by Marie James
I shake my head to clear the thoughts as best I can.
“I suggest you tell me.” I pause trying to keep my finger on the trigger guard rather than on the actual trigger.
“I got into some trouble. They took her as payment.” He sobs again, but he’s so dehydrated, he’s run out of tears.
“What the fuck are you talking about, old man? You sold your fucking daughter?” He’s even more vile than his outward appearance led me to believe.
“Might as well have sold her!” He yells suddenly getting angry. Get off the couch; I fucking dare you. “They want me to pay two hundred thousand dollars. I don’t have that kind of money. She’s theirs. There’s nothing I can do.”
Ignoring the details I ask, “Who do you owe that kind of money to?”
His head jerks up like I’ve thrown something at him. “I can’t tell you that.” His eyes widen even further, “They’ll kill me.”
“Look at you. Seems like death would be easier than the shit you’re dealing with now.” I should regret saying such a horrible thing. It may not have been drugs in my life, but I’ve been pretty fucking close to rock bottom myself. I know the kinds of thoughts he’s thinking. Only difference is, my rock bottom didn’t cause harm or even possible death to others.
He nods his head as if agreeing that death would be easier. “Can you find her?”
“I sure as hell will give it my best.” It’s an honest answer. I can’t be sure of much else until I know exactly what it is that I’m dealing with.
I watch as he takes a small bag out of the front pocket of his shirt. “They call themselves the SINdicate.” He taps the bag, so some of the hard clumps fall out onto the scorched spoon I’d seen on the table earlier. Because getting high right now is the best thing for his daughter apparently. “They’re out of Vegas.”
“What casino?” He ignores me as he scoops up the lighter from the table. “Stop!” I insist. “You’re not smoking that shit with me in here.”
“Then get the fuck out,” he seethes. I can already see the tremble in his hand and know he’s not far off from losing it. He probably should have taken his next hit an hour ago.
“Tell me what I want to know,” I say through gritted teeth.
He ignores me for the last time, and I take a step forward just as he lifts the lighter under the spoon. I kick the shit out of his hands before he has time to strike the flint.
“What the fuck have you done?” I shake my head, growing angrier every second, as I watch him scramble after the small pellets of dope on the disgusting carpet.
“Tell me what I need to know, old man or I’ll take what’s left from your pocket.” He turns suddenly and clutches his dirty hand over the pocket on his shirt. I almost laugh because he looks exactly like Sméagol off of Lord of the Rings when he finally got his hand on the little, golden ring. Except this shit isn’t funny and Aviana’s life is in danger. If she’s still alive, comes to my head unbidden.
“What Casino?”
“It’s called The Golden Dragon.”
“Never heard of it.” I’ve been to Vegas numerous times, and it doesn’t ring a bell.
“It’s not on the strip. It’s mainly used by locals and people...” His voice trails off, but I see his fingers twitch against his chest.
“You smoked two hundred thousand in dope?” I don’t even try to hide the disdain in my voice.
“I gambled some too,” he says sounding affronted.
“You went there looking for drugs?”
“I went there broke. They found me, not the other way around,” he explains. This means they’re looking for people to get their hooks into.
I nod, scenarios already running through my head. I need to get out of here and start putting a fucking plan together. I’m already days behind.
“How long did they give you?”
“Three weeks.” His fingers dip into his front pocket as if it’s second nature and the action is subconscious.
“Mother fucker,” I mumble as I holster the Sig.
“You going to go find my baby girl?” The packet of dope is already open and tipped over the top of the spoon.
“You better be gone before I get back. This is the last fucking thing she needs to see after what you’ve put her through.”
I leave him in the squalor of the apartment. I have more important things to deal with, and her useless father is the last fucking thing on my list.
***
I make my way back to campus to get my truck. The dank air from the apartment clings to me, and the urge to head home to take a shower is almost too hard to resist.
My first call is to my boss at the Academy. I tell him there’s been a family emergency, and I have to take a leave of absence. He doesn’t give me any shit and doesn’t ask questions. The next call I place will not go as quickly, so I pull up an old friend’s number and put the other call on the back burner.
The phone rings several times before being answered. “What’s wrong,” the man on the other end of the call says with no other greeting.
“Why does something have to be wrong?” I ask even though I know what he’s going to say.
“You never call. Something must be wrong.” I instantly wish I’d been a better friend to him. My life is busy, and I’m sure his is too, but I should make more time for the people in my life.
“Spill it, peg leg.” I smile from ear to ear. Anyone else saying something like that to me would piss me off at the audacity, but since Blade is a double-leg amputee, he had one leg up on me, or was it down? At any rate, this man knows better than most what’s it’s like to be in our situation and sometimes, well most of the time, comedy is the best answer.
I’m just about to brag about half priced pedicures, but the realization that Aviana’s gone and I’m just wasting time right now hits me hard.
