Chapter 17
LUKE
Sophie’s House occupies several adjoining double-fronted terraces, and we enter through a side gate that is code locked. A path leads down the side of the terrace, beside a high wire-topped wall. Toys lie in the sandpit, and a bike leans against the wall.
“Sometimes the women we take come with children,” Zin explains coolly. Large black sunglasses hide her eyes, despite the gray day, and she hasn’t met my eyes directly since I picked her up this morning. She certainly hasn’t mentioned last night’s conversation.
She’s swapped her stilettos for long leather boots that highlight her thighs and a black coat over a scarlet wool dress which clings to every curve. The dress features a plunging neckline that exposes just enough porcelain cleavage to make a monk want to break his vows.
I know damn well she’s dressing to exact revenge for last night. I also know whatever game is crackling the air between us will have to wait for now. Sophie’s House is no place to play it.
Inside, the refuge is an airy, quiet place with welcoming sofas and various different rooms decorated to purpose.
Women are accommodated in private rooms, some with multiple beds for children.
There is a dedicated terrace, a large communal dining room, a commercial kitchen, and several other smaller kitchenettes where the women can prepare their own food if they choose.
Zin doesn’t linger as she walks me through it, and she’s clearly called ahead to warn her staff, because I don’t see any of the women currently staying there.
I’m taken straight to the front office, which also doubles as the security room.
Two female guards sit on one side, monitoring the cameras, while the receptionist’s desk, currently empty, is on the other.
Design fault, I think immediately. The place needs a full surveillance suite. Trying to operate security in reception is a bad move.
“Luke?” The larger of the two women stands up, her stern face creasing into a smile. “Christ. She didn’t tell me it was you she’d hired.”
“Sal.” I return her smile. “Good to see you again.”
“Ana.” Sal turns to the thinner woman beside her. “You remember Luke, from that shit show in Myanmar?”
“Hell, yes.” Ana nods at me with a grin. “Never got a chance to thank you for all you did. Great work that night.” She turns to Zinaida. “You should have mentioned it was Luke you had coming. There are plenty of girls here who’d love to see him again.”
“I didn’t realize you’d met.” The gleam in Zinaida’s eye is fierce enough to sear paint from the walls.
I give her the ghost of a wink and have the satisfaction of seeing the color rise in her cheeks.
That’s what happens when you try to outplay me, Melikov.
“You were in Myanmar?” Charlie, who drove us here, shakes her head, grinning.
“You’re a fucking dark horse, McTasty.” Then she sees Zinaida’s face, and her eyes widen.
She glances back at me, and I give a small warning shake of my head.
Her grin gets even wider, but wisely, she keeps whatever smart-ass crack she was about to make to herself.
“You’ve already met most of the team,” Sal goes on, clearly oblivious to the underlying tension. “The ones you haven’t are a little reserved, so go easy, yeah?”
“Copy that.”
We walk through the refuge, and Sal introduces me to the security team, including those who are stationed on each floor.
They’re all polite, but apart from those I already know, most barely look me in the eye.
All, without exception, have a wary tension to them.
Unsurprising, given that from Mak’s file, nearly all of them are refugees from either trafficking or severe abuse.
No wonder Zinaida was cautious about bringing me in.
“I need to talk to your receptionist,” I say as we near the end of the tour.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Zinaida says. “Eva only took over the front desk of Sophie’s House this year. She’s not . . . great with men.”
Charlie, Sal, and Ana all nod emphatically.
“Noted.” I catch Zinaida’s eyes and hold them. “I’d still like to speak with her, if she’s willing.”
She grimaces. “It has to be her choice.”
“Sure.”
Zinaida turns to Sal. “Can you go ahead of us and give Eva a heads-up?”
We wait for Sal’s nod before we move into the front office, where a pale-faced very plain girl is standing by the desk. Her brown eyes are as sad and withdrawn as anyone’s I’ve ever seen.
“Eva, this is Luke.” Zin smiles at the receptionist. “He’s helping out with security.” Her tone is a great deal gentler than usual.
She nods without speaking, her hands twisting anxiously in front of her.
I stay just beyond the entrance to the office. “I’d like to go over some of your security concerns, Eva, if that’s okay with you?” I ask quietly. “Charlie and Zinaida will be with us, of course.”
“I guess.” Eva’s voice is barely audible, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. Her jeans and polo neck sweater hang off a painfully thin body, and her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail.
Zin leads us into her office. It’s a simple room with a skylight, bookshelves, and a comfortable sofa with a few chairs by a low coffee table. No desk. Nothing official, just a warm, relaxed, neutral space that could belong to any psychologist.
She turns to Eva. “Luke is helping tighten up security, so I’d like you to be honest when you answer his questions.”
Charlie smiles reassuringly at Eva and gives her a slight nod.
Eva takes the seat farthest from me, avoiding my eyes, her whole body curled protectively in on itself. I feel an unexpected lurch of old anger that I thought I’d laid to rest long ago.
Fuck any man who makes a woman feel that kind of fear.
I remember my sister sitting like that, for years after we left my stepfather’s house.
Remember my mother curled into the farthest corner of the tattered old couch in our living room, rigidly still, terrified of provoking the abusive bastard.
