Chapter 32 River
RIVER
Harmony has always seemed small to me, which makes it an odd place to place a high-end brothel run by one of the most powerful men in the country.
I guess that choosing to place it so close to New Bristol was risky enough as it was; with Giulio Pavone having the monopoly on the sex trade in this part of the country, getting too close was never going to be a good idea.
But George Bouchard doesn’t seem to care, if the way he’s been spreading out from New Valence is any indication.
The hotel is on the outskirts of the city, small and innocuous, and as we get close, I scan our surroundings. There aren’t many cars in the lot, and one of them is Blaze’s sports car. It’ll make us conspicuous, but that much can’t be helped.
We need to make sure we have a quick, easy way out once we grab Samantha, and we don’t know what kind of condition she’ll be in.
I glance at Pandora. “You ready?” I ask.
I still don’t feel like we have much of a plan, if one at all, and it has me wary. But we might not have another chance like this, and plan or not, we have to take it.
“Yep!” Pandora pulls her beanie over her head, then holds up some electronic device she got from Anastasia Voronkov. “These people won’t know what hit ‘em!”
“We hope,” Asch mutters through the earpiece.
Pandora sticks her tongue out, as if Asch can see her. “Just keep ‘em distracted. Tell Blaze he can be even more douchey.”
He’s already been pretty douchey, but that’s not a surprise. It’s the only way to survive in a life like this; being a wilting flower would’ve gotten him into a hell of a lot of trouble.
“C’mon,” I tell her, ignoring the comment as I get out of the car. I close the door carefully, scanning our surroundings. There are going to be cameras, of course, but there’s only so much we can do about them.
“In and out, super fast.” Pandora squeezes my arm, then sticks both of her hands into her black hoodie pocket.
She’s wearing all black today, not a single snake design in sight. Her pretty face is covered by the black face mask. She looks so different from usual.
I guess she is taking this a little bit seriously.
I’m in a similar getup: black hoodie, black jeans, a cap to hide my head and a scarf around my neck to cover at least some of my face.
“Just like when we snuck into Rachel’s place,” Pandora says as she walks toward the back door of the building.
“A little different,” I retort. Because that was easy, and if we’d been caught, we’d only have had the police to contend with. This time, we have the fucking Bouchard syndicate to worry about.
The sooner this is over, the happier I’ll be.
“203,” I remind her. There are no outside stairs leading up to the second floor, which means we’re going to have to go inside and work our way up. Blaze and Asch should be working on some sort of distraction, which means we should be able to get in and out.
I hope.
Pandora stops to pick up a mid-sized rock. She points at the camera by the back door.
“My aim’s better than yours, right?” Pandora says cheekily.
“Be my guest,” I say even though I’m not sure her aim is better at all. Then again, this is Pandora, and there’s no telling what kinds of skills she’s picked up in her lifetime. “We also have the spray paint.”
Pandora throws the rock. I half expect the rock to crash against the brick wall, but she manages to clip the camera and make it tilt to one side. That means we can approach it from the other, and once we’re under it, I use the spray paint to cover the lens.
“So, five to ten minutes for somebody to come investigate?” Pandora suggests. She presses the device Anastasia gave her against the electronic lock. I have no idea how it works, but after a few seconds, the door beeps and clicks.
I push it open quickly before it can re-lock—and before somebody does come out to investigate.
“Probably so,” I say. “And if we keep covering the cameras, they won’t know where to start to look.”
My heart hammers in my chest, anxiety making everything seem more immediate, and I let Pandora step inside ahead of me before carefully closing the door behind me. I glance in the direction of the stairwell, gesturing to it.
“There,” I murmur almost inaudibly, starting in that direction.
Pandora nods and starts climbing stairs, two at a time.
“Hold on, Samantha. We’re coming,” Pandora whispers under her breath, audible only to us with the ear pieces.
I’m on Pandora’s heels, making sure she doesn’t get too far ahead of me. There’s one camera in the stairwell, and even though it doesn’t help to cover it once we’ve already gotten so close, it’ll help shroud when we get out.
I take the second to paint over it, then we’re at the top of the stairs.
Again, Pandora uses that device to override the electronic lock, and I follow her into the hallway. My mouth is dry, and I wordlessly guide her in the direction of the room we know Samantha is in.
We must be on the complete opposite side of the building as Blaze and Asch, because I’m staring at room 235.
