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When I arrive at the loading dock, it’s a mess of a brewing storm, time-weathered men, and all the comforts of an abandoned meatpacking plant. I knew it was going to be challenging, and I’ve worked difficult jobs before, but the contrast between here and the house is planets apart. For my own sake, I hope Mika comes to her senses soon.
The first ship of the day comes in, and none of the men who are working the docks with me will tell me what exactly is on it. I imagine that it’s something high-profile, like an addictive research chemical from China. Maybe it’s a shipment of military weapons that has been traded under the table by the US government.
Either way, everyone keeps their mouths shut when the boat comes into the port.
When the shipping containers start to get unloaded, I notice that one of them has a bright green X spray painted on the bottom. Even in the time that I’d worked in processing the product, it never came with a mark like that.
“That’s ours, keep an eye on that one. It gets easy to get lost when they all look the same,” says a man with a glass eye and a packet of chewing tobacco in his lip.
The container is lowered, and we immediately begin to walk towards it to unload the top-secret contraband.
When the doors open, I can see why nobody wanted to talk about this shipment.
There are women inside, all of them deathly malnourished and shaking with fear. I can’t see how many there are yet, but most of them don’t have the strength to stand up. They’re slumped along the walls of the container, some of them lying totally flat towards the back.
The ones who are strong enough to stand are trembling, and the rest of them stare off into the hazy fog with a glare over their eyes from the lack of food and sleep. Their clothes are torn, and most of them are so thin that even a clingy t-shirt hangs from their bones.
The man in charge of the port shouts at them in Russian, and their eyes snap open in fear as the rest of the men begin to escort them out of the container.
I was told before I got here that we should expect to move the product quickly out of the containers to avoid suspicion, but I had thought that would be obvious. For some reason, Remi is extra protective of this particular shipment.
The women are all brought into a warehouse, half of which has been destroyed by a fire and never got repaired. When the storm starts, rain pours through the holes in the ceiling. If the women are supposed to be staying here, we’re going to have problems.
“Hey, I knew Remi brought people over from all over Europe, but I thought it was for immigration,” I say to the man leading the operation.
“Yeah, usually he can charge each family around ten-thousand US dollars to smuggle them into the country. This time, though, he bought these women to give to the Albanians.”
It’s the fucking Albanians again.
I knew that Remi was a man of questionable ethics the day I met him. How couldn’t I? But at this point, I can see that the weight of money and power has taken over his entire sense of being. He is nothing more than a vessel for others to work through, so long as he gets his cut in the end.
I would have never, ever joined the Bratva if I knew I would end up doing this.
As I glance over at the women huddled in the corner for warmth, I feel myself growing sick with guilt. I can kill a man, rob a trap house and steal a car all in one day and sleep perfectly fine at night. But forcing these women to serve the Albanians just so that Remi can keep sucking their dicks is too much.
What’s worse is that these girls’ families probably believed that they were going to have a new life in America. If all the others had to pay, why wouldn’t these girls? They were sold the dream of the free world, and now they will be more imprisoned than ever.
Just when I think that my conscience can’t be any more strained, I picture Mika amongst the group of shivering, terrified girls who have no idea where they’re about to be sent. I picture her huddled up against the wall, trying to hold back her tears the way she always does before she starts to cry.
I can’t handle the mental image of her being tormented by Izet. If the Albanians are demanding something so vile in order to keep the peace with Remi, there’s no telling how abusive they’ll be when they get their hands on their victims.
After a few hours of waiting around for our next set of orders, we’re informed that we need to move the women to a different holding area. The place Remi names is closer to where he and the Albanians do business, which makes me want to throw up. This exchange is going to happen fast, and there’s nothing I can do to help any of these girls.
I can’t save them, I can’t save Mika, and at this point, I can’t save myself either.
A refrigerated truck is driven to the warehouse to pick up the women, and they all begin crying as soon as they step foot inside.
“Why the hell is the truck refrigerated? They’re going to die in there,” I say to the leader, trying to scratch at whatever shreds of empathy he has left.
He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offering me one before he lights his. “It’s a lot more conspicuous. Cops and border patrol want to look through semis all the time because the Cartel fucked it up for themselves by getting too cocky. Now we have to resort to things like this. They’ll be fine. The drive is only twenty minutes from here.”
I’m still deeply dissatisfied with his answer, but I’m less inclined to try something regrettable now that I know that they won’t be in there long. Even settling for that feels like a betrayal to these women, but I was so caught off guard by this whole situation that I didn’t have any time to act. Had I known, I could have come up with a different way to transport them.
Yet here I am, powerless to change a single goddamn thing once again.
Most of the women speak Russian, and I can hear some of them talking amongst themselves as they try to gather information. Only one of them speaks English, and it’s too fragmented to be conversational. She’s hearing a word here and there, but without context, she can’t figure out what’s going on.
I’m tempted to go speak to the women, to tell them in their own language what’s going to happen, but I’m already on thin ice with Remi. If he knew I was speaking with his illegal women, I don’t even want to think about what kind of creative punishment I would receive.
