The phone was somewhat of a risk. Had my purse been searched, Alexander Hamilton might have wondered why a woman who knew no one in Thailand would need a phone so much so that she saw fit to buy a cheap prepaid model. I had a cover story prepared for that, something about safety and needing to stay in touch with my sister.
What I would have loved to find in the purse was a weapon, but that was a risk I couldn’t take. And in truth, there was no weapon that could protect me against Alexander. It wasn’t just my body at risk anymore. This attraction I felt for him was dangerous. It could impact me far more than I was ready for.
As the phone rang, I watched my shaking hands with dispassionate interest. The last few days had taken an emotional toll on me and my journey was nowhere close to complete. I was entirely unprepared for Marc to be here and for him to be Alexander Hamilton. Remember Dylan, I hissed fiercely at myself. Remember your revenge.
“You are late,” Lucien snapped when he picked up. I heard the thread of worry in it and I almost cried.
“We have a situation,” I said tersely. “Remember the night in Paris, after Ivan Klimov?” Lucien had made his one and only pass at me and I’d kneed him in the groin, before disappearing for the night.
“Yes.”
“I went home with a man that night. A stranger I met at a bar. His name was Marc.”
“And?”
“Marc is Alexander Hamilton.”
I heard Lucien’s sharp inhale of breath. “Has he recognized you, Jenny?” Always a faultless professional, Lucien. Ever since our cover story had been hatched, he hadn’t referred to me even once as Ellie. Just Jenny, so that I’d learn to turn when that name was called out. Even now, when real danger hung in the air, he remembered to call me by my assumed name.
“No.” I was pretty sure I hadn’t been identified.
“Did you give him your real name that night?”
“No. I told him my name was Rachel and we didn’t exchange last names.”
“Ellie’s from Cleveland, and so is Jenny. Where was Rachel from?” Ah, Lucien immediately saw the risks. If Alexander knew that Dylan McAllister once had a slave called Ellie who hailed from Cleveland, then there would be a common connection that tied the two stories together. Three women from the same city would rightly arouse his suspicion.
I shuffled through the memories of that night. Had I ever told him where I was from? “I never said,” I replied, relieved. I had told him things about myself that night, but not my real name, and not where I was from.
“And will he recognize your scars?”
Fuck. I’d completely forgotten about the scars on the back of my thighs. Lucien, who was a more thorough soldier than I’d ever be, had not. “I don’t know.” My voice was fighting to hold back the rising panic. “I don’t think he noticed the scars that night in Paris.”
“Breathe, Ellie.” It was a sign of how worried Lucien was that he now called me by my real name.
“Lucien, there’s more. There’s a woman here, Sylvia. She visited Dylan once. She was there the night the scars were formed. When Dylan caned me, she watched.”
“And?”
“Sylvia seems to be Alexander’s girlfriend. And she wants to play with his newest toy.”
“Fuck,” Lucien swore. “Sylvia Anliker? Tall, blonde waist-length hair?”
“Yes.” My heart clenched again with fear. “Why do you know her?”
“Because she’s one of the most reprehensible slavers in the world,” he replied, his voice cold. “Two years ago, Sylvia took advantage of the tumult created by the Arab Spring to buy a hundred twelve-year old children from Tunisia for her whorehouses in Italy and Spain. Last year, the battle zones in the Congo were her recruiting grounds. This woman is a vulture, a carrion who feeds on the misery of others and causes terror of her own wherever she goes.”
“And she’s his girlfriend.”
“We can abort the operation.” There was hesitation in Lucien’s voice but he made the offer nonetheless.
I clutched the phone and thought about the consequences. If I disappeared, it would be investigated. Both Alexander Hamilton’s investigators and Madame Lorraine’s investigators would focus on my cover story. With enough detailed probing, no cover story would hold up. If anything was discovered about my real identity – that I was really Ellie Samuelson, who had been abducted by Dylan, who, over the last six years had killed all except one of the guards who had gang-raped her the first night? Dylan would go so far underground that we’d never find him again.
Not only that, but Dylan would use every single bit of the billions he possessed to get rid of us. We’d succeeded so far partly because no one knew who we were. As a result, no one had placed a bounty on our backs. But Dylan was a billionaire and all the rumours indicated that Alexander was richer than him.
My revenge would be over. I’d have no hope of ever getting near Dylan again. And I’d be on the run from the hits placed on my head.
“We can’t.” When I spoke, I willed my voice to show no emotion. “We have no choice but to go through with this.”