I have to smile. “He looked similar. Not quite as tall or as big, though. Or as many tattoos.”
“I’m with one of the other Lords. Thorn.”
“Aha. Hence, how you know him as Beast.”
“Yeah, that’s how pretty much everyone knows him now. I’ve never heard him called Travis before.”
We arrive at the girl’s room, and Isabel knocks softly on the half-open door before peeking in. “Hello, Natalia,” she says slowly and deliberately.
“H-h-ello,” the girl repeats softly.
She looks so tiny, there on the bed. She’s in a flimsy hospital gown that is giant on her, and she has the covers pulled up around her waist on all sides, like she’s trying to make a fortress. Remnants of makeup stain her eyes and cheeks, but beneath it she could be anywhere from twelve to eighteen. More on the younger side, I think, and my heart aches at the idea. Her eyes are like saucers, huge in her thin face. There is a light bruise on her left cheekbone, and some cuts on her arms. She’s pale, and clearly afraid, but otherwise she doesn’t look seriously hurt.
Isabel steps forward and picks up a blue bag that’s sitting on a chair. She unzips it, and takes out a strange-looking phone with two headsets on either side and a bank of buttons in the center. Pulling a cord out of a side pouch, she connects one end to the phone and another to a jack on the wall behind the girl’s bed.
Isabel picks up a laminated sheet that’s resting on the small stand next to the girl’s bed. “I’m going to call someone who speaks your language,” she says slowly, pointing first at the sheet, and then at the phone. The frowns for a second, then seems to understand, and nods. Then her eyes flicker toward me, as though noticing me for the first time.
“This is…” Isabel begins, and then hesitates for just a moment. “…A friend,” she finally finishes. I flash her a grateful look.
“Natalia?” I ask. The girl stares at me, and then does the same brief hint of a nod. “I am Brooke,” I say, pointing my thumb at my chest. “Natalia.” Pointing at her. “Brooke.” Pointing at me.
“Brooke,” she repeats quietly. I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile.
“That’s right.” I look over at Isabel.
“Okay, here goes,” she says. She sets the phone on the small table with wheels next to the bed, and pushes it close to Natalia. Picking up the left handset, she pushes a blue button on the phone itself, then listens. A few seconds later, she pushes a white button beside it.
“Ukrainian,” she says into the mouthpiece, slowly and distinctly.
She waits. The room is quiet. Then:
“Hello, interpreter. I’m a nurse at Tanner Springs General Hospital. I have a patient here that I need to get some general information from. She came to us without identification, and she does not have any friends or family with her… Yes. Yes. Here she is.”
Isabel picks up the other handset and gives it to Natalia, who puts it to her ear.
“Sluchaju?” she whispers.
And then, as Isabel and I watch, she bursts into tears.
The interpreter gives the girl a minute to collect herself. Natalia clings to the phone like a lifetime, sobbing, “Diakuju! Diakuju!” over and over into the phone. I’m struggling not to start crying myself, to imagine how terrified and alone she must feel, and what a relief it must be to talk to someone who can understand her.
Little by little, Natalia quiets. The interpreter must say something to Isabel, because she wipes at her eyes and clears her throat. “Yes. Yes. Natalia. Please tell me what your full name is, and where you’re from.”
Isabel listens, pulling a pad and pen from her pocket to write notes. Through the interpreter, she finds out that the girl is from a town outside Kiev, and that she is sixteen years old. She was taken from the streets of Kiev months ago.
“Natalia. What brings you here to the hospital? Where did you come from?”
In a halting voice, the girl explains that she was locked up in a place with other girls. That they were being used for sex by the men who came there. She says that they were in that place for a long time, but that yesterday, or maybe the day before, they were woken up in the middle of the night and told everyone was leaving. They were put into a truck and driven away. Natalia managed to escape when she asked to go to the bathroom and ran into the night before they realized she was gone.
Natalia’s voice has been rising as she speaks, her tone growing desperate.