“Oh, I heard good things about Asian chicks. Do you have any of those?” Blaze asks, quieter than when he’d been wearing the ear piece himself.
Pandora’s shoulders visibly tense. “Really, Blaze? Really?”
I shake my head. “Not right now,” I murmur. We’ve already figured out that he can’t hear us anyway; he had to have given his earpiece to Samantha. Which means she’s listening to every single asshole thing Blaze is saying, and she’s getting more and more information about this whole thing.
Fuck, there’s no way this is going to go well once Blaze’s father realizes what happened.
We start to make our way down the hallway, and I wonder how many of the rooms are occupied.
I don’t really want to know the answer to that.
Pandora slows down suddenly and extends her hand in front of me. She drags me back down the hall and around the corner, right as Blaze and Asch’s voices waft toward us—echoed, now, hearing them both through the ear piece and in real time.
It’s a strange effect.
We both duck down behind a decorative cabinet. Pandora’s warm body presses against mine. Our breaths are slow and shallow to avoid making any noise.
“You know, if you aren’t decided, you could come back another day,” the woman with them—Pam?—suggests, the exasperation palpable.
“But I’m here now,” Blaze says. “It would be a waste of a trip. Are you sure you can’t just pull out a bunch of the girls at once and have them model for me in a room?”
Pam sighs. The three of them move along, past the hall we’re in. “You insisted on utmost privacy, sir. If you want me to call in another three guards—”
“No, no, never mind. Ugh, I don’t need other men staring. That’s fucking nasty. The only cock in the room should be me.” Blaze sounds so disgusted, like he truly believes all that.
If the situation wasn’t so serious, I’d scoff, but it’s not the right time for that sort of reaction.
Blaze has already been distracting her for a while now, and I don’t know how much longer he can pull it off.
We need to grab Samantha and get out of here without worrying about what Blaze is spewing.
I take Pandora’s hand and lead her in the direction of the lower numbers, fighting the urge to move too quickly.
As we get closer to 203, Pandora’s steps grow slower until she comes to a stop.
I tug on her hand again, but she doesn’t move.
“How many?” Pandora whispers, staring at one of the doors. “Are all these rooms filled?”
“We can’t worry about that right now,” I murmur back, pulling harder on her hand. “You know we can’t. We only have a few more minutes, max. Look, we can get out of here, then call the FBI or something…” I trail off, knowing that’s a terrible idea, but I also recognize the look in Pandora’s eyes.
I don’t think she’s going to let this go, but the logistics of letting so many women free is a nightmare. We aren’t armed, all we have is two cars, and we barely have any time left.
Pandora nods and finally keeps moving.
We finally reach room 203. Pandora unlocks it, and I stand guard, my hackles up.
It’s been so fucking quiet aside from that interlude with Blaze and Asch walking by.
They must have noticed the disabled camera by now, right? And we hadn’t spotted other cameras inside, which might be by design—privacy, lack of evidence—but it feels wrong to me.
The door unlocks, and Pandora rushes inside.
I glance across the hall, unease making my stomach twist. I want to follow her inside, but I also don’t want to come out to a nasty surprise.
I’ll have to risk it.
I step into the room and close the door behind me. I approach, and Samantha flinches when she sees me.
I can’t say I blame her. I don’t know what hell she’s been through over the past month. I’m glad Pandora is here, too, because I don’t think Samantha would’ve agreed to go anywhere with me alone.
“Pandora?” Samantha is asking, and the way her voice shakes has my hands clenching at my sides. “What are you doing?”
“Hey,” Pandora says. She pulls her mask down to smile at Samantha. “Sorry it took me so long to find you. I, uh.” She glances at me, then laughs. “I lost sight of a few things. But I’m all here now.”
“Why would you bother?” Samantha asks. “You hate me.”
Oh, she really doesn’t know Pandora at all if she needs to ask that question.
“I don’t hate you,” Pandora says, and she sounds genuinely confused. “Why would you think that?”
“Because…” Samantha trails off, looking at me again before glancing back at Pandora. “Are you going to get me out of here?”
Pandora nods. “Yep! It’s a promise. A guarantee.” She walks over to the window and pulls the curtain back.
She tries to open the window, but of course it’s bolted shut. Pandora sighs.
“I tried that already,” Samantha says with a hint of annoyance.