Chapter Seven
Mr Trainor looks more like a frightened meerkat than a distinguished professor.
His head jerks back and forth at any trace of noise, and he fidgets constantly.
He’s still wearing the same clothes he had on at the coffee shop yesterday, but the shirt is untucked and sweat-stained.
I note the pens are missing from his top pocket.
Did they get rid of them because they could be used as weapons or to take away his power?
I’d imagine half of the interrogation process is psychological warfare, so a move like that wouldn’t surprise me.
There are three screens lit up in this observation space.
Two desktop-sized monitors and a vast screen on the wall.
We watch the live feed of the interview room on the wall screen.
There’s an array of angles from each of the five hidden cameras playing simultaneously, which highlight the fidgety twitching.
The other screens have open files; one is filled with ongoing notes, and the other has an array of photos and information about his family.
My eyes scan the details.
An estranged wife and daughter. The daughter is around Sylvie’s age and wears a posh school uniform in more than one photograph—the kind you only find in Upper Harrison.
I spy her name and the name of her school and save it in my mind.
It begs the question, though; how can he afford the tuition on only a Vale professor’s salary?
Management or not, I can’t imagine VCC pays enough to maintain child support, two homes, tuition, uniforms, and whatever else Trainor pays for.
“How long has he been in there alone?” I ask Aiden. I train my eyes on the man and the particularly uninteresting room they’ve lodged him in. There’s a table, a chair, and a cup of water—still untouched, as though he suspects they’ve drugged or poisoned it.
“About four hours since John gave him the water, Sir,” the guard answers my question but directs his answer to Aiden.
Yep, this is psychological conditioning for sure.
“And he’s not been questioned yet?” I ask.
Aiden shakes his head. “No, they’ve been waiting for me.”
“I’d have thought you’d do it last night,” I comment.
“I was too busy sobbing into my coffee,” Aiden grumbles. The guard flicks him a confused glance, opens his mouth to ask something, and then thinks better of it. I can’t help but laugh.
“Well, next time you decide to skip out on…” I shoot the guard a wary look. “Our strategy meetings, make sure you’re productive.” I clap my hands together to remind him I know exactly how to punish him. Though I’m fighting my laughter as I do it.
“Yes, ma’am.” Aiden salutes with a wicked grin, promises of retribution flaring in his eyes even as he plays along.
“Are you sure about this?” Dax asks. His question grounds me, and both Aiden and I stiffen as though remembering why we’re here.
He means confronting Trainor. I’m actually not sure about anything, but I am determined.
I’m growing sick of insignificant men thinking they can make decisions about my life.
No one has the right to control me. Especially not a stranger using a position of power as a weapon.
“Yep. I won’t be long. Is he restrained?”
“No,” Aiden informs me. I look for myself and see the room differently now that I know he can traverse it easily. If I piss him off—and I’ve no doubt what I say will piss him off—I’ll need to be ready to fight or flee.
The table faces the door I’ll enter through.
Trainor sits behind it, giving me a table’s width of protection, enough time to get myself out before he makes it around or across that space and plenty of time for someone to come in if I’m unable to escape for any reason.
If things go to shit, I won’t be alone for long.
Strangely, that seems to be all the reassurance I need to continue.
Am I brave or stupid? I guess I’ll find out.
I square my shoulders and roll my lips. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”
“You’re not going in alone,” Dax argues as soon as he realises my intentions.
“You can see me right here. If he looks at all threatening, you can come right on in and get me out. No argument from me,” I offer, but it is the only concession I’ll make on this.
Dax seems to realise it too because he grimaces and concedes faster than expected. “Fine, but if he touches you…”
“You can punish me with lectures and I told you so all night. Okay?” I tease.
Dax’s eyes darken as he shakes his head, but he doesn’t change my mind.
I exit the observation room and head to the interview room.
With my hand on the handle, I take a deep breath, hold it for five and blow it out as I open the door.
“Good morning, Mr Trainor,” I greet, sauntering in and sitting down. I’m a powerhouse of false confidence and fake calm. I’m also a lie detector and a trouble magnet, so my anxiety levels are through the freaking roof.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he fires at me.
