“Oh, I think you’re wrong there,” Amber said, putting the empty glasses in the sink. “He’s dealing with the situations the best way he can at the moment, but I know he’s capable of action when he wants it.”
“And how would you know?”
Lily sounded almost…jealous. Amber hid a small smile. “Because he looks at you and feels your violence toward him, and he’s about to make his move any day now. Tell me, why do you act like that when you’re around him? He’s helping us, you know.”
Lily shrugged again. “I don’t know.” She ran impatient fingers through her hair. “It’s me, I guess. I don’t like bureaucrats. He can just raid those damn places and get Dilaver just like this.” She snapped her fingers. “And he doesn’t.”
Amber leaned over the kitchen counter. She knew there was more to this thing between Brad and Lily than his inability to act the lawman. “Sweetie, his hands are tied. That’s why he’s giving us information when he can. It’s his way of getting some of the girls out of Dilaver’s hands. Now tell me the truth why you’re so pissed off at Brad whenever his name’s mentioned.”
Lily pushed her hands deeply into her pockets. Her eyes had a startled awareness in them, as if she had suddenly realized something. “Because…” she said slowly, wonder in her voice, “he looks at me like Hawk looked last night. A determined, gonna-take-you-and-make-you-mine look. And I don’t need that right now. I don’t need any man to carry me off over his shoulder.”
Amber stared back speechlessly at her friend.
6
Hawk looked out of the window as the carsped along the streets of Velesta. He had been here only a few days and he already hated this city. They drove past the makeshift billboard on the side of a building.
“Dancers!” It boasted in several languages. “Come Relax with Our Beautiful Dancers.”
There was a reason for the different languages. The advertisements around here weren’t targeting the Macedonians. Everyone was after the NATO soldiers, the peacekeepers around town, who had the cash and the time to spend on women and booze. So everything was sold in German, French, Polish, and English, and the most popular thing being sold in Velesta were girls.
The irony of it hadn’t escaped Hawk. He wasn’t big-headed about it, but he knew that he had been particularly lucky in the gene pool. He had been told most of his life what a good-looking bastard he was and he’d never had trouble getting any woman. There were very few complaints, except sometimes he wondered whether any of the women really cared what he was like inside. Of course, he hadn’t tried to get to know them better, either. Being a Navy SEAL had taken away any chance of that, and by the time an operation was over, so was the relationship. But there was always another woman waiting around the corner.
And here he was in Velesta, Macedonia, a place filled with women from every imaginable country, except that most of them weren’t here of their own free will. Kidnapped. Enslaved. These were terms that were alien to him when it came to getting women. He had never had the need to buy or take any female by force. It had never even crossed his mind that he would spend any time in a brothel looking at half-naked women being forced to please men.
Dragan Dilaver, the man sitting in the back of the car with him, was the last person on earth that Hawk had thought he would be hanging out with for any prolonged period of time. The thug was the antithesis of everything for which Hawk stood; he was a parasite, a bully, a user. It grated to know that Hawk had to walk into any place with this asshole and be regarded ashis friend.He could see the fear in the women’s eyes when they looked at him, and he loathed it with a growing, unfamiliar violence that ate at him.
There had never been fear in his women’s eyes before. Or hatred. He had never intimidated a woman in that way before. Perhaps this was some twisted punishment for having it easy with women all his life—now he had hordes of women pretending to like him because they would be beaten if they didn’t act that way.
Dilaver shut his cell phone. “These stupid things won’t stop ringing,” he complained.
“Turn it off.”
“Then how am I suppose to know what’s happening?”
“Dilemma, isn’t it?” Hawk stared at another girlie billboard as the car slowed down at a red light. “Technology can suck you into dependency.”
“Yes. Ten years ago, I didn’t have this piece of crap hanging on the side of my hip, you know? I was out there, armed to the teeth, fighting fucking Serbs and Greeks, joining any side who would pay me, and there was no need for a cell phone to communicate.”
Hawk turned to Dilaver. “So why the need now?”
“I was a mercenary then. I’m a businessman now.” Dilaver let out a sigh. “Now you make me think of the good old days when my life was just about being a soldier. Have you ever been in the army in your country? You look fit enough. Not that I’d recommend that life. No money in it, unless you’re a mercenary.”
“No.”
Hawk didn’t want to compare notes about being a soldier. Dilaver was a mercenary, and therein laid the difference. At least, that was what Hawk told himself. He didn’t kill for money. He went through rigorous training so he could protect his country from harm. And he didn’t abuse power. Yet, he wasn’t naive enough to believe that he was nothing but a tool. All he had to do was look around at the peacekeepers in Velesta. Soldiers, supposedly. Now mere policemen who broke the law by going to the brothels and taking advantage of the women they’d sworn to protect.
“Here we are.”
Hawk already knew where they were, of course. After all, he had been here just the night before. He got out of the car.
He looked up at the oddly out-of-place restaurant, with its cheerful welcome banner above its name, “The Last Resort.” Even the name was out of place. Velesta was hardly a resort of any kind, and probably the very last place for any of the girls in this city to want to visit.
“Popular place,” he noted, as he glanced at the vehicles and mopeds parked outside.
“Oh yes, I told you, those NATO peacekeepers love this place. The owner’s pretty little ass doesn’t hurt business, either.”
Hawk thought of Amber Hutchen’s pretty little ass. Funny how he had barely exchanged three lines with the woman, yet he knew how her ass felt smooth and silky under his hand. He wondered how she was, how she had reacted to his surprise when she’d woken up.
