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Ewan shrugged a little. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Far as I can tell, this place slipped their mind.”
Lotte’s eyebrows turned inward. “You’re kidding me?”
“You’re only eight girls,” he said softly. “As fucked as it is, that’s not many, and the war’s getting hot. I think the Don forgot he needed a replacement to take over in here.”
“All thanks to you,” Lotte said, but didn’t sound angry about it. “So what the hell should I do?”
“Whatever you want,” he said with a shrug. “Get out of here. Keep working the place and turn it legit. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. But I wanted to come warn you.”
“And the girl?” Lotte looked at me, then took my hands in her own. They were soft and surprisingly gentle.
“She needed to know,” he said, sounding sad. “And I figured this would be the easiest way.”
“Well, fuck,” Lotte said, and tilted her head toward me, looking into my eyes. “Sounds like I got lucky, huh?”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call luck.” I felt sick, but I clutched her fingers tighter.
She laughed and shook her head. Her eyes sparkled, and I wondered what she would’ve been like if she hadn’t ended up in this place. Instead, she was worn down by time, her body used again and again for cash.
“It’s not so bad. Ewan killed the last owner because he got a little too violent, but the one before him was kind of nice.” She shrugged a little bit. “But it sounds like we have some options now.”
“My father,” I said suddenly. “Did he come here? Did he ever come in here?”
She shook her head sadly. “Sorry, honey, but no. I only ever met Jermaine one time, when I got off that cargo ship, sick and dizzy and out of my mind. He gave me a shot that cleared all the pain away, patted me on the ass, and told me good luck. Never saw him again, but all the girls say he did that for him. Shot in the arm, pat on the ass, good luck. He was one of those guys.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but I felt sick again. Ewan came over and gently helped Lotte up to her feet. She adjusted her robe.
“Go tell the other girls,” he said softly. “Figure out what you want to do. I don’t plan on telling the Don he forgot about this little shithole, so you have some time, if you want to stick around and make more money.”
“We’ll see what we want to do,” Lotte said, then put her hand on Ewan’s arm. “Thank you. I know what kind of man you are.”
His face was hard and he looked away, down toward me. I met his eyes, and I knew what kind of man he was too, although I didn’t think I agreed with Lotte, based on her tone.
“Good luck,” he said, and pulled away from her, then reached out to me. I let him help me up, and he hustled me to the door. I glanced back and caught Lotte hugging her robe closed as Irina came out from the back, frowning a little bit.
The door swung shut. Ewan held my arm as we walked back to his car. I stopped before I got in and puked on the pavement, the coffee finally coming up. It burned my throat and made my head spin. I saw spots at the edge of my vision before I got in and sat back, gasping for air.
We didn’t pull out right away. Ewan watched me carefully, and I wanted to scream at him, to scream in his face. My father trafficked women and I just met some of them. My father brought them over, stole them from their lives with promises, with money, with whatever, then got them hooked on drugs. My father, my sick father, my dead father.
I hated him and hated myself for not seeing it sooner.
“You did good in there,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, and laughed once, disgusted with myself. Coffee puke still tingled my tongue and throat. “What’s going to happen to them?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not normal for the Don to forget about a cat house like that. I took care of their problem boss three weeks ago, and normally a few soldiers would be in charge of that place the next day, but here we are.”
“Can they escape?” I asked, desperate to know that at least some of the girls my father ruined could have some semblance of a normal life.
“I hope so,” he said, and started the car engine. “We’ll see.”
“Why are you helping them?” I asked suddenly.
He stared straight ahead and hesitated. “Because I hate men like your father,” he said. “And I hate men like Larry, and the guy I killed that used to run that place, and all the others I sent to their graves. I hate them, and I hate that I work for a family that hires them and profits off them.”
