“You said you weren’t going to keep using,” he says, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s hard for me. I’m living on friends’ couches and I just . . . I have nothing . . .” I put on the big sob story, letting a tear leak out and roll down my cheek.
“Come and live with me, Waverly. Come here; let me take care of you. I can give you a good life.”
Well shit, that took a dramatic turn that I really didn’t see coming. “We’re not . . . we’re not together, Dax.”
He steps forward. “We can be. I want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another human. Let me have you. Come, stay here; we can enjoy our lives.”
“I don’t . . .” I shy away and look at the ground, because honestly, looking at him right now is making me nervous. Really bloody nervous.
“Think about it,” he says, his voice a touch harder. “Just think about it.”
“I will,” I say, to keep the peace. “I really will. But, right now . . . there’s just so much going on here. We need to work it out.”
“I’ve got a plan. Come, sit down. Let me tell you what’s going on, or better yet, let me show you.”
Show me?
God, that doesn’t sound good.
Not at all.
He takes my hand and leads me through the house, and then, before I know what’s happening, we’re going down to the basement, my stomach is turning and I know whatever is about to happen, it’s not good. He’s going to show me something that I’m not going to be able to fix—I just know it. He’s going to make sure this is something I never come back from.
“You’re on my side, right?” he asks me, stopping at the door and turning towards me. “You know what I’m doing here is actually helping these women?”
No.
“Yes, I know that. Why?”
“I just need to know you’re not going to freak out.”
Not freak out?
I’m already freaking out.
God, I’m freaking out so damned bad.
He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door and when we step inside, every bad thing I could have imagined is nothing compared to what’s in front of me. There’s not one, not two, not ten, not twenty, but at least fifty women in here. They’re all seemingly having a great time, with music, drugs and booze, and he’s got the basement set up like a party house. He’s making damn sure it looks fun. There are beds strewn around in the corners, and food wrappers lying about, but the women . . . they seem, I don’t know, out of it.
He’s got them drugged, probably something they don’t mind, but all the same, they’re seemingly not concerned that there is a massive group of them down here, or that they’re locked in and can’t get out, and they’re being fed a shit load of free drugs. Are their lives truly so bad that this situation doesn’t scare them? Or do they just think they’re at a party? But what will happen when they realize they’re not and freak out?
What then?
“What?” I say, stepping in. Dax locks the door behind me. There’s no getting away from this. This is an overload, an extreme, something that I honestly don’t know how to process. “What is this?”
“These women are all getting sold. Do you know just how much money there is sitting in here? Millions. Men, especially those overseas, will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for women like this. All I have to do is sell them. It’s a fuckin’ perfect plan. Peter won’t care that Bennett is dead, because we’re going to do the transaction of a lifetime that’ll set us up long enough for us to find another cop to do our dirty work.”
Oh god.
That’s a terrible, terrible fucking plan.
I’m freaking out. Every nerve ending in my body is on high alert. My knees are going to give out. I feel like I’m going to scream, yet there’s nothing I can do about it. I know I have to play along—I have to, now more than ever, because if don’t I might very well not walk out of here, and he’ll get away with this monstrous act.
“Where did you find so many of them?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm but even I can hear how afraid I am.
“Street corners, junkie dens—you name it. I promise them all a better life, give them all the drugs they could ever want, and make sure they have food and alcohol and somewhere to sleep, and they’re happy. They’re happy to be here because they know it’s better than where I got them from. I’ve introduced them to some men who have taken a few of them out and shown them a good time. All it takes is word of mouth, and they all trust me. The stupid fucking idiots trust me.”
Oh my god.
Monster.
Sick fucking monster.
“H-h-how long are you going to keep them here?” I dare to ask, even though the answer absolutely terrifies me.
“A week, tops. I’ve got buyers, big-time men overseas who make a fuckin’ heap of cash out of women like this. I’ll sell them off, bunch by bunch, and then I’ll disappear for a while until we can get things back on track.”
He turns to me, eyes meeting mine. “Come with me.”
“That’s . . . you wanted me to move in before, and now you want me to leave? Dax . . .”
“Move in. Leave. As long as it’s together, who cares?”
“Can we focus on this right now? You were freaking out only days ago about Bennett and telling Peter, and now you’ve got this going. What if the cops come looking for Bennet?”
“It’ll take them a while to figure it out. We’ll be long gone by then.”
That’s what he thinks.
“What about paper trails? They’re going to be led to this house eventually, and everything
