“How often did they make the investments?” I asked.
Lovelyn rattled off dates in a year range. “Same the previous year and the one after. Regular as clockwork, bar a slight delay once or twice.”
I turned to Mila. “Do you have the sailing schedule for theEden?”
Her mouth fell open. “He never allowed me on that ship. He said it was?—”
“His pet project,” I answered for her.
Mila’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “He told us both the same story.” She stabbed a search into her phone, then a minute later, brought up a manifest. “The sailing dates are publicly available.”
She read those for the same year Lovelyn had documented.
I counted on my fingers. “TheEdendocked. Four weeks later, money hit the account. Every time. Lovelyn, how do those slight delays work out?”
Our friend’s voice came back haunted. “It matches. Why would there be a delay?”
Mila whispered, “The ship was hit by storms.”
The three of us shared a shocked, horrified moment of silence.
Mila’s hand shook when she pushed her blonde hair from her face. “Our grandfather’s ship that I was never allowed to audit. That the women died on. This is it, isn’t it? The proof of trafficking.” Her voice broke. “This is how they did it.”
More slowly, I built the picture. “The ship docked with women on board, then they held auctions and hid the profits in a shared company.”
Lovelyn sucked in a breath. “There’s something else I’ve just thought of. Give me some time to work the idea through and I’ll come find you.”
We bid goodbye to Lovelyn, and I centred my gaze on Mila.
My sister’s hands tightened to fists. “There’s one way to be sure. Convict told me they brought in the auctioneer last night. I’ve been searching for that bastard for months. We can interrogate him and the other, Salter, but we have another problem first. How do we handle the vote? I don’t want to upset you, but you told me Denise couldn’t take your vote, and that’s exactly what she’s done.”
My brain spun. Denise was a villain of the worst kind. I didn’t want to do anything with Marchant Haulage, but I didn’t want to give her the rights either.
Mila dropped her gaze to the floor. “I’ve been thinking about her endlessly. She mostly ignored my presence, but oddly, when she did speak to me, Primrose would nearly always interject.”
“What about Austin?”
Her cautious gaze returned to me. “He didn’t have the same reaction.”
My heart hurt. It suggested he didn’t know. Mila’s experience was a mirror of mine, every image flipped and reversed. Where there was a big picture that appeared the same, the devil was in the detail.
Mila opened her mouth as if to ask a question, but then closed it and looked away. I knew what was on her mind. It was exactly what I would want to know if a girl sat in front of me so clearly broken.
“She had her husband rape me, hun.”
Mila’s shock rippled through me and away. Since I’d told Tyler and allowed him to capture Terrence, the gut wrench had gone.
My past was losing its control. For the first time, it didn’t own me.
Mila didn’t speak. Only took my hand and held it, the tears she hadn’t released now rolling down her cheeks.
She hugged me. Managed kind words through sobs and snot. But my focus had already changed. Away from the mess my life had been in and over to something far better.
A reset, revenge. Whatever I wanted now, I was the one in charge.
“What happens if the vote goes one way or the other?” I asked.
Mila dried her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “If we can get out of the building safely, I’ll show you.”
