Yet, as much as I want to liberate all the women and burn the entire place to the ground, I cannot. I am not yet completely free to act. I only have the name of one woman. Dylan has taken many others, women I still need to locate and save, if rescue is even possible.
When they are all found, when I have made amends, I will act. Then the streets will run in blood and flames will engulf every single man and woman who is tainted. This is the deepest desire of my heart.
Pamela is slow to awareness, but she realizes at some point that she is being sold. She falls to her knees in despair. “No, no, no,” she begs the pimp. “This is my home. Please don’t make me leave.”
I swallow back the bile in my mouth. Her existence is hell - the intelligence reports I’ve received of this place confirm it. But the memories of Dylan’s stronghold are worse and Pamela doesn’t want to be immersed in such a life again. She is terrified of leaving the only home she has known in the last twenty years.
The pimp kicks her. “Get on your feet, bitch,” he yells. “Do you think I care what you think? You are lucky I don’t throw you on the streets now.”
She just rocks back and forth, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Jean-Luc and I exchange another look. Not a week. The pimp won’t survive past tonight.
***
Jean-Luc had been right. Jenny was terrified of Sylvia. I tamped down my anger and focused on comforting the girl in my arms. I held her and I promised her, over and over, my words as reassuring as I could make them, that I would never leave her with Sylvia.
Brightest of bright stars, I mourned as she trembled. Who did this to you?
Chapter 12
Ellie / Jenny:
I checked in with Lucien when we returned from vacation. As always, it involved some complicated maneuverings. I was still being followed by Alexander’s guards. There was no way I could call Lucien from the phone Alexander had given me - my calls on that line would be monitored. In a world where almost everyone had smart phones, payphones were few and far between.
Thankfully, when I checked in with my fake sister, she gave me a message in code. A certain café in Paris would have a burner phone for me and I was to use that phone to call Lucien.
“Where were you all of last week?” Lucien demanded as soon as he answered.
I was huddled in the bathroom of the café to avoid being overheard. “In the South of France,” I replied. “We saw Roman ruins.”
“Yes, that seems critical to ensuring Dylan’s death,” Lucien retorted caustically and I felt a hot flush of shame instantly run through me. Then I straightened my spine. What did Lucien expect me to do, anyway? I had to make Alexander trust me enough to take me with him to Hanoi. I was doing exactly what the mission dictated.
I didn’t yell back. If it wasn’t for Lucien, I’d still be in a whorehouse in Lagos. I couldn’t ever repay that debt. “What do you have for me?”
“Nothing on Alexander, nothing on his missing submissives, but a warning for you. Sylvia Anliker heads back to Paris in five days.”
My hands shook and my blood ran cold.
The unfortunate effect of a photographic memory was that memories didn’t fade. I could remember every single detail from that night when I’d displeased Dylan in front of Sylvia and he had caned me raw as punishment. I didn’t need to close my eyes to remember the way Sylvia’s eyes had gleamed with lust as she savoured my tears and my sobs.
I remembered Alexander’s exact words to her, because of course, I couldn’t forget them. “Tell you what, baby,” he had said to her. “You can play with my toy when you come visit me in Paris, okay?”
And now she was coming back and she wanted a toy.
“He’s not going to do anything without my consent,” I said, trying to sound confident. “He’s not going to loan me to Sylvia. He said so. He promised me.” On a field in Provence, he’d held me as I’d panicked and he’d told me he would protect me from Sylvia. I had to trust him.
“Is that what you think? Get your head out of your ass, Ellie. Alexander Hamilton is dangerous. People around him have a habit of disappearing, yet you seem charmed about some Roman ruins and think he’s going to keep his promises? Are you a fucking trained operative or what?”
This mission was going badly wrong. Alexander was just supposed to be a guy who would be enamoured by a beautiful woman and take her to Hanoi. Instead, he was dangerously perceptive and startlingly human and I was torn in two different directions.
I should not have been attracted to Alexander. My instincts should have told me to run away from him, but I was a fool because I trusted him.