Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
It was the night of the flesh market job and I had spent more than enough time in my closet trying to find something appropriate to wear. Something that was sexy enough to pass for a customer, and not too sexy to be confused with the product. With my white, floor length dress, there were plenty of places for me to hide my knives.
Even with the slit up the side.
After I got ready, I opened the door and waited for Hunter to arrive.
“Who would have thought that our little Hellcat could wear a dress?” he teased from the door of my suite at the clubhouse.
Yet another reason I didn’t dress up as much. It was next to impossible to date with brothers like mine. All the guys were either too scared of ending up six feet under, or they didn't think I was worth it. Some guys just assumed I was a biker slut and didn't want the leftovers. Then there were the ones who wanted to see what the deal was and take a walk on the wild side.
“Shut up and let’s get going.” I scowled.
My other problem with men was where I lived.
After being subjected to all the promiscuities of the clubhouse, I had a hard time believing men could be faithful. Any of the guys at the clubhouse were also off limits because of their proclivities. The last thing I needed was to see the guy I was dating getting his rocks off on the pool table while I was serving drinks from behind the bar.
Some guys here followed the biker code about keeping it on the road, and whatever happened there stayed there. Another reason our father had children with so many women. Wherever he laid his helmet was his home. So with everything I knew, the last thing I would ever want was to be involved.
“All business tonight?”
Most of the guys I was attracted to steered clear of me like I was a pariah or something. If any of them had been involved with the club, someone had probably threatened them within an inch of their lives. There were just so many reasons I could think up of why I shouldn’t date anyone. Then again, no one could leave you if you weren’t together. Maybe I was just protecting my heart, as non-fragile as it might be.
“This job will either give us an in with a powerful ally or an unpredictable enemy.”
“You’re talking about the Andretti chick, right?”
“Yeah, the future head of the Andretti Crime Famiglia,” I answered. “That chick.”
At some point, I knew Andria and I would need to have a discussion about who she really was. She hadn’t been forthcoming with any of those details, but I understood her reasoning. It was a conversation I wasn’t looking forward to. Maybe after we completed this job for her, she would overlook my digging into her background. Hopefully, it would at least show her she could trust me with the information.
“You really think she’s gonna be some powerful Mafia Queen?”
“Haven’t you even reviewed her file?” I scoffed.
“Haven’t had time.”
The file wasn’t that much to read, but it didn’t surprise me he hadn’t taken the time, which is why I spat out, “Too busy fucking the stray bitches in heat?”
“Wow, okay,” he responded, eyes wide. “Tell me how you really feel.”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my stupid mouth. It was the pathetic green monster of jealousy speaking through me. Something had to give, but I wasn’t willing to walk away from everything I had worked for. Especially because I couldn’t get with the man I wanted. It didn’t help that I was high strung with thoughts of how well tonight would or wouldn’t go.
Sex trafficking victims often stayed loyal to their captors.
Not that they didn’t want to get away; it was that their captors made sure they broke them. Plied with drugs or raped into submission, some of them didn’t think their families would take them back. They feel completely worthless and all alone, because of what it forced them to do. In the most vile of situations, it had been their families that had sold them into slavery.
Stockholm syndrome.
They often lured these poor girls in by a Romeo pimp, who whispered all their hopes and dreams until they enticed them into the life they were now forced to live. Most of the time, the life they were living before falling prey to these predators wasn’t great. It often forced them to see this new life as a choice where at least they would have a roof over their head and the possibility of eating once a day.
I hoped our night would run smoothly once we put our plan in motion.
It was going to be just the two of us tonight, so we would have to make it work. We might get some back up later in the evening, but it was unlikely because we wanted to do this operation off the books. It was a favour, so we didn’t want to draw too much attention to us, even though we wanted the same things as our ally.
“Whatever,” I told him. “Let’s get going.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
I followed him out the back door to where I parked my vehicle. Tonight wouldn’t be a night for riding. We needed to be a little more inconspicuous. There was always the chance of us getting noticed, but it didn’t matter because we had enough of a reputation that we could be there to buy into the skin trade.
Once we were inside, Hunter turned to me and said, “Let’s get this out in the open. Something’s really been eating at you lately. None of your brothers are willing to stand on the landmines to ask you what’s up your ass, but I will.”
“There isn’t enough time in the day to tell you exactly what’s pissing me off.”
“Going through a dry spell or something?”
I scowled. “No, I’m not going through a dry spell. Thank you very much.”
“So you’ve got a boyfriend?”
“What’s with the twenty questions?” I asked him. “Just shut up and drive the fucking car to where we need to go.”
“What is with your constant skirting of said questions?”
