Falling hurts just as badly when someone is underneath you.Even worse when your head hits theirs in the process.
“Ouch!”I hiss.“Lucien, stay out of my way!”
He looks at me like I’ve just insulted his mother, the hurt and betrayal so strong on his face that for a moment, I almost laugh.
God it’s fun to piss him off.
But this is also not the time, because we’ve just been kidnapped and we’re in a load of trouble right now.Actually, scratch that.I’ve been in trouble since I got to New Orleans a week ago, intent on finding Sloane’s cousin Aislyn, who’s also been kidnapped by unknown entities.Sloane herself has hired me to find the girl, but I’d do it for free if she asked.
First because Sloane is my best friend and I would flat out die for her if it meant saving her one moment of trouble.Second because all signs point to Aislyn having been thrown into a sex trafficking ring, and no one deserves what happens to the girls and boys in those situations.Sold to men who want to use them for the most despicable things, or worse, to those houses where they’re given to a different man every night, to be used again and again.
Against their wills.
Regardless of how sick or broken they might be.
The moment Duca told me he thought traffickers might be involved, my commitment to the case increased.Because no one deserves that fate, and I wasn’t going to let Sloane’s cousin fall to it.
When Lucien showed up and told me he thought he might know what was going on, I managed to get over the fact that he was making demands I had no intention of satisfying and follow him back to the Big Easy.Because I wanted to find the people responsible for this and stop them.
Kill them if I could.
Since then...
Well, things haven’t exactly gone like I planned.I’ve been kidnapped, nearly sold, betrayed, and almost killed more times than I can count.I’ve found friends in the ring I didn’t expect and I’ve failed at saving the girls I was supposed to save.
Partially because my father showed up when I was in the middle of my mission and kidnapped me again.Along with Lucien and several of his men.
I bite my lip at that, as a strong and very intense memory comes of the moment my father found us, and I can feel the flush rising up my neck and into my face.We might have been in the middle of a mission to save the girls, but I’d been hurt and had taken shelter, and when Lucien found me...
Well, we weren’t exactly bothering with anyone else when my father walked in.
“Are youblushing?”a voice hisses in my ear.“I didn’t even think that was possible.”
I jerk out of the memory and find the man in question staring up at me looking far more pleased than he should, and wonder momentarily if he knows what I was thinking about.He’s told me more than once that I can’t keep secrets and that my face shows everything I’m thinking, and if he’s looking at me assuming he know what’s in my head, and that it warrants the smirk he’s now wearing...
He wouldn’t be wrong.
And that makes me even angrier.
“Can you be serious for more than half a second?”I snap.“We’re kind of in a bad situation here.It’s not time for jokes.”
He gives me his best side eye, damn him, then moves quickly to shift us into sitting positions.Another quick adjustment and our backs are to the driver and the men in the seats of the van.And that’s as much privacy as we’re going to get, considering we’re tied up in the back of a van that belongs to my father.
On our way to some unknown destination.
I’ve been in a lot of bad positions, but this might be one of the worst.I don’t trust my father with anything–haven’t since I was ten and my mother went out of her way to get me away from him, then insisted on sending me back to visit once a year–and I trust him even less now.I got to New Orleans, coming home like some fucking prodigal son, and almost immediately discovered that the trafficking ring that had taken Aislyn was indeed centered in NOLA.
And that my father was involved.
I’d found him trafficking girls when I was thirteen, but had put it behind me when I moved to New York permanently.Being back in that world now, and realizing that it’s so much worse than I realized...
Girls snatched off the street every day.
Held in underground distribution centers where they’re abused and ‘tested’ for how worthy they are.
Sold at auction to men they’ve known in their day-to-day lives and forced to serves as slaves.Or worse, sold to the international market.Put on ships and sent away from the city where they grew up.
And my father is involved.I don’t know what his position is or how much control he has, but the fact that he’s taking part in this makes me want to kill someone.Preferably him.
