58. Leona
LEONA
W ynn walked around in a fog. His cheeks had burned with pink while he awkwardly spoke with each of the women who came to thank him.
He truly didn’t realize the impact that he had on the world around him.
He’d been trying so hard to redeem himself without seeing that it was unnecessary. These women were proof.
Coming here was a good idea.
A sharp, painful twist seized my heart. We should have come a long time ago.
“How many women will talk to us?” I asked Willow as she led us toward the main hall after we finished speaking with the others.
“Four are available,” she answered. “They’re all adults and consented to speak with you. They’re allowed to end the conversation whenever they would like. I know you will, but please be respectful with your questions.”
“Of course,” I replied, then I frowned. “Wait, you have minors here?”
“Nineteen of the girls we brought in the other night were underage. ”
Wynn and I exchanged a glance. He pulled my hand to my chest. “It’s good that they are here.”
I inhaled through my nose and exhaled slowly. The images of those girls at the auction floated around at the edge of my mind, but I leaned against Wynn’s shoulder. I thought of how I would tell Cas everything we saw, and I knew he’d listen no matter what.
A cold sweat built on the back of my neck at the thought of voicing aloud so many of the things that had terrified me these last few weeks, but I needed to do this.
“Yes,” I said. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Willow opened the door, and we stepped inside a large, open space.
It looked like a multi-purpose room—blank enough to be used for anything.
Tables and chairs were stacked and leaning against the wall to the right.
A few tables were scattered throughout the room.
Four women sat around one table near the window, murmuring among themselves.
They all went silent as soon as they saw us.
I couldn’t breathe. My hands squeezed together. One woman stood.
“Penny?” My voice came out whispered and choked.
She smiled. “Leona Vero.”
My eyes slid to the side, and I blinked. I recognized another one of these girls. Not from the Albanian ship but somewhere else. It only took a second for me to remember a sparkling yellow jacket and a Goodwill.
“Claire?” I breathed, stepping closer to the table.
Claire grinned and reached out her arms to pull me into a hug. “I can’t believe you remembered me.”
My eyes filled with tears. Fuck. I’d been emotional ever since the guys and I had talked.
“Of course, I do.” I looked at Wynn. “You saved Claire, Wynn. The first night we met.”
He jolted slightly, his eyes focusing on her. “I remember. ”
I stepped back. Her skin was no longer sunken and pale. She had gained weight. Her hair had regained some shine, and her hands no longer trembled. She looked amazing.
“When Willow told us you wanted to talk, Claire and I volunteered immediately,” Penny said. She gestured for us to join them at the table, and we sat in the empty chairs. “This is Ximena and Ludmila. The Albanians also trafficked them.”
Ximena had deep brown skin with long black hair that she had pulled to one side of her neck.
Little turquoise earrings dangled from her ears.
Ludmila was blonde and fair, with a sharp nose and discerning eyes.
Her hands here clasped together in her lap so tightly, I could see the whites of her knuckles.
I introduced myself. “Thank you for being here. I wanted to talk today because I’m…trying to stop the Albanians once and for all. I don’t know what Penny or Willow told you…”
“Just that you and your men got me and my sisters out of their clutches.” Ximena crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in her chair, appraising me. “Nothing else.”
I took a deep breath, allowing calm to filter from my racing heart to my numb fingertips. “Can I share?” I asked the table.
Penny perked up. “You want to?”
“Just a little bit.”
Penny and I had both been through what happened on that ship.
When we escaped on the yacht, I was too afraid, too numb, to even think about what we’d seen.
I barely knew the girls who had died, but Penny had been locked up with them for God knew how long.
I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through, both before and after, trying to deal with all of that.
I had my guys, who had helped me see that sharing it with others didn’t make it worse.
It lessened the burden. I hoped Penny had found some relief here as well.
Penny reached over and grabbed my hand. I held it. “I’m part of the Italian mafia in New York. ”
I expected the girls to have some reaction to that, but they didn’t even flinch.
“My father brought trafficking into the city,” I admitted. The words left a sour taste in my mouth. “He worked with the Albanians and allowed them to grow roots and operate without resistance. He’s dead now, and the Albanians went after me because of him.”
