OnlyatTheCavern

by Anna Alexander

  The thought of Marco no longer being her sub made her steps falter.

  “Are you okay?” Jax asked.

  “I’m fine. It’s the shoes,” she lied with ease and continued on as a heavy weight settled in her chest. So far Marco gave no indication that he wanted their time to end. But they were in the honeymoon stage. When the three months were up, would he want to move on? Or would he want more?

  While his earlier line of questioning wasn’t entirely out of place, it did suggest he was interested in her life outside the club. Any other woman might be happy to have a man like Marco interested in her for more than the hour or two of pleasure, but the idea of how a relationship like theirs would work outside the club exhausted her just thinking about it.

  Marco was not the type of man who’d enjoy being treated like a dirty secret, and if she began to think of him as more than a twice-weekly appointment, sooner or later her family would find out and start asking questions, maybe even want to meet him.

  Nope, nope, nope. Not going to happen. One night with her family would undermine all of the authority she worked hard to establish.

  She and Marco could not exist outside The Cavern, and if he pushed, well, she’d be happy to find him a new Mistress.

  Sure you will.

  “What do you say, Jaz?” Jax’s question interrupted the verbal smack-down her subconscious was about to lay down. “Do you wanna to Dom me?”

  She glanced his way with a noncommittal shrug and took a page from Amaryllis. “I’ll keep you in mind. For now.”

  Chapter Nine

  Marco walked across the threshold of the emergency room at Schuster–Siegel Memorial Hospital and took careful note of who, what and where as he made his way to the nurses’ station. At the moment the lobby was quiet, with only a few people occupying the seats. The calm was deceptive. In the span of a heartbeat a barrage of crazy could barrel through the door in a blaze of sirens and flashing lights.

  The hospital was one of those rare places where nothing and everything happened in a nanosecond. One second the halls were filled with the elation that came with a new life beginning on Earth then swung to the opposite side of the pendulum to the crushing grief of a loved one passing. A glut of emotions occurred under one roof and sometimes within feet of each other. It was almost as if the plain white walls and cold, minimalist furniture were a blank canvas for the day’s events to be written upon. No one part of its design intended to sway the outcome or emotions of the individuals who entered its domain. Calm yet unsettled all at the same time.

  It took a special type of person to handle the extremes. An unique individual who could juggle the calm and the crazy. Someone like Jasmine. Her need to have an environment entirely under her control made so much more sense to him after being witness to her everyday world.

  He wished the reason for his visit to the emergency room was his beautiful Mistress, but alas, duty had called. A woman had been found in a Dumpster behind a motel. To everyone’s surprise the brutalized girl was still alive and now was awake and conscious enough to answer questions.

  “Good morning, Jenna,” Marco greeted the young nurse behind the counter. “Happy Friday to you.”

  “If it was my Friday. You’re looking much better than the last time we saw you, Marco. Way better.” She turned her gaze to the man at his side and tossed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder as she batted her lashes. “Hi, Cassidy.”

  “Morning.” Coulter set the white paper bag they had brought with them on the desk by her keyboard. “Some sweet macaroons for the sweet ladies who we all know truly run this hospital.”

  “Oh, you two are too much. Hey, girls. Our favorite police officers are here,” she called out toward the back office behind her.

  Yes, he and his men understood the importance of sweet talk. These nurses were overworked, underappreciated and loyal to each other and their patients. A little kindness shown to the right people went a long way in speeding along their investigation.

  “We’re here to see the girl from the motel. I heard she’s awake,” Marco said.

  “She’s up,” Jenna replied. “Doc Jo is with her now. Follow me and I’ll take you down and see if she’s ready for visitors.”

  “Doc Jo? You mean Jovanovich?” Excitement and dread raced through him at the thought of seeing Jasmine.

  Of course he was happy to see her, but this was the first time their paths had crossed outside the nightclub, and it was almost impossible to be near her without sporting some sort of an erection. Not the best of appearances when conducting an investigation.

