Chapter 14
Sophia
Dean did not win that fight. I let him think he did, though. Because I will be there to kill Bishop Blackstone. I have to be the one to do it. I have to find out where Bishop is keeping the women I left behind when I escaped.
I still have nightmares about the women I left in that place.
I was only fifteen, working at a mercato delle pulci—a flea market—not far from home when one of Bishop’s agents, Marco Caputo, contacted me. He was years older than me with blond messy hair, thick glasses, and a smile filled with shiny white teeth. Marco was a god to our people. If you didn’t have money to pay for your mother’s hospital bill. You went to him, and magically the problem vanished. He had the whole city under his control. At first, Marco was kind, caring and would play ball with my younger brothers in the yard at night.
He paid attention to me, he listened while I talked non stop of my dreams.
I could have fallen in love, but I was just a kid, and he was a man. He promised me things I could never even imagine for myself. Fantasies of a better life in America where I could have a house, a family, things that I could never even fathom. I ate up every word he said. My mother believed him. My sister believed him.
He fed us with lies and we ate every single one.
In the end, he took only me, promising me I could have anything I could ever want. That once I was all settled, I could send for my family and they could come live with me. We never doubted it, after all, he was Marco Caputo.
And Marco was trustworthy, or so we thought.
I was ecstatic the day I left. Sure, it took me two hours to say goodbye to my mother and younger brothers and sister. I cried a lot in those first few hours.
I never knew those weren’t even the first of my tears. That a whole floodgate was about to open. That my life would change forever.
We flew in style to Romania, where Marco said he had to stop for a quick errand. There he transferred me from his private jet to a shipping container filled with other women. We were added to a cargo ship and for the next few days, or weeks, I don’t even know, we traveled to America.
It was hot. There was barely any food, so we had to ration between the fifty of us. That’s right. Fifty women living in a shipping container, gasping for air, living in our own waste. The tears couldn’t keep me warm at night, so I stopped crying. I stopped feeling sorry for myself.
Marco Caputo had lied to me following Bishop’s orders, I later found out, and I was not going to let him get away with it.
The other women in the container were lost, just like me. I made a few friends. I made a few enemies. But together we had one common goal... to survive.
And we had one common enemy… Marco Caputo.
We all knew the name. We all knew the man. He had conned all of us to make us all believe we were somebody. That we could be somebody.
He was wrong.
A few years later, I found out Marco had betrayed his former boss, Bishop Blackstone, and was murdered. Marco Caputo was dead, and there was only Bishop Blackstone left to pay the price.
I sit on the bed in the guest room of Dean’s condo. I’ve been living here a few weeks and already feel more at home than anywhere I’ve lived before.
When the girls and I made it to America, they shuffled us into a basement where we lived for weeks, sleeping on filthy bunk beds.
The basement was cold and dank. We fought for space. It’s where I met Rosa. She was the housemother, taking care of us all and preparing us for the life of being a sex slave. I had no idea what lay in store for us, but I knew it couldn’t be good.
I became one of Rosa’s favorites. She took pity on me because I was the youngest.
She took pity on me because she said I reminded her of her when she was younger. She was enslaved to a master who treated her poorly and yet, she was able to rise above it. She worked hard now, taking care of all us girls. Making sure we were fed and properly cared for.
When it came time for me to be sold she helped me escape. At first, when I escaped I was broke, scrambling for any spare scraps I could bum off anyone.
Finally, I met Mia DeWinter and she took pity on me. She offered me a job. Maid at the DeWinter home.
It’s where I still work today.
It’s where I learned of Bishop Blackstone.
It’s where I learned he’s the man who needs to pay.
And I have to do all of this without Dean. I’m not the type of person to take the backseat on a plan this big.
I pack my bag, wondering the best time to escape this condo. One thing I know is, there are no personal guards here. Dean doesn’t keep any security guards on staff when he’s at home. So, I should be able to slip out the front door after he’s gone to sleep.
And that’s exactly what I do. I move through the front door, racing down the hallway in all black so I won’t be seen.
When I get to the lobby, I pretend like I belong, and everything I’m doing is completely normal.
