“Your actions are impacting our bottom line. You’re distracting them from their work.”
“It’s harmless,” Luka scoffed. “They have fun, I have fun. They know the rules.”
“They might, but you don’t,” Konstantin said, his voice rising with impatience.
“What’s the point of having beautiful women around if I can’t get a piece of the action? There’s plenty to go around. They’re practically falling from the sky,” Luka whined.
“You can have any woman you want in Chicago,” Konstantin said, unmoved. “Wet your wick somewhere else.”
Luka let out a sigh of frustration and Konstantin continued lecturing him.
“Our investors don’t like getting your sloppy seconds,” Konstantin went on, disgust obvious in his voice. “You need to keep your pants on around the merchandise.”
Merchandise?
I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t just the way Konstantin was talking about the models, as if they were merely property, it was the way he had treated them on the night of the fashion show. The way he had spent the whole evening introducing beautiful young women to older men. Older men that looked as wealthy as Konstantin. And just as careless in the way they handled the women, in the way they dragged them out the door.
An awful thought crossed my mind.
Konstantin had called the models ‘merchandise.’ Surely he didn’t actually mean…
“It’s not my fault that they’d rather sleep with me than the men you introduce them to,” Luka said.
“You think they like you? My son is an imbecile.” There was a large slamming sound, as if Konstantin had dropped a heavy fist onto a table. “If you want to sleep with our models, you need to do what our other clients do,” Konstantin said. “And pay for the pleasure of their time.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?” Luka asked, the shock in his voice echoing the shock I felt.
I felt so naïve. So stupid. How had I not seen it? Not put the pieces together?
“Don’t play the fool, boy.” Konstantin’s voice was vicious, full of contempt. “It’s time you learned where our money really comes from. Those girls are our livelihood.”
It made sense all of a sudden, the realization slamming into me like a car wreck. The introductions after the fashion show. The distant models who didn’t want to talk to me. The crying redhead and her obvious disgust at leaving with the older man.
KZ Modeling wasn’t just a modeling agency. It was a prostitution ring.
“They’remodels,” Luka said weakly.
His father laughed. “And they’re consummate professionals. But we both know they’re not earning their keep on the runway—they earn it on their backs. Unless they want to hand over their work visas.”
I didn’t even wait for Luka to respond. I pressed my hand to my mouth, and then I ran. I didn’t look back.
