Page 26 of Rescued

Thanatos said, “Then, Miss Carter, please explain to me how you became involved with Quentin Moreno.”

Breanna explained, as succinctly as she could, about Jackson and his string of girls. “He’d recruit us from clubs, to be part of his inner circle. The prettiest girls, the most desirable ones. He’d get us into all the hot clubs whenever they had a whale client. You know, to hang out with the VIP guests.”

Thanatos said, “So you were prostitutes.”

Breanna felt her face get red. Too many people thought that.

She heard Switch give a little growl. Because he believed it? Or because Thanatos had called her that?

“It wasn’t like that,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive. “We could sleep with the guys if we wanted to, but we didn’t have to. And we didn’t get paid, except that Jackson bought us clothes and stuff, paid for our hair and makeup. We were just supposed to make the big spenders look popular, encourage them to drink more, to try to outdo each other to impress us.

“They’d compete to spend the most money. Like, the club would do bottle trains, where a VIP would order all these bottles of expensive champagne, and the staff would parade the bottles through the club, holding them over their heads in fancy bins with sparklers and stuff. So everyone would ooh and aah and be envious. Some of the VIPs spent a hundred grand in a night, just on alcohol.”

“Holy shit,” Switch muttered.

“Jackson got a cut from the clubs for any girls he brought. We just did it because it was cool, you know, to be right there with the celebrities and rich guys. Most of us wanted to be models or actresses, and it was a way to meet the right people.”

Not that many of the girls got jobs out of it. Breanna had never known anyone who did, but they all still hoped. And there was something kind of addictive about being one of the few girls special enough to make the inner circle.

“Anyway,” she said, “most of us were always kind of broke. And then one of Quentin’s guys approached Kimberly, this one night. Said we could make some money if we worked for him. Me and her and this girl named Adrienne.”

“And you agreed.”

“It didn’t seem like much. We were still doing the same thing we’d been doing, only he was able to get us into more private parties. You know, at big mansions. Someone would meet us and hand over stuff to us—thumb drives, mostly, or memory cards. Sometimes cash or papers, but those were harder to hide in an evening purse so they didn’t do that very often. Then we’d get instructions where to take it, and we’d get paid.”

Thanatos gazed at her. “But then they owned you.”

She nodded. He said it like it was obvious, like they should have realized what would happen. But he had piles of money and a mansion. What the hell did he know, about what it was like for them?

“They started making us steal stuff, not just carry it. Like, they’d give us the layout of the house and we’d have to get papers or computer files from someone’s study. Like that.”

“And you had no choice but to do it.”

She didn’t like to think about this part. “He told us we had to. That if we didn’t, one of his guys would hurt us. Cut our faces, so we’d never be pretty again.”

Quentin must have known that was their biggest fear. If someone took their looks away, then their whole lives would be gone.

Thanatos went on, “But you didn’t go to the police?”

Breanna couldn’t believe he was so stupid. “You think the police would believe a girl like me? Against Quentin Moreno? We told Adrienne not to, but she didn’t listen.”

Switch had gotten out some little mechanical creature and was tinkering with it while she talked, but at the tone in her voice, his hands stilled.

Breanna took a deep breath. “We never saw her again. Quentin had his man bring us into his office and he said he’d ‘taken care of’ her, and the same thing would happen to us if we tried it.” She bit her lip. “I thought she probably just ran away, and Quentin was trying to scare us. But Kimberly wasn’t sure…”

“That’s when she contacted the relocation team?”

Breanna nodded. “I don’t know how she found them, but she set it all up. Only instead of us paying them, they wanted us to get these special documents from one of Quentin’s competitors. Evidence, they said, of his crimes. So they could hopefully stop the bad stuff he does.”

“And you did it.”

“Kimberly convinced me we needed to get out.” And Kimberly had also learned about the documents Breanna had in her bag, back at Switch’s. If they broke into the competitor’s office, they could get those too. Their ticket to freedom. That was why they’d really done it.

Thanatos said, “But Moreno found out, and came after you.” She nodded wearily. They’d thought they were so smart, but Quentin had outsmarted them. Somehow he’d found out about the other stuff they’d taken.

Thanatos picked up an 8 x 10 photo from his table and handed it to Sugar, who brought it down to show Breanna. “Is this the girl who disappeared?”

She didn’t want to look. She knew it would be bad.