Chapter 28 Violet
Chapter Twenty-Eight
VIOLET
“No way,” Cade snaps. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s the only way,” I say.
He stares at me, anger burning hot in his eyes as he does so.
I’m still in my work clothes and nothing’s happened since last night. Not that I expect progress to happen fast, but I’m aware that the longer it takes, the more likely it is that Gianna will end up dead.
I pace the living room. “You told me that you can’t get into the training center, and somewhere like that is the likely spot to keep girls. You told me that is what your contact said to you when you met them last night. That that’s where they keep the most prized girls.”
“The most prized girls or the ones that they can’t afford to be out even in the exclusive general company of the club. And you’re not about to go in there.”
I go up to him and press up on my toes and kiss him.
He doesn’t wind his arms around me like he usually does, which tells me just how against this he is.
So, I rest my hands on his chest and drop back to my heels.
My plan is one I knew he wouldn’t like, but after work today, knowing that Walsh isn’t extending his Washington DC visit and is hiding out for some reason here in New York, knowing he’s most likely behind Gianna’s disappearance, I don’t think we can wait.
“Offering myself up as bait by telling Thomas I’m interested in exploring my kinks more—”
“Vi.”
I ignore the warning note in his voice. “And I’d like some training so I can work at the club is the best route.”
“No, it’s the most idiotic and the most dangerous.”
I huff out air, annoyed with him. “I’m not a fool.”
“Aren’t you? Because you’re sure acting like one.”
I step back and point at him. “You said it yourself. You think there’s a good chance she’s being held at the big training center.”
“Do you—”
“And if I can get him to buy my story, I mean, even if it’s that I want to just see what it’s about, he’ll probably go for it, right?
And then all I need to do is get in there, do the things you need done so you can hack the system and the security cameras.
And then you and Enzo can ambush the place and rescue Gianna. ”
“I fucking hate this plan. In fact, you might see a theme with me and all your plans. I hate them all.”
“At least I have one. When did you come up with a plan? You and Enzo sit behind your computers and play around with mobster money and act big, but this is about a girl’s life—”
“There are a lot of girls with lives on the line, including yours if you do this.”
“So? I care.”
“And I care about you.” He grabs my arms and gives me a little shake. “I have fucking plans, Vi. Just because things aren’t guns blazing doesn’t mean I’m not doing a thing. I need to find a way in, the best way, one where you’re not in danger.”
I pull free and take a step back. “It’s my life, Cade. Not yours. I can do what I want when I want. You don’t actually own me.”
“I’ve warned you about the fucking training center.
It’s not a class with written exams and how to stand or act.
It’ll be sex. Sex you won’t like. Sex you’re expected to just put up with and do.
You’ll be trained, all right. On how to take multiple cocks.
How to handle a gangbang, a train, how to act when you’re the meal at a party full of men.
How to pretend you don’t feel pain, how to give blow jobs, go down on a woman, deal with things shoved in you.
“Do you see what I’m getting at? Fantasy and that are not the same. And I’m not letting you be put in that situation.”
He’s told me before, but not quite in such blunt terms, and it makes me want to throw up. But I don’t let him see. “Thomas likes me What if I ask about seeing if it’s for me? Surely, I can go in and then change my mind. Macy isn’t a slave. She comes and goes. She chose that. So, there are choices.”
He nods slowly, folding his arms. “Okay, let’s say you’re right, you can go and audit it and plant the shit I need planted. What if we’re successful?”
“Me, not we.”
His eyes narrow. “You. What if you’re successful and get out unscathed, untouched? And what if he figures out what you’re up to at some point. You’re easy to track. Look at where the fuck you work. There’s no telling what he might do to you.”
“So,” I say slowly, “I make sure I do it right. I flirt with him a little, tell him I’m not ready for that yet, but I’m thinking of moving on from you. Maybe, tease him.”
“No.”
“What’s the alternative, Cade?” I ask him softly, “Sit around and wait until it’s too late?”
He doesn’t answer me because there’s no answer to that. None apart from what I’m suggesting.
“So, I go in.”
“Look, I don’t have an answer for you, and we both know that. Not yet. That’s the key phrase. Not yet. But I’m going to figure it out. I know people who can get in there, it’s just coming up with the right scenario. The right person.”
