Perfect.
I jump out of the laundry and rush for the door, opening it just far enough to see through.And then I nearly recoil in horror.The girls are filing right past me, and now that I can see their faces, I know I’ve done the right thing.They’re bruised and broken, their expressions dead.Every so often, I see one crying quietly, but they’re rare.
These girls aren’t just beaten into submission.They’ve disappeared inside themselves, trying to escape reality.
I bite my lip, my young mind tearing through the possibilities as I try to figure out what’s going on here.Are they prisoners?Slaves of some sort?I know New Orleans was once part of the south, and therefore a major port for the slave trade, but that’s been finished for years.What are these girls doing here?
What is my father doing to them?
I latch onto that question and lose focus on the girls for a moment, and in that one moment of not paying attention, everything goes wrong.Another eye appears in the crack I’m looking through, and then the door is shoved open and I’m flying backwards.Rough hands and a furious face.A shouted question about who I am and what I think I’m doing, and then a promise that he’s going to take me to my father.
He grabs me and hauls me up, then out into the hallway where I’m dragged past the broken girls, my screams hoarse and terrified.But the man is enormous and I’m small, and no matter how much I claw at him, he won’t let me go.Before I know it, we’re on the first floor and the door to my father’s office is opening.I’m shoved through and fall to my stomach on the floor.
And when I look up, my father looks coldly calculating, and I know I never should have gotten out of my bed or gone to the basement.I shouldn’t have tried to play hero for those girls.
Not when I can’t even save myself.
I jerk myself out of the memory and turn my face up to the rain, my breath ragged and my stomach churning.I’m not in New Orleans.I left my father’s house a long time ago, and he can’t get to me now.
These days, I would kill him if he tried.
That’s evidently the thought I needed to pull me out of my doldrums, because suddenly my brain is turned back on.I’m not in this crumbling apartment for kicks.I’m here because we just came out of the battle with the Poffo and Massimo tribes, and the city is in chaos.The Rossis are in charge, sort of, and the Brennans are at their side, but we didn’t come through it without problems.Joseph was shot, Dante was kidnapped–and then saved–and Dax, our new ally and Dante’s new silver fox, is recovering from injuries he sustained during the battle.
From his own cousin.
And me?
Sure, I stepped in and saved the day, thanks to my contacts in New Orleans.I showed up with the army Joseph and Michael Rossi needed, and we killed everyone in our path.But going home to get that help did something to me.I stepped out of the airport in New Orleans, into that thick, flower-scented air, and felt the New York version of Brooks Peterson crumbling away, like a disguise I couldn’t maintain when faced with my history.
The Big Easy reached right into a chest of emotions I like to keep locked, and started pulling out ghosts.And now that those ghosts are out and screaming through my head, I don’t know how to put them back in their chest again.
I shake myself and try to find the confidence I had a moment ago.I’m not that New Orleans version of Brooks anymore.I’m not Brooks Landry.I’m Brooks Peterson, most powerful woman in New York.I can handle anything that comes my way, and I always look good doing it.
I can save anyone who needs saving.
Christ, it’s the main reason I avoided New Orleans for so long.Down there, I was powerless.At the mercy of the men who ran the city.
Up here, I’m the one who runs the show.
A beep interrupts my mental pep talk and I glance down at my phone, already annoyed.Lucien.Of course.He wants to talk.Of course.But as far as I’m concerned, he can go right on with waiting, because I don’t have anything to say to him.Sure, he came to my rescue in New Orleans, and then loaned me the men I needed to save my friends.And he might be my ex-fiancé and the one man I thought I might actually love.
But I ran away from all of that years ago, and he didn’t exactly follow me.He knew where I was–everyone knew–and he didn’t come for me.He let me go, like none of it had mattered.And on the days when I’m being honest, I can admit that I’ve never gotten over how much that hurt.
So no, he doesn’t have the right to pester me.
Especially now, when I’m still in the middle of a war.
And when I’m hearing rumors that girls are starting to disappear from amongst our ranks.
The thought takes me back to those dark vans on the street, and I glance down again, wondering.I don’t know anything more than shadows of stories, and it’s not enough to go on.It probably doesn’t have anything to do with me or our war.
But it’s awfully hard to hear that girls are disappearing and not think of my father and the smuggling ring I’ve always suspected he was running.
Runs.
Awfully hard not to connect those dots.
Nearly impossible, in fact.