“Ya ne znav kudy yty! Ya boyavsya! U mene nemaye dokumentiv! U mene nemaye hroshey!”
The girl begins to weep, her head buried in her hands.
“Isabel,” I say quietly. “Can you please ask the interpreter to tell Natalia who I am, and ask her if she’s willing to talk to me directly? Please tell her that I want to help the girl. I want to make sure she’s safe.”
Isabel talks into the receiver. The girl listens as the interpreter speaks to her. Then, sniffling, she looks over at me and nods, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
“Tak.”
Isabel hands the phone to me. I spend the next ten minutes or so getting as much of Natalia’s story as I can. I ask the names of her parents, and how to get hold of them. She tells me her mother is dead, but that her father is alive and lives in her town near Kiev. At the end, I tell her that I will make sure she’s safe and that I’ll help her get back home. She starts to cry again and thanks me, over and over.
Isabel takes the phone from me. “Tell Natalia to rest, now,” she says to the interpreter. “We’re going to keep her here overnight, and I’m going to contact the Ukrainian embassy and have them get in touch with her father.”
Natalia listens to the interpreter, clutching the handset tightly. Tears spring to her eyes once again, but for the first time, they’re not from fear. She looks at me and gives me a smile so hopeful, so innocent, that my heart feels like it’s going to shatter.
The call ends. I glance over at Isabel, who looks as wrung out as I feel. As she starts to replace the blue phone in the bag, a soft tap on the door makes all of us turn our heads.
Travis steps into the room. “Hey,” he rumbles. “Everything good in here?”
From the bed, Natalia begins to scream.
15
Beast
The girl’s yelling her head off when Brooke hustles me out of the room and closes the door behind me.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” I mutter, bewildered. “She was lookin’ at me like I murdered her whole family.”
“I don’t know,” Brooke whispers urgently. “Maybe it’s just that you’re a man and she’s afraid of men in general right now. But I’m going to see if we can get the interpreter back on the phone and ask Natalia what’s wrong.”
I wait out in the hall, resisting the urge to go outside for a smoke. About twenty minutes later, the door opens again. Brooke steps outside. Her face is drawn and pale.
“So, what’s up?” I ask. “Did you figure out what was freaking her out so much?”
“Yeah.”
“Well? What is it?”
Brooke bites her lip. For a second, she refuses to look at me. When she finally does, it’s with eyes full of suspicion.
“It’s your cut,” she bites out. “Natalia says one of the men who came to rape her sometimes had one just like it.”
“You mean one sort of like it,” I correct her.
“No. She said the same one.” Brooke is looking at me with something like hatred. “She said she recognized some of the same words.”
“What the fuck? That’s not possible!” I explode, my voice rising to a shout. “The Lords do not deal in that kind of shit, Brooke. Absofuckinglutely not.”
“You can’t tell me your club is a bunch of choir boys, Travis,” she cries. “How do you expect me to believe you — any of you — would stop at this?”
“No, we’re not choir boys! I wouldn’t pretend otherwise!” It makes my gut twist that she thinks I or any of my brothers would be capable of raping a girl who can’t
be more than sixteen. I have to know she believes I’m a better man than that. “I know you’re not naive, Brooke,” I say, working to keep the anger out of my voice. “Yes, the Lords get up to some shit that’s not strictly legal.” I shrug. “Sometimes people get hurt. But the people who do get hurt are other MCs, other clubs who cross us. Not civilians.” I grab her by the shoulders, my eyes boring into her. She doesn’t resist. “And not little girls, Brooke. Jesus, not little girls.”
Brooke looks at me for a long time, here eyes not leaving mine. “How do you explain what Natalia says she saw, then?” She finally asks, in a tired voice. “She’s not lying, Travis.”
“I know.” I shake my head. “And I don’t know what the explanation is. But somethin’ ain’t right.”
Brooke lets me lead her out of the hospital. She’s quiet, and pretty obviously upset. I don’t know if I’ve managed to convince her one of the Lords would never do what that girl said. I have to admit, the situation’s pretty damning.