I told them how Wynn and I had been attacked.
It had been the plan to fix my father’s mistakes, but the Albanians coming after me made it personal and immediate.
Once we got off the ship, I’d been almost frantic to kill them all.
I’d believed that getting them out of my city would somehow help me deal with all that pain, but I’d been so wrong.
Even after all the progress we’d made against them, it just got worse the more I buried it.
“I don’t even know the names of the girls we left behind on that ship,” I whispered as my throat constricted.
“Her name was Selene,” Penny said, squeezing my hand. “The girl with the red hair.”
My eyes went wide. “Selene?”
“And the other girl was Ofelia.”
Selene and Ofelia. Their names were branded on my heart. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I made them a memorial, if you want to see it.” Penny’s eyes watered. “By the medical ward. There’s a garden there. I thought they’d like it.”
A tear escaped and trickled down my cheek. “Yes, please. I’d like to see it before I leave.”
“I’ll take you.”
I grabbed a tissue from the box in the center of the table and wiped my face. I looked around at each of the girls and saw the same pain I felt reflected in their understanding eyes. We’d remember Selene and Ofelia together.
“I wanted to talk to you about what you’d seen and experienced,” I said after a few more moments. “I was kind of hoping that you’d know something that could help us.” I looked at Wynn. “Me and my men want to fix this so it can never happen again. Not on our watch.”
“You will stop them, yes?” Ludmila asked. “I will help.”
Ximena leaned forward. “Fuck those assholes. Take them down.”
Claire grinned. “There’s enough of us here to get you everything you need.”
Relief warmed my chest, even as I knew we were all about to face our scars head on. “Thank you.”
“What do you want to know?”
I inhaled a deep breath. “Why don’t we start with telling me your stories? How did they take you? How did you get here?”
We spoke for hours. Willow had to leave about an hour in because of tasks she needed to deal with around the compound, but the rest of us only paused for water or the bathroom.
Penny was a college student from the Midwest, and she’d been visiting the East Coast for spring break.
She’d been drunk, partying with people she didn’t know, when she’d been jumped.
The next thing she knew, she was chained up and being forced to work at a brothel.
After a period, they moved her and some other girls from the brothel to an auction.
She, along with the women we’d met on the ship, hadn’t been sold, so they were being transported to a different country. That’s when we found each other.
Claire had gotten addicted to drugs in her teens and lived on the streets of New York City.
She’d tried to earn money through sex work, but had been wrapped up in working for an abusive pimp that she later found out was Albanian.
The pimp brought her to Philadelphia and forced her to work on the streets there with a group of other women.
We’d found her in that abandoned warehouse, which was where they’d kept their victims locked up when they weren’t working.
Ximena was indigenous American, and she was from Arizona.
Someone had “scouted” her for modeling, given her their card, and told her to show up at a specific time and place in Scottsdale.
When she did, she’d been immediately taken.
After getting her addicted to drugs, she’d been forced to work with “high-end” customers all across the country at exclusive sex clubs disguised as nightclubs.
One night, she OD’d, and a bartender from one nightclub where she was forced to work dropped her at a hospital in Philadelphia.
She’d heard about Willow’s haven through the grapevine, and came herself.
Ludmila was from Ukraine. She’d been tricked into debt bondage after taking a loan she couldn’t repay.
She was then transported around eastern Europe while she was promised she was working off her debt as a housekeeper.
Somehow she caught the eye of Orik Vokshi in Tirana, and she was brought to work in the Head’s house.
She’d been forced to work as a housekeeper and then locked up at night for the men to abuse both physically and sexually.
When Orik Vokshi came to the States, he forged papers for her and brought her with him via airplane.
Not a single person questioned her identity or her papers.
She suspected the Albanians paid the customs agents off.
One night about six months ago, Orik Vokshi was suddenly called back to Tirana on business, and he left her at his States home with a skeleton staff.
She gave them all food poisoning and fled.
She ran into a woman who used to stay here, and that woman told Ludmila to come.
“Do you know why Orik Vokshi got called away?” I asked.