She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,70

basement dungeon, then send in a whore to light up my birthday candle? You’ve done some crazy shit, but this takes the cake! That fucker nailed me good. Whore or not, when I’m done in here, you’ve got a beatdown coming. I can’t let something like that slide. How would that look?”

Looking back at Stella. “If you’re not one of my girls, where did Cortez find you? Coslow’s crew? How about you take off that robe—let me see what I’m working with. You put on a good show for me, maybe I’ll buy out your contract.”

Stella circled the chair, slow, casual steps. “You have a lot of girls, working for you? Your whores?”

“They come and go, but I like to keep it between thirty and fifty. Most come in from South America or Europe, though, barely speak a lick of English. A girl who looks like you who can hold a conversation, too…a girl who knows how to carry herself.” He blew out a whistle. “Whoever you’re working for, they’re wasting your time. Let me set you up.”

“The girls you bring in from other countries. You make them promises, too, don’t you? A better life? A place to stay? A future?”

Visconti shook his head. “Naw, I buy them. Sometimes I trade them for drugs or guns. Everything’s got a price, everything is a negotiation. What’s your price?”

“Prostitution, drugs, weapons…do you think it’s okay to talk about such things with me? What if I’m a cop?”

“You’re no cop, you’re a whore. Too young for much of anything else.” He tugged at the ropes again. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I’ve got shit to do. Untie these.” He kicked his legs, but the ropes held fast.

“My people, they used arbor knots,” Stella told him. “The more you struggle, the tighter they’ll get.”

“Your people?”

“I don’t know anyone named Cortez or Coslow. The men who rendered you unconscious outside your home in Squirrel Hill, the ones who brought you here, they work for me. They brought you to me.”

“No way they got past my men to do that. This is some bullshit prank.” He turned toward the door. “Cortez, let me the fuck out of here!”

“The three men tasked with guarding you, the ones who were in the car with you, they’re all dead. I imagine your memory is fuzzy due to the bump on your head, but it will come back to you. If it doesn’t, I suppose you’ll have to take my word for it,” Stella said. “My men killed them, took you, and brought you here. Brought you to me.”

Visconti glanced back up at the camera, then around the room, then at the ropes securing him to the chair. “Where is ‘here?’”

Stella ignored the question. She continued to circle his chair. “You, Mr. Raymond Visconti of 83 Nob Hill Road, among other residences, are one of the worst human traffickers in the country. You’ve plucked runaways off the street, kidnapped, recruited, or otherwise coerced hundreds of women and children just in the past year. More in the last six months than the previous three years combined. Over the course of your career, you are responsible for the deaths of one hundred and sixty-three people either directly at your hand, your order, or as the result of ‘business’ practices.’”

Visconti frowned up at her. “Are you a cop? How do you know all that?”

“I’m not a cop.”

“You want money? Is that it? I can get you money. Whatever you want.”

“Do you recognize the name Manuela Seiden?”

Visconti shook his head.

“She was one of your girls, your…whores.”

“I don’t know their names. Cortez handles the girls.”

“She wanted to come to America, try and build a better life for herself and the baby she carried. Your people in Belize promised her that better life, for her and her unborn child. Your people took the equivalent of ten thousand American dollars from her before loading her into a crate with three bottles of water and no food and attempting to ship her here aboard a container ship.”

“I don’t know nothing about any of that.”

“She died less than two days into the journey. After the water ran out. From the heat and lack of air. Her baby with her, of course.”

“I don’t know nothing about any of that,” Visconti repeated. A bead of sweat trickled down from behind his right ear.

Stella let out a breath, still circling, drawing closer. “The girls in the other crates…the other nineteen crates, they died, too. All but one, actually. The last one