Chapter 31 Asch
ASCH
The suit I’m wearing itches.
I don’t think it’s the quality of the fabric; Blaze would never get me anything low quality. But I don’t feel right wearing it.
At least I don’t have to wear a tie.
“You look more like a bodyguard without the tie,” Blaze had said when he’d helped me get dressed.
I’ve been waiting for so long to be acknowledged as a bodyguard, but now that I know the truth behind the family business, it doesn’t sit right.
Pandora had mostly said we looked hot. …and ready to buy a sex slave to rape.
How flattering.
“Do they card you at the entrance?” Pandora asks through the earpiece. “Is there an age limit for when you’re allowed to stroll in and pick your flavor of woman?”
“No age limit, just a financial minimum,” Blaze responds cheerily as he approaches the front door of the hotel.
It really doesn’t bother him at all.
Given everything I’ve said and done, I have no right to throw stones. I’ve hurt people too. But I’ve never thought of myself as someone who’d be associated with trafficking women.
Just fucking one forcibly in the tunnels beneath the school, apparently, and participating in a frat-wide—
No. I’m not thinking about any of that right now. It’s distracting, and I don’t have the time to waste on a moral dilemma right now.
Blaze strolls right up to the front desk, charming smile pasted on. The clerk sitting there is a middle-aged woman with deep red hair and a nice blouse. The guard sitting by the chair by the only door is well-muscled and on alert as soon as we walk in.
“Hey!” Blaze greets. “Pam, right? I’m Blaze. Tim should have told you I’d be coming in?”
Pam sits up straighter. “Oh. Yes, Sir.” She gives Blaze a once over. When she looks at me, I can see the moment she dismisses me as ‘the help.’ “I’ve been told you want a tour of the hotel?”
Blaze nods. “Yeah. I haven’t quite decided what I want. I mean, I have an idea, but I need to be sure.”
I hear Pandora giggling in my ear. “An idea? You sound like such a douche, Blaze.”
He does, but it’s necessary.
“Stop distracting him,” River murmurs.
Pam gets up and nods to the guard. He swipes a keycard on the door and opens it. Pam and Blaze step through easily.
He sets his hand out to stop me. “Tim didn’t mention you.”
I want to retort that no one mentioned him either, but instead, I regard him with as much blandness as I can muster. “Where Mr. Bouchard goes, I go,” I say.
I’m aware that I’m not really Blaze’s bodyguard — and that there’s little enough I can do with an armed guard present — but I don’t want to be left behind.
I know Blaze can handle himself in situations like this and that I’ll be at a disadvantage, but I don’t want to risk letting him go anywhere by himself.
“He’s with me,” Blaze says in an impatient tone. “Alvarado’s here to look out for me. I’m sure you’re good at your job, but I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I trust Alvarado.”
“Ooh, he trusts you, Asch,” Pandora says.
If the situation wasn’t so precarious, I’d be tempted to snark back at her, but I keep my mouth closed.
Besides, the words send a strange sort of fluttering through my stomach because I want him to trust me. I don’t want to think that he might only be saying these things because they’re expected.
I need to believe that he actually does need me around.
Pam lets out a loud huff. “Just let him in, Vince. Blaze is Mr. Bouchard’s son. He can have the extra security.”
The guard grumbles, but he finally relents and clears the way for me.
I don’t bother to thank him. He’s the help too, after all. I fall into step right behind Blaze, scanning our surroundings.
They’re nicer than I’d expected, though I’m not sure I’d thought they’d be rundown and decrepit. This is a Bouchard operation, after all, and George Bouchard operates in style.
It doesn’t make the place any less dangerous, though. Pretty wallpaper and pleasant scents in the air don’t erase the fact that they’re holding women against their will here.
While Blaze makes small talk with Pam, I make note of everything around us. Which path we take, where the cameras are, what the security is.
I also notice that Pam never once offers to let us “browse” on our own. Blaze hints a few times that she doesn’t need to guide us, but she’s very insistent.
She must be part of the security, too.
Pam stops in front of a room at the end of the hall. “All right. You said you wanted a skinny blonde.” She taps her keycard against the lock.
I hear the click as it opens.
Blaze moves to go in, but I grab his arm to stop him.
“How do we get out?” I ask. “I assume the doors are locked from inside?”
Pam laughs. “I was just getting to that part.” She reaches into her pocket and holds a card out for Blaze. “Here’s your card. Please be aware that it’s registered in your name. If any of the merchandise gets lost, damaged, or stolen, we’ll know who was responsible.”
