Not Mr. Parkerson.
Dasha felt hot and cold and let the memory of Jenika’s screams slip away as they reached the third floor landing. She once again started down the too-familiar hallway toward the room where she would be handcuffed to the bed. Mr. Parkerson always liked her bound while he did things to her that made her impossibly more ill than anything else that was done to her by other men.
When Eddie shoved her into room four she almost screamed at the sight of Mr. Parkerson, who had a battery on a chair next to the bed. He was holding a clamp with long red grips in his right hand, another clamp with long black grips in his left.
Dearest God, she thought as tears rolled down her cheeks before she could stop them. She started to shake, her whole body trembling like she was going to come undone. What was the man going to do to her this time?
Dasha hardened inside for the briefest of moments as she visualized Mr. Parkerson handcuffed to the bed instead of her. Eddie handcuffed right next to him. Both men naked, that hideous part of them bare.
She saw the image of herself holding a handgun.
In that brief daydream, she squeezed the trigger and shot the abusive Mr. Parkerson where it would hurt the most, his groin, before she shot him in the head.
Then, in her mind, she killed Eddie.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jenika
Icy water splashed hard against the side of Jenika’s head, jerking her back to consciousness.
“Wake up, bitch,” came a hard, angry voice. “Open your fucking eyes.”
What? Her thoughts wavered in and out, spotty, confused.Open my eyes?
Jenika tried to obey the voice as water rolled from her hair and face, down her neck, and between her breasts. Her head lolled forward, and she didn’t know how she even managed to sit up. Her face felt like her skin was stretched tight, so swollen it would split if she opened her mouth.
Somehow she knew she had to open her eyes or it would mean something bad. Really bad. But they were swollen shut. The lids felt like they were glued together with tree sap.
An acidic stench mixed with a dusty smell from a heater that must not have been used in a long time. Its heat was focused on her and despite the ice water that had been splashed on her face, the intensity of the heat made her feel like she was burning, her face on fire. A coppery taste was in her mouth along with the taste of stomach acid.
Her mind wouldn’t let her focus long enough to remember where she was. Why did her head feel like it had been used as a soccer ball? And her body felt stripped raw, as if she’d been mauled by those great white tigers in Las Vegas.
More water slammed into her face, this time directly in front of her, and she gasped, sucked in water, and sputtered. It tasted dirty, vile. Like water squeezed from a mop after being used on a floor. She spit it out and coughed again as it rolled down her body.
“Open your eyes,” the voice said in an almost deadly, quiet tone. “Or I’ll start cutting you.”
Jenika’s heart slammed into her ribs, and she finally managed to pry her eyelids open a slit. A well-lit shabby room. A steel table. Metal folding chairs. A door with its peeling white paint showing the aged wood beneath.
A man with buzzed gray hair stared at her with eyes that were gray like the dirty mop water she thought had been thrown at her. He was holding a glass of white wine and was casually sipping it as he studied her. She looked at the huge diamond ring on one of the fingers gripping the wineglass and she sucked in her breath.
Images pounded at her head as hard as she remembered the fists that had been pounding her body. Three men, including the one staring at her with narrowed eyes—the men punching her. Kicking her. Everywhere on her body.
And that huge stone being driven into the side of her head when the gray-haired man had punched her, right before she blacked out. The coppery taste in her mouth was blood from the inside of her mouth splitting open from the power of his punch.
Bile rushed up Jenika’s throat, and she tried to move to spew it out to her side. She couldn’t. Her upper chest and shoulders were bound to the top of a high-backed chair, her hands cuffed behind her, and her ankles strapped to the chair legs.
She couldn’t stop what little was left in her stomach from coming up. She puked onto her chest, then saw what had been dried, crusted vomit, now wet from the water. Vomit from when she had thrown up earlier. The sight of her own puke and the stench of it caused her to heave more, even after she no longer had anything left.
“Tell me,” the man said slowly as he set his wineglass on the metal table. He came to her, bent, and placed his hands on his thighs so that he was at her eye level. “Who do you work for?”
“Please don’t hit me.” Jenika tried to shake her head but it hurt too much. “I-I don’t know. That’s the truth.”
The huge diamond glinted on the man’s ring as he raised his fist. “One. More. Time.” He bared his teeth. “You will die if you don’t tell me.” Then he tried to turn his lips up in some semblance of a smile. “On the other hand, if you give me the information I need, you can walk out of here.”
Tears flooded Jenika’s eyes as she thought about her twins and saw their pretty faces in her mind. The girls would be three in just a few weeks. Her precious babies had been born on New Year’s Day. A new year, new life, new start.
The woman who had paid her so much money had promised she would have the twins taken care of while Jenika worked for her. And she had promised that the girls would lack for nothing if anything happened to her.
If anything happened to me.
The woman had told her it could be dangerous, but Jenika had only seen the money that would help her get away from the life she led as a prostitute in Nevada. No matter how much the woman tried to impress upon her the danger she might face, Jenika had pictured herself in a career where her children could be proud of their mother as they grew up.
