball into fists.
Men poke the women with the butts of their rifles. Some grow impatient and shove their captives, or drag them toward the truck. Hair flies, and threadbare clothing rips as the women tear at each other to get away from their captors.
This is done under my name.
Not anymore.
“Shut it down,” I growl.
Po turns to me. “Imperator, that’s not—”
“Shut this down,now.”
He taps the aerial of his walkie-talkie against the guardrail. “Nero is expecting this shipment. The truck goes straight to his compound. If you don’t deliver, it will—”
“I don’t fucking care. Did you survive Brutus’ reign by demonstrating such disobedience? Because it’s not a great way to begin our working relationship. Turn this ship around right now. Take these women home.”
“These women and their families have paid for their passage to America, the land of milk and honey. Many of them are coming from poverty, war, abuse. If you turn this ship around, they will leap to their deaths rather than go back.”
“Oh, no. We can’t have that. Far better to sell them into sexual slavery.” The ice claws at my veins. “Fine. Unload them, but don’t deliver the truck to Nero. Instead, take them to the Colosseum. I’ll figure something out.”
“But—”
“That’s an order, Po. Effective immediately, I’m reinstating my father’s code. The Augusts no longer deal in skin. If Nero has a problem, he can bring it up with me.”
Po looks like he’s debating leaping into the sea himself. “Nero’s going to have a problem. He’s expecting these girls for his NYE party. He won’t be able to source a new shipment in time.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo. I’m crying for him. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he promised bread and circuses to a bunch of sick perverts.” I throw Po my Malloy glare, and I fancy I see his heart freeze in his chest. “Follow me to the club when you’re done here. I’m going to need all hands on deck.”
33
Eli
“Fuck me, Captain America. She’s been in charge three days, and she’s signed our death warrants,” Antony growls.
I stand with him and George and Gabriel on the gangway over the arena. At least thirty women huddle below. Noah and Po help more of them stagger from the back of the van. They’re filthy and hunched from the cramped confines of the ship. Some are barely moving, their faces blank, their eyes glassed over. They remind me of Claudia’s face after she was hit by the bullet – serene, accepting.
I look at Claudia. She clenches her jaw as her icicle eyes roam over the scene. I know she’s thinking about her mother, and Brutus, and Nero, and Alec, and all the men paying a premium price to do whatever they want to these women. I imagine the tortures I’d like to inflict, but none of them seem adequate for this breed of human horror.
This is what power does to people.
I can’t bear it any longer. I clamber down the ladder and move to stand beside Claws. She won’t want me to touch her in front of her men, but she reaches out a finger and drags it across the back of my hand. It feels like a razor blade.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper.
She glares at me with those glacier eyes. “That’s a question for you to answer.”
“Me?”
