Chapter 18 Lucien #2
I close my eyes. The voice is right; I didn’t think I had the right, at the time, because she told me I didn’t. She flat out demanded that I stay out of her business and let her do what she was going to do, and because I’m an absolute idiot, I didn’t push her on it.
I wanted to figure out what was going on, and she had the only good plan in the room. So I sat back and let it happen.
And now Brooks might be dead because of it.
Well, she doesn’t get a say in the matter anymore, and that’s all there is to it. She’s not here. She doesn’t get to tell me to stay out of her business. I’ve spent much of my life involved with that girl, and that has to count for something.
And I don’t care if it doesn’t. She’s mine, and I’m not going to let some fucking trafficker sell her to another man.
“What’s the move, boss?” Daniel asks suddenly, startling me out of my thoughts.
I open my eyes and look up at the dance hall. “We’re coming back after dark. The place opens at 9. I want to be inside at 8. I need to know what the fuck is going on here. And get Brooks out before they try to sell her to some asshole politician.”
And Satan help them if they’d already sold her.
Because I’ll tear the city apart finding her again. And then I’d kill everyone who’d ever laid a hand on her.
***
The thought is still with me hours later, when we creep through the darkness of an alley off Canal Street, looking for a way into the building. I brought several men with me, but none of my own. These are freelancers. Men outside the law who can’t be tied back to me if they’re found.
I still haven’t told my father what I’m doing, and my own men being apprehended would get me into a world of trouble.
I go through the plan again, feeling off-balance without Daniel here. The man is a genius when it comes to brainstorming, and I almost always discuss plans out loud with him when we’re on our way in, to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
I feel as though I’m trying to walk with one fucking leg.
But I can’t afford to lose him. If tonight goes wrong, I need him to keep searching for Brooks.
We’re so close to the end of our timeline that I can hardly stand it, and I’m keenly aware that I might lose her at any moment.
She might have already left the city. I know the answer to that, of course; even if she has, I’ll find her.
I’ll spend the rest of my life tracking her down if I have to.
The way I should have when she left New Orleans the first time.
That’s unimportant at the moment, though, and I put it to the side.
Right now, I’m going to break into this hall and find the closest office.
If this is a hub for the ring and the location for auctions, then they’ll have records here.
All I need is a computer, and I’ll be able to answer some questions.
I need to know where else they’re holding auctions and how often they happen.
I need to know whether girls are also shipped out of the port, or if they sell here to buyers who then take them other places.
Once I know where these auctions happen, I’ll insert men into that circle and make sure they’re invited to any auction.
I don’t know if I have the funds to purchase every girl and save her, but I need to know when they’re happening so I can start figuring out who’s running them.
I need to fucking find Brooks. Every single thing comes back to that, because the more I think about it the more I realize it’s my fault she’s in this position.
Sure, the girl is more stubborn than anyone I’ve ever met, and essentially told me what she was doing. But I let her go in there. I didn’t argue with her, and I didn’t pull her out of her father’s house, shove her into a car, and take her home to handcuff her to my bed.
At the end of the day, it’s my fault she’s in New Orleans at all. I fucking brought her down here, promising that we’d find her friend, and instead she’s fallen into their hands and I don’t know how to get her back out again.
Correction.
I don’t need to know how I’m going to do it.
I just need to know that I am. Because I’m not willing to fail. She’s trusting me to come get her and I’ll be well and truly fucked if I become just another man who’s lied to her and let her down.
Suddenly I feel a change in the wall I’m creeping along, and I look down to find that I’m standing next to a door. Some sort of back exit to the hall, if I’m guessing. It’s unmarked, though, and I hope that means it doesn’t have an alarm attached to it.
I reach down and turn the handle, holding my breath against the potential of a siren going off.
There’s nothing, though, and I breathe out in relief when the door opens like it’s been waiting for me.
They left their back door unlocked. What are the fucking chances?
“Let’s go,” I tell the men behind me, pushing into the hallway and rushing forward.