“I need some help,” I pause. “I need some things, but more importantly, I need a secure line for Shadow.”
“Pretty serious then, huh?” He asks, and I can hear him rustling paper around.
“Extremely serious,” I tell him.
He rattles off the number to me, and I jot it down on a receipt in the console of my truck. “Grab a burner before you call him.”
“Of course,” I say. “We’ll catch up after this.”
“It’ll be good to see that ugly, bearded face of yours,” he says with a chuckle.
We hang up, and I head for the nearest store that sells prepaid phones. At each stop light on my way, I begin deleting and suspending each one of my social media pages. Not to brag, but my face has been all over the internet for years. I hope the assholes in Vegas don’t recognize me. I’m pretty certain that they don’t read romance novels, so that’s a plus.
I shoot off quick messages to the authors I have pending shoots for and let the photographers know I have some shit to deal with. I assure them I’ll be back before long, and we’ll pick up right where I left off. Everyone seems to be super understanding, and that’s what I love about the indie author world.
I contemplate calling the police, but I know they can’t help me. This became Federal jurisdiction when they took her over state lines. Well, I presume they took her back to Vegas. I’m literally betting her life that they took her there. If I get there and can’t find her, I don’t know what I’ll do besides rain Hell on everyone who could’ve possibly been involved.
I don’t have time for bureaucratic bullshit, plus I know some guys that can help me better than the feds. I run inside the corner store and grab a burner phone. They’ve come a long way over the years, but they’re nothing like the smartphone I’m used to.
I toss the new phone in the other seat and scrub my hands over my face. The last call I need to make has my stomach turning, but I know it has to be done.
It only rings twice before it’s answered.
“Brian,” he says in a voice I’ve known and loved since birth.
“Dad,” I greet him. “There’s something I have to do.”
>
“I already don’t like the sound of this, son.”
I give a light laugh thinking he’s going to hate the details. “There’s something I have to do. I can’t go into much detail, but I have to go out of town for a bit, and I’m going to be unreachable for a while.”
His silence is telling. I know he’s weighing between being a father, albeit of a grown man, and concern for his child.
“You know my motto, Brian.”
“Always do right by other people,” we say in tandem.
It’s his turn to laugh.
“Do what you have to do, but stay safe, son.”
“Always,” I tell him before hanging up.
My very last call is to the kennel. Scout is going to hate me after this, but I know she’ll be well taken care of. I have another girl I need to worry about right now.
Chapter 10
Aviana
Darby is the only woman here that will give me the time of day. All of the others seem to be in competition with everyone. They all know I’m here against my will. The majority of the men that come to “visit” don’t even look my way because that’s not why I’m here. Yet, they still hate me and treat me as an adversary.
It may have more to do with Darby though. From what I can tell, most of the men prefer her. I’ve even witnessed a few of the guys argue over who was going to get to spend time with her on a particular evening. Sometimes, the argument was settled by her taking both of the guys back to her room.
Threesomes. Clearly the guys loved them, and Darby had no problem with them either. This is what angered the other women. I never thought I’d see the day where women hated other women for sleeping with a man that wasn’t theirs. Today was Saturday, a busy day for the guys that came around. Darby had told me earlier in the week that Fridays and Saturdays were the quietest here.
With that information, I was bound and determined to finally get her to explain to me exactly how this whole brothel thing worked. I like to have as much information as possible about my surroundings, but more than that, I’m hoping she’ll let information slip that I can use to break out of here.
We’d just gotten comfortable on one of the couches in the living area when the now familiar ding of the elevator on the other side of the steel could be heard. Seconds later the heavy, thick door swung open. So much for it being a quiet night.
Three handsome men, two of which I’ve seen here before, came strolling in. Their suits fit them perfectly, and I watched as a wicked smile came over Darby’s face. She began to visibly preen and tug her tank top down, exposing more of her large breasts.
One of the guys winked at her, but he followed behind the other two down the hallway. From our vantage point on the couch, we could see them use a key card to gain access to one of the women’s room. Sheila had only been here a few days, but she kept mostly to herself. The few times I did see her, she looked completely out of her head. I couldn’t tell if she was baked all the time or if she had some severe disabilities.
I hear some muttering, and then the guys came out of the room. One guy was in the front, and the other two were on opposite sides of Sheila as they guided her to the door.
“Where are they taking her?” I ask softly. She shakes her head as if telling me not to talk and doesn’t look my way.
Before the echo of the steel door closing dissipates, I see several women leave their rooms and go into Sheila’s. A minute or so later they each come out with an arm full of her belongings.
“Fucking vultures,” she mutters under her breath. “They act like the SINdicate doesn’t pay for every damn thing we need.”
“She won’t be back?” Sheila seemed lost since the first day she got here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy for what’s going to happen to her. For all I know I may be in the same boat soon.
