Page 59 of Pink

THIRTEEN

THE NEXT time Lev saw Gigi’s face after she left his apartment in those early hours of a morning five and a half years earlier? He’d been trailing Andino down Fifth Avenue on a sunny afternoon, and there she was on his left …

Plastered across a glossy magazine, the freckles splattered across the bridge of her nose and under her wide eyes drawing the gazer’s eye to the unique rawness of her natural beauty. Other than black mascara on her lashes, the rest of her face was bare of makeup and in grayscale, she stared outward from the page at the passersby on the street.

At him.

He didn’t remember what the headline of that magazine was, and he hadn’t even bought it to read the article or see why she had been put on the cover. Shit, he hadn’t even managed to look at it for more than ten seconds before he had to continue following Andino that day to make sure the man stayed safe in his stomping grounds.

Not that it made a difference.

It wouldn’t be the last time Lev got a glimpse of Gigi’s modeling career from a distance. He didn’t really follow her in the sense that he sought information out about what she was doing, but occasionally something would drop into his lap to fill in the pieces.

The chance of a lifetime had been handed to her, and the girl took it. Lev had known that day in the bar her face was made to be revered by as many people as possible and had settled himself with the fact that he’d been lucky enough to meet Gigi Parker before the rest of the world knew her as Gigi Rey.

He didn’t, however, expect to find Gigi sitting at the business lunch between two men who were currently discussing trafficking women into New York for the baseball games that drew in hundreds of thousands of people every season.

Trafficking.

Yep.

Lev managed to move his seat from one side of the table after Gigi’s arrival so that his back no longer faced the men behind the semi-private partition wall. He’d been satisfied before to listen to their conversation through a speaker in his ear and the amplification device he’d stuck on the table that simply looked like a small fidget toy. That changed when the circumstances of Gigi’s presence became apparent.

Nobody noticed he moved, though.

Lev could see them all now.

Including her. She used her hair, a shoulder-length blonde body wave that flowed around her face down to the faded pink at the tips, as a shield between herself and the men at the table. Tipping her head down or to the side was just enough to offer her gaze privacy as she typed on a phone.

It appeared that Marco, from Cali, and his private jetliner corporation, would be of great benefit to Jensen Todrey’s plans to have a thousand working girls available and on-call for the next baseball season. And there would be a girl for every taste; young or old, rich or poor.

“Look what I provided for viewing today,” Jensen explained, his words carefully chosen to not draw the attention of the woman at the table that he was discussing her. “Everyone has a price. If it is here, they will come. We’re looking at an easy half a billion for the season if it’s run well. And you can help with some of the … travel aspects.”

“And the …” Marco glanced Gigi’s way, his tone dropping lower when he asked, “What about the product?”

“Handled. We’re just tying up loose ends which is why you’re here. I was told you’ve done this before … on a smaller scale, correct?”

“I have, but it’s a delicate endeavor.”

Yeah, Lev fucking bet.

He filed away the information that Andino’s business partner had been working with human traffickers before this meeting. The circumstances of those deals and business wouldn’t matter much to his boss except for the fact that it was going on at all. He could make his choices about what to do with the man from there.

All the while, Gigi sat sipping wine and scrolling through her phone, oblivious to the fact she could be one of those girls. Lev figured that out fast enough, and he blamed her ignorance on the fact she just wasn’t listening. Because it seemed like between her distraction at having seen him and not wanting to be there at all, she just zoned out.

He hadn’t.

The warning bells were ringing.

Way too damn loud.

Fucking … trafficking. Skin trafficking.

That was what Andino hadn’t wanted to say. The thing he wanted Lev to confirm for him about his business partner in Cali and the mysterious man he’d be meeting with during his recent stay in New York. Turns out, the fucker wasn’t very mysterious at all once Lev laid eyes on the prick. Anybody with any knowledge of the highly successful New York Major League Baseball team, the Revvers, knew their disgustingly rich owner that made a game out of showing off his wealth every season that people flooded the city to watch the games.

He had a hand in the pocket of all the right people.

The mayor.