“Aye. I’m in.”
Agent Abernathy didn’t look at all surprised. Colin never turned down an assignment, but they both knew this was no ordinary job. This one was delicate, and would take time.
Colin studied the pictures while his brain worked, and he plotted out loud. “I’ll contact the local galleries there, make it seem like I’m branching out with my trade. I’ve got drug contacts who know people in Spain. It could take months to earn a name for myself, but I can’t rush it. What’s the goal once I’m in?”
“Get her out. Alive. By any means you can. Her parents have raised over two million dollars. They’ve been on every news station and television talk show. They’ve got web pages dedicated to this search. They’ve spent nearly half the raised money on private investigators, who led them to us. They can’t send an American agent in there—too suspicious.”
Colin nodded. Even as a Scot it might take longer to earn their trust.
“And Douglas?” Abernathy raised an eyebrow. “If you get the lassie out, you can keep the reward money, because it will be your last mission with us. Once you’ve taken property from a man like Marco Ruiz, you’ll need to disappear. If Angela Birch is alive, and if she’s at this estate, she’ll also need to go into hiding. Only her parents will know. We’ve warned them that they’ll need to make new lives for themselves too, and they’re willing. They’ll do anything to get her back.”
Colin let this news settle into his mind. This could be his last job with the agency. He could start a new life for himself. Become a new person.
If he survived this mission and could get the girl out alive.
“I understand,” Colin said.
“Good. Here’s a video compiled of the girl by her parents so you can get to know her a bit.” Abernathy reached out a hand and they shook.
Back at his flat, Colin got to work, sliding the homemade DVD into the player.
It began with a surprise party for Angela Birch’s eighteenth birthday in her senior year of high school, went through her graduation, and extended through her year and a half of college before she went to Cancun. Colin watched her laugh, sing, and interact with her parents and friends. She seemed responsible, mature, intelligent, and unaware of her own natural beauty. Unassuming. Innocent. The video tugged at parts of Colin he hadn’t felt tugged in countless years—or maybe never.
The Birches were a family. A real, loving family, who deserved to be together. He wanted to make this happen. And he couldn’t deny that a strange, deep, selfish part of him wanted to meet this Angela. How would this responsible, smiling girl have taken to the world of slavery? He couldn’t imagine her filthy and drugged on the floor like Graham had been. The very idea made him want to thrash everything in his path to yank her out of whatever situation she might be in.
Disappointment filled him when the DVD ended, and he pushed Play again. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. After hours of repeated footage he had her voice memorized. He knew her expressions of amusement and sentiment. He felt like he knew her, which was ridiculous, but he felt it nonetheless and couldn’t bloody wait to get her the fuck out of captivity.
His head spun with possibilities as he envisioned himself inside the world of Marco Ruiz. He would have to put on his best show yet, submersing himself into that shady battle land where lines of right and wrong became skewed.
To enter a snake lair, Colin would have to become a snake.
The night of Josef’s beating, for the first time, Marco allowed a patron to keep me until the morning. Until that point he’d been sheltering me, but I knew those days were over. Now, men could have me for more hours, waking me during the night if they wanted, pushing my head down to their crotch in the morning while they were still half asleep. Making me feel less and less like a human.
When Luis took me back to the slave quarters to shower the next morning, I was nervous to see Josef. My patron had paid to have me all day, so I’d be taken back to him once I was cleaned.
In the room my eyes darted around for Josef. I saw Perla first, sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up, naked. She gave me a sad look and her eyes drifted toward the wall. I rushed in and saw Josef lying on his stomach. My hand flew to my mouth.
His back.
I’d never seen so many bruises. He was purple and red in criss-crossing streaks. My eyes burned with moisture, but no tears fell. The memory of him hanging there flashed through my mind alongside an image of the grin he’d given me during sex. I wanted to run over and beg his forgiveness, but Perla’s voice stopped me.
“Déjalo dormir.” Let him sleep. She’d apparently gotten the memo from Marco to speak only Spanish to me now. She didn’t sound mad, only sad.
I gazed at the sleeping Josef and hoped he’d had one of those pills for his own self yesterday. With reluctance I turned and went for my shower.