Because each man has brought along a string of girls.
And I recognize the expressions on their faces.Fear.Anguish.Confusion and betrayal and absolute, horrified realization as they look around them.
I don’t know any of the faces, not at first glance, but I know those expressions, because I spent several days inside the trafficking ring with girls who looked exactly like that.
Those are victims.Girls who’ve been kidnapped off the street or out of clubs or maybe out of their own houses–I don’t actually know what taht part of the process looks like–and have now found themselves in the worst possible position.They’re being held by men they don’t know, tossed into cells at night and told their lives no longer belong to them, and no matter how much they ask, they aren’t given any answers.They’re starting to worry that this isn’t just some joke, and that they might actually be in trouble.
Depending on how long they’ve been in the ring, they may already know exactly where they’re headed.
My stomach turns and I nearly retch at the thought, but start counting the girls, just to try to give myself something to do.Five to six attached to each man.God, that means fifty to sixty girls in this one group.A quick glance at the first three I come to tells me that they haven’t been prisoners for very long, either.They’re clean and still wearing the clothes they had on when they were kidnapped.God, they probably still smell like the perfume they put on before they left the house.
Their families might not even realize they’re missing, yet.
Those men are the collectors, then.And that makes this one of the very early distribution centers.
I turn my eyes away from the girls and try to get myself under control.There’s nothing I can do for them.Not right now, at any rate, and not by myself.I’m just one lone girl in a very expensive pants suit and heels, courtesy of the fully stocked closet I found in my room, and though I have a butterfly knife I don’t have anything else.
Everything in me is screaming to get these girls out of here.To run down to that dance floor, knife in hand, and cut each of them loose, then hustle them out of the club.Killing men as I go.
But I’d never get away with it.these men are all armed–they have to be–and I’d be dead the moment I started anything.
Dead won’t get those girls out.
But staying alive, figuring out what’s going on, and coming back for them later...
Yeah, that might work.Which means I have to play my part.
“Collection gangs?”I ask smoothly.
Andre coughs as if he’s surprised I haven’t fainted yet, and I make a mental note to slice his throat open later.I’ve always hated the man, and now that I know he’s neck-deep in my father’s plot, I hate him even more.I want to watch his eyes while he bleeds to death on the floor in front of me.
I want to see the moment he realizes he’s going to die.
“Rather more sophisticated than that,” he says, his voice as pompous as possible.
Right.So I’m also going to cut off his dick before I kill him.
“And this is some sort of distribution center?”
He nods once.“One of the first.”
Perfect.So they kidnap girls and bring them here first–which means, I assume, that most of these girls were actually kidnapped in this district.They were at the clubs and restaurants, maybe even the gambling dens, with their boyfriends or brothers.
Gambling dens.My heart freezes at the thought, because those belong to the Boudreaux.Lucien has gambling dens of his own, from what I’ve heard.I wonder if he knows about this place.If he knows that girls might be getting kidnapped from the places he owns, the tables he frequents himself.
Did he know from the start?Have any idea that this was going on?When he came to New York, he said he’d been following this ring for some time, and I suddenly wonder how much he knows.Has he been tracking them for months?Does he know any more than I do?Is there information he didn’t give me?I think that’s inevitable.He’s always run the darker side of the city, and his sources are better than anyone’s.
How much does he know about this?
And whereishe?I’ve been working so hard to figure out where I am and what my father wants with me that for a moment, I forgot that Lucien should be by my side.
And he’s not.
I let my eyes race around the room, like I might see him striding out of the backstage area and into the light, all sharp lines and dark shadows, but of course he’s not here.Instead, I just see soldier after soldier, many of them now eyeing me like I’m some sort of exotic bird to be both feared and admired.Eyes run up and down my body and come to rest on my face, calculating and curious, and I realize something else.
I don’t know any of these men, and that wouldn’t make sense if they belonged to my father.Sure, he may have hired new men for the bigger enterprise, but these men are all new to me, and that reminds me of back at the mansion, where they were all new as well.They all look much the same–dark eyes, hair, and beards, with faces that look like slabs of granite.Almost no expression.No warmth in their gaze.Just cold, hard purpose.
These men aren’t from the Big Easy.
