Chapter 27 #2
"Yes. Indebting the victims is just one step in the process.
After all, a victim needs to testify. If they feel they owe something, if they overstay their visa and then are illegal, if they feel unsafe…
these are all ways the perpetrators ensure victims don't try to escape.
Many don't even tell the truth when police show up at the door.
" Her voice becomes thinner, sadder, as if she knows this more from the inside than the out.
"After a while, life just becomes what's in front of you. "
Something in the way she says it makes me think she has firsthand experience.
She turns to face me fully. "Is there anyone connected to the operation that wouldn't show up in any official capacity? Not a patched member, not management. Someone your father trusts who exists completely outside of the organization?"
I think about it. Patched members from the time I was old enough to understand til now. Management at Diamond Dolls. The dealers…
And then I think about myself and how I fit into the organization. Trust. He trusted me. They trusted me.
There’s only one other woman in the Iron Covenant or Diamond Dolls world who has the girls’ trust.
The house mom.
"There's a woman," I say slowly unsure if it’s helpful.
"At Diamond Dolls. Most strip clubs have a house mom.
It's a person who handles the dressing room.
Makes sure there are tampons around, makeup, someone to talk to when the customers are shit.
Someone safe." I pause, the irony of that word sitting heavy.
"Cheryl has been there for years and was even friends with my mom before she died.
She's not on the books — never has been as far as I know. She takes cash."
Ava's hands hover over her keyboard. "Do you know her last name?"
"Cheryl–” I press my lips together, thinking.
"Cheryl Hart. Hartley or Harter? One of the floor hosts always called her by her last name and it was Hart something.
" My memory lights up. "I remember overhearing her once at the bar, talking to one of the bartenders about a new place she'd moved into.
I wasn't really listening but I'm almost certain she said Watt Avenue. "
Ava is already typing. "That's good, Delilah. That's really good."
From the corner of the room, a chair scrapes on the wooden floor. Voices shift from low planning to something more final. It’s the sound of a conversation ending because it's time to move.
I glance over. Rio is putting on his jacket.
A cold shiver slides up my spine.
Ava talks next to me, but her words don't register because Rio's eyes are on me, and they are commanding all my attention.
I don't want him to leave. I don't want him to meet Luther– my so-called fiancée. Now, my sworn enemy. I want to rip him apart limb by limb and claw every inch of his skin until he’s nothing but a carcass.
He thinks he owns me.
He thinks he owns Rio.
That’s all Luther could want a meeting for today. He wants me back so he can become the second most powerful criminal in Sacramento. He wants to make sure Rio remembers that manila folder.
Rio crosses toward me. I stand.
Even now, even with everything — the fear and the guilt and the seven AM harsh spotlights blaring down from the ceiling — he’s unreasonably good-looking. Dark eyes, strong jaw, the kind of face that has an effect on people and knows it.
Ava keeps her eyes on her screen. Enzo keeps his on his. Gabriel and Anton move hastily toward the door, keeping their backs to us.
The discretion in everyone is so careful and so deliberate that it’s pracitcally a third presence in the room.
He stops in front of me.
There are too many things to say and none of them are right for this hour with this audience. I want to hug him. I want to tell him to be careful. But everyone in this room now knows we aren't actually together, and I have no claim on him, and he has none on me.
We're not even friends.
I settle for the safest thing I can find. "Thanks for Vance this morning." I manage a crooked smile even though my heart is doing something embarrassing in my chest.
Something warm moves across his face. "Gabriel and Anton are with me. And Vance is right outside. Downstairs."
I nod. He holds my gaze one moment longer and there's something there— the same thing that kept me up at four AM listening for his footsteps to come back into the house.
Then he turns and goes.
I watch him leave. I wish I'd never started caring about him.
No.
No, I don't.
Whatever this is — whatever he is to me now — it didn't exist three weeks ago, and I don't know how to unfeel it just because the timing is terrible and the circumstances are worse.
But he stopped us from being physical this morning. He’s resigned himself to a future without me. I should do the same.
Gabriel follows him out. Then Anton.
The door closes.
The room settles back into the sounds of keyboards and quiet concentration. Ava is already pulling threads, and she is so fucking remarkable it’s hard not to totally fangirl.
“Okay.” Her tone is alert and focused. “I’ve got a match on Cheryl Hartman. Let’s see where she lives.”
I sit back down beside her.
Find them.
Just find them.
Everything else can fall apart later.