It looks like we’re in some sort of basement, and if I know dance halls–I may have been in one or two–the main floor is where they’ll hold the auction and the offices are on the upper floors.
I locate the stairwell and push open the door, holding my breath again in case an alarm goes off.
Nothing.
These people must be extremely confident that no one is going to come in here and steal anything from them.
Idiots.
I run up three flights of stairs, not bothering to check on the men behind me, and then burst through the door into the main hallway.
The first door I come to holds a desk with a computer, and that’s all I need to see.
I slide into the chair, turn the computer on, and wait.
I’m not the best computer hacker I’ve ever met, but I’m decent.
Particularly when I’m fueled by absolute desperation.
“Come on, come on,” I say, jittery with nerves. I want to get into this thing, find what I need, and get back out again before anyone discovers us.
When the computer finally starts up, it goes straight to the desktop.
They haven’t protected it with a password.
Confident, indeed. I wonder briefly if they have security I don’t know about–the cops? A security company?–and then decide I’ll leave that up to the men I have in the hallway. My only job right now is research.
I dive into the files on the desktop and then search the hard drive, seeking anything that looks like it might be related to smuggling high-end girls.
Or, as it turns out, selling them at local auctions.
I find more information than I could have imagined, and start packing it into files, then zipping them up.
One by one, I send them off to the email address Daniel created earlier today for this exact purpose.
I have a thumb drive and am uploading everything quickly as I can, but we knew that might end up costing me too much time.
Emailing is faster.
And it answers the problem of me potentially losing the thumb drive.
Within ten minutes, I’ve got everything I can find and my internal clock is screaming, telling me every second that I don’t have time to still be sitting here staring at a screen.
I need to get the hell out of here before the person who actually works in this office shows up, or security discovers my men outside.
I shut everything down, praying I got enough to tell us where Brooks is and stop the ring, and turn the computer off.
Now I have to get out of the building and around to the front, to enter as a potential bidder for the auction.
Yes, I’ve managed to secure an invitation. Don’t ask me how much of my soul I had to sell to do it. If Brooks is being offered tonight, though, I’m not willing to stay away. I’ll spend the rest of my soul, and the souls of everyone I know, to get her out of here.
I race into the hallway, motioning for my men to follow me, but before I hit the stairs, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and see that Daniel is calling.
We don’t have a call scheduled, which means this is important.
“What?” I hiss.
“Are you still in the building?” he asks, like he’s just calling for a chat.
“Fucking yes. Did you actually need to call me to ask me that?”
“Get out of there. Don’t stay for the auction. We know where she is.”
I stop in my tracks. Brooks. They’ve found her.
“What?” I breathe.
“It’s in the files you sent over. Brooks Landry, along with all her measurements.”
Now my heart stops. “Where is she?” I whisper. “Is she still here? In the auction? What’s going on?”
Daniel pauses for an eternity, and I’m ready to reach through the phone and choke him to death when he finally starts speaking again.
“She’s not booked for the auction. I’m not sure how they decide which girls go to auction and which ones are shipped out, but they’re running both routes through their operation. And Brooks is slated to be shipped out of the port. Tomorrow night.”
My mind tears clean down the center at his words. Brooks isn’t here, which means she’s not about to be auctioned off to some NOLA asshole. She’s safe for the night, but only until tomorrow.
I need to get home and make a new plan.
Which means I have to leave the girls here to their fates. They’re probably downstairs already, maybe praying that someone will save them. But the girl I’m searching for isn’t here, and if I’m going to save her, I need to figure out when she’s shipping out and how I’m going to stop it.
Save the girls downstairs... or save Brooks.
I don’t even have to think about it.
“We’re on our way back to the mansion,” I say, my feet racing down the stairs. “Get started on some planning. I want to have options when I arrive.”
I feel horrible about leaving these girls behind, really I do. But let’s be honest.
This was always going to be about Brooks. No one else matters.