‘Yes.’
‘That’s fast.’
‘I think they were desperate for someone to start immediately.’
Mason got up from the table. ‘I think I’ll take a shower and pop down there to see her.’
Kathy smirked. ‘Stop worrying, she’s fine.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
Kathy nodded, then shrugged. ‘Okay, go on then. I know you won’t rest until you see her and confirm she’s safe.’
‘Can you blame me after everything that has happened to her?’
‘Just for a minute then, and don’t distract her. You don’t want to get her fired on her first day.’
‘Of course not.’
After showering, Mason dressed, grabbed his jacket on the way out, and decided the fifteen minute walk to the restaurant would give him time to clear his head. But he couldn’t help thinking about what Rosie must have been through during her three days in the custody of The Scarlet Club before he rescued her from a large manor house in Kent. It had been a violent confrontation resulting in him killing some of the members and their security and even being shot himself.
But all that mattered now was Rosie’s recovery from the traumatic abuse she had suffered at the hands of the sick, perverted members of The Scarlet Club.
When he arrived at the restaurant he chose a table by the window far enough away from the counter to ensure their conversation would not be overheard by the manager. He counted ten tables, but only two were occupied. On a busy night they could probably accommodate around forty guests.
He picked up a menu and held it in front of him, scanning the restaurant for Rosie. A door from the kitchen swung open and Rosie appeared carrying two plates of food. She placed them down in front of two customers and turned towards Mason. Retrieving a notepad from the back pocket of her black trousers and a pen from the breast pocket of her red corporate shirt, she made her way over to him.
She stopped at his table and smiled. ‘Hi, Daddy, what are you doing here?’
‘I just wanted to see my baby girl.’
‘Not so much of the baby if you don’t mind.’ She glanced over her shoulder and seemed to relax. No one was close enough to hear.
‘You don’t seem surprised to see me.’
‘I’m not, Mum sent me a text to say you were in the shower but were intending to come down here. I guess she wanted to give me a chance to say no.’
‘And did you?’
‘Of course not, I’m always glad to see you. You should know that.’
One of three young men sitting at the other end of the restaurant coughed loudly and shouted, ‘Hey girlie, how long are you going to keep us waiting?’
Rosie rolled her eyes at Mason and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
Mason nodded, and a sense of pride swept over him as he watched her approach the men. She was coping, making an effort to get on with her life, a survivor in the true sense of the word. He opened the menu then glanced back at Rosie just in time to see one of the men reach over and stroke her rear.
As Rosie turned towards the man to give him a piece of her mind his friend sitting across from him reached out and did the same.
Mason dropped the menu, got to his feet, and strode over.
Rosie turned to him. ‘It’s okay Daddy, I can handle this.’
The first man laughed out loud. ‘daddy eh?’ He looked at Mason. ‘Sorry, Daddy, I couldn’t help myself. Your daughter has such a fit ass.’
All three sniggered.
Rosie turned back to them. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up right now, you have no idea who you’re messing with.’
The first man straightened his face and glared at her. ‘No, girlie, you have no idea who you are messing with, so if I were you, I’d tell your daddy to run on home so we can have a little fun.’
Mason ushered Rosie away from the table and turned to face the first guy who was doing the talking. ‘Okay, tell me.’
‘Tell you what, Daddy?’
‘How it works. Do you fight one at a time or all together, or do you make a call and bring in reinforcements?’
The guy stared at him.
‘It’s just that I’m in a hurry to finish this so I can get back to the nice conversation I was having with my daughter before you rudely interrupted. So why don’t you cut out the bullshit and just get on with it.’
The guy hesitated, his gaze fixed on Mason.
‘What’s up, lost for words? Not sure what to do when the guy you’re threatening doesn’t piss his pants and do what you want?’
The guy glanced at his friends as if in need of reassurance. They were no longer laughing and tension filled the air as the guy got to his feet.
Mason stepped toward him and locked eyes onto his. ‘If you’re thinking about your next move, think carefully, because it may be your last for a while.’
The guy’s confidence and cockiness seemed to drain from him. He opened his mouth but no words came out.
Mason continued, ‘Listen to me, because I’ll only say this once. Get out of here now and don’t come back. If I ever see you anywhere near my daughter again, I’ll kill you.’
The guy hesitated before glancing at his friends, then he shrugged. ‘Come on boys, this place stinks anyway.’
As they stepped away from the table Mason glanced over his shoulder to see an Italian-looking man near the kitchen door, then he looked back at the three empty beer bottles on the table. ‘Just a minute boys. Rosie, how much do they owe for the beers?’
Rosie checked her pad. ‘Fifteen will cover it.’
Without prompting, the first guy pulled out his wallet and threw two notes onto the table.
Mason pointed to the exit. ‘Now get out.’
The man stared back for a moment but the swagger had gone. He turned to his friends. ‘Let’s go.’ They walked to the door and out into the street.
Mason turned to Rosie. ‘Do you like this job?’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re leaving right now.’
‘But why? The guys just left. You scared them away.’
