additional training.”
“Training?”
Dimitri licks his dry lips. “On being the ideal wife. They’re taught how to cook, clean, raise children, and anything else their procurer wants of them. Some take months to learn their role. Others take years.” His eyes drop to his safe. “Others never learn.”
I don’t know why, but I have a feeling his last comment wasn’t referring to Katie. If I trusted my gut like I once did, I’d ask him about it, but since I don’t, I thank him for his information by standing from my chair and giving him a tidbit of advice to even our exchange. “IRS is planning to raid this restaurant on the eighteenth. I suggest you do some in-house cleaning before then.”
Not speaking another word, I exit Dimitri’s office aware I broke a code but desperate enough for the truth not to care.
20
Brandon
“Do the dates match?”
The thud of my feet through heavy foot traffic doesn’t drown out Grayson’s murmur of agreement. Dimitri’s disclosure Saturday morning was more helpful to Grayson’s personal campaign than my own, but one thread binds us all together, so any discoveries benefit us all.
Three days after Katie’s sale, Tobias’s team raided a Russian-strong sanction. Their operation was oddly similar to the one Dimitri mentioned. They imprisoned girls like the Sicilian operation we endeavored to dismantle when Tobias was killed, but they didn’t rape and torture their captives. The more pure they were, the higher their selling price.
Don’t get me wrong, the women who refused to follow orders at the drop of a hat were beaten into submission, and a handful were killed, but the head of that operation soon realized his virginal mail-order brides fetched double the price of his standard offerings. It meant the age of the girls taken got younger and younger as the years went on. They needed them to be pure in every sense of the word and young enough to be brainwashed into believing life as they knew it was over, which meant they typically sourced girls in the ten-to- thirteen-year age bracket.
Katie was a year, almost two older because she wasn’t procured in the normal way. She was picked up by a rival associate before being subsequently sold to the Bobrovs. From my understanding, that was the first time the Bobrovs had paid for someone. They usually kidnapped them. I don’t know if her uncommon purchase was the reason Kirill took an instant liking to her, but it’s not often you can find sense in the madness of the underworld.
With Grayson’s silence weighing heavily on my shoulders, I issue a plea I haven’t given him in a very long time. “We’ll find her, Grayson. It just takes time.”
“Time I don’t fucking have.” He breathes heavily before saying, “I’ve got to go, BJ. I’ll be in touch.”
Not giving me the chance to reply, he disconnects our call. That’s so unlike him. He usually hackles me about calling Melody, so for him to forget, he must have a lot on his mind.
Or perhaps he’s sick of reminding you how much of a fuckhead you are?
Ignoring the highly-accurate voice in my head, I enter Harlow’s bakery to grab a morning pick-me-up. Between Alex’s demanding work ethic and my private investigations, I’m lucky to get three to four hours of sleep a night. I’m zonked.
My eyes float up from the ground when my arrival in the almost dead-quiet bakery is greeted by a friendly voice. “Oh, good, you’ve arrived. I was getting worried I’d need to make them fresh again.”
I greet Harlow, the owner of Harlow’s Scrumptious Bakery with a smile before joining her near the coffee machine. “Make what again?”
“The coffees.” She cocks a brow before waving her hand over a dozen coffees in easy-to-carry cupholders. “Izzy usually picks them up by now, but I’ve not heard from her yet.” She raises her begging eyes to mine. “You work with her, right? Could you take them for me? I really don’t want them to go to waste. I can throw a handful of extra cookies in for you. Peanut butter and choc chip, right?” She takes a quick breather while moving to the section of the bakery where the cookies are stored. After stuffing half a dozen into a plain white paper bag, she stacks them on top of the coffees before handing them to me. “I really appreciate you doing this for me,” she murmurs like I had a choice. “I don’t want Izzy getting in trouble because her brains were banged out on