“Nope,” she says and shakes her head for emphasis. “I’m surprised they brought her here first.”
“Where do they take them?” I ask again, hoping, this time, she’ll actually answer me since the men are gone.
“The Cat House,” she says.
The Cat House? Seriously?
“The guys must have hoped her being here would’ve helped her. They usually don’t let them come back.”
“She’s been here before?”
“Yeah, she was here a few months ago. They took her to The Cat House. I was curious why they brought her back.”
“What in the hell is The Cat House?”
She looks at me like she doesn’t know if she should answer me. She darts her head around seeing if anyone else is in earshot. “The Cat House,” she whispers causing me to lean in closer. “That’s where they take the women when none of the guys want to visit with them here. They become street girls rather than SIN VIPs.”
I gasp and bring both hands to my cheeks. “They make them become hookers?”
“Yep,” she says with the P-popping on her lips. “Not exclusive like we have it here. I never want to be a street girl.”
I mean, yeah, who the fuck would? Then again, I still can’t fathom doing what she does either. I’ve done my best not to be judgey, but it pops up every once in a while.
So somewhere there is a whole group of girls that have been forced to sell themselves on the street. The women here may want that for themselves, but surely there are women at The Cat House that don’t want to be in that life. I don’t care if people do things, and it’s by choice, but when you take away the right to choose from a woman, that’s the lowest of the low.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I begin hoping the next conversation seems like an appropriate segue from the one we were just having. “How exactly does it work around here?”
She raises an eyebrow, and I watch as a little smirk comes across her face. “I was wondering when you were going to get curious enough to want the details.”
I just nod my head, because I know she’ll shut down if I indicate that I want to know for a different reason than what she’s thinking. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she thinks I’m interested in joining the VIPs, that will never happen.
“I don’t know each and every girl’s struggle. Only mine.” She looks around the room once more. “They’ve pretty much hated me since I got here, so I haven’t learned much about them.”
She takes a sip of water from the bottle in her hands and begins explaining the ins and outs.
“Vito found me dancing in a crappy club. The pay was terrible, and the tips were even worse. He was handsome and clean.” She smiles big. “Most of the guys that showed up at the nasty place made you question whether or not you’d catch an STD from a lap dance.”
I wince because that’s pretty freaking bad.
“He watched me all night. I knew when I laid eyes on him the first time he sauntered through the door like he owned the place, I was going to have a piece of him.” She laughs, “And by piece, I mean I was going to fuck him and roll him.”
I’d like to find the comedy in this, but I’ve seen Vito. No way I’d ever look at him and think that I could rob him and survive.
“It didn’t go as planned. He caught me of course. I’d thought I gave it to him so good he was passed out. Apparently not,” she says rolling her eyes. “I gave him my sob story because I knew he could kill me if he wanted to. He had a hold of my wrists, and all I could think about was the gun he had put in the bedside table before we had sex. I just knew my life was over. I still don’t know to this day if it was because of my skills in the sack or my sob story that I’m here.”
“He made you come here because you tried to rob him?”
She laughs. “No he told me about this place, and I was all for it.”
I stay quiet because although I find her story interesting, these aren’t the details I initially asked about. She peels the label on the bottle of water in her hands, and I wonder just how much of her saying she likes it here is truth.
“Tell me about the contract.” She mentioned signing a contract the first
day we met, and I’m confused as to why she signed one and I didn’t. Her story sounds like she had a choice, even if it was dubious.
“The contract,” she begins, “lays out the bank account and what each thing we do is worth.”
I tilt my head hoping she goes into much more detail, because what she’s just said doesn’t explain a damn thing.
She laughs at my reaction. “Okay. Each time we visit with a guy, what we do with them has a price. A blow job is a different price than sex. Three-ways and group sex carry the highest price. Anal pays the most if you’re only with one guy.”
You’re? Is she implying me or talking about herself?
“They just give you money each time they come in?”
She shakes her head no. “They set up an account on your first day, and they make deposits in it. My contract is for five years. I’ve been here almost half that. When our contract expires, we can sign another one or take our money and leave.”
“Are you sure they actually pay people when they leave?” I mean if they didn’t, the women didn’t really have a leg to stand on.
Darby had told me before we were in Vegas and I know for a fact prostitution is illegal in Clark County, not that it doesn’t happen, but they wouldn’t have a legal standing. I want to slap myself for sitting here like an idiot arguing over the legality of this operation when they’ve abducted me, and they’re apparently sending other women out and forcing them into prostitution on the street.
“The only other women that have been here longer than me are still here. I have no clue how long their contracts are. The only ones that have left here are the ones that refuse to work their contract or are too fucked up to suck dick.” She’s so blunt, and even though what she says shocks the shit out of me, I find it refreshing.
She’s told me a lot, but nothing I can really use to get out of this damn place.
“I noticed the guys use a key card and just walk into Sheila’s room,” I say.