She should have known then, when the woman offered her the money. She should have listened, really listened to the woman. Maybe then she would have realized that she was being asked to do something so dangerous it was possible she might never see her girls again. So dangerous she might not survive. Was it worth all that money for her twins to never see their mother again?
“I asked you a question,” the man said in a snarl.
“All of what I have said to you is true, I swear to it.” Jenika coughed and her chest burned as tears flooded her cheeks, which were fiery hot from the heater focused on her face. “A-a woman. She came to me. Gave me money.”
“Who?” the man said his words in what sounded like short, sharp barks. “What does she look like?”
“She had dark brown hair that was cut all the way to the nape of her neck.” Jenika tried to concentrate on the image of the woman who’d come to her at the cathouse in Las Vegas. “She was petite, shorter than me. Like a pixie.”
It was so hard to see the man through the slits of her puffy eyes, but she heard him speak as if the volume of her hearing had been turned all the way up. “What’s this fucking pixie’s name?”
Jenika sucked in a breath. Her chest hurt from one of the men kicking her before. “She didn’t tell me.”
He brought his face closer to hers. “Why did she come to you?”
Jenika wanted to draw away, but her head was already against the seatback. She started sobbing and hiccuping. “I don’t know. Please. I don’t know.”
“Why would this woman come to you?” the man said. “Out of nowhere? If you’re telling the truth, which I don’t think you are, where did she find you?”
Jenika froze. If she told him that the woman contacted her at the cathouse in Nevada, they would question people who worked there. Ultimately he would find out about her daughters.
No. No, no, no. She would die before letting that happen.
“It was in Moscow.” Jenika’s voice shook as she hurried to get out every bit of her lie that she could. “I had no money. What she offered was a way for me to start a new life. She
said she would make sure I wouldn’t be here for long. She just wanted me to see if I could get pieces of information to her.”
The man leaned forward, his face in hers, blocking the heat but forcing her to smell his sour breath. “What information have you given this woman?”
Jenika again tried to shake her head and felt like her brain was going to fall into pieces. “I only found some kind of paper that didn’t make any sense. I still gave it to the man I was told to once I found something.”
His face reddened. “What man? You didn’t mention any fucking man.”
Jenika’s heart slammed against her chest harder. “He never came back. I gave him the paper one night while men stuffed dollars into my G-string and I never saw him again.”
“You’re a lying bitch.” Through her puffy eyelids as she saw him draw his fist back. “We’ll just keep doing this until I beat the information out of you.”
The huge diamond ring on the man’s fist was the last thing she saw before pain splintered through her head and her world spun into a shattered void.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Killer Ant hills and scrotums
It was one of the hardest things I’d ever faced in my career as a RED special agent. I could almost feel the cool metal of my Glock in my hands as I squared off and one at a time took out all the bastards who were prostituting these girls. My body was flushed with heat, but my mind was focused on doing what I had to do to end this.
Watching what these girls were forced to do was like razors slicing my intestines into ribbons. I couldn’t do anything yet for those innocent young women dancing half naked on the stage to screaming, pulsating music. For that one moment as I watched the girls, I felt impotent. Helpless to be unable to do what needed to be done so badly, fast enough. Like now.
Screw helpless or impotent. I was going to make this happen and get the girls safely out of here.
I looked at my watch. I couldn’t call Mama again until tomorrow morning. I didn’t know if I could even sleep between the time I got home from the Elite until I talked with her.
The girls were so drugged they probably didn’t even know what they were doing. I imagined all that went through their heads were refrains of threats against themselves and their families if they didn’t do what they’d been told. A program looping through their confused brains.
Maybe it was better for them that way.
Kerrison stood at a podium in a darker part of the room, to the left of the stage, close to the curtain that hid several lap-dance booths behind it. The bead fringes along her half top and miniskirt sparkled, reflecting the colored lights that flashed throughout the club.
Men had started approaching Kerrison at the podium and handing her credit cards or enough cash for a lap dance with the girl of their choice. Stalder mentioned that some of the men in the club would pay for two or more girls at once. Not only for lap dances, but for a group get-together in a private room upstairs.
Somehow I had to get my anger, the tension in my body, under control. I wasn’t going to do anyone a damned bit of good if I didn’t maintain.
“Not much of an improvement.” Stalder’s voice came low and even from behind me but hair prickled at the nape of my neck. “The girls still look as if they do not know what they are doing.”
I turned to face him and gave him a cool stare. “Two hours to work with the girls before showtime is not enough time to make true progress.” I gestured to the three girls who were pole-dancing onstage and stripping off what little clothing they had on. “And they are drugged terribly. How can they dance when they are like this?”
His stare remained cool, and I tried to pretend that I assumed they were junkies by choice. “Is there a way you can get the girls to stop the drugs until after they are finished working for the night?”
Stalder gripped my upper arm so hard and so unexpectedly that he was lucky he didn’t end up in a heap on the floor. Two moves and I would have had him there.
“You ensure these girls make the clients very happy.” He leaned close, and his Tiffany Sport Cologne made me want to sneeze as I caught its scent that on him was like pepper and some kind of herbs. His breath brushed the hair around my ear, and I had to resist the urge to ram my elbow into his solar plexus. “Mr. G will not be pleased if you do not improve their performances.”
