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Damien straightened his tie and knocked on the frame of the open door. “Hello? Miss Morales? Are you in here?”
“Yes?” Her head popped around the corner.
“I am very sorry to bother you, but I had one more question about something you said.” He stepped forward and gasped. Sky’s nephew lay there in the bed, his face bloody, swollen, and bruised. This was more than a broken nose. This was a brutal beating.
“Who did this?” he growled.
She shook her head, eyes red and puffy with fresh tears. “You should go, Mr. Greystone.”
“Damien,” he corrected sternly. “Who did this?”
She exhaled. “I did it. This is all my fault.”
“You cannot blame yourself for the,” he lowered his voice, “the creature incident. It was unprovoked and—”
“This was retaliation for publishing my article about the sex trafficking. They don’t want me to put out the next one.”
Damien’s mind shifted gears.Theywere not other children, were they?Theywere thugs. “I see.”
“You should go, Damien. You don’t want to get mixed up in this.”
She’s right. Walk away, Damien. Do not ask more questions.
He looked at the groaning boy with black hair, swollen eyes, and stitches in his brow. Then his gaze settled on Sky. He saw the devastation in her eyes.
“Tell me who did this,” he said. “Tell me everything you know.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Damien knew he was heading down a path that might lead back to a dark place. A place where there was no use for his gentlemanly façade. But he could not turn his back on this woman.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true.
Hecouldandshouldturn his back on her—a beautiful woman who might eventually wear him down. So much as one twinge of genuine feelings for her on his part would be disastrous. His curse didn’t care how little or how great his desires or feelings were for others. It killed without bias. She’d be better off on her own.
The problem was that he couldn’t turn his back on herandthe boy. It was not in his DNA. Especially when he suspected there was more going on.
What were the odds that a sex fairy would attack Sky in a mall and a thug would attack her nephew at school? Yes, that was what she’d said. Miguel had been found in the parking lot after basketball practice. Miguel claimed it had been two men in masks driving a black pickup.
The incident didn’t appear to be related to the sex fairy, but he’d learned long ago that multiple random events occurring to the same people were usually not so random. That was why he had Sky walk him through the details of her sex-trafficking investigation.
Two months ago, Sky had received an anonymous tip about foreign women being trafficked in Ohio. Her initial investigation led her near downtown Cleveland to a food distribution warehouse.
That was when she decided to stake out the place. Over the course of several days, she observed twenty to thirty local trucks making pickups or deliveries during normal business hours. Not so unusual for that sort of business.
After closing, however, a refrigerated truck from an exotic salsa company showed up each night around two. The driver loaded up a large crate and left.
It was possibly nothing, but on the other hand, why would a company in San Diego, which used ingredients such as prickly pears, cactus paddles, ant eggs, and agave worms, procure them from Ohio? It didn’t fit. Not when they touted using ingredients from Mexico, including the tomatoes. Said so right on their website:“authentic pre-Hispanic salsas made with ingredients straight from Oaxaca.”
So what was in those crates?
Who knew? Because according to Sky, she’d found no evidence of enslaved women in that warehouse after shemayhave broken inside andmayhave looked around.
Ballsy, Damien thought. He liked ballsy women.No. Wait.He hated them. Ballsy women bad.
Anyway, long story short, Sky had wanted to stop the investigation at that point, thinking she had been given bad info, but something kept nagging at her about that salsa truck. So she got in her car, drove three days to San Diego, and staked out that salsa company, which was owned by two brothers, Tom and Jerry Brown. Yes, like the cat and mouse. And yes, their company was actually named Brown Mexican Salsa. Not very smart or appetizing sounding, which was probably why they were engaging in illegal activities to supplement their income.
Sky never did find out what was in those crates, but she discovered the Browns were definitely trafficking women, along with all sorts of exotic endangered animals, rhino tusks, and pretty much anything illegal.
