Chapter 8 Brooks
Brooks
I watch the man carefully, poised on my toes and waiting for the moment he turns the corner.
I’ve been observing him for the last fifteen minutes, timing exactly how long it takes for him to get past this door and through the next part of his round, and I have it down to a science at this point.
The moment he gets past the door and hits the corner, I start counting.
“Five, four, three, two–”
He passes the window at the corner of the house and turns, and I’m walking quickly for the balcony before his back disappears.
If my studies are right, I’ll have fifteen minutes on the balcony alone before he rounds the house and comes back, and I’m going to take every second of it.
I’m not supposed to leave the house, even to go onto the balconies, but I’ve spent an entire day in my father’s company and I’m desperate for some time on my own.
Thirsty for fresh air and quiet like a woman dying of thirst.
Overcome with the space to actually think.
The night is dark and humid, smelling of both mildew and rotting greenery, and I think for a moment that it’s no better out here.
As I move further out on the balcony, though, coming to a stop against the stone balustrade under a sky washed with stars and a mere sliver of the moon, I realize I was wrong.
Yes, it’s hot out here, but it’s also quiet. Dark.
Nearly peaceful.
And after a day full of the sobs of girls, the chatter of smugglers, and the constant thread of days and times and ports, I am ravenous for the quiet.
I let my mind skim across what I’ve seen–the girls in the club earlier, on their way into the smuggling ring, the chalkboard behind them, the strange decor–and then back to the mansion, where I was taken into some sort of war room, full of computers and grainy photographs on the wall.
Screen after screen of information and more men than I could count typing at computers.
Recording, I assume, the new girls and where they’re going next.
I marvel at the stupidity of my father, who has thrown me right into this mess without bothering to check in on how wiling I am, and then allow myself a small smile.
My father is dark and powerful, deranged to the point of insanity, but he never was the smartest man.
And he really should have started small with me rather than giving me access to everything.
I pull a paper from my pocket and glance down at it, thinking through what I saw and didn’t have time to record.
I spent the last week trying to figure out timelines and names, and know now that every girl is given a timeline as soon as she comes into the ring.
They’re put into groups, as I knew, and each group has a space of four days before they’re sent on.
The multiple piers, though, that’s new. And actually knowing which piers they’re using?
Also new.
The thing I don’t understand yet is how they decide which girls are going to go where.
Some of them are shipped out, and some of them are sent to auctions held in the city.
But there are some who don’t seem to have an assigned destination, and I don’t understand that.
The rest of the ring is run on such a tight schedule that it doesn’t make sense to have some girls existing outside of that.
Are those girls just accidents? Are they for. .. something else?
And where does Aislyn fall into this?
I read quickly through the information on the paper, remembering the panic as I wrote it down.
I’d come across Aislyn’s name in one of the databases I was looking at, and as soon as I saw it I grabbed pen and paper and started writing the details down.
The thing is, this doesn’t make sense either.
She should have been at the port for shipment last night, with me.
She’d been in town for some time, and was reaching her expiration date.
But according to what I’ve seen, she’s being moved again and again, and now has a new ship date, forty-eight hours from now.
Why was it delayed, and why is she being moved around so much?
Most importantly, how can I get to her before she’s moved again?
Where is she right now?
That question brings another with it, because she’s not the only one who’s missing.
No matter how hard I’ve searched, I can’t find any mention of Lucien.
Sure, he’s not a part of the smuggling ring, so he might not be in the databases, but surely someone’s seen him.
Surely someone in the crew around me knows where he is or what’s happened to him.
He’s a Boudreaux, after all, and a valuable hostage, for blackmail or ransom if nothing else.
But everyone is acting as if they’ve never heard the name ‘Lucien Boudreaux.’
God, is he dead? Is that why they’re not mentioning him? Did he get pulled out of the van only to be shot in the head on the spot?
My stomach flips at the thought and I shy away from it before it can bring me to my knees. Surely not. They wouldn’t kill him without at least asking Gemini for money for his life.
