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He’s been nothing but kind to me, but Storm Saint James is as intimidating as hell, and just the sound of his name makes me shift in my seat. I believe Emerson when she says that their family has been involved in freeing a lot of women and children from trafficking, but that doesn’t make their leader any less terrifying.
Ace pinches the bridge of his nose at whatever Storm says on the other end of the phone, but he’s trying to keep his cool at whatever he’s being told, I’m assuming for my benefit. “Have you found anything else?”
The rest of the call goes in the same fashion. Storm says something, Ace gives a brief response, usually with a question that gives nothing away, before finally he gives a curt thank you and hangs up.
His grip on the phone is so tight his knuckles turn white, and for a moment I wonder if it’s possible for a human to crush a phone in their bare hands. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Okay…”
“About where you’ve been the last eight years. We need to try to understand why Kyle is going to such lengths to get you back when we know you’re not the only girl that’s escaped.” He rubs his face with both hands. “Everett has found six girls who have escaped in the last twelve months, and as far as we can tell, there’s been no attempt to get them back.”
I suck in a breath and hold the blanket closer to myself. “I don’t know why I would be any different,” I whisper.
“Which is why we need to trace back since you met him to see if we can find any hint as to why he’s willing to put so much into getting you back.”
Bile rises in my throat. I’ve spent a lot of time mastering the art of shoving the horrors into a tiny box in the back of my mind. The thought of opening that box, of unleashing those memories, makes me want to throw up, even if there’s nothing in my stomach to expel.
“I hate that I have to ask this of you, Mia. I can’t fucking stand the idea of making you relive any of it, but it’s the only way to keep you safe, and right now that’s my main priority.” He turns to me, his eyes pleading with me to understand. And I do. I get it. But once I tell him everything he wants to know, he’ll never look at me the way he did that sixteen-year-old version of me, the one whose first kiss he stole. I’ll always be the broken woman he didn’t save from a lifetime of terror.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ACE
I’ve spent years loathing my own existence for ever letting Mia be taken, but right now is the lowest point I think I could possibly hit.
She’s not ready for this.
I’m not sure she ever will be, and yet here I am asking her to divulge all the things she would rather forget, like the fucking asshole I am.
While Storm was telling me about all the dead ends they’ve hit, I was trying to work out how to broach this with Mia. How I was going to ask her to reveal her darkest moments to me, and I considered asking Emerson to come speak to her. She’s better placed than I am, has more experience with trauma survivors than I do, but I realized that was more to protect myself than it was Mia.
I need to hear this because I need to be forced to deal with the fact I let her down, and no matter which way you look at it, everything that happened to her was my fault.
She takes a steadying breath and nods. She pulls the blanket tighter and stares out at the cityscape in front of us. “Kyle’s the one who organizes buyers. He vets them, makes sure they’re not buying women to set them free. He doesn’t care if people buy girls to kill or hunt, just as long as they’re not giving them freedom.” She chokes on a laugh, but there’s no humor in the sound, just sadness.
“How do you know all this?”
“He used to get chatty during training sessions. I guess it didn’t matter what he divulged to us girls because we were never getting away. Our lives were set out for us, and no one would ever care what we had to say, so he had nothing to lose by telling us his secrets.”
I force my body to remain relaxed despite the nausea that rolls through me at the idea of Mia being “trained.” I don’t know what that means, but my imagination is more than enough to make me homicidal. “Is there anything you can think of that he may have told you but not the other girls?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. We weren’t really allowed to talk to one another though. Our job was to stay quiet and do as we were told, and part of our training was to learn our place. We were there to serve, not to speak. Anytime we weren’t serving, we were to be in silence waiting for our next chance to serve.” Her voice is so robotic, like she’s reading straight from a script, and it’s clear she heard that bullshit enough for it to be embedded in her mind.
I tighten my fists until my knuckles ache, but it’s not enough. It’s taking every ounce of control not to lose my shit right now, not to tear this whole fucking penthouse apart with the rage bubbling in my chest, but I remain in place, waiting for whatever else is going to come out of Mia’s mouth that will throw fuel on the fire.
A soft sob fills my ears, and when I look over at Mia, she’s wiping her cheeks.
“If this is too much we can stop.” We can’t. I need this information, but I won’t push her, I refuse to subject her to any more pain than she’s already been through. We can find another way. It’s not worth dragging all of this to the surface if all it brings her is pain.
She shakes her head and brings her deep blue eyes up to meet mine. There will never be a day, in this life or the next, where I don’t lose myself every time I look into the unreal pools. “I’m okay.” She sucks in a breath before continuing. “He didn’t train me like most of the girls because I was a virgin. He knew he would get more for me if I was intact, but that didn’t make the things he did to me any less horrific. Toward the end, I started to wonder if he was going to sacrifice the whole thing and take a lesser amount for me.”
“Did you ever…” I pause, not wanting to ask the question as soon as the beginning falls from my lips, but this is important. “Did you ever see Kyle again after you left The Factory?”
“A few times, but he never had the chance to make up for lost time if that’s what you’re asking.”
I nod and brush my fingers over the stubble on my chin. I wonder if that’s it. The one who got away? “Did he spend more time with you than the other girls? Give you any kind of special treatment?”
She thinks on that for a moment, and I take the time to calm myself, to focus on anything other than the conversation I’m having with the only woman I’ve ever loved about how she was sold into sex trafficking. “Yeah. He spent a lot more time with me than the others. I don’t think I noticed it or, I guess, thought much of it because I assumed it was because I was inexperienced. But…he used to have a nickname for me.” Her brows tug together as she tries to think back. “I can’t remember what it was. But when I saw him interacting with other girls, I never heard anything like it. He also didn’t beat me like he did the others. When I broke the rules or didn’t please him the way I was taught, my punishments were different.”
