AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Eric?” Alejandro held up his phone as he came closer. “The buyer is here, and the girls should be arriving within the next few minutes.”
“Here?” I looked over his shoulder toward the bright outdoors. “Okay, stay here while I go out and speak to him.”
“Sí, boss.” He wiped his forehead free of sweat and tried to catch his breath.
“Over there.” Filippo pointed to Chili, my buyer, and I told him to stay put. I didn’t trust the guys with the women, especially not at the last leg of the trip when they’d gotten this far. I always offered the best. I never dipped into my own product and kept my guys away from them as well.
“Mr. Noah.” Chili pushed away from his very expensive car where he’d leaned casually in his flashy suit and snakeskin boots. He reminded me of Denton, who always showed off what he had just to boost his own ego. That was typical of these guys. Personally, I chose to lay low. I didn’t get flashy with my money, and I had a lot of it. I didn’t need to display it. That only brought the sharks. “I thought I’d come and see you in action.”
“I see.” I was curious what he was really doing here. It was not the way things went.
“I hear you have some prime product waiting for me.” He looked over at Filippo, who was within earshot of us.
“You expect anything less, Chili?” I took the cigar he offered me and stood next to him to watch the entrance to the tunnel. I watched the open hatch and waited for my motion sensor to go off that they were getting close.
“After today, when’s the next shipment?” He turned away from Filippo in an attempt to keep his business private. It was smart not to trust anyone in this industry, so I understood his hesitation to speak freely.
“I heard sometime next week.”
“Where from?”
“East LA.”
“Ages?”
“Eleven to twenty-four.” I looked down as my sensor went off. “They’re here.” I grunted, and Chili lit the tip of the banana leaf and handed me his Zippo so I could do the same. Filippo started to walk toward us with his phone to his ear.
“Eric,” he lowered his voice, “there’s been talk about Castillo having a mark at his house.”
“What kind of mark?”
“Not sure yet. But I think something big might be going down.” I tossed down the cigar that I’d pretended to smoke and squashed the ember into the dirt with the toe of my shoe.
“You should make sure you get a handle on that. I’d like to have first pick of what’s being moved through.”
The fact that Chili was telling me this right here at the tunnel and not back at my place had my head spinning at just what my boss was up to. It wasn’t how we usually handled business. I knew something was going on. I didn’t like it.
“You have my word I won’t sell to anyone else as long as you don’t buy from anyone else.” I gave him a look as he puffed away on his cigar.
“My concern isn’t your loyalty, Eric, just that I want to have first dibs.”
I nodded and rubbed my evening stubble as I wished to hell it wasn’t a billion and fuck degrees out. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Good.”
“Boss, they’re here.” Filippo lowered his phone, and I watched as a string of girls, bound at the wrists and ankles, shuffled out of the tunnel. They squinted and cried when they saw us. I motioned for the men to back off so I could inspect them.
I reached up and moved the first girl’s chin side to side and checked her for bruising. Her frightened eyes shifted over to one of the men, and it told me something had happened. I’d spent over a decade trafficking females, and even some men, to know the signs that something was up.
“Are you hurt?” I asked the next girl.
“No,” she wouldn’t look at me, “but she is.” She pointed to a small girl about thirteen or fourteen. “It was him.” She pointed to a man. He stepped forward, and I reached for my gun, and he stopped in his tracks.
“You,” I nodded to the small girl, “where are you hurt?” Slowly she raised her shirt and showed me black and blue bruises on her stomach. “You did this?” I asked the man.
“She tried to run,” he spat in disgust.
“As opposed to voluntarily getting in the car with you?” I dripped with sarcasm.
