Chapter 3 Brooks
Brooks
“You’ll be going to the warehouse with your father tonight,” Andre says as he shoves me through the door of my old bedroom. “So I suggest you rest and prepare yourself.”
I turn sharply on my toes, my eyes latching onto his like my life depends on it, and put a hand out to stop the door before he can close it. “Why?”
He smirks, his face going so ugly, so dark, that I have to swallow the gasp that comes to my mouth.
“He wants to see if you can handle the ugly parts,” he says.
He lets his eyes drop down my body and then travel back up, the smirk turning into a sneer.
“I have to say, I have my doubts. I think Dom is making a colossal mistake. We all know you can’t be trusted.
Then again, perhaps he’s just waiting for you to fuck up so we can finally be rid of you once and for all. ”
That hits me right in the stomach and I lose focus for a moment. When I come back to myself, he’s left the room and slammed the door behind him and I’m in the room by myself, with just the echo of his words to keep me comfortable.
My father is going to take me into the warehouses, presumably to see some of the girls. He’s going to be watching to see how I react–and will definitely watch for any funny business. The first time I screw anything up, he’s going to use it as an excuse to kill me.
Or worse.
Awesome.
Then I feel a smile growing on my lips, and let it take control of my face.
I probably look deranged, standing prisoner in my childhood bedroom while my father and his men are downstairs no doubt planning out how they’re going to kill me.
I’m a prisoner in my own house, held by my own father, and I don’t know whether I have any allies left.
My father must think he has me exactly where he wants me. Andre certainly does. They think I’m defenseless and isolated, and that I’ll succumb to their will just to keep myself alive.
Brooks Landry might have done that.
But they don’t know Brooks Peterson. They have no idea what I’ve learned in my time in New York. And they don’t realize how quickly the tables can turn. My father must think he’s going to trap me into some situation against my will and force me to obey him until he gets what he wants.
He’s wrong.
And I’m already fantasizing about the look he’ll be wearing when he finds out.
I get quickly to the door and put my ear to it, listening carefully for the sound of Andre’s feet.
This house is well built but it’s also old, and that means the doors have been here for a long time–as have the floors.
The floorboards creak and the doors aren’t as solid as they should be, so it’s always been easier than it should be to tell when there’s someone outside.
This always came in handy when I was a child, and was listening anxiously for my father’s footsteps, so I could escape out the window before he arrived.
Right now, I’m waiting for Andre to get down the hall and start down the stairs to the main floor. I hold my breath, listening to the squeaks as he walks, and wonder how the hell he’s gone this long without figuring out how to walk closer to the walls to make it quieter.
Probably because he’s never had to.
I roll my eyes and add him to the list of people I’m going to kill before this is all over, then hear him take the first step onto the stairs. And the second. And the third.
Which will put him far enough that he can no longer see my door.
I open it as quietly as possible, letting one eye sneak around the corner to glance up and down the hallway, and as soon as I register that it’s deserted, I’m slipping through the door and in the opposite direction.
I need to get downstairs to my father’s office, and though the main stairs would have been easier, the back stairs will work just as well.
Bonus: those stairs are almost always deserted.
They’re servant’s stairs, officially speaking, only the house doesn’t have any servants anymore.
They’re too likely to pass secrets, and when my father is hiding girls in the basement, the last thing he wants is for the servants to start talking.
I hit the end of the hall and the back staircase within moments and burst through the door, not bothering to be quiet or careful here. My father would never be caught in this stairwell and I don’t even think his men know about it.
Idiots.
I rush down, stopping only when I get to the door onto the main floor. When I push it open and look out, I see back of the house, near the kitchen. Everything here is a bit shabbier, a bit darker, as my father never brings guests this far back.
It’s dank and spooky and full of shadows.
It’s also empty.
I slip out and get against the wall, then start toward my father’s study. Normally I wouldn’t take the risk of heading into his personal space but right now, I have a laundry list of things I need, and his desk is the best place to start.
I don’t need his computer or files. I’m far beyond research at this point. I already know what’s going on–or at least enough to know what I need to do next–but I do need a phone. And a weapon, if I can find one.
And the last time I checked, my father kept those sorts of things within easy reach in his desk.
* * *
Five minutes later I’m leaving his office and running for the back stairs again, a phone in one hand and a butterfly knife in the other.