I didn’t think the memory had any power all these years later.
By the surge of tension in my body, though, clearly I was wrong.
Not that I let even the barest hint of that tension show.
Women like Eva have seen enough of the dark side of man to last them a lifetime.
“I’d like to help make Sophie’s House safer, Eva,” I say gently. “Is it okay if I ask you some questions?”
She pulls at the sleeves of her sweater, shrinking into herself. “That will be fine,” she says in a small voice.
“I thought it might be difficult for you to focus with Sal and Ana running security in the same office as you. Have you found that?”
Eva glances nervously at Charlie, who nods encouragingly. “Um. Yes,” she says softly. “Sometimes, yes. For Sal and Ana, too.”
Zin looks surprised. “You never said anything—”
I shoot her a hard glance. She subsides. Eva fidgets uncomfortably.
“It’s fine, Eva,” I say quietly. “Zinaida and I both understand how difficult it is to work with others around you. We think it might be easier if security moved to another room.”
Luckily, she’s positioned in a way that she misses Zinaida’s obvious surprise and Charlie’s suppressed grin.
“Yes.” Eva almost smiles. “That would be good, I think.”
“I’ll take care of it straight away. I was also thinking that we might put another layer of security in the front office.
What do you think of this idea?” I verbally sketch out what I have in mind, being careful not to move toward her or hold her eyes for too long.
After a time, her short answers become longer, and she begins to suggest changes of her own.
By the time half an hour has passed, she is sitting up in her chair, facing me, and is almost animated in her conversation.
“Great.” I glance at Zinaida and Charlie, both of whom have watched our entire exchange in fascinated silence. “I want to speak to security so we’re all on the same page. Would you rather I do that here or in the main office?”
Zinaida finds her voice first. “Um. Sure. Here is better, I think. Eva, would you mind . . . ?”
“Of course.” Eva stands up. For a moment she pauses.
Then, shyly, she extends her hand to me.
I take it very gently. A small, nervous touch, a brief smile, and she is gone.
I turn to find both Zinaida and Charlie still staring at me with that same damned look I’ve been getting from the day I started working with Zinaida, like I’m an alien specimen they’re not sure what to do with.
It’s starting to get really fucking old.
I spend an hour going through surveillance with Ana and Sally. Ana is thin and wiry, with cropped brown hair, ink on every available piece of skin that I can see, and an incessant nicotine habit. Sally is quite overweight and looks like she spends more time on the couch than in the gym.
The funny thing about deadly operators is that they often don’t look that way on the surface.
It’s the small things that give them away.
How they subtly position their chairs so they can eye the door and the window but remain out of the line of potential attack.
Their momentary stillness at the slightest noise, attuned to the changes in sound or light that most people barely notice.
The easy way both of them squat down to pull milk from the fridge, despite Sally’s seeming bulk.
And I don’t need to pat either of them down to know they’re packing more than just a blade or two.
They’re the kind of people I understand.
Which means I also see where their line in the sand is.
“Myanmar clearly wasn’t your first rescue rodeo,” I say as we reach the end of the surveillance overhaul. “Do you usually encounter much trouble on these operations?”
Their shutters come down faster than a brothel at dawn.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Ana says in her rasping voice, lighting another cigarette. But I don’t miss the way her eyes avoid mine.
Sal shrugs casually. “You know how it is on the big jobs, brother.” She lounges in her chair, but every muscle is taut.
Bullshit.
My danger radar starts whirling with a bright red light.
But I’m not pushing it, not yet. Challenging their loyalty to Zinaida is counterproductive.
It’s her trust I need to win, not that of her people.
Unfortunately, Zinaida has as many faces as a gambling dice and is every bit as unpredictable.
It’s maddening.
And intriguing.
Halfway through our meeting, she knocks on the door. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says, not looking sorry at all. “I need to borrow Sally and Ana for a moment. They’ll drive me home later, Luke, so when you’ve finished asking questions, feel free to leave with Charlie.”
Oh, fuck this.
Diplomacy is one thing. Easing my way into the job, dancing around personnel—all that is just standard ops when it comes to running security. I don’t have the kind of ego that gives any kind of fuck about pecking orders, or I’d never have survived the military as long as I did.
But when I take a job, I get it done. And despite whatever agreement I thought we’d reached last night, it’s blatantly clear that Zinaida is still standing in my way of doing that.
“I’ll stay while we go through the Avonmouth plans,” I say quietly.
Zin’s glare could laser steel. “You said you’d stay out of my way.”
“I said I’d be there. And over every detail.”
I’m not oblivious to the fact that Charlie, Sally, and Ana are watching this exchange with unabashed fascination.
“Fine.” Zinaida turns her back on me and proceeds to give an extremely basic rundown of the plans for Saturday night, none of which include me in any way.
I keep my thoughts to myself.
I smile, nod, and generally play the role of blind patsy, with the poker face I mastered back in the lowest ranks of the army.
Then I plant several listening bugs, and spyware into the Sophie’s House computer system for good measure.
Nothing is going down in Zin’s life without my knowledge, whether she wants to grant me full access or not.