Overcome, she became numb, trying to concentrate on occasional significant details to remember for a future report. They loaded her into a car like she couldn’t do so herself, and Locke took the seat next to her in the back but never looked her way.
All of that, she was prepared for. Still… the reality was harsh.
The drive was long, the road was severe, and the sky hung low in the early morning. They began to climb the driveway of an estate, and there were mansions—plural—on it, a breathtaking complex of architecture that deserved to be photographed—minus the armed guards that awaited them as the car slowed. The guns made her heart climb into her throat even as she took in wealth on a level that she’d never seen before.
Strange, seeing such opulence, even from a driveway, when they’d been driving for what seemed like hours through a deep, depressive blanket anywhere she glanced.
Locke and Jax spoke to the driver, and she said nothing until her door was opened, and then she stumbled forward, mumbling into the frigid wind, “Thank you.”
Manners. Even when sold and cold.
The harsh weather had caught her off guard before, and still, it stole her breath as they hustled inside the largest of the homes. The great door closed behind her, and grateful for the warmth, Cassidy took in her new surroundings as the men stepped away.
It was absolutely exquisite and ornate—nothing like she’d ever seen before but exactly what she would have imagined. There were thick tapestries hanging over each side of the windows, and the thick carpet was a deep red. Everywhere she looked held cabinets and curios, a thousand accent pieces in brilliant yellows and golds.
At the direction of their escort, Locke and Jax pushed her into a grand foyer. Locke stopped making eye contact with her. It was for the job. She repeated that over and over as she clung to the knowledge he wasn’t a cold, human trafficking piece of shit who jet-setted around the world.
Jax seemed harsher. Shrewder. Always looking for a deal, appraising art, appraising her. All that she had expected. Still, Jax and Locke had each other. She had no one.
The foyer opened into a grand sitting area. “Here, come here.” Their driver beckoned as women dressed in what looked like servants’ uniforms—black dresses and starched white aprons—urged them to follow.
Cassidy’s stomach dropped as she followed directions. Ahead, men in business suits with their hair slicked back entered from the opposite end of the hall. Locke and Jax surged forward. Her footing stumbled, heavy and unsteady. She searched helplessly for exits even as she studied the ornate statues that lined the walls. There was no way to leave, and even if she could break free of these walls, she’d freeze to death. They were a hundred miles from the nearest town, and she had no way to communicate with anyone. Damn, her pulse thundered. Unable to breathe, she felt as if all the art had toppled on top of her as everyone bustled around.
Jax snapped, and she jumped, her reaction completely real. His unforgiving eyes made her jog forward, and her fear wasn’t an act.
Damn. This undercover operation was all too real, too much, and—Cassidy felt Locke’s gaze before she found it and could breathe.
Thank the fucking Lord—she could breathe. A ragged breath cleared. She wasn’t going to hyperventilate. Too much rode on the success of their job.
And for Locke’s part, vengeance burned clear and angry in his blue irises. Any onlooker would’ve seen her as simple product waiting to be sold. Her very real response was important to the process. If any of them didn’t feel as if the situation were real, and their covers were blown, they’d all be dead.
But he wouldn’t screw this up. Locke was simply making a list of fuckers to kill. A calm ran through her. God, she loved him and was amazed that he could give her strength from just a glare.
Handshakes were completed. The business was done—at least, until her buyer arrived. Jax began the conversation in which he and Locke would have to step out for a few hours but return before the oligarch arrived. Everyone believed the man arriving to purchase her would be there in hours, and the transportation was graciously arranged for her only points of contact. All were merry and chummy as she stood there, ignored, waiting for Locke and Jax to leave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Alexander burst into his house and ran up the stairs. “I’m home from school, Mama.”
Wrapped in the same shawl around her shoulders as when he’d left, his mother sat with a pencil in her hand, circling words in a crossword puzzle. “You should be in class.”
“I’m the teacher. I teach the class.” He’d glanced at her crossword puzzle books before, and the words she circled never made sense. But at the moment, he didn’t have time to feel disheartened. “But, Mom, I’m going on a trip. I shouldn’t be gone very long, but until I get back, Tanya is in charge of you.”
She put her pencil in the crease of the book and closed it primly. “Alexander, no one is in charge of me. I’m your mother. Your sister is not, and you are not. And you should be in school, young man.”
He ignored her conviction that he was still a student, and he focused on Tanya. “Well, she is. You two can bicker about who’s the boss later.”
Tanya would moan and groan and complain about her real life and family, how she was far away from them, but he was sick and tired of being responsible for Mama all the time. “When I come back, I’m going to have my daughter. The one that I keep telling you about. Remember her?”
“Hmm?” His mama’s glassy eyes gave him the answer. She had no clue. “It’s good to have goals in life, but you won’t have a family if you don’t go back to school. Did you eat breakfast this morning?”
Damn, that irritated the hell out of him. Where had this mother been when he was growing up, when he needed to hear about “goals”? Or maybe he needed her to say, “Don’t do illegal things.” Dementia had transformed his mother into fucking Mother Teresa. Fuck it. He knew he should feel bad about her slip from reality, but he couldn’t. She was no longer the woman who stole and drank, the one who’d introduced him to petty crime and let their father take him from school to hang with the Bratva. That Mama was gone.
