18. Candy
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CANDY
A s soon as I open the door to leave my therapy session with Brandon, Butch is right there. He pulls me into his arms, holding me tight to his chest. I hug him back, not realizing how much I needed his comfort until I’m pressed tight to his body and breathing in his spiced cloves scent.
He kisses my forehead. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Straightening my shoulders, I pull far enough back to look at my biker. “I want to help, Butch.”
“You sure?” He studies me, his hazel eyes shifting between mine, like he’s trying to see if I’m being honest or trying to be brave. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. They can’t force you. I won’t let them if you say no.”
My heart squeezes. This man is too damn sweet.
I place my hands on his hard chest, enjoying the warmth and beat of his strong heart underneath my touch. He’s tense, strung tighter than a bow.
To calm him, I press a soft kiss to his lips. His body releases some of his tension under my touch .
“My protective biker boy. Thank you for caring about me,” I whisper against his lips.
He kisses me back, gripping me a little tighter. “Always.”
“I want to do this. Maybe I’m being selfish, but this is for me as much as it is for those abducted women. This is a chance to prove my worth to this club.”
Butch sighs. “You have nothing to prove to this club. Everyone here values you.”
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree. And even if you’re right, I need to do this to prove to myself I have something to offer our club. Hence, why I say this is for me as much as it is for those women. Do you understand?”
He frowns but nods. “I had a feeling you’d swing this way. Already told the crew you seemed willing. I don’t like it, but I won’t stop you. They’re waiting for us whenever you’re ready.”
“Lead the way.”
With his hand in mine, we walk to Atlas’s office and knock on the door.
“Come in,” Atlas’s baritone voice rumbles through the heavy wood door.
We enter the office, finding him, Gauge, and Piero sitting around his desk, waiting for me.
Atlas’s hard dark eyes soften seeing me. Gauge looks broody as usual, perhaps a little more than his average. And Piero examines me with curiosity, cocking his head as he takes me in.
Gauge gets up from his chair, offering it to me. He gives me a tight smile as I take the seat before he moves to stand behind Atlas’s chair.
Butch stands close behind me, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder. Having him with me through this process will make anything they ask me bearable.
Atlas folds his hands on his desk and gets right to it. “We appreciate you doing this, Candy. I’m glad Butch talked to you about how instrumental any of your intel may be to our investigation. Anything you share could be the break we need.”
I give a curt nod. “I’ll share what I know.”
“Only share what you feel comfortable with,” Gauge pipes in with a stern voice, eyeing the rest of the men in the room in challenge. “Your comfort comes first. If you need breaks, take them. If you need to stop altogether, then say enough. You control this, okay?”
The VP’s concern is touching. Not so long ago, Gauge was an ass who used me to hurt his now wife—for stupid reasons, of course. He selfishly put his needs first before considering the ramifications for me. His actions caused a lot of unnecessary tension between me and the rest of the MC. And although he’s apologized profusely to me and told the rest of the club it was his fault, it didn’t make up for what he put me through. He seemed to know it, too.
However, the VP has learned from his mistakes and is a better man for it. Gauge has my back today, and his actions are showing how sorry he is for what he did to me back then. I appreciate having him in my corner, especially when I have no idea how in depth this questioning will go.
“Christ almighty,” Piero groans in his thick accent. “We’re not grilling her like an interrogation, Gauge. Stop acting like we’re the bad guys for asking questions.”
“And you know shit-all about what your cousin put her through,” Gauge snaps back at the don. “You don’t get to determine what is or what is not intrusive questioning—she does.”
“Enough,” Atlas orders, bring the bickering men to heel. “Fighting amongst ourselves does nothing to help our current predicament. The clock is ticking. Each second wasted is another second of hell for these missing women. Let’s get to work.”
The room falls silent, understanding what’s at stake.
Atlas hits a button on his computer. “We good on your end, Chase?”
“Ready when you are,” Chase drawls, his husky voice filtering through the speaker.
“The rest of the crew is listening in from the tech cave,” Butch informs me. “They may ask questions, too. We thought keeping the people present at a minimum during questioning may be easier.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice shaky.
“Nothing to be nervous about,” Gauge says to reassure me. “You’re safe here.”
I nod in understanding, but I remain nervous. Needing something to anchor me, I grab Butch’s hand on my shoulder, clutching it. He squeezes me back.
Atlas clears his throat, getting right to business. He hits another button on his computer, possibly recording our discussion, like he does when questioning anyone. “State your legal name.”
“Leslie Williams.”
“How did you meet Lorenzo Bianchi?”
“I was working my corner along East Colfax in Denver, Colorado, when a yellow Lamborghini rolled up curbside. It was Lorenzo Bianchi. I didn’t know who he was at the time, assuming he was another paying client looking for a quick fuck, like any other businessman I serviced. I climbed into his car, excited I’d landed a high-paying client. He took us back to his office above his restaurant and asked me to show him what I could do.”