  “Yeah. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see how well you’re doing since your accident.”

  Coulter snorted as he followed. “Watching you fall from that roof was about the scariest moment of my life, Cap. But now I can’t stop laughing when I think about it.”

  “Glad to be a source of amusement for you.”

  Nurse Jenna stopped them outside a closed doorway. “Wait right here.”

  She took a moment to knock and announce her arrival then poked her head inside the room.

  “Dr. Jo will be with you in a few minutes,” she said as she stepped back out into the hall. “Can I get you fellas coffee or water?”

  “We’re fine,” Marco answered for the both of them. “You don’t have to wait with us.”

  “Believe me, Officer, I don’t mind.” She giggled and tossed a come-hither glance at Coulter.

  The door opened and Jasmine emerged. It struck Marco dumb at how similar yet completely opposite Jasmine’s personas were.

  She was still beautiful, almost regal in her posture and the confident tilt of her head. There was a strength evident in her bearing that radiated like a thousand-watt light bulb. However, with her hair in a braid and the rumpled scrubs and lab coat, she appeared almost innocent, unassuming, steady. All good solid attributes for a person to be described as, but they lacked the sparkle of how he knew her to be.

  “Hey,” he greeted in maybe too friendly a fashion, for her eyes widened in surprise. For half a second he wondered if he should have dropped to his knees as if there were in her dungeon.

  “Hello,” she replied with as much formality as one could fit into a two-syllable word. “You’re looking well, Captain. Good morning, Lieutenant.”

  “Right.” Marco shook off the ill effects of her rather impersonal greeting and focused on the purpose of his visit. “How’s the patient?”

  Jasmine hugged a clipboard to her chest and answered in a quiet tone as if she didn’t want to be overheard, “Awake. Cognizant. Broken for now, but she’s a fighter.”

  “What is the extent of her injuries?”

  “Her right forearm is fractured, her ribs cracked on the left side. Several lacerations to the face and body and a good amount of swelling that is starting to go down. The little I was able to find out suggests someone beat her and tied a pillowcase over her head in an attempt to suffocate her before leaving her body in a Dumpster.”

  “What else do you know about what happened to her?”

  “Not much. When the medics brought her in, they said a hotel guest heard loud noises, bangs and grunts, coming from behind the building and spotted her trying to climb out. She hasn’t elaborated about her ordeal.”

  “Was she…you know, raped?” Coulter swallowed hard mid-sentence. For an officer on his team, the man was quite squeamish when it came to delicate matters.

  Jasmine sighed with a slight frown. “There is evidence of intercourse, but whether that was before or during the attack, she won’t say. We administered a rape kit just to cover all bases.”

  “Good. Good.” Marco nodded, disturbed by the conversation in ways he never expected.

  How many times in the past had he had similar discussions with Dr. Jovanovich regarding the status of victims he’d come to question? In both of their lines of work, they’d seen the ugly and tragedy that befalls humankind. This part of their lives was “normal”, everyday, and that reality burned in his throat
like acid.

  Dr. Jovanovich was no longer just a consultant. She was a flesh-and-blood woman. Female. Delicate, although she’d probably take a belt to his backside if she heard him describe her in such a way, but that was how he felt. He cared about her. He cared for her. It was his job to protect those he cared about from the horrors of the world. However, it wasn’t his place to protect Jasmine. And that detail burned him most of all.

  He swallowed hard against the bitter pill of truth. “We’ll do our best to make our visit short. We don’t want to cause her any more discomfort than she’s already in.”

  “I know you won’t.” She offered him a polite smile that too rubbed him the wrong way. He wasn’t a stranger. Couldn’t she offer him a little personal consideration?

  She knocked on the door as she said, “I’ll introduce you,” then turned the knob.

  Across from the doorway a young girl stood before the window, frantically trying to squeeze her body through the tiny opening allowed by the safety hinge.

