Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,97
The girls and the men who sold them, taken care of in two very different ways.
Alaric nodded. “Most of the trafficked women went back to their families, but Rune had been born in that place. Her mother was a sex worker, and her father was a client.”
“What happened to her mother?”
“One of the older girls said she got beaten to death the year before. Or maybe two years before—time seemed to warp there. Rune had nobody, and she also had the beginnings of type 1 diabetes.”
“So you kept her?”
“We couldn’t just let her disappear into an orphanage. One of us had to claim her as ours. Ravi was on the young side, and she looks nothing like Naz, which left me or Judd. And can you imagine Judd taking responsibility for a child?”
Emmy’s snort told Alaric everything he needed to know.
“So we brokered a new birth certificate with me named as her father and got her a British passport. By then, she was taking insulin, and she’d been living with the four of us for two months. And we’d worked out she was smart. Seriously smart. Her English was getting better every day, and all she wanted to do was learn.”
“So where is she now?”
“At a boarding school in Hertfordshire.”
“You sent her to boarding school?”
“It was her idea—she’d managed to read Harry Potter by that point, and science is her crack. We offered her the choice of living in London and going to a local school, but she had her heart set on Ridgeview Prep.”
“And she’s happy there?”
“She loves it. We take it in turns to visit.”
Emmy reached out for Alaric’s free hand. Took it in both of hers. “You did a good thing, Prince.”
“We did the only thing we could under the circumstances. And strange though it may sound, Rune helped us as much as we helped her. Before that day in the bar, the four of us had been drifting through life, each convinced that we’d been dealt the worst hand ever. Rune helped us to put everything into perspective. It was she who suggested we keep working together. She thought we made a good team.”
She’d also come up with their name. Sirius. The brightest star in the sky. Rune said she used to stare out between the bars on her window every night and wish upon the stars that somebody would rescue her.
“I think you make a good team too. What happened to the other girl, though? The one you saw in the bar?”
“Ravi found her hidden in a room behind Sunan’s office. You know, keep your sex slave at work so your wife doesn’t find out? Judd dropped him off a bridge.”
“Good.” Emmy managed a proper smile. “I’d have offered my services otherwise.”
She fell silent, but at least she was eating. More than just picking too—she attacked the burger with a steak knife and ate more than her fair share of the onion rings. Although the circumstances were awkward as hell, Alaric still enjoyed spending time with Emmy. A quiet dinner. Just the two of them. It was nice.
The only thing nicer would have been if Beth were sitting opposite him instead.
How was she getting on in Kentucky? He’d spoken to her earlier as he drove back from Boston. The funeral had been every bit as bad as she’d expected—trying to comfort a devastated Harriet while fending off well-wishers offering fake sympathy. Apparently, Stéphane had nearly decked a woman who got offended when Harriet wouldn’t speak with her.
“What are you thinking about?” Emmy asked, stuffing the last fry into her mouth.
“You first.”
Boy, that was a heavy sigh.
“I’m thinking that I should take a lesson from Rune too. That no matter how shit this last week has been, at least it wasn’t ten-year-old-in-a-whorehouse bad.”
This week? So whatever it was had been building while Alaric was away. It had just come to a head this evening.
“Do you want a lesson from me too?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you’re gonna get one anyway.”
Sometimes, tough love was needed.
“Hurrah.”
“Don’t run away from this one, Cinders. You’ve got a habit of that.”
“Ha! You can talk.”
“Which is why I’m qualified to advise. Speak to Black and clear the air. Don’t let whatever happened fester and grow because you’ll end up hurting yourself as well as him. I meant what I said earlier. You two were always destined to be together, no matter how much I once wished otherwise.”
“He lied to me,” she whispered.
“Then he’s got a hell of a lot of grovelling to do.”