Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Chantal
This isn’t my first time inside the Vodka Room.
I’ve been here before, but I never thought I’d return as merchandise to be sold. The last time I was here I was meeting with the man known as Koschei, Russian for “The Deathless.”
He was a scarred and imposing figure of few words that promised discretion and to handle Dad’s problem. Some lowlifes were trying to blackmail him and expose him to voters for a backdoor deal he struck that went wrong.
That’s how I ended up with the business card I gave Simone when she first got married.
Call me naive, but if you told me I’d be on the receiving end of the Bratva’s ruthlessness, I’d think you were crazy.
There was no way Chantal Renée Banks, daughter of a sitting congressman, was going to be on their radar.
Yet as Lochlan and his men stride out of the Russian pub and I’m left in tears, reality comes crashing down on me.
I was foolish to believe I was ever off-limits to any of the fucked up men in this world.
…that includes Dad.
That includes Lochlan.
Tears slide down my cheeks as he disappears from view and the icy blond drags me off toward the backroom.
I’m so upset, I can’t even put up a real fight.
My heart aches inside my chest as I’m yanked off the main floor and down a corridor cramped with crates of vodka and other liquors.
The blond enforcer is so robotic, no amount of tears makes a difference.
He simply hauls me off as if he’s used to dragging crying women that have just been sold.
I realize with a bone-deep chill that it’s because he is. This man obviously considers this just another day working as a Bratva enforcer.
I’m just another woman who’s been sold and trafficked.
My thoughts are so hazy, for once I can’t even bring myself to barter or think through my options. I keep reverting back to only one question over and over again.
How could he do this to me?
Obviously, Lochlan had told me what his plans were. From the night he first bathed me in his chambers he explained how his plans were to make my loved ones suffer and then sell me off to the Russians.
I did believe him. But then… so much has happened since that night…
So fucking stupid! How could you ever think he’d change his mind? How did you think maybe he liked you enough not to…
I hiccup because I’m breathing and crying so irregularly.
But I really should’ve known—nothing and no one is off-limits to Lochlan Callahan.
He’s out to kill his own blood. Of course hurting me in the worst way was always on the table. It was never off the table, even as we’ve spent more time around each other in recent days.
Halfway down the hall, the blond shoves me through a door on the left. I stumble forward, barely catching myself before crashing to the ground.
The room we’ve entered is dim and grimy, lit by a few dusty bulbs flickering overhead. It takes my eyes a couple seconds to adjust, then my stomach roils at what I see.
Giant metal cages line the walls.
Human-sized cages.
Most of them are full.
Shadows eat up the room more than the bulbs can provide light, but from what little I can make out, it’s mostly women.
And there’s one empty cage just for me.
The sick feeling deepens, nausea immediately taking over.
“Wait,” I mutter finally. I desperately turn to the blond. “I’m rich. My dad is a multimillionaire. We can pay you. We can… we can—”
“Get in,” he grunts, jerking his head at the cage to our right.
“B-but,” I stammer.
“I said GET IN!” he roars in my face. He raises his arm as if about to backhand me.
I squeal and then rush inside the cage.
“Sit,” he orders. “Stay quiet. Someone come for you soon.”
The metal door clangs as it shuts, and then he uses a skeleton key to twist the padlock dangling from the bars.
I back up toward the concrete wall, eyes wide and chest heaving as I watch his silhouette shrink. He walks out the door and slams it shut behind him.
A whine starts up from inside my throat, and I don’t bother censoring myself. I let the pitiful little sound out, more tears rushing me.
This is real; this is about to make my time at Lochlan’s estate look like a luxury vacation.
“Crying won’t help you here.”
The flat female voice comes from my left. The back of my hand mops at my watery eyes. I spare only a quick glance over at the cage next to mine, from where the woman has shared her depressing opinion.
“What?” I croak. I blink against more tears, trying to make out more details about her.
She’s younger than me—or seems that way—with a skin tone comparable to a rich sienna brown. Her natural curls seem matted even in the dark backroom where they’ve stashed us. Her clothes are so ratty no washing machine could work enough magic to make them clean again.
“The crying,” she repeats. “It doesn’t change anything. They don’t care if you cry. Nobody here cares.”
I sniffle, still upset but also suddenly irritated by the dismissiveness. I stand up from the cold concrete wall and step toward her cage.
“Excuse me if some of us have a life to mourn!” I snap. “Some of us don’t want to be sold into sexual slavery!”
