her and rushes to close the door. When she looks back at me, a new panic has set in. I home in on this new reaction.
“Did anyone see you guys come in here?”
“Not likely,” I reply.
She pushes a hand into her hair. “They’ll kill me if they find out—”
“Cut the act. I already know you were a plant. You’ve been helping them from the beginning.”
Her mouth drops open. “What? Wait.” She shakes her head. Her brows furrow.
I lift a brow. “Are you really going to act like you weren’t working with them?”
She lifts her hands. “Oh, you’ve got this all wrong. One, let me be clear. They will kill me if they find out I’ve had someone here without permission, so let’s make this quick. Second, all that evil wench told me was that she needed me to do this for her. I’d be in and out.”
I frown. “What evil wench?”
“The bitch that birthed me.”
“Nice way to talk about your mother.”
“Mother?” she seethes and makes a face like she’s smelling shit. “Let me fill you in on the lovely woman that birthed me. She doesn’t give a shit about anything or anyone but herself.
“All my life I had to hear about how her brother got everything while she was passed over. How she was going to right that wrong.
“Dude, do you know why I know so many languages? That bitch has been dragging me around the world while she plotted her master plan,” Natasha says as tears come to her eyes.
She continues, her voice full of emotions. “My own mother sent me into trafficking as a favor to a friend.” She makes air quotes. “I was supposed to get my assignment once I was there. My mother is the one that was supposed to get me out of there after whatever it was had been done.”
She wraps her arms around her middle and starts to sway. I bite back the words on the tip of my tongue and let her continue.
“Instead, she left me to rot and be sold off just like all the rest of you. That power-hungry bitch is off somewhere living her life and left me to fend for myself.”
“Good story, but you don’t look like you’re hurting. Rumor has it you have these guys wrapped around your finger.”
“Don’t fault me for being smart. I’ve done everything I’ve known how to survive. Everything except kill.” She scoffs. “I never want to be like my mother and her friends when it comes to that.”
“But you helped them. Didn’t you? I feel so stupid. I can see it all now. The access you had. How you always came to us with information. You knew things you shouldn’t have,” I snap.
“I agreed to go into trafficking out of fear she and her friends would kill me. Yes, they knew who I was. I helped them because I thought she would want me to.
“Then the longer I sat there, the more it started to become clear she wasn’t coming back for me. Besides, I’m no fool. I played nice for as long as I had to,” she replies.
I’m ready to kick her ass, but the next words out of her mouth strike a chord. They hit my heart like a well-aimed arrow. I know the pain I hear for its truth.
“It wasn’t hard for her to move on with her life like I didn’t exist. She hid me from everyone for my entire life. I was nothing but a burden for her. That cold bitch could care less about me,” she says and frowns.
“It seems we could have been spawned from the same family,” I say bitterly.
“I never knew my dad. I used to pray he was out there somewhere. Then I gave up,” she says and shrugs.
I watch her and calculate. If this is true, some things still need to add up from what John found. Natasha is as much of a ghost as I am.
“And if I were to believe all this? How are you living so lavishly now?”
“You don’t have to believe a damn thing. You see lavish, I see a freaking gilded cage.” Tears start to roll down her cheeks. “You guys were freed, but I didn’t have that same luck.”
“What happened?” Torque asks in a calm that doesn’t match the tears of rage in his eyes.
“The Russians, it was their job to get me back to my mother. When they called her to tell her about the raid, she told them I was their problem. She