Chapter 23 I Only Trust You #2
The meeting had taken longer than I anticipated.
The idiot buying the poor girl was trying to lower her cost after he’d agreed to it.
Nothing pissed me off like a cheap idiot.
Between Master’s clingy bullshit in the morning and the asshole I’d just threatened into signing everything, I had to pump out some rage, so I changed clothes in the locker room, then got on the treadmill while listening to Rage Against the Machine.
After running ten miles, I was exhausted enough to deal with people again.
I showered again, then as I was returning to my office, I called for Ben to meet me outside where I was sure there weren't any cameras to hear our conversation, and texted Master.
Me: I’m sorry. I can’t join you for lunch, but I’ll get off early. I promise.
Master: … … …
As I walked out of the building, the texting stopped, which meant he was pissed. Oh fucking well. I rolled my eyes. When I was about to start texting again to appease him, I saw Ben walking out of the building toward me. He was the closest thing I'd ever had to a friend.
“Hey! How’s it going? I heard through the grapevine you wanted to see me?” Ben greeted.
I smiled and walked up to him to pat each other’s backs once. “How are you?” I asked.
“Do you want the truth or…”
“Honestly, unless it’s Defcon level 500 and you can shave off all the petty drama and there’s nothing else you can do to fix it, I don’t want to hear it.”
He chuckled. “Bad morning, huh?”
I faked a grin, making him laugh harder.
“Oh, man… I don’t envy you. I bet it’s like having an ugly wife.”
“I sighed. I wouldn’t know.” I shrugged and looked down at the mess on my desk, then cleared a spot where I could rest my elbows and forearms. “Listen. I’m gonna need a bunch of favors from you.” The smile melted off his face. “It’s nothing that bad.”
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.” His palm covered his heart. The exaggerated breathing and gesture drew my first chuckle of the day.
“No. I’m going to Monaco in a week.”
“Fuck. Go on.”
“Yeah. How difficult would it be to break into the security cameras in the hotel and replace footage if I needed you to?”
“It’s doable.” He shrugged.
“You wouldn’t need to be there?”
“No.”
“Okay. I’ll keep in touch with you, then. He wants me to be with Mael for some stupid party. I feel a setup coming on. I don’t know.”
“I get it. Chance favors the prepared mind and all.”
“Exactly.”
“Phew… Dude, I thought you were gonna tell me you were gonna hack me.”
I chuckled again. “How’s Macy?”
“Completely happy beyond belief.” He nodded. “I’m never gonna be able to thank you enough.” His voice did that funny thing that happened every time he remembered what I did for them.
“Ah, come on, don’t get emotional on me.”
“I mean it.”
“I was happy to help the both of you, man. Don’t do that. It was no big deal. I swear.”
“I know that’s how you feel.”
“Okay. Well, get out of my office. If something comes up, let me know, but that was all.” He walked toward the door.
“What was the problem this time?” I asked loudly for the cameras that way he could cut out the risky part of our conversation and use this as the reason I called him into my office. We always tried to cover all the bases.
“The breakers in the AC broke and someone was suspected, but it turned out it was just old wiring.”
“Got it. Remember the breakers.”
He winked at me while holding the knob, then left.
Out of all the people in this training center, Ben was the one I trusted most. He thought it was all an accident, but really, I’d set him up.
I’d made it so he would “accidentally” see one of my girls that came in a cargo one time.
That was enough for him to fall for her.
Then I gifted her to him, pretending I’d gone out of my way to hide all of it.
In reality, Macy was not that important of a slave.
Sometimes, we’d get a bunch of random girls sold to us.
I’d snatched her and trained her to do everything he searched for on porn websites before they could pull all her information and put a tracker in her.
He thought it was a coincidence that some training sessions kept popping up on his computer.
Once I saw the way he watched me fuck her on her live session, I knew he was obsessed.
I made her do everything he liked, and he sweated through it.
Macy, like almost all the girls who ended up here, was easy to break. She’d already had a rough childhood, lost both parents at five, then went into the system where she was sexually abused by several guardians. The training center was often better than any foster home these girls ended up in.
I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know the type of person Ben was.
I knew he wouldn’t abuse her. He was an easy target and young, so he fell in love within seconds.
Just like the slaves, we targeted desperate young men to work for us.
That way, they were unaware of the severity of our crimes, what it took to keep a business like this going, how many people died for it, and how many families were left shattered.
And the debt, as in the money he technically owed me for her, well, it was the only way to ensure his loyalty to me.
When he first started working with us, Ben had medical bills adding up to a million dollars from all the procedures performed on his sick mother.
He’d also been laid off as the head of security at a science lab that lost funding.
At the time, to take over this place, I needed to have access to all security behind Master’s back to gain the truly important secrets.
I needed someone I could trust who wasn’t a sick asshole.
From watching Master, I learned if you blackmail people by pretending you are helping them, they grow grateful, but if you blackmail them in a way that induces fear, well, then you have to watch your back for the rest of your life.
Since I’d given him Macy, I had him eating from the palm of my hand.
He’d do anything for me just out of gratitude, but worst-case scenario, he knew if he betrayed me, Macy would disappear.
Like every employee, his life at home was monitored, so I knew Macy and Ben were happy together. I knew she was doing a good job.
Our friendship had grown because on several really severe occasions, he’d been the only one I confided in. I had never said it, but by my actions, he knew what I was really doing here at this training center.