The Taken

look like they’d be caught dead at a shitbox like the Wayfarer?”

Grif and Kit had never mentioned the Wayfarer, and Chambers realized it immediately. “You seem to know a lot about it.”

“This is my city, Mr. Shaw,” Chambers said now, carelessly flicking ash on the floor. “I have a vested interest in everything that happens here.”

“Then I’d expect you to be more concerned when an innocent woman is butchered.”

Chambers didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he slid further back into his seat, eyes glazing slightly. “What’s the big deal? Every woman plays the whore at one time or another. Nicole Rockwell just died while doing it.”

The cameras, and the beef at the door, were all that kept Grif from lunging. “You don’t like women much, do you?” he asked tightly.

Chambers laughed, and puffed at his cigar. “I’m surrounded by women. In my work, my family, my church. Outnumbered really. I know women better than most men ever do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and wanna know what most men don’t?” Chambers asked, leaning forward. “That even you don’t seem to know?”

Grif raised his brows.

“They’re just one enormous, intractable problem after another.”

He smiled, leaned back, and tilted his head, eyeing Grif from the corner before closing his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

Grif looked away, but there was nowhere decent to set his gaze. Nude, intractable “problems” lay everywhere. Was this what the world had come to? There’d been prostitution in his day-any day-he knew that and had never considered himself a prude. But this… these men weren’t just treating these women as objects… they were treating them as other.

Chambers finished in utter silence. Grif knew this only because Bethany rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. “Get Marie,” Chambers told her. Bethany wobbled away without looking at either of them, and a few moments later another woman appeared. She was still beautiful, but older-around Kit’s age, maybe even Grif’s-and clearly some sort of authority as she’d been allowed the dignity of true clothing, even if it was skintight leather from head to toe.

“She’s a slob,” Chambers told Marie.

“I’ll see to it,” the woman replied, and disappeared immediately.

Chambers caught Grif’s eye. “See what I mean? Always a problem.”

Moments later, Bethany was escorted from the room by the same man who’d been guarding the ballroom door.

“Keep hanging out with that Craig woman and you’ll see.” Grif’s gaze shot back to Chambers, who nodded as he finished his drink. “Yep. Her family tree is littered with crazy bitches. Her mother, who loved to fuck the blue- collars. That dykey aunt of hers. Even her father was just one big pussy.” He smiled blandly. “Excuse my French.”

Grif didn’t want to discuss Kit’s father or family with Chambers. He didn’t want her name to pass this man’s foul, profane lips, or the thought of her anywhere near his mind.

But Chambers didn’t stop. “If you want to do her a real favor, you’ll teach her a woman’s place… or someone else surely will.”

Don’t let him know you care, Grif thought, though he’d stiffened at the oily smile, the thin threat, the weighted stare. Instead of answering, he jerked his head toward center stage. The two women had finished with each other, and were now pleasuring themselves with toys tossed from their appreciative audience. “So what’s your racket here? You keep your wife, or wives, upstairs while you sell skin to your friends?”

“Selling?” Chambers laughed, zipping himself discreetly. “These little ladies are budding entrepreneurs. I’m just the middle man. I provide the environment and opportunity for consenting adults to get to know each other.”

“You’re a pimp.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Chambers shot back, and this time the animal, the other, was alive in his eyes. “These are grown men and women. The women are beautiful, the men wealthy. They can all easily find sexual partners for themselves.”

“So you just provide access.”

“Look around. Does anyone look like they’re here against their will?”

No. They were partying like it was the last night of their lives. “It’s the same thing if it’s their only way to make a living.”

“We’re all in the business of survival, Mr. Shaw.”

“Yeah, well some of us are surviving more notably than others.”

“Perhaps you’d like to do a little more than survive? Take one of these ladies for a little ride. It won’t cost you a thing.”

Grif looked away, and saw that a third woman was now lying atop the center stage. As the men hooted and hollered suggestions, she stripped what was left of her clothing and spread herself wide. Grif thought about slipping into a dark corner with a woman that anyone could have, and his stomach heaved.

“I don’t quite understand your beef with this,” Chambers snapped, seeing the disgust roll across Grif’s face. “Are you of the homosexual persuasion?”

If this was straight, Grif realized, he’d rather be. “I ain’t queer. I just don’t like taking advantage of women.”

“Taking ad-?” Chambers growled in the back of his throat, frustrated. “So some of the women here might need the money. So what? It’s an exchange, like any other. Services for coin. That’s the way of the world.”

“It’s sex.”

“Also the way of the world,” Chambers said, his voice brittle and hard. Lifting an arm, he snapped his fingers. Marie materialized instantly. Some of the men behind Chambers stopped and stared. However, he looked nowhere but at Grif’s unblinking gaze. “Tell the three centerpieces I want a proper show, and not a tease. I want it raw and I want it now.”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers.”

“Marie was one of my first acquisitions,” Chambers said, as she strode away. “She’s worked her way up in my esteem because, like a good bitch, she’s learned to take orders. Sit. Stay. Shut up.”

But she was currently giving the orders, leaning across the transparent glass to whisper in the nude woman’s ear. One of the men behind Marie fondled her ass, but she neither flinched nor appeared to notice. The girl she spoke with looked up, caught sight of Chambers watching, and quickly nodded. Yet Grif caught something else-brief, just a flash-but it looked like regret, or sadness. It was quickly covered with a snaking smile as she turned to the others.

“I’m not watching this.” Grif rose, pushing away from the table. He and Kit would get what they needed another night, another way. He wanted no part of this filth… and he wanted Kit out of here now.

“Do you want to know what the difference is between sex for money and sex for free, Mr. Shaw?” Chambers’s voice twisted across the room to snag Grif one last time. He waited until Grif had turned, to finish. “Sex for money always costs less.”

Grif wanted to ask how Mrs. Chambers felt about that, then remembered Kit’s words. Marriage isn’t all it’s made out to be. Was it true? Did all these women feel that way? Was it a twenty-first- century development that he couldn’t understand because he was out of his place and time?

Had his Evie ever felt like that, even for a moment?

Chambers folded his hands behind his head, sensing he’d hit some sort of nerve. “Money is the invisible elephant in every bedroom, Mr. Shaw. You’d do well to remember that.”

“Marriage is not a business transaction.”

Chambers laughed like he was naive. “You keep believing that.” Then he rose from his seat, and ran his hands through his hair. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I see something I want to fuck.”

Grif flinched, and realized too late it was the reaction Chambers was hoping for. He turned away again, but Chambers’s laughter chased him.

“Remember your promise,” the man called out, and the reminder, along with the laughter, hung on the air like a threat.