She gives a hapless shrug as if even my outburst doesn’t matter to her. “It’ll make no difference.”
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t you care that you’re in here? Don’t you want to make it out?”
“Hope is a waste of energy,” she answers vaguely. “Save yours. You’ll need it.”
My irritation fades. I’m about to take it out on her when she’s no better off than I am; in fact, it sounds like she’s had it a lot worse.
If anything, we need to stick together.
“I’m Chantal,” I mutter. “You?”
“Jhene.”
“How long have you been here?”
The girl gives another shrug, dropping to the dank floor and curling her legs. “Long enough to stop counting the days.”
“We need to put together a plan. Some way out of here. All of us.”
My gaze rises to the others in their cages. Many lurking so far back that shadows swallow them up.
It seems other than Jhene, the rest of the prisoners are skittish mice.
“There has to be a way,” I say, louder. “We can find—”
“There is no way out,” Jhene interrupts. She rests her head on top of her folded-up knees and closes her eyes. “Be smart. They don’t feed us much. Conserve your energy.”
My mouth drops open, stubborn streak rising to the surface. I’m about to tell home girl what’s up and that she can’t just quit on life when deafening pops and cracks go off.
At first my mind jumps to fireworks. The crackling bang of sparklers and rockets that typically fills the air every Fourth of July.
But then it dawns on me these aren’t fireworks I’m listening to; it’s the sharp, ear-splitting eruption of gunfire.
How could this night possibly get any worse? Isn’t being sold by one psychopath to another bad enough? What’s next, one of my titties is going to fall off?
I back up toward the concrete wall as the sounds grow louder and closer. The sounds of men shouting and thuds of footsteps accompany the gunfire.
The door to the backroom springs open, and a tall, broad-shouldered man appears in the doorway. Shadows fall across his face, disguising his identity until he takes a step into the room.
I do a double take, blinking more rapidly as my pulse speeds up too.
“Lochlan?” I sputter, shocked.
He’s covered in blood—possibly his but probably someone else’s—with his gun still raised and chest heaving. His eyes wildly scan the room, traveling over the cages until they land on me.
For a millisecond that somehow also feels like an eternity, our gazes connect and we’re suspended in time. We stare at one another as if we can’t believe what we’re seeing.
Then he’s moving. He crosses the room in three quick strides and holds up what looks like a key in his grasp.
The same key the blond had used only moments ago.
He stops in front of the padlock and promptly unlocks the cage I’ve been put inside.
“We’re leaving, brat,” he growls as if I’m the one who chose to stay here. “Right fucking now. C’mon.”
I’m still so damn shocked I can’t even answer him.
The metal door swings open, and his long fingers snap shut around my wrist. He pulls me alongside him as if it doesn’t matter how I feel. If I even want to go anywhere with him after what he did.
But I can’t say I have it in me to protest.
I’m rendered speechless as more loud bangs go off all around us. Then I blink and remember the others.
“Lochlan!” I blurt out. “The key!”
He pauses only slightly, gritting his teeth, then acquiesces what I’m asking. He tosses the skeleton key across the room. It lands with a clatter at Jhene’s feet.
I’m barely able to nod encouragingly at her before he’s on the move again, pulling me along with him. His pace is almost too fast for me.
I’ve never been a cardio girlie. Running and Chantal have never belonged in the same sentence together.
But as more gunfire crackles and the shouting grows more urgent and enraged, this becomes a rare exception.
We make quick work of the hall outside the backroom.
Bodies are sprawled across the floor. A few of them twitching. Others completely still in puddles of blood. The air is hazy from the many rounds that have been fired.
It seems when Lochlan decided to return, all hell broke loose.
I’m guessing the Bratva didn’t take too kindly to the news he immediately reneged on the deal. At least that had to have been what happened, right?
Lochlan changed his mind? Why else would he be here covered in blood and pulling me away with him?
It’s once again so damn confusing. Just another thing about the man I don’t understand.
We burst through the door that led to the back part of the pub, Lochlan squeezing the trigger at an angry Russian man who rushes at us.
“Marco!” he barks into the chaos. “Where the fuck is Marco?”
“Over here!” answers a dark-haired middle-aged man. He’s sweating as many bullets as he’s shooting as he hovers by the door. “You coming or what? We can’t hold off much longer! Rurik’s bringing in reinforcements!”
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here!” Lochlan growls.