Yet that Mama had been so proud of him in the neighborhood.
A dull ache pounded in his chest. Abandoning Mama to Tanya, ignoring her upstairs as often as he did—that was disloyal. Mama had given him everything, or at least, as much as she was capable of.
So what if they stole together, lied together, worked with the Bratva? It was the only life he knew: crime and alcohol and the bosses… until Taisia came into his world.
He hustled back up the stairs. “Mom, I will do right by you.”
Because even if she didn’t know how to be a good mom, she had tried. Just like he’d been trying to be a good father for the past eight years. He would do anything for his family. “I’m going to go get my daughter and my woman. I will make you proud. I promise.”
“Alexander…” She blinked, dumbfounded. “I’m always proud of you.”
He froze, stunned into paralysis. Those words? That was his mom, not the lies of dementia or her pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
“Always,” she repeated.
Free of the surprise, he kissed her on the top of her head. That wasn’t what their family did——affection, hugs, kisses, touches—and it felt awkward. But it was what he wanted to do for his daughter, and if his mother lived in a land of make-believe, maybe now he could too. “Thanks for saying that.”
“But be home before dinner. Your father will want to see you.”
“Sure thing.” Alexander left to her trail of gibberish about his dead dad’s plans for that night and tried to calculate if he had enough money to buy the ticket to Russia. In his bedroom, he decided against a phone call and pulled up a text message to his sister.
ALEXANDER: I’m headed out of town. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You’re in charge of Mama.
That was that. He moved through his room quickly, stuffing a few pairs of pants, underwear, shirts, and a sweatshirt i
nto his duffel bag, and then grabbed his recently stamped passport. He wasn’t coming home without Taisia and Alyona. This time, there would be no mistakes. Her father wouldn’t stop him. No matter if he pulled guns, no matter if he threatened lives, no matter what that bastard did, nothing would stop Alex.
Alexander ran back to his laptop. “Almost forgot the most important thing.”
On two separate jump drives, he had downloaded everything he’d found in his students’ parents’ emails and files. Some things were salacious; in other cases, the emails and information were scandalous, though ninety-five percent were boring. The remaining five percent, though, were newsworthy and very much of interest to Ivan and maybe to Russia’s FSB. All of it was worthy of a trade for his child and woman. “Now I’m ready.”
***
The men conducted business, and Cassidy stood awkwardly to the side of the great room, cast as background like one of the pieces of art that lined the walls. Each piece looked expensive and probably held great artistic significance. She couldn’t wrap her mind around how expansive the room was. Locke and Jax puffed on cigarettes that encased them with heavy smoke, and their jovial business chatter carried as if she were long forgotten. To the other men, she probably had been forgotten, set aside until her owner arrived.
“Are you hungry?”
Cassidy jumped, twisting toward the unexpected, strongly accented English question that came from behind her.
There stood a beautiful woman, not dressed like the servant girls, but rather, in impeccable clothes that made her look like aristocracy from another century. Cassidy shook her head, remembering to keep up the dejected, drugged-victim appearance. “I’m not.”
“You will eat,” the woman commanded. “Keep your energy up. Stay healthy.”
Well, then. If Miss Prim and Proper in the Nice Dress was worried about the health and well-being of the poor sex slaves… Cassidy channeled her newfound aggravation into mental investigative inquisitions and did an appraisal of how she was actually feeling, comparing it to earlier. She was not as terrified—at least for the moment—and absolutely pissed off that there was a woman involved in this, one who was absurd enough to order her to keep her strength. Women who hated and hurt other women were the devil. That, Cassidy decided, was the truth and would be a highlight of her future article.
“Come, now,” the woman said in a way that gave no question that she was in charge. Even the men seemed to react to her in a positive way. She was quite the specimen of a human trafficker. The bitch. “Don’t fight it. It can be bad. Don’t make it that way.”
Locke had turned away again, as had the other men, and the woman adjusted her beautiful skirt and started away. Hell. Cassidy didn’t want to leave Locke, but there was no turning back now.
Cassidy shuffled to keep pace with the woman. They left the formal areas and entered the working part of the mansion, moving in and out of halls until they came into a large kitchen. Two women with hair tied in buns worked quietly, never lifting their heads. They didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge that Cassidy and the well-dressed woman had walked into the room. They just existed to work. Was it fear or desolation that made them that way? Cassidy would know soon enough. Each robotic woman chopped carrots, tossing them into large steel vats. She wondered why it was so impossible for them to even look up.
The woman in the long skirt pushed her onto a stool. “Sit.” Her heavy skirt flared as she spun. She reached into a massive fridge and extracted what looked like butter or a spread of some type, clattered it onto a counter, and then went to a cabinet and removed a loaf of bread.
“Hello,” Cassidy whispered to the carrot choppers.
They didn’t acknowledge her existence. The well-dressed woman spread the butter over the bread slice as if Cassidy were four years old. With a final flick, she dropped the bread onto a plate and went into the refrigerator again.
