“Shit,” I said softly. “I don’t remember that happening.”
“Not surprising, considering. Anyway, shame about them.”
“What happened?”
“Well, they had to be put down. Fuck, we couldn’t pay for their medical needs. Just too many of them.”
I blinked, shocked. “They were killed?”
“Sure. They didn’t matter anymore.” He turned and looked down the hall. “Shit. Gotta go. Catch up later?”
“Yeah,” I grunted.
He stalked off, and I stared after him.
I couldn’t believe that. I knew the mafia was brutal and did some fucked-up shit, but I never could picture them slaughtering a bunch of injured girls. Then again, maybe that was exactly what they would do. The girls were an investment, and if they got hurt or injured, they couldn’t work.
They weren’t going to pay for them and they couldn’t just let them go, so in their minds, they were probably doing the humane thing. Put them down, end their suffering. Make sure the mafia didn’t lose any more money on them.
Fucking scumbags. I felt so angry and disgusted at my own people in that moment. I’d heard of some sick shit, but that was by far the worst thing I could imagine. Those poor girls, sold into slavery, used their whole lives, only to die in the end, betrayed by the people who had promised to try to take care of them.
I slowly walked back toward the apartment, brooding and pissed. I wished I hadn’t run into Rice, but there was nothing I could do about that. I wished I had never heard about these girls, but I couldn’t keep hiding from the truth. In the past few days I’d seen too much suffering and evil coming straight from the mafia. I couldn’t turn my back on it anymore.
Not everyone in the mob was bad, and not everyone worked in human trafficking. In fact, as far as I could tell, only a few bosses had a hand in it. Gian definitely did, and maybe Alfonse as well. The others kept their distance.
But they didn’t stop it. They didn’t participate, but they didn’t make the others quit buying and selling girls like cattle. They didn’t stop them even when they slaughtered a bunch of poor girls for getting injured and disfigured, injuries caused by their own fucking practices.
I shook my head, unsure what the fuck I was going to do. I felt disgusted and drained. I knew I had to meet with Gian later, but the last thing I wanted to do was see his face.
Because he had ordered those women killed. That sort of thing came from the top, and nobody else had the authority to make it happen. Gian chose to end those girls, probably as casually as choosing which shirt to wear in the morning.
I came back to the apartment door and swiped my card. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, relieved to be away from people.
Emma wasn’t on the couch. I walked through the room, feeling exhausted beyond belief. I found her under the covers, curled up into a ball, sleeping soundly.
I couldn’t wake her up. I just collapsed onto the bed next to her, not bothering to undress.
Rice’s words kept ringing through my mind. They were so callous, so uncaring. He thought of those women as fucking cattle to be bought and sold and then discarded when they weren’t useful anymore.
I was so damn tired. The adrenaline had kept me going way past exhaustion, but it was hitting me like a damn lead weight to the chest. I pressed my face against the pillow, grunting to myself, and sleep took me.
22
Emma
I woke up slowly in an unfamiliar bed. Actually, every bed I’d woken up in lately had been unfamiliar, and I’d never wake up in my own bed again.
I didn’t know why I thought about that, though, as I sat up. I was so comfortable and felt so refreshed. The room came into focus around me, the expensive drapery and furniture all taking my breath away again.
And sleeping next to me was Brooks. He looked so fucking handsome there, still wearing his clothes, but I didn’t want to wake him up. I slowly slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom, turning on the shower.
I stood under the warm water and let it wash over me, cleaning away the memory of the last few days, the terror and the pain. I had a few scratches and cuts on my body, but otherwise I was fine. Unlike the girls that hadn’t made it, I was totally fine.
I didn’t understand why this had happened to me, but I was determined to survive it, no matter what. It would be so easy to give up and just let Brooks make whatever decisions he wanted for me, but I couldn’t.
What felt strange, though, was why he was still following me at all. He clearly thought this whole thing was a horrible idea, as if we were walking into a trap, but if Louisa wanted us dead, we’d be very, very dead already. She’d had plenty of opportunities to kill us.