I watch him for a second or two, wondering where he thinks he is, where he expects me to be, and why seeing me here has thrown him into a panic.
Hmm…things to ask or things to think about later?
I choose later. I have enough questions to ask him right now and very little time before one of the guys relents and tears me out of here.
“This is where I belong, Mr Trainor.”
“And where exactly is this?” he asks, but my only response is a tight smile. If the others haven’t told him, then you can bet I’m not about to.
“Why?” I ask him instead, keeping my voice devoid of emotion, though I’m a riot of fear and anger and belligerent pride.
“Because I deserve to know where —”
I cut him off and elaborate. “Nooo.” I draw the word out as though I’m talking to a naughty child and not the grown adult in front of me. “We’ll get to what you deserve later, Mr Trainor. I’m asking why you tried to hand me over to men that want to hurt me.”
He pales. His lips goldfish until he screws up the courage to answer. “They said…they said they just wanted to talk to you.” A deflection. A rejection of guilt. A coward’s response.
“Do you really think that’s all they wanted? You know who they are, right?”
“Yes,” he whispers, pulling at his shirt cuffs. He rubs the faint line of red ink that remains, then glances back up at me guiltily.
As soon as he makes eye contact, I continue. “So, you know how dangerous they are and the methods by which they’ve earned that reputation?” He nods. “Then you also know that talking to me is the least they would do.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Another deflection.
“You did, Mr Trainor. You chose yourself over a student. Over me. I get it. I can’t blame you for that. We are all inherently selfish, but that makes me wonder why? Why get involved at all? Do you have something against me?”
“What? No! I’ve barely spoken to you before.”
I nod. “Okay. Do you hate women?”
“No…this is ludicrous!” he shouts loudly toward the only obvious camera, in the corner behind me, as if hoping someone will put an end to my questions.
Something about that—the dismissal of me as a person or threat—annoys me.
Does he expect the men in the other room to remove me?
Silence me? Am I just a stupid little girl not even worth talking to—despite being the person with so much worth he’d been paid to hand me over?
From the moment he walked into Deja Brew, he’d intended to reduce me to nothing.
False grades, false reports, false characterisation, and finally trying to hand me over; he fought so hard to turn me into a nobody to ease his own conscience.
Doesn’t he see me as a person? As a fucking human being? I have the right to ask questions!
I fight to keep my cool. His outburst pisses me off, but it also shows I’m pissing him off too. Well, good.
“I’m just trying to figure out why you would hand me over to be beaten, raped, drugged, sold, and then killed? Why, if you have nothing against me personally, didn’t you give me a heads up and the chance to run, rather than drag me out the back door?”
He barely even flinches when I outline my inevitable fate at the hands of Barry Franz. Not even a twitch of discomfort. Fuck this old goat.
“They would have killed me if I…” he scrambles, panic and fear finally making an appearance, but only for himself.
“You’re not dead, Mr Trainor. You didn’t deliver me, and yet you’re not dead,” I reason. Blowing that excuse to shit.
“Because they saw you run. They know I tried…”
I nod my head, hold my hand up to shut him up, and take in another deep breath.
“Why then?” I ask again.
He crashes into the back of his chair. Irritation sparks with the violence and speed of his movement. “What does it matter?” he cries belligerently.
What does it matter? What does it matter? FUCKING PRICK.
I’m vibrating; my whole body shakes down to the bones—just enough that I feel it but can’t see it. The energy filling me is the first clue that I’m no longer in control. The dark, quiet depth of my voice when I finally bring myself to speak is the other.
“It. Matters. To. Me. Whatever you agreed with them was the price of my life, Mr Trainor. Whatever you were promised, I’d have paid for in my blood. IT FUCKING MATTERS!” I force another quick, calming breath and pull my shit together before Aiden or Dax appear and drag me out.
“Money,” he finally admits. I note the lack of shame or regret. He’s only telling me to get this questioning over with. “They offered me enough money to pay off all my debts. You have no idea…”
I have no idea? I have every fucking idea of what his greed nearly cost me. What it still might cost me. This man is the same as Eric Feelan; both are cut from the same mouldy cloth.
