He's still fucking smirking. “Why the hell are you laughing?”
“Because, my beautiful wife,” he says, lighting up a cigarette, “seeing, hearing, and being the brunt of your rage is a fuck load better than seeing and hearing your distress.” He moves in, seizes me, and drapes me back across his arm, exhaling a plume of smoke above my head. The smell is comforting.
And just like that, I soften. He knew bringing those girls here would risk triggering me. I’ve fought it so hard. He’ll know that too. “I was worried. Why didn’t you answer my calls?” The second I utter the word, his phone starts dinging, and he looks down at it, turning the screen to show me the notifications that have just this minute come through. Missed calls. From me.
“I must have dropped service for a few minutes.”
“Well don’t,” I snap.
“Where are the women?”
“Girls,” I say. “They’re girls, Danny. One is barely twenty-one, and she looks like one of the eldest.”
He flinches and returns me to vertical, taking another pull of his smoke.
“They’re in the TV room,” I go on. “Doc’s checking them over and then Beau’s taking them upstairs to shower and change. Goldie’s ordered pizza.”
He kisses me, bombarding me with his comforting mild smell of nicotine, and starts walking me out of the kitchen. We find James in the entrance hall with Beau’s arms and legs wrapped around every part of him. He looks up from his place in her neck, but Beau remains exactly where she is. Buried. The doors to the TV room are open, and Doc is handing out pills. Meds for pain. Not meds that’ll help these poor women forget their trauma.
“Beau mentioned one of the girls is British,” James says to Danny. “She knew who we were.”
Danny’s eyebrows jump up, and he cranes his neck to see through the double doors into the TV room. “The redhead,” I say, pointing to her on the couch. “She’s bright. Well-spoken. Her name’s Pearl. She’s twenty-one.”
Danny breathes out, long and stressed. “I guess we should call the police.”
“What?” I blurt, looking up at him. “The police? Why?”
“What else can we do, Rose?”
“There’s ten of them,” James says, backing Danny up.
“They’ll be deported,” I say, my tone shaky. “And fall straight back into the hands of corruption. You can’t do that to them.” I stand back, pointing at myself. “I can’t do that. I can’t let them be taken away and not know what’s happened to them.”
“Their families,” Danny says quietly, hesitantly. “They’ll have families waiting for them to be found.”
“What if they don’t?” I feel James and Beau watching on, respectfully quiet. “I didn’t,” I say, then point at James. “He didn’t.” Then I point at Danny. “And if you were given the option to be returned to your stepfather, would you have gone?”
His jaw visibly clenches. I’m certain I’ve made my point, but just in case . . . “Where would you be now if Carlo Black had not taken you off the streets?”
“I get it,” he grates.
“Good.” We’re all fucking orphans in one sense or another.
“So what do we do?” James asks, looking back into the TV room, as if to remind himself how many lives are currently in our hands.
“Those with families, we arrange reuniting them.” My husband has a private jet. That simplifies things no end. “Those who have no families, we give them options.”
“What options?”
“They go into police custody or they don’t.”
“And if they don’t?” Beau asks, knowing where I’m heading.
“We help them,” I say, leaving them all in the entrance hall to absorb the facts. I retrieve my cell from the kitchen and download a translation app as I head back to the TV room and cast my eyes around the space, to the faces of the girls, to the eyes full of fear and uncertainty. All I want to do ease them. Reassure them. I look over my shoulder when I feel Danny behind me. He’s leaning against the door jamb, watching me, his face straight.
I go to my cell, type into the app YOU ARE SAFE, and slowly work my way around the room, translating it into Russian, Serbian, and Slovenian. I don’t bother with Romanian. The girl is only just coming round. Each girl I show my screen to either trembles, cries, or hugs me, and the lump in my throat grows by the second until I’m at Pearl. I don’t show her my screen, but she sees my face with perfect clarity.
“What happened to you?” she whispers, pulling her tank strap up her shoulder.
I can’t tell her that I likely faced worse than she has. I can’t devalue her trauma. But the truth is, I did. These girls have been saved before they were conditioned for the life I endured. I swallow and sit next to Pearl, as Goldie leaves and Beau enters. I don’t tell Pearl what happened to me. No one needs to hear that, especially not a young woman who was on the cusp of becoming what I was. A sex slave. A punching bag. An empty vessel of a human. Plus, Danny is in the room, and I can’t send him over the edge. He stares at me for a few moments, then he gives me a small nod and backs out. Today, I have to be the strong one. Today, I protect and shield him. I’ve got this because I know he cannot handle anymore.
“Who was that?” Pearl asks.
“That was The Brit.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes, my husband.”
“Another man was trying to carry Anya.” She points to the unconscious girl, who has now come around and is sipping water. “I was trying to keep up but was struggling. He helped me too. My legs were dead. But he didn’t leave me.”
“Brad,” I say without thought. “Brad was helping you. He was shot.”
Pearl swings alarmed eyes onto me, her hand covering her mouth.
“He’s okay,” I say, settling her, admiring her beautiful, vibrant hair. It’s the only thing on her that isn’t dull today.
“Can I see him? Say thank you?”
I nod, smiling mildly. Oh my. All I can see is red. Brad wasn’t talking about blood. Pearl is a beautiful young woman. Young being the operative word. “I’ll take you later. First, we figure out what happens next.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we reunite everyone with their families.” I know better than anyone that deportation is risky. “The last thing I want is for any of you to fall into the wrong hands again, so we’ll manage that.”
“I have no family.” Pearl clears her throat and levels a sure look on me.
“No one?”
She shakes her head. “I left London to backpack across Europe. I met a man at a hostel in Albania. He asked about my family, my friends.”
Jesus. “And he took you.”
“When he established I wouldn’t be missed.”
My God, what is this world we’re living in? “Your parents?”
“Murdered. Burglary gone wrong. The man was arrested on the scene. Druggy just looking for his next hit.”
Jesus Christ. “I’m so sorry.” I take her hand, for what good it is, like a gentle squeeze might make everything okay. And weirdly, it might. “Will you help me communicate with the girls?” I ask. “I’ve forgotten names already. Where they’re from.”