Merchandise.
I know I’m not a good person. I’ve done a lot of things I should probably regret.
But I’d never refer to a woman as merchandise so casually. I’d never think about women as merchandise.
Except if we’re going to get through this, I’m going to have to, aren’t I?
Blaze takes the card with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, thanks. Although I think they’re all technically mine already? Who cares if I hurt one of these bitches?”
I hear Pandora gasp in my ear. “Bitches? That’s misogyny, Blaze.”
I’m both glad for her flippant comments and wishing she’d stop because they’re distracting.
“Pandora,” River says, and I have the sense that he’s ready to pull the microphone away from her if his exasperation is any indication, “cut the commentary.”
“Well, there might still be some use to be had out of them,” Pam answers. “Anyway. Take a look at Elizabeth in there, and if you don’t like her, we’ll find another one.”
I hear a soft sob from inside the room.
“Thanks.” Blaze motions for me to follow him inside. I let the door close on us, still half expecting us to be locked in as our plan goes up in smoke.
Blaze walks through the small hall of the converted hotel room and into the large area that holds the bed. The bed is too big for the small space, but I guess they aren’t expecting people to be doing much outside of it.
There’s no TV, no dressers, no desks, no chairs.
The blond sitting on the bed is skinny—ridiculously skinny, without a single ounce of fat on her. Her hair is styled in pretty waves. She’s wearing a pink see-through negligee that hides nothing.
She smiles when we approach, but I can immediately tell she’s putting on a show.
“Two of you?” she asks with a wavering voice. “I think you have to pay extra for that.”
Blaze gives her a full once-over. “Yeah, okay. Not you. No offense. I was looking for somebody a bit more…” He glances toward me.
Am I supposed to know how to finish that sentence?
How would a potential “client” view her? Emaciated, not enthusiastic enough, obviously trying to dodge having to service two men at a time?
Something occurs to me, and my eyes go to her inner arms. I wonder if I’d see bruising there up close, if they’re keeping her too drugged to put on any weight or if she’s naturally thin.
This gets worse and worse.
“She’s not good enough for you, if I can say so, sir,” I say after a pause, not wanting to give myself away in front of anyone.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” Blaze says to her. After a beat, he lets out a dark chuckle. “Or maybe it is you. I’m not that picky.”
He walks back and swipes his key at the door, just like Pam had done from the other side.
To my relief, the light flashes green, and the lock clicks.
Elizabeth doesn’t move from the bed at all, even though this would be the perfect opportunity for her to try to escape.
Pam is waiting for us on the other side. “Not to your liking?” she asks.
Blaze shakes his head. “No. She already looks so old. Do you have a fresher one?”
The fact that Blaze can maneuver this so easily has me looking at him in a different light, but I guess this is the world he’d been born into.
It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to introduce me slowly, I realize as my stomach sinks. The things I’ve done on his behalf haven’t exactly been kind, and if he’d been careful to keep the facade about me being his bodyguard up, I might’ve been lulled into this.
As it is, I know I’d have looked the other way.
I’ll have to look the other way now, too.
“Of course,” Pam says. “Right this way.” She leads us down the hall to another door, and I note the number.
107. There have to be at least three floors.
I wonder how many of these rooms are occupied by women who shouldn’t be anywhere close to this place.
We go through two other rooms, neither of them holding Samantha, and Pam starts to get visibly impatient.
“Don’t you have a roster or something?” Blaze demands. “So I can look at the girls first without having to traipse about the whole hotel? Or call them all out into one room so I can inspect them all at once, I don’t know.”
Pam grits her teeth. “I do have a catalogue, but since you didn’t know which type of girl you wanted, I thought in-person visits would be more expedient.”
“In other words, you hoped I’d just settle for the first slut you showed me.” Blaze makes an annoyed sound.
“Hey! It doesn’t count as slutty if you aren’t doing it willingly,” Pandora remarks. “I’m a slut. These women are not.”
She’d been quiet for a while, so I’d almost forgotten that she was still listening in.
I want to tell her that Blaze is only saying what he has to, but I can’t help but wonder if this is what he believes.
Does it matter?
I’d follow Blaze into hell itself even if it was, wouldn’t I?
“No! I wasn’t thinking…” Pam shakes her head. “Fine. This way, sir.”
She leads us back the way we came, into a small room that is clearly an office.
Pam takes one of the tablets sitting out on the coffee table and taps on it, then hands it to Blaze. “Here. You can use the filters to sort. Age, ethnicity, hair color…”