‘For now, but we cant take the chance they might come back when I’m not here. Get your coat.’
‘Dad, I can’t keep running away every time a guy sneers at me. I need this job. I need some normality.’
‘Do you think getting groped by two sleazy guys is normal.’
‘Of course not, but you know what I mean. And anyway, after what I’ve been through recently, that was way down the scale as far as assaults go.’
Mason paused a moment as he studied his daughter. She was still his little girl, his precious princess, and he wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool to protect her from the world. But he had to acknowledge she wasn’t a child anymore. She was sixteen going on twenty-six and she deserved to be heard. He took a deep breath, and sighed. ‘Okay, but you ring me if anything like that happens again, or if those idiots come back, right?’
Rosie reached up on her tip toes and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Daddy.’
Mason glanced over to the Italian man. ‘Is that your boss?’
Rosie nodded. ‘Yes, that’s Giovanni.’
Mason walked over and shook Giovanni’s hand. ‘I’m sorry about what just happened, I’m Mason, Rosie’s father, and I couldn’t standby while idiots like that take advantage of her.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Cooper, they will not get back in here again. My chef is six-feet-four and a judo expert with a very low tolerance of idiots.’
Mason nodded once, smiled at Rosie, and left the restaurant.
5
KATERINA
The van slowed to a halt and the engine stopped. After a moment’s silence a door opened, the van rocked, and the door slammed shut. Katerina lifted her head at the sound of men’s voices, two or maybe three, but she couldn’t make out what was being said.
The voices fell silent, footsteps approached the van, the rear doors opened, and the sudden
influx of sunlight bleached her vision. For a second or two, she was as good as blind. Someone gripped her ankles and pulled her along the mattress towards the doors. She opened her eyes to a squint just as something was pulled over her head plunging her back into darkness. The tape over her mouth had partially peeled loose enabling her to speak but her words were mumbled. ‘Where am I?’
No one answered.
She was picked up and thrown over a shoulder. A light breeze caressed her legs as she was being carried, and not being able to see only tightened the knot in her stomach. The sound of the footsteps changed to an echo as if she was now inside a building, and the breeze had gone. She felt herself being carried up a few short flights of stairs before being dumped down onto something soft. A moment later someone pulled the hood from her head. She was in a room with very little furniture. A sofa, a small table with three wooden chairs, and an old TV set covered in dust.
Her abductor shook hands with another man who stared at her. He was tall but stooped at the shoulders. His creased black suit jacket didn’t match his old brown trousers, and his receding hairline, deep sunken eyes, and poor posture probably made him look older than he was. He reminded her of a butler at a creepy old hotel in a horror movie she had watched recently with her mother. A shiver rippled through her as she recalled how most of the guests had been butchered one by one by the butler, but then remembered that the heroine had survived and the butler had not.
The butler placed his free hand on her abductor’s shoulder. ‘Well done, Hugo, They’ll love her, she’s a sweetie.’
She wondered who he meant by they. Was someone else coming? Or was this place just a temporary stop on-route to another destination?
Hugo turned and knelt on the floor in front of Katerina then placed his hand on her thigh just above her knee, his fingers near the hem of her dress.
She held her breath and trembled as she pressed her legs together.
He stared at her for a moment. ‘I am going to untie you now. If you try to run I will punish you, do you understand?’
Katerina nodded.
He slid his hand down her leg and unwrapped the tape around her ankles. She flinched as the tape tugged her skin.
He reached behind her and untied the cord around her wrists, then he ripped off the partly loosened tape from her mouth.
She breathed in sharply and asked again, ‘Where am I?’
‘We are near the Hungarian border. We will stay here tonight.’
She gasped. ‘Are you taking me out of the country?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘London.’
‘Why?’
‘You are worth more there.’
The hairs on her arms and legs prickled. Now there was no mistaking why she had been taken. ‘Can I ring my mum? She’ll be worried about me.’
Hugo laughed and looked up at the butler. ‘That’s why I like the young ones, they are so naive.’
Now he was making fun of her. Embarrassment added to her cocktail of swirling emotions. She turned her head and looked out of the window where she could see the tops of a few trees and guessed she was on the second or third floor of an apartment block. If it was anything like her grandmothers apartment near Bucharest, the walls would be thin. Shouting or screaming would be heard all around. This encouraged her slightly as maybe they would not do anything to cause her to scream, otherwise the neighbours may hear and call the police.
The butler looked at her, then out of the window, then back at her. ‘No one will hear you scream. This apartment block is abandoned. We are the only residents.’
A chill rippled through her. Not only because there was no one around to hear her scream, but because the butler knew what she was thinking.
Another man entered the room and sat on a wooden chair at the small table. He slipped a cigarette into his mouth, lit up, and looked straight at her. Then he turned to the butler, nodded his head towards her, and grinned. ‘Is she available?’
The butler shook his head. ‘She’s new.’
‘I could teach her. Show her what she needs to know.’
Katerina shuffled back on the sofa, her heart racing. The man was ugly, unkempt and scruffy. There was nothing she wanted to learn from him.