I turned so that I could meet his gaze head-on even though I had to tip my head back. “I will do my job and Ms. Chandra will do hers.”
He studied me for a long moment before he turned and vanished into the crowd. Jeez but the guy gave me the creeps.
My gaze returned to the girls onstage as men now pawed at them. Sticking bills into their G-strings, but touching other places on the women that they weren’t supposed to.
The power of my anger was just as intense as it had been when Donovan’s sister and other young women had been kidnapped and sold in online auctions. Men from around the world bid on them and considered them merchandise—the women were shipped mostly to foreign countries as sex slaves. Sometimes they were taken by U.S. buyers, as Kristin had been.
My and Donovan’s team of RED agents had had to find and stop the next auction, and take down the local ringleader, a masochistic sonofabitch. We’d been almost too late for the latest group of women who had been kidnapped from local dance clubs.
It had been too late for Kristin Donovan. A fact she had to live with every single day of her life, even after her recovery by Donovan and RED.
Rage twisted my insides until I thought I might not be able to hide my fury. Thank God I have a good poker face or the depth of my anger would have been flaming in my eyes. Here, at the so-called Elite Gentleman’s Club . . . worse than watching the girls dance mostly naked was knowing that they would be taken into rooms and prostituted as soon as they came off that stage.
And this was only the start of my and Kerrison’s first evening on the op.
My thoughts raced as my anger made my head ache while I watched the girls undulate and thrust their breasts out as they’d been taught. I wanted to eliminate Hagstedt’s New York City ring as fast as possible and bring down the bastard himself, which would help dismember and destroy his international operations.
I had to help these girls.
It could take days before we got our claws into Hagstedt. Or weeks. Depending on whether or not Hagstedt came like we thought he would, according to the encrypted note Jenika had intercepted and Kerrison had deciphered.
What would Hagstedt look like when I finally faced him? How would I know it was him?
Whatever the case, I could easily picture a bullet hole in a generic man’s forehead. Knowing that man would be Hagstedt.
The music blaring over the speakers was coming to an end, a disgusting song when tied to these girls. It was a woman who shrieked about men going down on her and then screwing her brains out. Yeah, that set the mood real good for these assholes in the club.
I backed away from the place where I’d been watching the stage, and I went to the podium to join Kerrison. I wanted to reach her before this first trio of girls and their handlers. The men would take strips of paper with each of the girls’ assignments.
Kerrison was putting on a brilliant and most definitely fake smile for a man who paid her with a thick stack of bills. All hundreds if my sight was as good as usual despite the dim light. The rotund man, who was wearing a clearly expensive business suit, was obviously a regular who wanted to go straight for the goodies.
What would he think if he knew he was in fact raping a woman who’d been kidnapped into forced prostitution, sexual slavery?
Did he know? Was he among the men who were fully aware that these women were unwilling prostitutes, like the handlers knew? Whatever the case, I’d have been glad to make it so that he’d never screw another woman again.
“How’s it going?” I said low and close to Kerrison’s ear.
“As well as it can considering the situation.” She still wore her fake smile. Damn, she was good at tha
t. I might have to take lessons from her.
My gut twisted for another reason, and my heart thrummed as I let my gaze drift over the room that was blurred by cigar smoke. “Have you seen Jenika anywhere?” I asked, keeping my mouth close to her ear. “She wasn’t there during our first lesson with the girls this afternoon.”
“No.” Kerrison still smiled but anger tinged her voice. “And we can’t even ask about her because we’re not supposed to know she’s here. We’re not supposed to know anyone here.”
Fire continued to simmer under my skin. “And that bastard, Giger, sure made it clear that questions aren’t allowed.” I tried on a fake smile of my own as I looked at Kerrison. “You can bet I’ll find a way.”
As thoughts of Jenika rushed through my mind, fear for her made my hands shake. I’d been the one to go to Jenika at the cathouse in Nevada. I’d offered her the money and the deal. I’d taken her from her children and promised their safety and Jenika’s safe return.
I’d lost an agent on the last op—she’d been murdered. My stomach clenched hard. The bastards had raped and slit Randolph’s throat when they discovered she was an undercover agent.
Later in the op I’d been taken by the same men who’d killed Randolph. I’d been interrogated. Beaten. Humiliated in a way that I’d never forget.
I held my hand to my belly and felt the diamond piercing beneath my dress. I tried to concentrate on the Chinese symbol for dragon around my belly button rather than what had been carved there.
Something was definitely wrong. Jenika should be here. I had to find her and make sure she was all right.
I sucked in a deep breath and regretted it as I coughed out cigar smoke.
“Maybe she’s ill,” Kerrison said as she finished accepting cash from another john. “Hell, maybe they moved her to a different club.”
“I’m going to find out.” I wouldn’t lose another person on my watch. Jenika was an innocent, too. She wasn’t trained to be a spy. She was a working girl whom we’d ultimately exploited to get inside this trafficking ring. I’d allowed her to be put in the line of danger. I’d been the one to make it happen.
Cheyenne McCray - [Lexi Steele 02] Page 12