“But—”
His eyes catch mine. “You need to promise me you won’t do something stupid, okay?”
“I promise, I won’t.”
As I say that, I privately tell myself that the meaning of stupid is relative. I’m not going to be reckless, whatever I do. I’m going to be smart and plan it.
Because he’s wrong. He’s too invested in the wrong thing: me.
Cade is tied up in protecting me when I can do that myself.
Thomas likes me, I’ve seen how he looks at me, and I’m thinking he’ll let me see the workings of the training center to scare me into his arms, his protection, his lair.
I can work that. Do that, play on that and then when things are planted for Cade, walk away.
Besides, I’m safe. I’ve got Cade. And Gianna has no one.
My only concern is finding her before it’s too late.
“Okay, I won’t.” Do anything stupid, I say silently. “But I think I want to spend tonight at my place.”
“Vi?”
But I turn my back on him and pick up my bag and before I can stop myself or let him stop me, I walk out the door.
Since my place is wired for sight but not sound, I call Macy before I get in the door. “Hey, you want to meet for a drink and maybe a bite? I want to ask you some things about the job.”
“Which one?”
“Which do you think?”
And then I go home, change and head out, trying not to think of Cade at all.
The cute little bar I’m meeting Macy at is quiet, a neighborhood place that has snacks. It’s perfect.
I switch off my phone before I leave my apartment, texting her that my phone is going to die.
And the thing with going home is it feels strange, like it isn’t mine anymore.
Cade is home, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
It hasn’t been that long, when I think about it. And what does it make me, jumping from one brother to the next? Maybe I need to be single. Maybe…
But my heart hurts when I think about not seeing him on a daily basis.
He makes me fly. He makes me so damn angry and turned on with all this.
Angry he’s trying to control me and the situation, angry he doesn’t want to listen hard enough to see my point of view, and turned on for the same exact reasons.
Because him not wanting to listen hard enough is him trying to protect me.
I take a sip of my wine, listening to the latest pop music playing, I don’t really know the artist, but I’ve heard the song enough I can sing along with her about love lost and heartache.
“Sorry, I’m late.” Macy rushes up, side-speaking some of the people drinking and having fun. And I wave a hand as she sits.
“You’re not. What do you want to drink?”
She looks around like she’s judging the place but picks up the menu. I do, too.
The waitress comes over, and Macy orders the second most expensive glass of white, olives, and a cheese platter. I get fries.
We saw each other at work, so it’s clear what this is about. Like I told her on the phone, I want to know more.
And I do. Actually, beyond all this, I’m curious. It’s not something I want, and I’m not totally convinced by the whole sex training that Cade’s talking about in his efforts to turn me off the idea of trying to get in, but yeah, I’m curious. Who wouldn’t be?
We chat about our day job and when the food and her wine arrive, she takes a sip, puts some cheese on an artisan cracker and says, “So, what is it you want to know?”
“Does your offer still stand?”
“Of course. Are you thinking of a job or…?”
I take a breath, and if I continue there’s no going back. But I need to take at least some risk if I’m going to try and help save Gianna.
Some nights I can hear her voice, how lost she was. And it kills me.
I’ve been trying to bury it, but since Enzo telling us Walsh is involved…I can’t.
“I guess I want to know about the training center, what it takes to get a job. I…” I hesitate not even a full beat of my heart. “Do you think it’s possible Gianna’s there?”
Macy frowns. “This isn’t some conspiracy place. Everything seems to be on the up and up, but…”
A dark light comes to her eyes.
“But?” I prod.
“There are areas I don’t have access to.
Like any place. Just like in the club itself there are parts, on the lowest levels, like some of the private rooms, I don’t have access to.
I’ve never been. I—I don’t do that stuff.
I like certain things, being treated like a wanted object, but if I want someone, then I’ll do something. You know? I’m not forced.”
“You’re not? Do you think some people are?” I ask, still trying to keep it on the curiosity got the better of me side of things. “You said there are places you can’t get into or don’t have access to.”
“No, I don’t think anyone’s forced. There are some girls there who—” She stops, biting her lip, and then she leans forward.
“Some who got out of the whole being traded thing. Human trafficking? Which is disgusting, but they’re the super-hot ones, and some of them now are Dommes.
