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“You’re needed in the conference room.” He noted Julia’s face turning beetroot red. Definitely guilt. Interesting.
“There isn’t a meeting scheduled.” Rachel stood tall in her spiked heels and tailored suit. She folded her arms and tapped her red talons on the grey sleeve of her jacket.
He wasn’t intimidated. “Scheduled or not, there’s still a meeting. Hop to it, ladies.” He flung the door wide and gestured for them to leave.
Elle gave him a sunny smile, Rachel tried to incinerate his head with her glare, Julia couldn’t look at him and Megan frowned.
“You’re up to something,” she said as she came level with him.
“Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing about you.”
She gave him a cute little growl and stomped after the rest of them. Dimitri cast his eyes around the empty office. There was no time to search the place, but his sixth sense, honed from years with the US army rangers, was screaming at him that there was trouble ahead. He hoped to hell it wasn’t the sort of trouble that got them all killed.
“Bloody meetings,” Megan grumbled as they filed into the conference room. “All we do is hold meetings. I’m seriously over being a mercenary. It’s boring.”
“Amen, sister,” Elle said as she plopped down into a chair.
“Can we hurry this along?” Rachel’s icy voice demanded. “We have things to do.”
“All in good time,” Joe told her. “We have a little PowerPoint presentation for you. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Joe?” Julia’s voice trembled and Megan willed her not to give the game away. “I wasn’t told about a meeting. I don’t have anything on file for this presentation.”
“I’m running the media today, Julia.” Joe’s voice was firm. A tone he never, ever used with Julia. It set off alarm bells. “You sit down and pay attention.”
Julia ducked her head and grabbed a seat, far from Joe and close to the wall. Megan watched Joe as he in turn studied Julia. Something was definitely up. When she saw the guys share a speaking look her stomach flipped. They were on to them. She was sure of it. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent a text to Rachel and Elle. Not to Julia, the woman didn’t have anything even resembling a poker face.
The text said: They’re suspicious. Do NOT leave Julia alone with them!!!
She didn’t have to add anything else. They all knew who would cave under pressure. She caught a subtle nod from each of the women.
The lights went out and Joe’s baritone filled the room. “We thought, seeing as the op is less than twenty four hours away, that it would do us all good to have a reminder of what we’re dealing with.”
A photo flashed on the screen. It showed a beaming blonde woman in her graduation gown. “This is Becky Marshall. She graduated from Florida U with a degree in childhood education. She went missing while she was backpacking through Eastern Europe with her cousin. She turned up three months later when German authorities raided an illegal brothel on their eastern border. This is what she looked like when they found her.”
Another photo appeared on the screen and Megan felt the blood drain from her face. Julia gasped. Elle swore. The woman on the screen was a shadow of the beaming blonde. She was naked, bloody, broken and bruised. Someone had cut words into her stomach. Her eyes were glassy.
“She was alive.” Joe’s tone was deadly. “If you can believe it. She was drugged out of her mind and the hospital didn’t think she’d had a decent meal in weeks. She’d been raped repeatedly. Beaten. Cut.”
Megan heard a soft sob coming from Julia and her fists clenched. “What’s the point of this, Joe?”
Joe carried on as if she hadn’t said a word. “The brothel was owned by Rudi Abramovich. The only reason we know this is because the authorities were lucky during the raid and managed to detain someone high up in the organisation.” The screen flashed to show a man hanging in a cell. “He killed himself after mentioning Rudi’s name. There wasn’t enough evidence to pin it to Rudi after that. Charges were never laid. But then, you need to catch the bastard in the right country to charge him with anything.”
The photo changed again. This one was taken in a hospital. The woman was sitting on a gurney. Her face wasn’t in the photo. Her torso was covered in bruises, some old, some new. There were small circular scars on her breasts. “Those marks are cigar burns. Rudi thought it was a good punishment for his wife after she didn’t smile at his associates during dinner.”
“That’s Hope?” Elle whispered.
“Yeah.” Joe sounded tight, like he was about to roar. “That’s Hope. Those photos were taken in the hospital after we got her out of Romania.”
Julia’s sobs became more strangled. Megan stood up and blocked the projection with her body. “Enough, Joe. What’s this all about?”
The lights came on, making everyone blink hard for a few seconds. When their vision adjusted it was to see Dimitri and Joe standing shoulder to shoulder, arms folded, staring at them.
“This is about making sure you realise what’s at stake here,” Joe said. “We know you’re scheming something. Whatever it is, you’d better think again. We can’t take any risks. This man,” he spat the word, “gets off on hurting women. He doesn’t see them as people, they’re possessions, objects to do what he wants with. He tortures, rapes, kills. He’s done it personally and he sanctions it when the people who work for him do it.” He took a step towards Megan. “This isn’t a game. Nobody’s playing here. This is dangerous. You, especially, are in danger.”
“Don’t you think we know that?” Megan snapped at him. “We read the report just like you did. We saw the photos. Heard the taped testimonies of women who survived. Don’t you think it would have more of an impact on us than it did on you? Look around you, Joe. We are women. We know the fear of being hurt. Of being raped. Of being taken. It’s a fear you can’t understand because you don’t live with it every single bloody day.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation as she turned her back on him.
