Chapter 15 Brooks
Brooks
When I wake up, I’m still in the fancy dress I was wearing.
I am no longer in my father’s mansion.
I sit up with a gasp, registering several things at once: I’m in some sort of room with a bunch of other girls, and it’s far from the smoky, romantic gas lamps and gaudy decorations of my father’s house.
It’s dank and dark down here, and though there’s light coming from somewhere, it’s not enough to see clearly.
The air is close and humid, and I don’t smell any hint of fresh breeze.
I run my hands quickly down my dress, making sure it’s still intact, and realize it’s damp. Not like I’ve been dunked in water, but like I’ve been through dark, musty air.
I reek of the catacombs.
The thought brings me to my feet and I look around the room, trying to collect as much information as I can. The walls are the dark, dripping stone of the underground tunnels and the air is close, just as I would expect.
I’m not only not in my father’s mansion.
I’m not even above ground. If I’m right, we’re in some type of holding cell, and it’s not on the surface.
God, I don’t even know if we’re in the catacombs proper.
Moisture is running down the wall next to me and pooling on the floor, and though the tunnels are damp, I’ve never seen anything like this.
I feel as though we’re under a lake and the water is slowly winning the war against the ceiling above us.
That thought makes me want to throw up, though, and I put it away as quickly as I have it. Panicking isn’t going to do me any good.
At that moment, I realize that my hand is on my hip, and there’s nothing under my dress. My knife should be right there—the butterfly knife I always keep with me—but there’s nothing. Just my skin.
I reach quickly for the other holster strapped to my knee and search for the gun I had, but that holster is also gone. My phone is gone, because whoever brought me here took my purse.
I have no weapons.
My hand goes quickly to the hair tie around my wrist, and that’s intact, at least.
I’d feel a whole lot better if it was lethal. I never go anywhere without at least one weapon on me. Then again, I’ve never been kidnapped. I probably should have realized they weren’t going to let me keep my things.
I turn my eyes to the girls around me, and start to take stock of the situation.
They’re all very young, and very scared.
They’re milling around the room, asking questions of each other like someone might have the answer to what’s going on.
Some of the girls are sobbing, some are handcuffed.
Everyone is terrified, but some of them look more defiant than others.
Every one of them is too dressed up for a dripping room in the catacombs. Some have on fancy dresses, like me, and I wonder abruptly if we all came from the same party. I assumed my father had the ball to meet with his contacts, but what if it was more than that?
What if it was a way to gather high-society girls?
I start to push through the girls, looking at their faces and trying to figure out whether I recognize any of them.
There were definitely other girls at that ball, but I wasn’t looking at them.
I was too busy watching the men watch me, and trying to determine where their alliances were.
Who might be in charge of the ring we were trying to bust.
Aside from that first girl, any female in the room was just background noise, and now I’m kicking myself for not being more observant. I know better. I was there to do research and yet I only looked at half the people.
Stupid.
I do recognize some of these girls for different reasons, though.
They weren’t in the files Lucien gave me, but they’ve been in the newspapers since I got here.
Society girls, out to party, who’ve had their pictures taken for the press.
Daughters of politicians who were photographed doing appearances with their fathers.
Daughters of lawyers and businessmen and even the mayor.
These girls are the crème de la crème of New Orleans society.
I start asking for names, and though most of the girls are too terrified to speak, some of them do.
Laura Hannaby. Sasha Johns. Mika Collins.
Kate Fontenot.
I stop when I hear the name. I hadn’t asked anyone, but someone had answered, and when I look up, I find the blazing black eyes of a girl I know. Her hair is as dark as her eyes, her face sharp and pointed like she’s some sort of pixie, and I’d recognize that smirk in my sleep.
I fly to her—as well as I can, given the crowd—and take her in my arms, my mind rushing to catch up.
“Kate, what the actual fuck are you doing in here?”
She looks rough, and I look closer, wondering if she’s okay. Her eyes are darkened by shadows and she’s even paler than usual, which is saying something. I also see a bruise forming on her left cheekbone.
And she’s the only girl in here wearing normal clothes. She looks like she was on a run to the market or something.
“Well I didn’t come here on purpose, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says wryly.
I have to smile at that, because Kate is one of the only people I know who could be in a situation like this and still crack jokes.
She and Sloane would adore each other. Not that I’ve ever had them in the same space.
Kate is one of my one and only adult friends in New Orleans, and used to be one of my first stops whenever I came back to town.
Camille introduced me to her early on, and we’ve been fast friends ever since.
Honestly, I don’t know how Camille even knows her. They certainly don’t move in the same circles.
Kate is, to put it nicely, the daughter of one of my most infamous madames in New Orleans.
If you want to be more blunt, you could say Kate’s the daughter of the woman who runs the best meat markets in town.
She’s not the kind of person you want to make an enemy of, and she doesn’t fit with the profile of the girls we’ve been looking at.
I grab her arm and pull her to the side of the room, intent on finding out what’s going on. Is there more to this story than we realized?
Is her mother involved?
I don’t want to think that. I’ve known Kitty Fontenot–yes, their names are almost the same–as long as I’ve known Kate, and I adore her.
Big, boisterous, and not afraid of anyone, the woman lives her life the way she wants to, and has more respect for women than most people in the world.
