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"You can’t take that," he warned me. I clenched my teeth. Fine, I could just buy more with the money I had in my pocket, anyway. The shit Stefano got for us was no good.
He pulled me out of the room and hustled me towards the door—chaos had exploded around the brothel, girls stumbling out of their rooms, being led towards a large van that was waiting outside the door. The clients were being shepherded to the other side of the building at gunpoint—I didn’t much fancy their chances. But why would these guys, whoever they were, be trying to pick off the clientele, if they wanted to use us for their own devices …?
I didn’t have time to think much more on the matter before I was led to the van, which rushed the dozen or so of us away from the brothel as soon as they could. Marnie, one of the other girls working that day, stared at me, eyes wide, as though I might have the answer to all of this.
"What’s happening?" she asked, and I shook my head.
"I don’t have a fucking clue," I replied. Stefano would never have let us just walk out of there so easily, unless he had reason to think that he was up against real danger. What was going on here? Who were these guys? Were they really trying to help us? I reached into my pocket and gripped the money inside, trying to soothe myself. Regardless of what they were doing, I had managed to get some cash out of it, and that had to count for something, right?
"Why didn’t Stefano try to stop them?" Lily, one of the youngest girls, whispered in confusion, as though we were being listened to as we sat there in the back of the van. Stefano had well and truly brainwashed her, and she was probably terrified being separated from him, even for a little while.
"He wasn’t in today," Marnie shot back. "Whoever these guys are, they must have known that. That’s why they chose today to … to do this."
All of us fell silent as we tried to figure out just what this meant for us. I could already picture what was waiting for us on the other side of this van when it pulled to a stop—another brothel, another pimp, another dingy place they would force us to call home. They knew girls like us didn’t have anyone to fall back on, otherwise we would never have been doing this shit in the first place. My stomach sank into my shoes. At least Stefano was a known enemy. I wasn’t sure what we were going to be facing when we arrived at this next destination …
The van rumbled to a halt, and the door opened again, and, on the other side, much to my surprise, there was a woman waiting for us. She smiled at us kindly, gesturing for us to get out.
"Hey," she greeted us, as though she was our friend. "How are you all doing? You need anything?"
"I need something to drink," Lily piped up quickly before the woman could change her mind. It was a good plan—if they were going to try and lure us into a sense of security, they would play nice, at least for the first few hours.
"Anything you need," she agreed. "Can you step out of the van? You’re safe here, please trust me on that …"
I led the way, feeling responsible as the oldest of the girls here. I stepped out and looked around, and when I realized where we were, my jaw dropped.
We were at a mansion. A damn mansion. This huge place was surrounded by an enormous walled garden, with towers that reached up towards the blue sky above. If this was a brothel, it was a pretty high-class one …
I nodded to the other girls, letting them know it was safe for them to come out, and, slowly, one by one, they followed me, blinking in the glare of the light.
"I’m Morgan," the woman introduced herself, smiling at me and extending her hand. I glanced down at it, not taking it. No fucking way was I going to go trusting some bitch I didn’t know, not after everything I had been through.
"Please, come inside," she told us. "We have food, a change of clothes, and rooms for all of you."
I followed her in, not really seeing any other way out of this. How could I get out of this mess? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to find a way. My head was reeling from the shock of it, wondering what had just happened to bring us here, wondering what the hell their plan was now that they had us in this place. Why had they bothered with something so fancy? Were they looking for a higher-end kind of client? Because we weren’t the girls you got for that …
The other women flooded in ahead of me, but I hung back as I entered the enormous entrance hall. It was lined with portraits along each side of men who looked important—probably men who had used hookers just the same way important men did now. I wrapped my arms around myself, wearing nothing but a flimsy tank top and a pair of shorts, my ancient sneakers were practically falling apart against the polished wood floor below me.
Morgan took the girls through to a kitchen to get them something to eat, and I leaned up against the wall, watching them from afar. I didn’t trust this. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. I knew there were plenty of people out there who liked to play God when it came to whores like us, who liked to think they could get us out of whatever messes we had landed ourselves in, but more often than not, they were just looking for excuses to use us in their own way. If not for sex, then to bolster their egos, make themselves feel like decent people.
"You can go in, you know."
A man’s voice had my head snapping around, my shoulders shrugging up towards my ears. The coke was starting to wear off now, and the harsh edges of reality were seeping in. I didn’t want to have to deal with them, not now, not like this.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I shot back. The man was a few decades older than me, with a crop of dark hair, streaked with gray, that matched his pale gray eyes.
"You’re safe here," he offered me, and there seemed to be some sincerity to his words, though I would be damned if I was going to trust it. I had seen enough guys like him over the years to know all too well how these fuckers would hurt you given the chance—how they would play all nice and sweet and then turn around and abuse you like the rest of them did.
"Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that," I fired back, and I turned away from him. I could feel him looking at me, which pissed me off even more. I didn’t want him to stand around watching me. In front of me, the girls were getting platefuls of what looked to be a delicious dinner, but I didn’t have any appetite. All the stimulants I’d been doing had well and truly kept me from eating, and I had been fine with that. Men seemed to prefer my body smaller, anyway.
He seemed to figure out there was no way to talk to me right now, and he turned and headed back down the corridor, leaving me alone once more to wonder just what was going on here, and just what kind of chance I stood of accepting the help they seemed intent on offering me.
Chapter Two – Paulo
"So, that’s the last of them?" I asked Morgan as Alex, the Caroni family patriarch, slumped down onto the leather couch in front of the fire. Morgan nodded, yawning.
"All of them except one," she replied, nodding back towards the door. "The oldest one, she hasn’t given us a name yet; she's still up in her room. Says she’s not coming out."
"Well, it’s a good start," I replied, and Alex nodded in agreement, reaching his arm across the back of the seat as Morgan curled up next to him.
