Page 31 of Fallen Hero

Pete’s jaw clenched. “How much?”

“One shot, eighty. Full service, two hundred.”

There was commotion on the other end of the line, people talking, the sound of traffic, music.

The asshole was walking down the street conducting business like he wasn’t selling the services of girls he’d forced into sexual slavery.

Visions of stabbing him in the throat danced through my head.

“Where?”

“You know Meena Bazaar?”

“Yes.”

“Beside Atheryat on Al Fahidi. Will you come?”

Christ, I wanted to bury this asshat.

And by the disgusted lip curl Calista had going on, she seemed to be in agreement.

“What kind of girls?”

“Pakistani, Indian, Russian, Thai. You take your pick. You get good service.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good, brother.”

With that, Sparkle the pimp hung up.

“That easy?” Calista asked with a frown.

“That easy,” Pete confirmed.

Nauseatingly easy. Hundreds of men would call that number every day. Some would show to pick a girl, some would call another number, find a better price, and head to whatever location that pimp controlled. That easy. Every day. Hundreds of times a day. Three sixty-five. And when one pimp was taken out, another would be put in his place, but the girls would never leave the streets.

“The Atheryat building houses retail shops and a restaurant,” Fallon announced, looking down at his tablet. “Corner of Seventy-Fourth and Al Fahidi. There’s an alley on the east side of the building. Multiple entrances to the building next door. Bottom floor is a perfume shop and shoe store. Top floors are apartments.”

“Other entrances to access the apartments?” I asked, pissed at myself I’d left my tablet in my room.

“One on the east side on Seventy-Fourth Street. None on the backside. But there are businesses back there. It’s not an alley or a street. A car or motorcycle could pull in, but it’s a dead end, approximately two hundred meters, and connects back to Sparkle’s alley.”

Pete was staring with narrowed eyes—his normal thinking face—at the dark screen of his phone. Calista sat silently beside him with her gaze fixed on her red sneakers. A desperate need to know what she was thinking churned in my gut. A curiosity that would only lead to trouble, yet I couldn’t stop the question from spilling out of my mouth.

“What’s on your mind?”

“The girls.”

That was the generic answer; we were all thinking about the girls. That’s why we did the work we did. Long after we left this world, the war would continue, yet we willingly marked our souls for the ones we could save. What seemed like small victories were in reality monumental to each woman, man, and child we pulled from the bowels of hell.

“What else?” I pushed.

Calista abandoned the study of her shoes and lifted her gaze.

“I’m wondering if it will ever stop coming as a surprise. My sister was taken . . . not like these women, by someone she knew. He took her, gave her away, and she was sold, then passed around. I’ve lived this for so long, yet I’m still shocked. Right out in the open. Business cards passed out with phone numbers to call. It’s easier to order a woman than it is real bacon and a martini.”

She wasn’t wrong.