Behind me, Butch mutters a curse. I pat his hand, trying to soothe him. It can’t be easy hearing the woman you care about talking about servicing another man from the past. He’s never judged me for my history, and he hates that my choice was taken away from me, forcing me into a sex slave ring.
“Don’t worry about me, Candy,” he whispers in a terse voice. “I’m not upset with you. I’m only angry I wasn’t there to stop this all from happening.”
Hearing him openly support and not judge me means a lot. I continue.
“After we finished, Lorenzo dropped a ton of cash in my lap—more than I was used to. The money blinded me. He asked if I’d consider a permanent position working for him as a high-end call girl. Stupid me, accepted. I assumed I’d make bank like this all the time. Had I known I was contracting myself into sexual slavery, I’d have stuck to the streets. As soon as I said yes, he had his two goons—Luca and Paolo—transport me to Il Nido .”
Piero scrunches his nose, making a sound of disgust at the back of his throat. “The brothel was called The Nest ?”
I give a slight shrug. “Your cousin thought it sounded romantic . He wasn’t selling cheap pussy. He was selling the whole girlfriend experience. Men would reserve us for whatever length of time, and we catered to their needs. Sometimes it was a fast hour. Others were a week-long excursion, where we’d be paraded around at galas or private parties on their arms like a trophy. We did as told, pampering and submitting. The women Lorenzo offered his clients were not your average person. We were waxed, botoxed, and styled to look like runway models. Nothing was off the table.”
I wave my hand between my large, augmented breasts. “My natural A-cup wasn’t enough for one of Lorenzo’s clients. That’s how I ended up with these ridiculous things. Whatever a client wanted, they got with a price.”
Piero shakes his head with revulsion, falling silent.
Atlas brings the conversation back on track. “Tell us about Il Nido .”
“From the outside, it looked like any other warehouse in the Denver Central Business Park—plain cinderblock building. Nothing about it screamed ‘brothel.’ There wasn’t even the name of the brothel on the outside to identify the place. The inside was a different matter altogether—lavish style with dark hardwoods, red velvet furnishings, and crystal chandeliers. It screamed ‘money.’
“Each sex worker was assigned a room to service our clients. There were bigger rooms available to entertain clients who wanted to watch others while being taken care of or engage in an orgy. Everything was on the table as long as you could afford it, whether the workers wanted it or not. There were also rooms to accommodate those who preferred more sadistic deeds. ”
A horrid memory rushes to the surface, one where I’m restrained to a bondage horse bench while Luca and Cú Sidhe take turns having their way with me.
No. I will not go there. I shake the memory clear from my head, shuddering.
Butch rubs my shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“You good?” Gauge asks me.
There’s no way I’m going to let anything stop me from helping their investigation. “Yes.”
Atlas presses on. “How was security?”
“Security was tight. Not Mercy Ravens tight, but enough to keep the workers in check. Anyone who tried to escape was punished, some were killed.”
I pause, recalling what happened to those who made it further than the threshold of the exit.
Breaking out in a sweat, I continue. “Those who made it too far were returned to the brothel. They would file us into the main room, make us watch as they raped whoever it was, and then some they’d execute in front of us. Few were stupid enough to attempt running when they knew what the punishment was.”
The guys curse, repulsed by what the enslaved sex workers endured.
“How many were in the brothel?” Piero asks.
“A dozen. If a woman wasn’t attracting enough clients, Lorenzo had her transported to auction.”
Atlas perk up. “How were the women transported, and where was the auction house located?”
“The women Lorenzo sent were loaded into a windowless van and taken to the auction house. The perk of being Lorenzo’s highest grossing call-girls was getting out of the brothel to go to events as arm candy with him or his clients. Only the women he trusted not to run were allowed out of the brothel. It was a reprieve from hell most of the time.”
I lick my dry lips. “However, one time Lorenzo escorted me to one of these auctions. We traveled for a few hours—maybe three or four. I was blindfolded on the way there, but my blindfold was removed when we arrived on-site. I remember being scared to death, thinking I was being auctioned off. Lorenzo, keeping me close to his side, was the only thing reassuring me I wasn’t up for market.”
“What can you tell us about the auction site?”
“I don’t think we left the state. Breathing was a little harder, like the elevation was higher. We were near these two angular peaks that towered over a lake below. Snowcap mountains surrounded us. The auction site was a massive three-story stone manor with a circular driveway where the other auctioneers were being dropped off in the mansion’s front, leading to the solid wood front doors. I didn’t see any other homes or buildings in the area. I learned later, while eavesdropping on Lorenzo’s conversations with another bidder, that the manor belonged to Lorenzo’s most frequent brothel client.”
“What was the name of the client?”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “Patrick Duffy.”