“Yes, Master.”
She leaves, and soon I relax enough to sit down, pick up the files, and lean back against the seat.
The first file is generic legal bullshit—contracts, payroll information. Not what I’m looking for. I swap it out for the second folder and skim over the few pages of personal info provided.
Emmy May Highland. Born in Presley, Mississippi on October 22, 1997 to parents Agnes and Karl Highland. One sister by the name of Francesca Highland.
I rub my chin and scan the rest of the pages—a picture of the trailer park she calls home, some greasy diner she worked at, a tattooed neighbor she had multiple flings with. Since when do we keep photos of anything other than the hires themselves? I’m about to turn the page when my gaze flies back to the last picture.
Her fling, with a stupid smirk on his face and a beer in his inked hand. The longer I stare at his photo, the more my skin burns. It’s irritating as shit, so I tear the paper down the middle and toss it into the trash bin behind me.
A trivial reaction, but fuck it.
I flip to the next page and narrow my eyes. There’s a close up of her trailer with a Bible sitting on a stand beside the front porch. Since when is Emmy fucking Highland religious? Angling my head, I trace my thumb along the side of my jaw and notice an old dog house in the backyard with a long, heavy chain sprawled out on the dirt. No dog in sight.
Irritated, I blow out a breath and shake my head.
There has to be more here. Something that ties her to Katerina or Sofia. The resemblance is too coincidental. Or in Raife’s words,uncanny.
I’ve noticed it before, every goddamn time I look at her I see it, but today, at the mercy of my hands, there was something too distinct in those sky-blue eyes. Something childlike, a spark of pure vulnerability. It’s a look identical to the one I used to see behind bright lights and iron bars every morning and night. A look that haunted me to the brink of insanity every time I shut my eyes for five long years after my escape, before I trained myself to block it out completely.
A look that can’t be replicated.
Of course it’s impossible. I watched them both die—Katerina at the hands of all four of us the day of our escape. It was a far cry from how we would have done things now. The burning regret of not making her suffer fuels each of us every single day. But we were kids then. Amateurs. No kills to our name.
Except for me.
I had Sofia, and her death was on no one’s hands but my own. Despite the promise I made to her.
My grip squeezes the edges of the papers, and my chest tightens in a way I fucking hate. The same way it did when I watched Emmy lying on her bed this morning, limbs weak and eyes glassy.
I drop the file and push off the chair. Something’s up, and I’m going to figure out what it is. But right now, the tension coiling inside me is hot enough to implode, and the knife in my pocket is lonely. Just as I pull out my phone to text Aubrey to return, my gaze catches on a page I must have missed sticking out from behind the others.
I pick it up and squint at the image. It’s a photo of Emmy taken outside a trailer home that isn’t hers. She’s wearing skin-tight jeans and a plain black top, holding one hand over her forehead to block the sun. A smile is plastered on her face for the camera, but the sunlight highlights an unnaturally pink tint around her eyes. I tilt the page and notice they’re swollen, like she’d been crying.
What the hell is this?
It’s standard for our potential hires to send in a photo of themselves after Stella contacts them, part of the process Raife monitors. But they’re usually dressed in something seductive, a genuine glint of excitement in their eyes. They’re never fucking crying.
If they were, we wouldn’t hire them.
I pick up my phone and dial the last person I want to speak with about this. Well, the second to last.
“Stella Larsson,” she purrs.
I look at my watch then dip my free hand into my pocket, keeping my tone neutral despite the turmoil twisting inside my gut. “Who told you to hire Emmy?”
“What do you mea—”
“Did you scout her yourself, like you usually do?”
“Well, no—”
“So how’d she get in contact with us?”
There’s a pause. “I ... don’t exactly know.”
I grind my teeth. “Explain.”