But I can’t imagine any of my brothers would fuck a girl who looks so young, who can’t even fuckin’ speak English. I go through them one by one in my mind. Not even Sarge, the sickest motherfucker of us all.
“Natalia will need some clothes,” Brooke murmurs as we exit outside into the sunshine. She seems like she’s talking to herself more than anything. “And a place to stay once the hospital releases her.”
“We can head over to the clubhouse,” I suggest immediately. “Ask one of the women if they’d have some stuff that fits her.”
“The look on her face, Travis,” Brooke whispers then. It’s like she didn’t hear me. Her breath hitches in her throat as she stops to stare at me. “She was absolutely terrified. That poor girl is…” A stifled sob stops her words. She covers her hand with her mouth, shaking her head violently as she tries not to cry.
“Babe.” My arm is around her shoulders pulling her close before I realize it. Suddenly, it’s almost like all the years between us have just slipped away. For a second, her body tenses, and then she seems to melt into me. “It’s rough, I know,” I murmur. “But she’s safe now. She’s okay.”
“Travis.” Brooke buries her face in my shoulder. “Please, please tell me this has nothing to do with your club.”
“It doesn’t,” I insist.
It can’t.
I put Brooke on the back of my bike.
And then, against my better judgment, I drive a fuckin’ FBI agent to our clubhouse.
There aren’t a lot of brothers around when we get there. Bullet and Lug Nut are playing pool in the back. Striker and Tank are hunched over a deck of cards and a bottle with two shot glasses at a table in the corner. They give me a nod as I come in, their eyes darting in curiosity to the chick in the suit who follows behind me.
“Jewel,” I call out as I lead Brooke to the bar. “Grab me a couple of beers and come over here.”
“Sure thing.” Jewel goes and gets a couple of bottles, then flips the tops and comes over to set them in front of us.
“This here’s Brooke,” I say.
“Nice to meet you.” Discreet as ever, Jewel doesn’t give any indication that Brooke’s appearance is at all strange. “You look like you could use this,” she says, pointing at the beer.
“Yeah, I suppose I can,” Brooke sighs, and picks it up. She takes a long drink, tipping her head back to expose her throat. I try not to get hard at the thought of how much I suddenly want to kiss her there.
“So what’s up, Beast?” Jewel says. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah. Got a favor to ask.”
I start to tell Jewel about the situation, trying to leave out the details so I won’t be steppin’ on Brooke’s professional toes. But to my surprise, Brooke takes over the story and starts to explain who the girl is, that she’s in the hospital right now, and that she needs clothes because she escaped from a sex trafficking operation that Brooke is trying to track down. At first, I’m surprised as fuck that Brooke’s giving this kind of info to a stranger. But then I realize she might be tryin’ to see whether Jewel will give away any reaction that would show she sees a connection to the club.
Jewel listens and nods, raising her eyebrows sympathetically. “Oh, my God. That poor kid,” she murmurs. “You said she’s from Ukraine?”
“Yes,” Brooke answers. “And unfortunately, she doesn’t speak very much English. We had a phone interpreter through the hospital to get her story, but I’m afraid she probably feels pretty isolated now, with no one to talk to.”
“My neighbor is from Ukraine,” Jewel muses. “Olga. She’s a really sweet lady, when she’s not on my ass for playing my music too loud.” She looks at Brooke. “Do you think this girl would like to have a visit from her?”
Brooke blinks. “Wow,” she says, considering. “She would probably love it. I’m going to be contacting the Ukrainian embassy to get hold of her dad, but even so, it will take some time to deal with all the paperwork and things to get her back home. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see a friendly face who speaks her language.”
“How big is she?” Jewel asks. “I can run home and grab some clothes, then go talk to Olga before the men start coming in to party later.”
“She’s about my height, but skinny,” Brooke explains.
“I’ll bring her some stuff to wear that’s cheerful, without being revealing.” Jewel’s eyes shine with sympathy. “So she can feel comfy and safe.”