‘You know the rules. You can use the older girls before they’re sold but not the young ones. She has to be innocent when we sell her.’
Katerina watched for the man’s reaction, hoping he would accept the instruction, but she was disappointed.
The man shook his head, slammed his fist on the table and stood up. ‘I’ve worked for this organisation for six years now. I think that entitles me to a fresh one now and then, so I’m taking her into the bedroom. No one has to know anything.’ He strode over to Katerina, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her off the sofa.
‘Anton, let her go. Do you know what the Kestrati will do to you if they find out you damaged the goods and then conned them? They’ll cut it off and feed it to you.’
Anton dismissed the butler’s instruction with a sneer. ‘I’m not afraid of them. I’ll deal with anyone who comes after me. Anyway, she has other uses that won’t leave any tell tale signs.’
He dragged Katerina out to the hall and into a bedroom, slammed the door shut, and began unbuckling his belt. ‘Okay sweetie, take off your dress and kneel down in front of me. I’m going to show you what you will be doing several times a day for the next few years.’
Katerina backed away from him, stopping only when the back of her legs butted up against the bed. She shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t do this, you heard what the man said. I must not be damaged.’
‘You won’t be. I’m just going to put that sweet little mouth of yours to good use. Now take off your dress and kneel down.’
With her eyes watering, Katerina took hold of the hem of her dress and prayed for someone to intervene. To save her. But no one knew where she was. No one was going to help her. Or so she thought.
The door burst open.
Hugo stomped into the room and smashed his fist into Anton’s face knocking him into the wall. He slid down to the floor and sat holding his jaw.
Katerina let go of her dress. Her prayers had been answered, by Hugo. She stared at him, open mouthed, grateful, but confused. He had kidnapped her and brought her to this place. He was the reason she was in such danger. Yet he was the one who had saved her from an act too gross to think about.
Hugo towered over the injured Anton, his face red, his eyes wild with rage. ‘If you touch her again, I will kill you, never mind the Kestrati.’
Anton rubbed his jaw and said nothing.
Hugo turned to Katerina. ‘Come with me.’
She followed him back to the front room.
The butler didn’t seem surprised. He must have known that Anton was no match for Hugo. Hugo was a big brute of a man, standing six-feet-four, around two hundred and fifty pounds, with a thick neck, square jaw, and arms like telephone poles, and right now, he was the only one preventing her being raped.
She smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Hugo.’
He grunted as a look of surprise crossed his face. ‘What for?’
‘Protecting me from him.’ She pointed towards the next room.
Hugo seemed to think about what she’d said for a moment, then grunted again. ‘Oh that. I wasn’t protecting you, I was preserving you. We get double the money if you’re untouched.’ He walked to the table but glanced back at her as he sat down. He rubbed his chin with his hand while he studied her. His usual scowl had softened.
She wondered if she was the first person to ever thank him, the first to ever show him gratitude. And was he showing just a glimmer of humanity?
She sighed. Of course not. He’s going to sell her and walk away without so much as a second thought about how they plan to use her. Or maybe he already knew. Either way, he won’t be protecting her for long. Maybe next time she’s told to undress, Hugo won’t be there to stop them, or if he is, maybe he won’
t want to or need to. He will have been paid and her safety will no longer be his concern.
As she studied him she told herself not to trust him. Like a wild animal in captivity he could turn on her at any time. He may even be the one they call for when she has served her purpose and is no longer of value to them. She had little doubt he could carry out such a task with little effort and extreme efficiency.
But she sat down on the sofa, relieved, that for now at least, no one was going to touch her. Not while Hugo was around to protect his investment.
6
NATASHA
After clearing customs Natasha and Alison found a table at the airport cafe. It was busy so they were lucky to arrive just as a family of four got up to leave.
Natasha lifted her holdall bag up onto a chair and scanned the area. ‘Could you give me a minute? I just need to ring my cousin’s house to let my Mum know I’ll be a little late.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I need to find a phone, the traffickers took my mobile.’
Alison opened her bag. ‘Here, you can use mine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course, don’t worry, it’s my work phone and I’m authorised to use it on any occasion necessary. I think this is one of those occasions.’
When she got through on the phone her cousin explained that her family had not felt safe in Moldova so they had gone to Comana near Bucharest to stay with her grandmother. Natasha thanked her cousin and ended the call. She gripped Alison’s mobile between her hands and stared down at the table.
‘What is it, Natasha? You’ve turned white.’
‘My parents have taken Katerina to my grandmother’s apartment near Bucharest.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Margaret, the English woman who tricked me, was in Bucharest. That’s too close for comfort.’
‘Call them. I’ll be back in a minute.’ Alison got up and walked away.
Natasha rang her grandmother’s apartment. She would have liked to have surprised them but the need for caution was far greater. The word may have already gone out to locate and take her sister. She spoke briefly to her mother warning her not to let Katerina go into the city alone. It was something she did often by riding the bus when they visited. She loved the city.
Innocent Girls Page 3