I hate leaving Dean. I really do. He’s been nothing but nice to me, and I know he’s only trying to look out for me, but this is something that I need to do. I need to find Rosa.
Being around Dean is confusing. When he touches me, I forget about everything. Instead of focusing on my mission to find Bishop, I’m getting drunk on thoughts of Dean and I together. We could never be together. That could never be real life.
My mood depresses a bit as I walk out of Dean’s building. Part of me wants to run back upstairs and ask him to touch me the way he does in the club. But I know better. I know he would never want someone like me. Someone who was sold into slavery. Besides, I don’t have the time for a relationship. I have too many things to do. Like kill Bishop and find the women to release them.
I head down the street, hurrying as fast as I can so I can go to my own apartment to pick up a few things. I know once Dean realizes I’m missing, it’ll be the first place his men look for me.
I hop on the subway and make it to my apartment in record time. I know I have at least a twelve hour jump on Dean. That’s even if he looks for me at all. He has his own scheme running. He’s trying to find Bishop Blackstone as well.
He has his own connections to find Bishop. Like that Eddie Gallo.
I rummage through my things, looking for the contact info to Rosa’s family. It’s an old number and the past few times I’ve used it no one knew who I was talking about, but maybe there’s something I’m not seeing. I can get Harold down at the precinct to do a reverse search on the number and get me an address.
I can go down there and start my trail.
I pack a few things and decide to grab a few hours of sleep before I head out.
“Hey Harold,” I say as I sit at his desk. “How’s Mary?” Mary’s his wife and one of the sweetest women working at the shelter on Fifth Avenue. It was my second home when I escaped Bishop’s hold on me.
“Sophia, it’s been so long. How the heck are you?”
“I’m good.” He types away at his computer and I hand him the piece of paper with the number on it. “I was hoping you can give me an address on this phone number.”
He takes the piece of paper from my hands and stares at it for a moment. “Sure. But for real, how’s it going?”
I smile. “It’s going good.”
“You’re not looking for that man still, are you?”
“Bishop Blackstone?” I shake my head. “No, that’s all over.” I have to say, when I first escaped, I became obsessed with finding the man who brought me to America under the ruse of becoming a sex slave.
“Who are you after now?”
I laugh a little. “Eddie Gallo,” I say, picking a random name out of thin air.
“Gallo? Everyone knows Gallo owns the bakery down on 155th Street. In Harlem.”
“What bakery?”
“I think it’s just called Gallo’s Baked Goods. It’s a big place. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you. Can I still get the address on the number, please?”
“Sure thing, kid.” He types away again at his computer and then grabs a piece of paper to write on. “Here,” he says when he’s done. “It’s down in Brooklyn Heights.”
I glance at the address, and thank him, telling him to give his wife, Mary, my love.
When I leave the precinct, I plan on checking out the address in Brooklyn Heights first, then heading down to see if I can get any info from Eddie Gallo.
One thing I remember about him is he’s a player looking for a little action. Maybe I can get creative and figure something out.
I hop in a cab, and the cabbie drives me over the Brooklyn Bridge to find the address I’m looking for. When the taxi pulls up to the curb of a brownstone with a bay window peeking out of the building, I smile. This is it.
I’m not really sure what I’m expecting to find when I knock on the door, but I step out of the cab with a sense of purpose.
A young girl answers the door. Long blonde hair runs down her sides. She’s probably not even eighteen years old.
“Hi, I’m looking for Rosa,” I say, hoping if I just straight up ask for her that will work.
It doesn’t.
“Nobody here by that name.”
“Can you tell me who lives here?”
The girl at the door appears afraid, like she doesn’t want me here and has many secrets to tell. “Just me and my mother.” She glances with her blue eyes over her shoulder.
She’s lying.
I don’t know what it is, but I can tell she’s lying. “Is your mother here?”
“She’s at work.”
“Can you have her call me when she gets home?” I pull out a piece of paper and pen and scribble my number on it. “Please, it’s important.”
The girl takes the scrap of paper, hesitantly, and slams the door shut.
That was not a win in my book.
As I hail another cab to head into Harlem, I wonder to myself why Rosa would call me from a house in Brooklyn. Why she lived there, and if she still knows the woman who lives there now.