Kailani picked up her backpack, the designer one that held all she needed to escape and make a fresh start. She only hoped it also helped her get the girl free as well. “In for a penny in for a pound. I just hope it’s not my pound of flesh that ends up being the price.” She made the sign of the cross, offered up a prayer, then checked the cameras one more time before slipping out the door. On silent feet, she made her way toward the suite she had never visited. If she was going to lose her life, at least she’d do it trying to save another because she couldn’t lay in her big posh bed one more night, knowing a girl would be raped, brutalized, then sold to the highest bidder in short order.
With her heart banging like crazy, she moved as quickly as she could, being sure she was as quiet as a mouse and kept to the shadows. Once she was at the stairway that led to the next level, she took a deep breath and held it until she reached the suite where her brother put his girls. The sound of a quiet sob drew her up short, making her think Rico had already gotten to the room, but then she heard a young girl’s muttered curse through the door, the words sounding like she was trying to muster up the courage to bang on the door.
Kailani pulled out the skeleton key she’d had copied, the one her brother had no clue she even knew about. Before she could change her mind, she inserted the new key into the door, hearing the snick of the lock disengage. One hurdle down.
“Rico, thank god, I was...Oh, I’m sorry. I was expecting Rico. Who are you?”
Kailani took in the gorgeous features of the other girl, shaking her head. “I’m Kailani, Rico’s younger sister. I would love to stay and explain everything, but we don’t have time.” She shut the door behind her, locking the door just in case. “Rico isn’t who you think he is, or rather what you think he is. He’s not a teenager, or however old he told you he was. Nor does he plan to come back up here and be the gentleman you’re expecting.” Kailani took a deep breath, taking a quick sweeping glance around the room, shocked to see the grandeur in which it was kitted out.
“I...I kinda got that idea. He um, looks older in person than he did online, but he was still really nice. I thought maybe it was his heritage. My name’s Tiana.” She ducked her head, her voice wobbling. “I tried to open the door after he left, but it was locked. I banged on it for a long time, but nobody came, and the phone doesn’t work. I want my sister,” she cried.
A shaky sigh left her at the young girl’s real fear. “I have a plan. Hopefully I can get us both out of here, but we’ll need to hurry and be very quiet. I don’t know where any of your things are, so if you’re attached to anything, you’ll have to leave them.” Kailani didn’t want to give her false hope.
Tiana nodded. “I just...I just want to go home,” she cried softly.
“Where exactly is home?” God, please let it not be New York or some other state.
“Northern California, just north of Los Angeles.” Tiana took a deep breath. “Rico picked me up from school and said he had a great adventure planned, then we boarded a small plane and came here. I...I didn’t know what to say or do. I thought he was taking me out to eat, maybe shopping. I didn’t get to tell my sister I wasn’t coming home or anything. She probably thinks I ran away.” She bit her lip and turned away.
“Listen, we can talk about this once we’re on the road. Right now, we don’t have time. Get your shoes on.” The longer they stood there chatting, the greater the chance they had of getting caught. She pulled the camera app back up, releasing a sigh at the image of Rico and his guys still sitting around the table drinking. She nearly dropped her phone as she watched her father storm into the dining room, his anger rolling off him in waves even she could see through the small screen. Good lord, she was glad she wasn’t in the room with the men. Whatever her brother did had clearly ticked her father off. She watched her brother sit back, a smug look on his handsome face as he gestured toward the wine on the table. Her father, Ricardo Trevino Senior picked up the bottle, looked at the label, then without pausing broke it over the head of the man to his left. Her brother sat up, his face registering shock then wariness. The other men scooted away from the two Trevino men. Although her father was over fifty, he was as fit as men half his age and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. A shudder shook her.
“Hurry, we must go, now,” she said.
Tiana hurried over, her hands rubbing together in front of her. “Where are we going?”
Kailani unlocked the door, opening it quietly as she peered down the hallway. She looked back over her shoulder. “Stay right behind me and keep your mouth shut. Walk where I walk and don’t say a word. Understand me?” She waited for the other girl to nod. “We’re going to my room, then out the window there. I have an escape ladder out my window. It’s made of rope, so I hope you have some muscles in those arms.”
“I’ve been in gymnastics since I was two years old. I can climb down a ladder.” Fire lit her eyes, letting Kailani know she could count on her to hold her own.
“Let’s do this.” She tried to smile, but their lives were literally on the line. If she got caught trying to escape with a girl Rico had basically kidnapped, an underage one at that, she might find herself six feet under at best, sold like the others at worst.
They made it to her room without incident, her backpack feeling heavier with every step. Not because it was filled with a lot of stuff, but because she knew once she made the steps out of the window with or without the girl, her life was going to be forever changed. She would no longer be Kailani Trevino the welcomed daughter, but Kailani Trevino the traitor. Seeing the faces of all the girls, girls she knew were either dead or wished they were, the choice was easy. She was no longer going to standby and watch while another was ruined.
“Alright, you go first,” she instructed Tiana.
Tiana shook her head. “What if they find me down there?”
Kailani peered out the window at the huge shrubbery that hid where they’d land. “If you stay up here, and they come looking for you, what then?”
A shiver wracked Tiana’s frame. “What if you get caught and I’m out there all alone?”
She shrugged off the pack, the expensive LV symbol that emblazed the bag meant nothing to her, but the items inside were enough to set them both up if needed. “Inside this pack there’s a cellphone and enough money to get you anywhere you need to go. Take it,” she said, putting it over Tiana’s shoulders. “Go, we’ve fucked off enough.” If the girl didn’t go quickly, Kailani was going to throw her out the damn window. “Tiana, do you know what his plans are? He will take your virginity if you still have it, then he’ll let the guys with him have you, do what they want, after he’s had his fill of you, then, after they’ve used you up, taught you how to please a man, they’ll sell you to some third world country dignitary or drug dealer. It doesn’t matter to them who you go to, just as long as they make a few thousand dollars off your body.”
Tears welled up in her youthful eyes, making Kailani feel like a righteous bitch. “Is that what you want? Do you want to be his whore for a few weeks, or months, then become someone else’s whore, because that is what you are facing? Now get your ass out that window. I didn’t risk my life to save yours for nothing.” She didn’t care that her voice shook, or that her own horrors probably showed in her face. No, if this young thing thought for one minute Rico wouldn’t do that to her, Kailani would gladly show her the error of her ways.