Yours(15)

I just didn’t know exactly what those limits were.

“What are we doing here?” I asked finally.

El Alfa patted me on the shoulder and motioned me through the back rooms of his club. In one room, a man was counting out piles of hundred dollar bills. In the other, two strippers were all over some businessman. He leaned forward and snorted a line of coke off one of the stripper’s thighs. Drugs? I could do that, if that’s what was needed to show I was trustworthy. But El Alfa led me past those rooms, all the way out to the main club.

“We are going to bring back some girls tonight,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Someone for you to train.”

“Train?”

“You saw all of my lovely ladies in the house, yes?” he asked. I nodded. “Well, they are not always so obedient at first.”

It was then that everything clicked into place. Ten hadn’t been completely honest with me when he’d talked me into this assassination. Or maybe he was being honest with me, and he only suspected the dangerous truth.

El Alfa wasn’t just dealing drugs. He was dealing in something much more dangerous… sex slavery.

I’d heard about this kind of operation before. Some of the drug cartels were moving into the sex trade. They kidnapped women and beat them into submission. Or, as El Alfa put it, they trained them. Then they would sell the girls abroad to the highest bidder.

As I moved farther into the club with El Alfa, I thought over what I knew about sex slavery. Asia was a hot market. Lots of businessmen there with too much money and nowhere to spend it. It was risky to kidnap white girls and sell them, but the cartels who managed to do it commanded a high profit margin.

Sex slavery. The thought of training a kidnapped girl made me sick to my stomach.

“I understand,” I said, trying not to let my disgust show on my face. I set my mouth in a serious expression. I could control my face perfectly. I didn’t let a single muscle tic, not even when El Alfa licked his lips and looked out over the crowd.

“This is the fun part,” he said, breathing heavily. “You get to pick. What is your fancy?”

What a fucking bastard. I couldn’t wait to shoot him in the goddamn face. But I had to get him alone, somewhere where I had a clear escape path, or wait for the raid. So far, his guards had been breathing down my neck, even though I wasn’t armed at all.

We stood on the balcony overlooking the dance floor. There were dozens of hot women writhing to the beat. My eye caught one of them, a cute curvy brunette in a tight red dress. She turned to look at me, and her dark brown eyes took my breath away.

Christ. She couldn’t have been more than college age. I turned away quickly, but El Alfa had already seen me looking at her.

“That one?”

I shrugged. My mouth was like paste. I couldn’t torture a young woman like that. Jesus.

“Maybe another one,” I said, but I said it too late.

“No, you are right,” El Alfa said. He leaned forward on the balcony, his finger scratching his thick mustache. “Good to train.”

“Really? Why?” I couldn’t look down, couldn’t meet her eyes again. I’d sentenced her to hell, and I didn’t even know her.

“She looks innocent, but she’s wearing a whore’s dress.”

I swallowed hard and looked again. She was talking to another girl on the dance floor. One hand tugged down on her dress. The innocence of the futile gesture made my heart clench. I’m sorry.

“Yes,” El Alfa said, nodding. “I think it’ll be an easy one to train.”

He clapped his hands, and one of his guards pulled out a pill bottle. He tossed it to me and I caught it.

“What’s this?”

“Drugs. Makes them willing. Bring her out back when you can, and we’ll leave from there.”

I held the pill bottle tightly in my hand. Probably a date rape drug. I was aghast at how nonchalant El Alfa seemed to be about drugging girls without even knowing what dose to give. I supposed that he didn’t care if he killed a few of them, anyway. My pulse jumped up a notch and my fingers itched at my side where my gun was normally holstered. It was hard to keep my face straight.

“Are you good, Americano?” El Alfa asked. His greasy mustache creased upward into a sick smile. “You have this under control?”

“Of course.”

Control. I breathed in, then out, remembering my training. I had to brace myself for what might be coming. Ten said that I would have to do El Alfa’s dirty work, and this was as dirty as I could have imagined. But if that was what it took to get rid of this asshole, I could handle it.

I could handle anything.





Chapter Ten