Surely.
But what if they did, and he refused to pay?
What if Gemini sent his son to his death?
I have a moment of pure panic at the thought, then move on to a new one: guilt at the idea that he’s more likely a prisoner in some underground dungeon while I’m up here standing under the stars, a free woman.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I tell myself sharply. God, not even a week in New Orleans and I’ve become paranoid.
You’d almost think I didn’t know how to handle myself down here without Lucien, and that thought is so offensive that I actually laugh.
Me, in need of Lucien?
Not in a million years. I’ve been running rackets on my own since I was a kid. Hell, I took my father on all by myself when I found those girls in the basement, and I’m older and stronger and better armed now. I don’t need Lucien.
I don’t need anyone.
The thought about the girls in the basement brings another on its heels, though, and I wonder again if there are girls in the basement right now.
This was once one of the distribution hubs–at least as far as I know–and I doubt my father has moved on from that.
The house is in a good location when it comes to the Warehouse District and Canal Street, plus the port, and my father is so self-centered that he must love actually living in the same house as girls who are being actively trafficked.
Christ, I’d never thought about it before, but I bet he actually gets off on that shit.
And God, if they’re downstairs right now, I’ve been wasting time here, thinking about Lucien and everything else when I could have been working to free them.
I worked through the last week to free girls and yet here they are, potentially right under my feet, and I’ve just been fucking around.
I run through what I know of the guard patterns, particularly the guards who walk past the staircase that runs into the basement, and am about to turn and walk back into the house, ready for a new mission, when a hand shoots out of the darkness and clamps down on my arm.
Another appears half a second later and covers my mouth, stifling the scream before it can get past my lips.
I have enough time to start a thought about the irony of being kidnapped while already kidnapped, then I’m spun abruptly and forced back against the stone railing behind me, the cold rock cutting into my back and my breath ripped from my lungs.
Moments later, Lucien himself materializes from the darkness.
There’s no greeting. Just hands wrapped around my waist and his forehead against mine, his lips moving over my own as he claims my mouth and gives me his heat and breath.
The kiss is hard and desperate, tongues and teeth and lips and a deep, possessive relief that goes all the way to the pit of my stomach, and I welcome every single piece of it.
His fingertips sink into my flesh, no doubt leaving bruises, and I don’t give a single fuck.
Because my God in heaven, Lucien is here. He’s safe. He’s alive. And he’s just as warm and vital as he’s always been, big and solid as smoke come to life.
He breaks the kiss long enough to swear harshly in my ear, then spins me again, taking me into the corner of the balcony–and the shadows, where we’re protected from the light of the moon and the stars.
Here he presses me against the wall, his fingers urgent as they brush over my face, feeling my skin like he’s trying to memorize it.
“Brooks,” he breathes, my name like a benediction on his tongue.
Or possibly a curse.
Because suddenly he’s gone, the distance between us cold as an abyss.
And just like that, my anger comes rushing in.
“Where the fuck have you been?” I hiss. “Did you know there was going to be a rescue? Your men were there and they left me behind! Did you bother to–”
His hand slaps down over my mouth again, cutting me off, and then his face is close to my own, brows drawn down over eyes dark as sin. “Keep your fucking voice down!” he mutters. “Christ, girl, have you forgotten where you are?”
I jerk away from him and take a step to the side. “Hard to forget where I am when I’ve been here all day, wondering where the fuck you were!”
At this his face suddenly softens, then turns sly. “So you were worried about me?”
Oh my God I’m going to kill him. I just found out he’s alive, and that’s great and everything, but now I’m going to have to murder him.
“Don’t be an ass,” I mutter. I look up to the spot in the corner where I suspect there’s a camera, grab him, and scuttle backward until we’re in the corner where the rail meets the wall.
It’s darkest here, and furthest from the range of any camera up there, so we can at least talk. But not for long.
Because in approximately ten minutes, that guard will come back by, and neither of us can afford for Lucien to be here when he does.
“Tell me everything,” I saw bluntly.