Despite the fact that she runs a business where they sell their own bodies.
She takes care of her girls, makes sure they get the money and medical care they need, and I can’t imagine her ever selling anyone into a smuggling ring.
Though lately I’m starting to think I don’t read people as well as I once thought.
“What’s going on?” I hiss, pulling Kate up against the wall. “What are you doing here? How long have you been in here? Do you know who runs this thing?”
She puts up a hand. “God, Brooks, one question at a time. I haven’t slept in about three days and my brain’s not moving as quickly as it used to.
I don’t know what’s happening or who’s running it but it’s not hard to guess what ‘it’ is.
” She looks around the room and then back to me, her eyebrows lifted. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Probably more than you,” I say, and give her the very short version of what we’ve discovered. “I went to a ball at my dad’s house with Lucien and–”
She grabs my arm. “Lucien? Lucien Boudreaux?”
My heart sinks a little bit at the way she says his name, but I nod. “It’s sort of a long story.”
“I bet it is,” she drawls, the corners of her mouth turning up. “You two never do anything the short or easy way.”
“First of all, there’s no ‘us two’ about it,” I say firmly.
“He just did me a favor, that’s all. Loaned me a hundred men for a situation in New York, then decided to go up there to watch.
When a friend was kidnapped he gave me some information about it, and when it looked like she was taken to New Orleans, I came down here to find her. ”
Kate’s face is carefully blank. “With Lucien Boudreaux.”
“Yes, that’s what I just said.”
“Lucien Boudreaux loaned you one hundred men and went to fight a war with you, then happened to have the information you needed, and then flew you down to New Orleans at the drop of a hat. Just being Johnny on the Spot.”
I stare at her for a beat, confused. “Evidently.”
Then I see her mouth twitch. “And he’s still sticking to the story that you two are just friends?”
“I wouldn’t even call it friends, honestly,” I snap, annoyed at this game. “He tried to lock me up in his house so he could do all the groundwork.”
Kate tries not to grin at this. She fails. “Lock you up in his house? You’re... staying at his house?”
At that point, I’ve finally had enough. “Kate, I don’t have time for you to play around.
Lucien and I aren’t whatever you’re thinking.
We’re barely anything. I haven’t even fucking talked to him in years.
The only reason I’m at his house is that we’re working on this case together. Now how the fuck did you get here?”
She finally stops smirking and grows serious. “Made a mistake. Saw a girl getting roughed up outside a club and went to help her. Three guys were trying to grab her and her friends, and I wasn’t having it. But they had guns and knives and I was unarmed, so...”
“So they just took you too?” I gasp, surprised. This doesn’t sound like anything we have in our files, and it goes against the idea that they’re only taking girls from rich families. Kate’s mother is influential, sure, but she doesn’t exactly travel in high New Orleans society.
“Yep. Been here three days.”
Three days. If that’s true, she was here almost from the start of this group.
Which means we only have four days until this group is shipped out.
“Were there many other girls here when you arrived?” I ask quickly.
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Sure, they were down here having a big party.”
“Kate, I’m serious. This is important.”
She tips her head, but then sees that I’m serious. “Right. No, when I got here there were only a couple other girls. But it’s been filling up since then.” She pauses and watches my reaction, then bites her lip. “That’s not good news, is it? That means something bad.”
God, I don’t know how to tell her this without sounding dramatic.
Then again, this is a dramatic situation.
Maybe I shouldn’t sugarcoat it. “It just matches what we thought. We’re guessing this group brings girls in waves.
Collects them for about a week, one or two at a time, and not only from New Orleans.
They’re getting them in New York, Boston, Atlanta. ..”
“Why?” she breathes. “For what?”
I meet her eyes and grit my teeth. “They pass them out as escorts while they have them, then ship them somewhere. We don’t know where, yet.”
Kate closes her eyes and then nods. “Right. Of course they do. And there’s a timeline.”
“Exactly.”
When she opens her eyes again, they’re full of knowledge. And determination. “How much time do we have?”
Right. Moment of truth. “If you’ve been here three days? We have three days until the ship date. Four at the most.”
Her face goes even paler, but I don’t see any fear in her eyes. Instead, she gives me a sharp, brittle grin. “Then I guess we better find a way to bust the hell out of here and save these girls. That why you’re here?”
God, I want to hug her. “That’s exactly why we’re here.”
What I don’t tell her is that I’m here without a fucking plan, and without a team behind me.
Sure, Lucien is above ground and will give me anything I need, but he might not know where the fuck I currently am—I don’t know if this tracking device even works—and I’m guessing he can’t get to me.
And because I left without drawing up a plan with him, I’m essentially flying solo.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t have a backup plan. I’m trapped in an underground room with a bunch of very scared girls, and I don’t know if Lucien can track me.
I don’t know if he’s coming to save me. Or not.
I’ve had a lot of bad ideas in my time, and I’ve even acted on some of them. Hell, sending Dante into Dax Romano’s world to spy for us was one of the dimmest things I’ve ever done, though it seemed like a good idea at the time.
But I’m starting to think that this right here–coming down here without a plan or way to communicate with Lucien about what’s going on–might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
Even worse, I don’t see Aislyn in this room.
I got myself kidnapped and thrown into a holding cell with a bunch of helpless girls, and the girl I’m looking for isn’t even here.