Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
All was quiet at first. While Griffin held the door, a drone suddenly appeared. After it entered, Griffin closed the door behind it. We crept forward and, with Shawn using hand signals to tell us to split off to check the lower level, the floor creaked.
Shawn shot a fist in the air, signaling us to stop. I glanced around for any movement as I listened intently for any sounds. A door closed, and we waited a beat before Shawn signaled us to move forward. Griff went into the living room on the left. The furniture was more than worse for wear from the glance I got.
I kept moving forward until I reached the first door on the right. The knob was a little stiff but gave in to the turn and the door popped open with a little burst of dusty air. I took a step into the small, cramped room only to find two twin beds with a small table in between. The closet was empty as well. When I stepped back into the hallway, I wasn’t alone.
A piercing scream came out of nowhere until I spotted our guys, dressed in black, carrying assault weapons. I guessed I couldn’t fault the woman’s fear. A second later, I was in her face, begging her to be quiet.
“We aren’t here to hurt you,” I crooned.
Griffin, who’d seemed like a gentle giant until now, pointed his weapon at her. “Shut the fuck up,” he barked. I glared at him, and he shrugged innocently at me with a quick wink.
If we’d walked into the situation I thought we did, the woman would respond to his demands. Likely, they’d been conditioned not to defy someone in authority. So I understood why he’d been gruff, as we hadn’t wanted to wake the entire neighborhood.
She immediately quieted. Shawn moved next to me and said to her, “We’re here to help.”
Footsteps sounded above. “Get down here,” Griffin commanded.
As I glanced toward the stairs, I watched as the drone rose horizontally to the second floor. Kelsey would be our eyes as several women slowly made their way downstairs.
The women assembled in the hallway in two rows as if they’d done this before. It sickened me to think why they were here.
“What is your name?” I said to the screamer.
“Arina,” she said, with an accent I couldn’t place at the moment. Her long dark hair hung like a curtain on either side of a pleasant face, and she tilted her head to hide parts of her face with it.
“What is this place?” I asked her.
A taller woman with long reddish-brown hair, who stood a few women down in the back row, answered. “Hell. Why you here?” she sneered in defiance.
“To help,” I said.
The same woman laughed, though it was full of bitter notes. “Just like he say he help us,” she said in broken English.
“You mean Ruin? The man who was just here?”
All the women nodded. But the ringleader spoke. “And you know him how?”
“I got away,” I said. Then I turned my attention back to Arina. “How did he get you here?”
She glanced away before telling a sad story. The women were citizens of a country embroiled in civil war. They’d individually fled their country when their husbands, brothers, or fathers had fallen in battle. They all landed at the same refugee camp in a neighboring country.
“A man offered us each the opportunity to come to America.” The group agreed. “We went with them and ended up on the same boat over. Once we got here, our papers were taken, and we were told we would have to work to pay back the cost to get us here, our clothes, and even the food they feed us.”
Then, several women added to the conversation. “We fuck or we die,” one said. “Or passed around,” another said.
Arina took over again. “We are to earn five thousand a night. Anything we earn over that, we get half of.”
The bitter woman said, “The shitholes we’re sent to, it’s impossible to earn that kind of money.”
That could have been my fate. “Why don’t you just leave?” I asked, glancing at the door.
Chin up, Arina said, “We can’t. He will track us.”
My blood ran cold as the implications of what she just said hit me like a blow to the gut. Shawn took over. I vaguely heard him asking the women where the tracker was. Without shame, the women showed him, lifting their shirts. Each was in a different place. Most were on the fleshy part of their bottoms. But some showed their breast or their abdomen.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I said out of the blue.
When everyone stared at me like I was an alien, I amended my words. “If Ruin is tracking them, he could know they are all gathered downstairs.” Depending on the level of tracking. But they would certainly show them huddled together. “At this time of night, he could think they are plotting something.”