Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,96
Wife, two kids, and he’d just taken possession of a young Thai girl. So, by then there were four of us and two problems.”
“Here you go, hun.”
The waitress was back, complete with a tray of food. Had the portions always been that big? Emmy’s burger was the same size as her head. The instant the waitress set her plate down, she covered her fries in ketchup and stuffed a couple into her mouth. Thank goodness. Emmy without an appetite was unnatural.
“And?” she asked. “What happened next?”
“We decided that walking away wasn’t an option. And we had two things on our side: time and ability. Judd had just quit his job at MI6, I was freelancing, so was Naz, and Ravi didn’t much like working at the bar anyway. Judd rented us a bigger apartment, and we set about learning everything we never wanted to know about the Thai sex-trafficking industry. Starting with another visit to the Angels Playground.” Alaric closed his eyes for a moment, remembering what he didn’t want to. “That place was sick.”
“Did you go as a punter?”
“We all did. It seemed the best way to work out what was going on. Ravi drank too much and puked in the toilet, and his girl made him tea. Naz claimed he’d gotten confused and just wanted a massage. Judd couldn’t get it up. For real. Didn’t even have to pretend.”
“And you?”
“Me? I got Rune.”
Alaric would never forget that first meeting. He’d asked for a girl on the younger side, expecting a teenager. Not barely ten-year-old Rune, cowering on the far end of a dirty single bed in a negligée. When she saw him, she tried to smile, and someone had obviously schooled her in the art of acting coquettish, but not very well. It didn’t help that she was so thin he could see her ribs and obviously exhausted.
Instinct had warred with reason. Instinct told him to find the man who’d shown him into that room and break his fucking neck. But reason said they needed to play the long game, and the thugs who worked at the club were probably as replaceable as the girls.
“What you want?” Rune asked. “Massage? Suck? Love?”
“Let’s talk. I want to talk.”
He crouched down beside the bed, trying to make himself as small and unthreatening as possible.
“Talk?”
Shit, did she even speak English?
“Talk.” He pointed at his mouth. “Words.”
What was he thinking? She was half-naked. Feeling quite sick, he’d wrapped a grubby sheet around her in much the same way he’d done with Emmy earlier. That had scared Rune even more, and she’d tried to pull it off again.
“No, not allowed.”
“You’re not allowed to cover yourself?” He mimed wrapping himself up and shook his head.
“Not allowed.”
Fuck, this was a nightmare. The kid had a bowl of condoms sitting on a table next to the bed. Alaric felt ashamed to have a dick.
“How long have you been here? Worked here?”
“Work here?” She held up a hand, all the fingers and her thumb extended. “Five year. Live here? Always.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I very good.”
Bile rose in Alaric’s throat. He might have retired from the assassination game, but he knew at that moment he’d do at least one more job.
From then on, the men who would become Sirius spent their nights in the red-light district. Daytimes were for research and planning and a few hours of restless sleep. Alaric forked out an obscene amount of Judd’s trust fund for Rune’s company each evening. He became the Angels Playground’s number-one pervert. Handing cash to a pimp was uncomfortable, but as Judd had put it, they were confident of getting a refund soon.
One thing that became evident before long was that Rune was sick. She coughed from a constant cold, she had sores on her back that wouldn’t heal, and each time Alaric saw her, she looked thinner, although he’d taken to bringing her snacks. They no longer had the luxury of planning for every eventuality. They’d have to go in sooner rather than later.
And they had. Naz jammed their communications, Ravi snatched Rune and got her the hell out of there, and the final score had been Alaric and Judd eleven, pimps and traffickers nil. Thanks to the cash they liberated, they’d even made a profit.
“Rune was a prostitute?” Emmy was as horrified as Alaric had been. “She’d have been what…? Ten?”
“Ten years old, but she’d experienced things no adult ever should.”