The voice is slimy and unwelcome, and when I turn to see who it is, I cringe.
“Simon leBanc,” I snarl.“What the fuck areyoudoing here?”
The man has no place in any of the families, and even less in my father’s private party.He’s no one of account, not even attached to anyone important, and the last time I saw him, he was running small-time rackets for bounty hunters in town.He’s no one, an outlaw and a freelancer, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything good about him.
Of course, I haven’t been here in five years.I suppose things may have changed.
But judging by the way his eyes are dipping down over my breasts and belly, I’m guessing they haven’t.
“I could ask the same of you,” he says quietly.“The last I heard, you and your father were on the outs.”He looks out over the room, then glances back at me, his eyes full of meaning.“What could he have done, I wonder, to tempt you back into his sphere?”
I don’t have to ask to hear what he’s saying.He knows my father is up to no good, and thinks that me being here means I’m in the same boat.Hell, maybe he thinks I even approve of what Dominick Landry is doing.
The thought makes me want to throw up all over him, but I stop myself, considering.Because how would Simon leBanc know anything about anything?He’s not well-connected.Just a low-level contractor.A gun for hire, and nothing more.
“What are you doing here, Simon?”I ask quietly.
He shrugs and turns again to the room.“Came up for a break.I’ve been downstairs with the merchandise.Deciding what’s worth keeping and what’s worth selling.If you catch my drift.”
Drift?
Catch hisdrift?
What the fuck is the man even talking about?
Then I start to parse through his words and find the meaning in them.He’s been with the merchandise.The girls.And he’s been downstairs.The basement.
There are girls in the basement, and he’s been in charge of figuring out which ones to send to shipment, and which to keep.
I don’t understand that part, because why would they ‘keep’ any of them when they could sell them, but I remember the shipment that’s happening tonight and realize that Simon is giving me information I didn’t have before.I’d guessed that there were girls in the basement, but I didn’t know for sure.
And now I do.
Is Simon...on my side?Lucien said he’d been working with the man while I was being held prisoner, but I’d written that off as unimportant.Now I realize that I might not be the only one Lucien has on the inside of my father’s operation.
Only one way to find out.
“And did you find much merchandise to sell?”I asked, fighting to keep my voice casual.
He chuckles like he’s impressed that I caught on to his code, and my fingers itch to strangle him.
“About fifty pieces,” he says.“Though there were one hundred to choose from.”
My blood freezes.One hundred.There are one hundred girls in the basement, and they’ve chosen fifty of them to send out.Which means fifty are staying, though I don’t know what will happen to them after tonight.
One hundred girls downstairs.
Girls I could save.
“There’s one piece in particular,” he says.“That one’s not here, but it’s close.Awfully interesting.More valuable than the others.I don’t think we’ll sell it, though.”When he turns to me, his face is more serious than I’ve ever seen it.“That one’s not for collectors.Your father is hoping to sell it back to the person he stole it from.”
He disappears before I can ask for anything else, melting away like smoke in the fucking wind, and I stare at where he was standing, my mind caught between wanting to rush after him and trying to figure out what he just told me.
One hundred girls.Fifty are shipping out tonight.
And one piece is so valuable my father is hoping to sell it back to whoever he stole it from.
What in the eternal baby Jesus doesthatmean?