Turning, she said, “You like soup?” Not giving a chance for an answer, she produced a gallon-sized container and proceeded to a counter to spoon red soup into a bowl.
“I guess.”
After microwaving the soup, the lady put the bread-and-soup combination in front of Cassidy. “Eat.”
“Thank you.” Again with the manners. Who knew this would be a thing and that it would bug her so much?
The woman pressed her lips together. “It is important that you eat.”
She couldn’t be worried that Cassidy was hungry or weak. They needed to keep their product in the best condition possible, and that meant with food in her system.
Cassidy quickly finished off the soup and buttered bread. The two women who cut carrots never raised their eyes from their cutting boards.
“You have finished,” the woman snapped. “It is time.”
For what…? Cassidy glanced at the carrot choppers. No reaction.
Seeing that the niceties were gone, she hopped from her stool, quickly following the woman back toward the huge room. At least Cassidy would get to see Locke again. That was worth the smile that she tried to hide as they came closer to the male voices that traveled down the hall.
Or had they come another way? She tried to memorize the labyrinth. Yes. This was where the main area was. And Locke.
But they stopped. No… Cassidy’s nerves fluttered. From ten feet away, she could even hear his laugh. But the woman stopped at a small doorway and took a key set out of her pocket, and unlocked the door.
Oh… they were close to Locke.
Gesturing that Cassidy should walk through, the woman said, “Go.”
Searing disappointment scored through Cassidy. She wouldn’t see Locke again. The distance between them was so small, and other than a partition of drywall and heavy tapestries, there was nothing between them.
“Go,” the woman ordered again.
Cassidy nodded and followed directions, for the first time, feeling helpless. The lady followed right behind, and the door slammed, the key turning again from her side.
Locked in.
Cassidy’s stomach sank as her eyes adjusted to the dank, musky, tiny hallway inside the wall, right next to Locke.
If she screamed, he wouldn’t know how to get her—short of tearing through the wall. But he probably wouldn’t get her. They were undercover, and this was her job. A move like that would find them all dead.
“Go.” They walked down winding halls that opened to a wider hallway. Off that, there were what looked like small rooms without doors, each filled with cots. With people… women.
They sat in silence. Some slunk down. Others peered up nervously. Curiously. Uncertainty hung over them like a lead blanket.
“Stay,” the woman said, and then she was gone.
“Hello,” Cassidy whispered.
A few responded. Most did not.
Cassidy had her work cut out for her if she wanted to help Delta gather intel. People wouldn’t hand over information willy-nilly. She wanted to know who they were, how long they’d been there, where they came from. But Cassidy needed to stabilize. There was too much despondency staring at her, and just standing there sucked the life out of her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ninety, one hundred… Insomnia sucked. Cassidy counted how many hours she had been away from Locke. She counted how many girls she had met—eighteen—and how many guards were on duty at night in the Russian sex trafficker’s mansion, though that number was a total guess. No matter what she did, there was no going to sleep. She shivered and pulled the tattered, itchy blanket over her shoulder on the cot. Cassidy had guessed it would be like this, but still, a little bit of sleep would be a good thing.
Somewhere out there, Delta team was rescuing a truckload of “stable girls.” How long would that take? She thought they would have finished and been here before nightfall.
Nope. Plans were meant to be adjusted, and she was flying blind. Other than one girl named Victoria from the Midwest, few had spoken to her. They were convinced, Victoria said, that people could hear their conversation
s. But she didn’t think that was the case. Still, Victoria hadn’t given up much information other than she was also an American and had been in the mansion for more than a week. Cassidy had the distinct impression that Victoria had caught the eye of someone powerful. Maybe even Ivan. Perhaps that was too much of a guess, but whatever had happened to Victoria had left shadows in her eyes despite the strong front she offered to everyone around her.
Cassidy had chewed her nails down until she’d finally given up on finding out anything, realizing that they thought maybe she was a plant from the woman who dropped her off. Who knew what kind of paranoia and awfulness some of them had seen?
Everyone was asleep. Maybe it was the new sounds and smells, though she’d never had sleep troubles before. Too much worry, maybe. Too many lives in danger—in this room and in the adjacent ones. They’d been hurt and were going to be raped and sold if Titan and Delta didn’t get this right.
Those things might happen to her if Titan didn’t get the job done correctly.
But Titan would come through… they would. Cassidy chewed another finger.
There wasn’t much light from the few windows, and she pulled her finger away, trying to remember the layout of the mansion and the hidden hallways. Each square room slept a few girls, and no area had doors. There was a bathroom. No one was in filth, and before bed, the woman in the dress ensured they were sufficiently fed.
That woman… Cassidy couldn’t take her eyes off her. Neither could Victoria, who had been assigned to hand out plates and dole out their food. Victoria seemed to be the woman’s chosen one—a sort of housemother’s helper. Cassidy found it interesting that there was a pecking order within the dormitory.
She tried to get a good read on the woman the two or three times that she saw her. They were about the same age. Cassidy wanted to see evil in her eyes, wanted to hate her, to understand why she could cart girls in and out for sex and abuse at the hands of men. The woman herself didn’t look used and abused. Actually, she was pretty.
Locke and Key (Titan Book 12) Page 24