Bow Down(35)

“This is it,” she said.

“Where are we?”

“We’re down below the basement.”

I gave her a look. “You’re kidding me?”

“I’m not. There are two more floors below us, actually.”

“How the hell did you dig this deep without anyone noticing?”

“Money.” She grinned bigger. “Lots and lots of money.”

For a second, the scale of the thing left me breathless.

We were in the middle of Chicago in a crowded city block. Digging extra floors at the bottom of a house was a serious job, one that took serious equipment. For Louisa to manage to do it without anyone noticing was absolute madness. This should be all over the news, or at least Arturo should have caught her doing it already. Instead, she had managed to pull it off somehow.

I was totally flabbergasted. They had to have moved tons of rock and dirt, and that alone was a huge deal. Forget about actually building the structure, setting in air vents, making sure it’s water tight, all that stuff.

“This is incredible,” I said, shaking my head.

“I know. Come on.”

I followed her between the cots. She introduced me to a few girls. By and large they were pretty and eastern European, some of them Russian, some of them ex-Soviet states, but all of them were young. I was actually shocked at how young they were. The oldest girl was probably twenty-five at best.

“Are these girls all ex-sex workers?” I asked Louisa quietly.

“Sex slaves,” she corrected. “And yes. All of them.”

“Jesus. I thought you’d have other soldiers working for you. I didn’t think they’d all be girls.”

“That’s why we’re successful. These girls believe in what we’re doing.”

I followed her down a short hall. She showed me the medical room, which was currently occupied by a girl in a cot with an IV hooked up to her arm, and the kitchen. I was introduced to every girl by name, and I was impressed that Louisa knew every single one.

We moved back to the elevator and went down another floor. It was similar downstairs, though there were fewer girls. There was more storage, a workout room, a leisure room, and a small library all the way in the back.

“How do you feed all these people?” I asked Louisa.

“Tunnels leading out into the city,” she said. “We can’t come and go up top, that would be too obvious.”

“Of course.”

“Me and Kasia do. I mean, someone has to live in that house. But mostly we move shipments in and out that way.”

“I can barely believe this.”

“We have to have something like this. We’re fighting against a giant. We need every edge we can get.”

“These girls, they really believe in the struggle.”

“They do. I do too, Wyatt. It’s not bullshit.”

“I know you believe. But I always assumed it was a vehicle to more power.”

She shook her head. “Maybe at first, maybe it was. But not anymore. Not after what I’ve gone through, what I’ve seen. Not after the first time I heard stories from these girls describing the horrors my father and his men put them through, all because they were born poor and the wrong gender.”

I nodded and said nothing. It was so incredibly admirable that I found myself growing even more respect for her. I felt guilty that I had assumed it was all a front for more power, but I could see that it wasn’t.

Nobody did all of this for just a power grab. This place and all these girls, it cost Louisa everything. There was no way she could keep this place running, and however many other places just like it, without serious work and dedication. If she just wanted some power, she could have hired a bunch of goons and taken it.

Instead, she was saving lives, and then she was keeping those girls around. She was clothing and feeding them, giving them purpose, making their lives matter.

She was more than just a power hungry mobster. I knew she was, but this place proved it. This place represented everything that I really wanted.

I didn’t want people to live the sort of hellish existence that I used to live. The rich and the powerful in this city were always working to keep people down, and I knew that only more power could beat them. Sometimes I felt like I was fighting a losing battle, but standing underground in that place made me feel something.

“Come on,” Louisa said. “Let’s head back upstairs.”

“Right behind you.”

We got back into the elevator and rode it back up to the main floor. I kept staring at her, growing more and more impressed. She smiled back at me, and I felt something click inside of me, deep and powerful.

I took her by the hips and pressed her against the elevator wall. I kissed her softly on the lips. She kissed me back, a smile on her face.