I marvel at the fact that there was a drawer with several phones in it–burner phones, for sure–and that he had a butterfly knife literally sitting on his desk, but I don’t ask too many questions.
I’ve had enough bad luck to last a lifetime since I got back to New Orleans.
I figure two pieces of good luck in the pace of five minutes is just the universe trying to balance the scales a little.
I start texting Camille the moment I’m in the stairwell, the glow of the phone lighting up the space as I try desperately to remember the number she gave me when we were in the apartment.
I wish to God I’d written it down but that wouldn’t have done me any good; the men took everything I had when I was swept into the trafficking ring, and that included both my phone any pieces of paper I’d had at the tine.
I close my eyes, fighting to see the number I’d put into my phone, though, and after a moment, I think I have it.
God, I hope I have it.
First, a test.
Beignet, I type. I bite my lip, hold my breath, and hit ‘send,’ then watch anxiously to see what happens. If I didn’t remember her number correctly, that will go to some random person who will think it’s just a spam message. No harm, no foul.
If there’s not some sort of alarm on this phone. If there’s not a lock I don’t know about.
Within moments though I see the bubbles that mean someone else is typing, and I let my breath out slowly.
“Camille, is that you?” I ask quietly.
Because I need a friend right now. I desperately need someone to tell me what the fuck is going on outside this house.
Then the words appear.
Brooks, is that you?
I almost drop the phone in relief, but sag against the wall instead, and start typing out a quick message asking her what’s going on in the outside world. I tell her where I am and who has me, and then ask the most important question: Has she heard from Lucien?
People are already saying you’re back in Dom’s pocket, comes the quick reply. Kate and I are working on research here, though. We’ve been told your friend Aislyn is still in town. The ship she was supposed to be on never left. Rumors that girls are being moved. What do you want me to do?
She and Kate are together. Perfect. And they’re doing research. They know where Aislyn is. That’s new.
Girls are still being moved. Aislyn is still in town.
But she was due to be shipped out. I had the timeline tattooed into my head. Why the fuck would they have stopped that shipment?
Why were they messing with their timeline, and evidently just for her?
Because the other girls were still being moved, but Aislyn was still in town, despite her ship date passing.
From what I’d seen, the ring ran like a well-oiled machine.
Not an organized one, for sure, but one with a very specific timeline.
The girls left on a regular schedule–one that didn’t leave any time for anyone to discover them still in town.
They either went to auction or went onto a ship to be sent somewhere else.
So why the fuck had they changed that for Aislyn? It didn’t make sense. She was a high-value girl who would have brought a good price–I hate that I’m even thinking of her in that way–so why hold onto her longer than you have to?
Unless...
Unless...
I’m running up the stairs again before I come to the end of the thought, because I need to get out of these stairs and into my bedroom, where I have more safety to think.
Because if what I’m guessing is right, then I need to focus on the problem and not the fact that I’m still exposed to my father’s men.
Because if what I’m guessing is right, then my father is keeping Aislyn in town for a reason that has nothing to do with selling her and everything to do with blackmail. It doesn’t make any sense for him to hold a girl longer than he has to, unless he has a very good reason for that.
Like that he’s figured out who I m in New York, who my friends are, and that he has someone connected to my life there. And further, that he can potentially hold her over my head to make me do what he wants me to do.
Unless I’m willing to risk her life.
Yes, it’s a big jump, and yes it’s making rather a lot of my own importance.
But it’s the only thing that makes sense.
He already knows my mother went to New York, back to the Irish mob, and surely he has spied in New York.
They could have told him that I’ve been seen with that Irish mob, and with one member in particular.
Sloane Brennan.
Cousin to one Aislyn Brennan.
And Jesus Christ, that means he knows who my friends are... and potentially how to get to them, too.
I’d already thought things had gone to hell in a hand basket and that they couldn’t get any worse, but holy fucking shit, this is a lot worse.
A lot worse.
I have to stay here and figure out what my father is doing–and how to stop him. I have to find Aislyn and get her out of this ring, and then rescue all the girls still in town.
And I have to go into this new role with my father without anyone to watch my back, because I don’t have the first fucking clue where Lucien is.
I know he’d kill me if he knew what I’m about to do without him.
And honestly...
I kind of love that.