“Who the fuck talks like that?”
“Why are you such a bitch?”
“Probably because you won’t shut up and drive,” I retorted. “I’ll tell you one thing though, it’s not cause I’ve got no one to fuck.”
“So you do have a boyfriend.”
“Why are you so hung up on whether I have a boyfriend?”
“I’m not.”
“Whatever,” I told him.
Earlier tonight, before we ran off half cocked, the two of us went over some blueprints for the building. Right after my call with Andria, I had Liam track them down for us. We needed to figure out where all the little hiding places were to prepare for our undercover infiltration. We had little time to carry out the plan, but Andria gave us free rein to do whatever we wanted.
As long as it led to the downfall of the mark.
Auberto Di Maggio was a slimeball of epic proportions. According to the information Andria gave us, prostitution and sex slave auctions were his primary source of income. He funnelled the cash he received from sales by laundering it through his hotels. There would be no sleep lost over this capo, losing one of his income streams. With any luck, he would lose face with the head of the crime family.
The building they were using was an old casino. The owners had shut it down when they moved to a larger, more strategically placed location. There hadn't been any recent building permits, so the floor plan should have remained relatively the same.
When we arrived, Andria had already thought of everything and left our names at the door.
Our fake names.
Glancing around the room, I was going to fit in just fine with the other buyers. This wasn’t a nice dinner at an expensive restaurant with your boyfriend, it was a flesh market. For those sheltered people out there, this was where scumbags bought and sold people. If they didn’t believe I was here to spend money, Hunter would fit the bill. To get this done, it didn’t oppose me to act like I was a bought and paid for date.
Either way, this would work.
Erik once told me I was the perfect chameleon. I prided myself on being able to blend seamlessly. It made what I did easier. I also had youth on my side, even though my childhood made me mature beyond my years. My appearance was disarming. No one expected sweet little Harleigh was capable of the unspeakable acts I had done. That was the point, though.
Pretty little genius with her head in a book.
Little did they know my proclivity for reading anything and everything was dangerous enough. Who would have thought a criminal justice major would take anatomy as a science elective?
I did.
For the exact reason that just popped into your mind.
What better way to perfect my craft?
That and it gave me access to where they stored their bodies. I could easily ensure one ended up on the table or abscond with one the club needed to fake a death. Cause we did that too.
But back to the reason every guy in here wanted me on a platter.
Tonight, I wore a white dress which was more revealing than I would normally wear, but made me look virginal at the same time. All of my tattoos, including the patch covering my back, were hidden with some camouflage makeup that blended with my skin. My dirty blonde hair was down in waves around my shoulders, causing a peekaboo effect on my cleavage. You could dress me up, or down, or anywhere in between. It sounded conceited as hell, but with my mom's stripper body and my dad's height, I looked good in anything.
We went into that party with a fairly simple plan, but when I saw the state of the barely legal slaves, they had in the cages, everything changed. It went from a fact seeking mission to a rescue annihilation.
When we were done with them, no one would chance the skin trade in our city.
Not on my watch.
Even though I had been to more of these parties than I could count on both hands, it still affected me. How could it not influence me? Just one look told me all I needed to know about why I was here tonight. What looked like a lot of money had been invested, making this night a success. They had made the inside of a warehouse into a morbidly elegant ballroom.
At the centre of the room was a circular stage covered in white fabric and accented with gold trim around the edge. It almost looked like a cake, if the purpose of cake would have been to celebrate the ruin of people’s lives and participation in modern day slavery. They set skinnier rectangular tables with seats only on one side to face the stage in a circular pattern for optimum viewing pleasure.
In every corner, young girls and boys between the ages of what looked to be fourteen and eighteen, donned in skimpy white lingerie to signal their untouched status, hung from the ceiling, locked in glass cages.
Eighteen to twenty-year-old boys wearing sheer boxers that showcased their twig and berries were walking around passing out champagne. Their counterparts were lying naked on the scattered buffet tables laden with hors d'oeuvres to be served to the guests. Other girls were walking around the floor wearing sheer dresses with their nipples and landing strips on full display.
This wasn’t the worst this venue offered.
When we first entered the makeshift ballroom, Hunter overheard one of the guests mention the under twelves were in a holding room in the back. If interested, you could have them moved into a meet and greet room before purchase. For the right amount of money, you could forgo the whole evening and take one of them home.
As if they were a fucking puppy!
It took everything I had in me not to throw a barricade across the doors and burn this building to the ground. Even if Andria wouldn’t have asked for this favour, if I could have found the market, I would have dealt with it myself. Only with all of our far-reaching connections, we only found thirty percent of the ones being held in our area.
Things like this made me sick.