All Hail - J. Bree Page 0,78
the hell out and then have Illi gut her before she tries to go after my Mounty.
Hell.
I’ll call Nate if I have to.
Luca steps out of the elevator and Amanda follows him, tucking her hand into his elbow like they’re the best of friends even though I can see him cringing away from her touch.
Interesting.
Atticus holds out his arm for me to take and, though I’m shocked he’s doing it, I take it. We walk behind the other two and it occurs to me that I have a gun in my purse. Not a single person has attempted to search me or even ask if I’m carrying a weapon, so it would be easy to just aim it at her head and take the woman out.
I wonder if Atticus would stop me?
I think he would but I’d like to think it was for my own safety and not just because he has such a weird reaction around her. It’s not exactly fear but he knows something about her that clearly I don’t.
The foyer the elevator opens up to is empty and decorated completely differently to the rooms upstairs. The open and bright rooms up there were luxurious and inviting, the type of spaces that people will gossip about and covet but down here is a very different feel.
The carpets are a deep, dark red and sumptuously plush in a way that only comes from an unlimited budget. Millionaires don’t get this sort of thing, hand woven and thousands of hours of work for something that you only walk on. The walls are all covered in the finest silk wallpapers and show gory scenes of battles and orgies, brothels and boneyards.
No, this room, as unassuming as it is, was put together with the intention to impress and terrify. I take stock of it all but I’m not concerned. I’m a Beaumont, I don’t feel fear at this kind of showy bullshit.
If anything, I’m impressed that Amanda really wants to worry me this much. To bring me down here means that she knows that her snide comments and flirting mean nothing to me and now she’s pulling out the bigger tricks that she’s hidden up her sleeves.
We finally make it over to the large wall of cherry wood paneling, the door almost invisible to the eye. There’s a man standing beside it with the same sort of microphone pinned to his lapel as Atticus’ men have. He nods at Amanda and murmurs into it as we approach but his face stays strangely blank.
“Your father will be so happy to see you, Atticus,” Amanda murmurs, and my eyebrows creep up.
That’s who’s waiting behind this door? It’s been years since I last saw Randall Crawford but I’m not scared of the asshole. He’s disgusting and he buys girls the same way that Senior did but he’s not a man I’ve ever worried about.
His taste is for poor girls. Girls who have no hope in their lives, girls who will grovel at the men who bought them if they think it will save them. Girls who don’t give a fuck that he’s a disgusting fucking creep once they find out he’s worth billions.
Of course, Amanda is into him.
The door finally swings open and the bodyguard steps aside to usher us through. Atticus’ arm tenses but he leads me in.
It's only the fact that I've spent my entire life hiding all of my reactions that I don't jump out of my skin when the doors open and we find a naked girl chained to the floor by her throat. She's younger than I am, trembling, and her eyes are wide with terror.
Atticus' shoulders roll back as he straightens up but other than that he doesn't react, just directs me past the girl as if she's not even there. It only gets worse the further into the room we get.
The girls are all either naked or wearing some form of latex bondage suits, some of them in masks with only breathing holes so they're completely blind and faceless.
These ones all look empty, broken, and lifeless. Atticus doesn't look surprised at the rest of them, no reactions, and I wonder how long he’s known about this little party room.
I wonder how many of these girls belong to his father.
Randall Crawford smirks at me from the table, a cigar in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other. He looks nothing like his son, his russet hair slicked back and his nose slightly crooked at the end.