I laugh mirthlessly. The sound is cold. “Makes sense. Is that why you drink? Because of your debts? Is that why your wife left you?” I fire at him, all pretence of calm fading now.
“How did you —?”
“How much?”
“What?” He searches the room for a way to make me shut up. Glances at that camera again as if begging them to make me stop.
“How much was my life worth to you?” He blanches.
Good. “Come on, a thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What’s a nobody like me worth to you?
Oh wait, that’s not what you called me yesterday…
what was it again?” The words roll in my head in Trainor’s smarmy voice.
“A potential success story. A valuable alumnus…An asset…So how valuable am I?”
“Fifty thousand,” he mutters.
“Fifty.” I nod. “I guess that’s not bad. For fifty grand I might have handed myself in, but then they’d only make me earn it all back at Hanson’s. I wonder if I’d get fifty grand for Alyssa?” I ask.
His eyes balloon wide and bug out at the mention of his daughter’s name. There’s an odd gurgling sound in his throat. I ready myself to move. I’ve just primed a bomb—one that will probably blow up in my face—but let’s see how he enjoys living in fear, genuine fear.
“She’s underage,” I continue. “Just how they like them. Is she still at that posh preparatory school up on Dawnside Avenue? Averney Prep? Something like that, right?” I threaten, unsurprised with how easily the details appear in my mind when I want them.
“She’s pretty too,” I press. He’s clenched tight, body coiling to spring.
My attack is brutal. Cruel. Deserved. “Maybe they’ll make more on a girl like her.
I mean, she’s probably still a virgin. They’d pay me a cool fifty grand just to bid on who could pop her cherry.
Then they’d fuck her all at once. Rail her into the ground and cheer every time she screamed for one of them to stop.
Hell, if she screams, they’ll just use the excuse to plug her mouth too.
Eventually, they’ll shoot her up on heroin and go at her again and again and again until she’s only worth putting out on the streets. ”
Trainor charges to his feet, but so do I.
“What’s wrong, Mr Trainor? It was fine when they were going to do that to me and my fucking two-year-old sister!” I bellow, spitting the words at his face. “Why are you so upset now that we’re talking about your precious princess?”
Aiden and Dax slam through the doors. Aiden blocks Trainor, and Dax wraps his arms around me. He grunts in my ear, wrestling me into submission as I fight to pull myself across the table and tear at the man who thought he could sell me.
FUCK HIM. FUCK ERIC. FUCK THEM ALL.
“Jules. Enough. Enough! You made your point,” Dax argues in my ear. I calm enough to understand and then allow him to hold me still until the storm in my head quietens.
“Let me go!” I growl. Dax dumps me back on my feet.
“Please,” Trainor begs, his fight entirely diminished with the appearance of bigger men that him. He reaches out and grabs Aiden’s wrist. “Please, not my little girl, not Alyssa.”
My breathing is ragged. My heart is in my ears, pounding like war drums. I hear this man beg for his daughter’s safety, register the tears trailing down his face, and I feel more pathetic than ever.
Lucky for Alyssa to have a father that loves her. But I knew that anyway, didn’t I? It’s why I used her to push his buttons. The money Franz promised Trainor would have probably been for her too.
“I want you to remember this,” I tell Trainor, swallowing down as much of my anger as I can.
It lumps heavily in my throat. I’ll need to leave before I choke on it.
“The fear you’re feeling for Alyssa, I want you to remember it always.
That is the fear I live with every fucking day.
Unlike you, I’m not a monster. I’d never sell out an innocent for money or anything else… not even for my own life.”
“I…I’m sorry,” he stumbles over the words, and I don’t even bother to read his face to see if he means them.
“I don’t care,” I admit. I suck in one last deep breath that lodges with the lump, before I head for the door. All three men watch me go. I turn back just before I slam the door, stare the old fucker in his bloodshot eyes and smile. “Fuck you, Mr Trainor.”