  The clap of Jasmine’s clipboard hitting the floor covered his curse as they both raced to the girl.

  There wasn’t time to consider her comfort as he wrapped his arms around her torso and hauled her away from the window as she kicked and flailed with pain-filled shrieks.

  “Coulter, grab her legs,” Marco instructed as he dodged her fist. The girl reached back and pulled his hair so hard, tears sprang to his eyes.

  Together the two men wrestled her back onto the bed as Jasmine withdrew a set of straps from under the bedframe and began to bind them to the girl’s ankles.

  “They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me,” the girl kept shrieking. “They’ll find me and kill me.”

  “If you keep screaming this way, whomever it is you’re afraid of will find you for certain,” said Jasmine in a tone Marco recognized as her no-nonsense dominatrix voice. “Stop this right now. You’ll hurt yourself further and that I will not allow. I will sedate you if necessary.”

  “I wouldn’t test her, girl,” Marco warned. “Doc isn’t one to make idle threats. Calm down and all will be fine. No one will hurt you here.”

  The wails fell into gut-wrenching sobs that had to hurt her broken ribs. “They’ll find me and finish what they started.”

  “Not on my watch.” Jasmine tightened the last strap around the girl’s free wrist. “Lieutenant, will you please close the door and dissuade anyone who may be coming to assist us? I don’t want to cause a greater disturbance than we already have.”

  “Right.” Coulter ran to the door and Marco could hear him intercept an orderly out in the hallway.

  Jasmine ran her hand down the girl’s hair in a soothing motion before reinserting the IV needle into her arm. “Jenny, I promise you, as long as you’re under my care, no one will harm you.”

  “They’re too powerful,” she choked out in stuttering breaths.

  “I’m not without my own set of skills. Now, do I have to you sedate you, or will you behave? With either choice, you will respect these men and me.”

  “Don’t drug me. Please.” Her head rolled against the pillows and her legs shifted as best they could in her bound state. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

  “Then calm yourself. I won’t put you to sleep, but I am going to give you something to dull the pain. You’ve probably broken your ribs. I’m going to ensure you didn’t do more damage while you answer these men’s questions. This is Captain DeWinter and his partner Lieutenant Coulter. They are good men and I trust them. You can trust them too.”

  “And I trust the doc.” Marco spoke up as he pulled a chair over to the bed. “She saved my life a few weeks ago.” In more ways than one. “You’re lucky to be in her care. Now, Jenny, it is Jenny, right? All we want to do is find the people who hurt you and make sure they don’t hurt anyone again. Understand?”

  Her bloodshot blue eyes appeared doubtful, but she nodded anyway. Now that she was sedentary Marco was better able to take in the girl’s condition. She didn’t appear to be older than fifteen, but the shape of her face was difficult for him to make out from the bruising on her cheek, jaw and forehead. Rope burns wound around her throat, and the skin above the cast on her arm was mottled with purple splotches and adorned with crisscross hatch marks that matched the set on her other arm. Whoever had harmed her was one sadistic bastard.

  “We’ll start real simple,” he said when Coulter returned to take down the interview. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” she replied in a small voice.

  “Where are your parents?”

  She shrugged with a wince.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Spokane.”

  “What brought you out to the big city?”

  “Ran away.”

  Ah… An idea of how she might have come under attack began to form and he saw where her story was heading. “Why?”

  She sighed. “My parents aren’t good. They suck. They drink and yell and drink some more. Everything sucked.”

  “How long ago did you leave?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “And where have you been staying?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with her eyes cast down.

  What did that mean? “Can you explain?”

  “I was staying at a motel until my money ran out, which was really fast. And nobody wanted to hire a kid,” she sneered and began to pick at the threads of the sheet covering her belly. “I was sleeping on the street when a man came up to me and said he could get me work as a dancer. I know I’m from the sticks, but I’m not stupid. I knew what he meant. But I had nothing. Less than nothing…” she trailed off as a sob worked its way up her throat.

