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She went crazy in his arms again, cursing him at the top of her voice. Dimitri spotted Rachel, Ryan and Julia appear outside the door. Callum caught his eyes as he held Megan tight.
“Conference room,” Callum said.
“Let me go, you lying son of a bitch. Let me go right now.” Megan tugged at his arms.
She was too mad to think things through. The Megan he’d seen in action in the alley would have had him disabled by now. Callum ordered everyone to the conference room and Dimitri followed, carrying Megan.
Ryan pulled out a chair for Dimitri and he sat in it, holding Megan on his lap, securing her in place with his arms and legs.
“Isn’t that overkill?” Rachel raised an eyebrow at him.
“I value my balls.” And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Megan loose to get at them.
“From what I heard, you value them more than the Donaldson sisters,” Rachel said, making him glare at her.
“Not helping.”
“But truthful.”
“Enough,” Callum barked.
Megan’s eyes were on Callum. He could feel the fury hum throughout her body.
“There are reasons for this decision. Good reasons. And your behaviour right now is exactly why you don’t know about them.” Callum turned to Joe. “Educate her.” He thumped down into a chair.
“Jules,” Joe said. “Put up the photo of Rudi’s top men.”
The lights dimmed and a photo of three men filled the wall behind Callum. It was obvious Rudi hadn’t picked them for their looks.
“As we all know,” Joe said, “Rudi keeps his business close to his chest. There are three guys who work closely with him. They each deal with a different level of the flesh trade. One of them is in charge of shipping women to brothels run by customers who put an order in for new merchandise.”
“Women,” the indoor plant corrected. “Girls. Not merchandise, Joe.”
Joe nodded his agreement at Julia’s gentle reprimand. “The middle guy is in charge of running the in-house escort business. It’s more high-end than the brothels they ship the women off to. The last guy deals with private sales.” His dark eyes looked at each of them in turn. “Personal slaves.”
The impact of those words made Dimitri want to vomit, but he kept his focus on the furious woman in his arms. This was about her. Not about him.
Joe continued, disgust clear on his face. “Rudi deals with special customers personally. By special customers I mean rich guys with a public reputation who don’t want it sullied by anybody finding out about their sick hobbies. I tried to get some names but nobody was talking. All I could find out was that Rudi made a lot of trips to Dubai, Monaco, Indonesia and the US. Apart from his special customers, he’s hands-on with all areas of his business. Nothing happens that he doesn’t know about.”
He looked at Megan as he pointed to the screen. “These guys are the reason you can’t take Rudi out of the equation on Friday. If we chop of the head of the organisation, another will rise to take its place. They’ll just start over, building on the contacts they already have and continuing the work Rudi started. If we want to stop future women being sold, raped and tortured, we need to take down the whole organisation in one fell swoop. Not only that, if we don’t hit it all at once, we risk a chance that parts of the organisation will scatter and we’ll lose the women who need to
be saved.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. “That’s why we need to wait for the police to do their thing. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but this is way bigger than eliminating the threat to Claire. It’s about finding Katrina and ripping apart the whole damn operation. And that can’t happen until all the appropriate players are in place, in all the different countries Rudi’s organisation touches.”
There was a moment’s silence before the image disappeared and the lights went back on.
Callum’s dark gaze pinned Megan. “It isn’t just about your sister. It’s about all those other women who are trapped in hell right now. It’s about stopping it from happening again. This organisation has connections in too many countries to take it out in a piecemeal fashion. We need to hit the whole thing in one go and we need to hit it hard. That’s why we have to wait before Rudi is arrested, we can’t risk them running to ground. We can’t risk the lives of all those women.”
“And what about Claire?” Megan’s voice was husky, strained from shouting. She seemed calmer, but Dimitri didn’t dare loosen his hold. If there were two things he knew about Megan it was that she was unpredictable and volatile.
“We’ll protect Claire until this is over,” Joe said.
“But you can’t guarantee her safety, or the safety of her baby.” It wasn’t a question. Megan knew as well as anyone in the room that there were no guarantees.
“There may be another option.” A hesitant voice came from the plant. “I-I’m sorry, but there’s a story in Rudi’s file. Two, in fact. Twice he was targeted personally and both times he backed off.”
Joe grinned proudly at the plant, making Dimitri wonder all over again just what the hell was going on between those two.
The men started to shake their heads but Rachel spoke up. “The bully principle. Hit him harder. Make sure he stays down. It could work.”
