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“Do you ever check your damn phone?”
“It’s two a.m. I didn’t think anyone would need me.” I sat forward slightly and glanced casually at Lexi, who was wide-eyed at our intruder.
“You fuck her?” he snarled, and I shook my head in disgust.
“You know me better than that. I’ve never touched any of the girls who have come through here.” I was insulted he would even accuse me of such a thing. I was a professional and had my standards. “You wanna talk, let’s go upstairs.” I jerked my thumb toward the door. He ignored me and stepped toward the cage, and Lexi scurried to the far back wall where he couldn’t reach her.
“She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
“She’s scrappy too,” I warned him. I wouldn’t put it past Lexi to take a swipe at him. I could see her contemplating the idea, so I stepped forward, unsure what Castillo would do if she did.
“You know I like it rough.” He let out a nasty laugh, and I cringed at the sound. Castillo was a good-looking man and could have used it to his advantage, but he smoked heavily and sounded like a sixty-year-old with a hacking cough and a wheeze. Shit, he hadn’t even hit mid-life yet. I thought I saw him briefly eye the lock on her cage.
“You see the chick Filippo brought?” I hoped to lure him upstairs. “She’s got tits bigger than a basketball.” She was all plastic, just what he loved.
“No.” His eyes sparkled with interest as he turned toward me. “Let’s see his treat.”
I waved toward the door, and as he walked ahead of me, I glanced back at Lexi, who mouthed the word “thanks” to me. I flipped off the light without a response and followed him back upstairs. Alejandro nursed a bump on his head and shot me a look that told me he’d tried to stop Castillo.
“Drag Filippo’s girl in here,” he ordered Alejandro. “I wanna see her tits.”
Alejandro looked at me, and I nodded but gave him a signal to give me ten. I needed time to get Castillo to focus and tell me why he was here. He left, and I headed for the bar and poured Castillo his favorite drink. My phone buzzed, and I quickly glanced at it.
Alejandro: Filippo said the girl he hired to go through Castillo’s phone didn’t return for her next shift. We have no answers, but we’re still digging. No clue why Castillo’s here.
Fuck!
“What brings you all the way here at this time of night?” He took the drink and sat in a chair as I settled into the couch across from him.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t want her dead yet.” He loudly slurped his drink. “I wasn’t pleased about your tag on the proof of life.” He eyed me hard, and I leaned back and crossed my ankle over my knee. “I’m gonna show her off a bit, share my story on how I found her.” That caught my interest. I didn’t know that story either.
“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “Then what?”
“Then you wait for my command, Eric.” I could tell he didn’t like how comfortable I seemed to be with this situation. Castillo’s original idea to kill her was stupid, so maybe he’d made a hasty decision and now thought the better of it. “Say it,” he spat out.
“What?”
“Like you said, I’ve known you a long time, Eric. Enough to know you must have a feeling on what’s going on here.”
“My view hasn’t changed. We’ve got someone big here. We could sell her off to the highest bidder and make millions of dollars, but instead you wanted to stick a bullet in her head just so you can go down in history for killing a Blackstone woman.”
“You said yourself, she’s not gonna give up their location.”
“And I still stand behind that. She’s been trained, brainwashed never to tell the truth. You’ll get nothing from her. I’ve been inside her head, opened as many doors as I could, but it is what it is. She’ll die before she tells us anything useful. We could use her and lure Blackstone to us, but truth be told, they’re smarter than us. So, show her off, make your mark in history, but be smart and get rich while you do it.”
“So, how do you figure to play it?”
I knew I had to be careful. If Castillo thought I wasn’t up to the job, I’d be replaced and any of the money I’d banked on for the woman would be gone. I leaned back and played it cool while I pretended to think. I licked my lips and tapped my fingers on the armrest. Then I shot forward like I had a new idea.
“Death might not scare her, but a price on her head and the idea of disappearing deep into Siberia with God knows who just might.” He ran a finger along his lips as he considered my words. I quickly kept going before I lost him. “I say kill two birds with one stone. I’ll sell her off to Chili, you’ll make your money, and as I take her to him, I’ll give her one last chance to talk. The fear of the unknown can be worse than death. Maybe she’ll give us something after all. Either way, we’ll have the cash.”
“Have you spoken to Chili about this?” Just the way he said it confirmed what I’d thought. My phone really had been bugged.
“No, I just told him that this chick was yours and left it at that.” I held his piercing gaze, and I tossed my phone on the table so he could see for himself. “We got this, Castillo. This’ll work.”