I tell Jewel to get in touch with Isabel about bringing the clothes to Natalia at the hospital. She steps out from behind the bar and announces to the room that she’s leaving for an hour or so. A minute later, we hear her car firing up from the parking lot outside.
“She’s nice,” Brooke remarks as the engine recedes into the distance.
“She’d give a stranger the shirt off her back,” I reply, and then chuckle. “Which I guess is pretty much what she’s doing.”
“Travis,” she continues, shifting on her bar stool. “You know that with what Natalia said about recognizing your cut, I should be looking into that.” She looks around the room.
“Brooke, I stand by what I said,” I rumble. “Our club is not involved in that shit.” Part of me is pissed at her for even thinkin’ it, but I can’t say I blame her. I take a swig of my beer and think for a moment, frowning. “I’ll talk to our vice-prez about it, though. See if he has any ideas what she saw.”
“Your vice-president?”
“Yeah. Our prez is out sick right now. Heart attack. Our VP’s in charge until he gets back on his feet.”
While we’ve been talking, Brooke has completely drained her beer, even before I have. I suppress a chuckle. The girl’s been wound tight as hell today. I guess she needed the release.
“Want another one?” I ask, nodding at her bottle.
She sighs. “I should call the embassy,” she says, shaking her head.
“So, call them now.” I shrug. “The beer will be waiting for you when you get done.”
I expect her to protest, but she only hesitates for a second before standing. “Okay,” she agrees. “I’m gonna go outside for a couple of minutes.”
“Take your time. Anyone asks who you are, tell them you’re with me.” Brooke looks about as out of place as the Queen of England at a pool hall. It may be the first time anyone has ever worn a suit in this place.
While she’s gone, I grab us two more beers and sit there, thinking about everything that’s happened today. And how fucking surreal it is that Brooke Brentano is sitting here next to me having a beer like the last twelve years never happened. When she comes back in, she’s removed her jacket, and seems just a little bit less out of place, if you don’t look too close. She sits down and we talk some more about Natalia, but then pretty soon we’re just talking about anything, whatever comes to mind. I ask her about how she likes working for the FBI. She shrugs and says it’s fine but not like she thought it would be. When I press her for details, she refuses to answer and changes the subjec
t. She asks me about what it’s like to be in an MC. I tell her it’s a hell of a lot different than working for the fuckin’ FBI. She starts to laugh then, a full-throated, carefree sound that reminds me of old times. My throat gets a little tight at how good it sounds.
Brooke is looking looser and happy by the time her second beer is finished. With a grin, she lifts her butt off the seat to go grab us two more, but I stop her.
“Whoa, there. You drink much more and I won’t be held responsible if you fall off the back of my bike.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she shoots back.
“Nope.” I stand, making a decision, and put my arm around her. “Come on. I’m gonna get you home.”
Brooke is quiet as she pulls on her jacket and I lead her out of the bar. She doesn’t protest, but she doesn’t seem happy about it, either. She doesn’t say anything as I get on the bike, just slides on behind me and wraps her arms around me. She’s silent on the way to the hotel, too, but I can feel her breathing, shallow and rapid, as her chest rises and falls against my back. The nearness of her does to me what it always does, and I’m uncomfortably hard when we pull into the hotel.
Instead of dropping her off in front, I park in the lot and get off the bike with her. She’s still pouting a little as I escort her inside, and she doesn’t break her silence until we’re getting out of the elevator on her floor.
“You know, I didn’t need your help to find the room number,” she snarks as we walk up to my door. “I might not be as big as you, but I’m not that much of a lightweight.”
“That’s not why I came up,” I say, watching her slide her key card through the slot.
“Why, then? My ankle’s all better, didn’t you notice? I’m not even limping anymore.”
I push the door open to let her through, then follow her inside. “That’s not why, either.”
“Then what…”
By the time the door slams shut behind us, I have her pressed up against the wall. My cock is still hard as steel as I pull her against me.
BEAST: Lords of Carnage MC Page 10