Some like the lifestyle and they like to earn money.
If you want a sugar daddy then it’s totally the place to go and find one.
But they don’t sleep there. They have homes. I know they do.”
I nod and sip my drink because I don’t think she’s done.
“You know I can’t wrap my head around Gianna still being alive. She’s been gone so long, and what would someone be doing with her? And I can’t believe she’d be so close, under my nose basically, without me noticing something. Without anyone.”
She finishes her wine and signals to the waitress for another.
When it arrives, she continues. “Why are you so convinced she’s alive, anyway?”
Her eyes are glossy with unshed tears, and her lip trembles a little.
“You were friends, right?”
“I want her to be alive, but there’s no way she’d be here, so close, and I wouldn’t know.”
“My…the guy I’ve been seeing got into some bad shit,” I say, trying desperately to keep it vague so Cade isn’t backed into a corner if she tells Thomas. He could easily get out of this. I’m not saying anything. “And I was kidnapped and…”
I stop. I’ll protect Cade, I won’t say it was over Isaac, or anything like that but the rest? I don’t think I’ll get honesty from her or trust unless I’m completely honest.
“I was put in a cell. It’s the only way to describe it. I was scared, and the cell was empty except for a bed, like a cot. But it wasn’t the only one, and because I was yelling, when I stopped to breathe I…I heard someone on the other side of my cell wall. Another girl.
“She sounded lost and drugged, and she told me she’d been captive for so long.
And I was taken from the cell to be used to make my guy do something for this Russian asshole.
And…then the place was stormed. I don’t really know what happened, but when I made my rescuers go downstairs, she was gone. Just a hairclip, and… Macy?”
The other girl’s gaping at me.
“I had the hair tested. Gianna. She’s alive. But I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know where.”
“Why would she be at the center? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Because… Because I think Joseph Walsh might have something to do with this, and I think he knows Thomas.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t… Really? You really think that?” She sucks in air. “I mean, you think the congressman’s what? Trafficking his own daughter?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But it seems to all point to the club. And he goes there, I know he does. What…what if he thought she’d bring shame on him, and he arranged this?”
“That’s demonic,” she hisses.
“Or human nature,” I shrug. “I’m not saying he’s behind it, he might not be. She might be alive to bait him. I don’t know. But I want to save her.”
For a moment, I think I’ve lost her. “Why do you care, Vi?”
“Because I spoke to her. I was scared witless, so god only knows what she’s feeling. And who knows what’s happened to her. Or what will. So, I have to try.”
Macy grips her wine glass. “But Joseph?”
“I don’t want to believe it, either.” I pick up a fry, take a bite, then wash that bite down with the wine. “I’m guessing he knows you work there?”
She blushes hard. “We’ve ran into one another, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“What did he say?”
“As long as we respect each other’s privacy and don’t talk about it, it’s fine.” She looks at the table. “He’s married after all, but so are a lot of the men in there. I just… I assumed he wanted me to be quiet because Cassandra doesn’t know.”
The tears shimmer, and one falls, and she dashes it away. “What if he didn’t want word out because he’s doing more? What if he’s trying to get rid of his daughter? Because I didn’t think of it, but surely he'd know she worked there, too.”
“Hey.” I reach over the table and squeeze her arm. “We don’t know what’s happened. He might be innocent.”
“But we need to look at this as until proven innocent.” She lifts her chin.
“Or we just don’t know. And this isn’t on you. It’s not your fault, no matter what. But you can maybe help me find Gianna.”
“I’ll be working at the training center tonight. It’s summer, so the club is short-staffed right now. Girls come and go and more often they go in the warmer weather. Sugar daddies travel or they’ve saved up and they move on.”
Or something worse happens to them, but I keep that to myself.
“What if I ask Thomas for a job?”
She lights up. “Chances are he’ll say yes, and he’ll rush you through training to get you working as quickly as possible. You’re so pretty and young and fresh, you’ll be great.”
I nod. “I’ll ask him.” And then I force a smile. “Another glass of wine?”
Macy offers me a wavering smile. “Sure. “
I’ll get into that club, see Thomas, and ask him. Tonight, if I can. And I pray my new friend isn’t screwing me over.