  “It’s okay, honey.” He lifted his hand to pat her on the leg then immediately let it fall and looked to Jasmine. With a nod and an eyebrow wag, he silently asked her to be the one to offer comfort. Jenny had the most trust in Jasmine, and he was a male. Odds were good it was a man who hurt her. “Where did this man take you?”

  “He took me to a massage place.”

  “Massage?”

  Behind him, Coulter sucked in a breath and his own spine straightened with a snap. A thousand questions stung his lips like an upset colony of bees but he forced them back. Jumping to conclusions did nobody any good, but his radar was pinging so loudly, he knew Coulter sensed it as well.

  “Do you remember where this massage business is?” He hoped he was able to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  Her brow furrowed. “Downtown. Near the phó place.”

  “Which one?” There were easily six on one street alone.

  “Not far from the X-rated theater. I thought that was where he was taking me.”

  Fuck yeah. That was a former location of one of the Tabateri brothers’ prostitution hubs. Was it possible the boys never officially closed shop? Judging by the frantic scribbling of Coulter’s pencil across the paper, that question was going to be thoroughly investigated soon.

  “What happened when you went inside?”

  “As soon as we walked through the front door, he put a bag over my head, tied my hands and dragged me through the shop and out the back.”

  “How did you know it was the back if there was a bag over your head?”

  “They put me in a van, or something without backseats, and I could smell trash through the fabric. There weren’t any Dumpsters where we entered from the front.”

  “What happened next?”

  “We drove for a while. I don’t know how long. When we stopped, they pulled me out and took me up some stairs and into a building. We walked for a while and when we stopped, they took off my hood. I was in a big room with some other women. But I don’t know where exactly I was.”

  “Was it a house or an office building?”

  “A house. A big house with a huge yard and a fence. We weren’t allowed outside, but there were windows and I could see. They were locked, but I could still see.”

  “Who were these women you were with? A
nd how many?”

  She tried to shrug again and winced. “Girls. From all over. Only a few of us spoke English. Most were from somewhere in Asia. I think all over because some of them didn’t want to talk to the others. I don’t know how many of us there were. New ones would arrive and old ones would be taken away. Anywhere from ten to fifteen at any given time.”

  “So you were with these girls. In a house. For a few months. All of the time?”

  “Most of the time.” Her voice grew small again and she swallowed hard. “Every few days I was tied up and taken to places. Motel rooms. With men. To-to—” Whatever it was she wanted to say couldn’t seem to break past her lips.

  “Would it be a good guess if I said you were forced to have sex with these men?”

  “Yeah,” she said on a shaky exhalation

  Mentally Marco gave a little fist pump and held back a victory snarl. The situation she described sounded just like a Smithwick operation. He had a thousand more questions for the girl, but by the droop in her eyes, he saw she was fading fast. Any further investigation about the house and the girls had to wait.

  “Tell me about what happened last night.”

  “I was taken to another motel to do my thing. This guy was twisted. Really kinky. Cut lines on my skin with a pocketknife. Gagged me the entire time so my screams couldn’t be heard. Then afterward the man told my john that he’d take me and five more. They were talking about how much we’d cost and stuff about transport and places with the name ‘stan’ in them, and I realized they wanted to take us out of the country. I freaked and made a run for the door. Both of them tackled me and I fought. Fought hard and screamed as loud as I could, hoping someone would hear me. No one came. But they beat me and choked me until I passed out.”

  “And then you woke up in the Dumpster.”

  “Yeah.” She finally raised her eyes to meet his gaze. The blue in her irises looked electrified against the red rims. “If they find out I’m alive, they’ll kill me. I saw them kill another girl who fought. That’s why I never did, but I knew that if that man took me away, I’d be as good as dead anyway. If they know, they’ll find me. They’re powerful and scary.”