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Minutes went by agonisingly slowly as I tried to guess the code to the safe, but nothing worked. I groaned and thumped my fist against it in anger. There had to be something! It was my last chance. Between my brothers and Harold, time was running out.
It was then I heard voices coming from the corridor outside the office. Benny’s voice. He was speaking unnaturally loudly in what I could only assume was a warning.
Fuck.
I shimmied under the desk, tucking myself as far back as possible against the solid backboard, and prayed it was anyone but Harold.
No such luck.
The door slammed behind him as his voice carried toward me. ‘In an hour? Yes, I’ll be there.’
I heard him searching the drawer and grabbing some paper or a notepad, the scratch of the pen right above me. Not daring to breathe, I waited, every fibre of my being itching to run, to escape.
‘Yup, I’ve got the address. And you say they’re young?’ Harold chuckled darkly at the reply from the other end of the call. ‘If the girl’s fifteen, she should do well. The buyers are clamouring for teens, not nearly as used up as the meth heads.’
My nails dug into the flesh of my hands as I listened to the call. Harold was a piece of fucking shit and I was going to take him down if I had to kill the fucker myself. I froze as his legs came into view, sure that he could hear the hammering of my pulse over the short distance between us.
He reached down and scratched his balls in front of me, his hand only inches from my face before I screwed my eyes shut, so sure that he would find me and kill or capture me. I’d never see Cam again.
My muscles ached when he left, slamming the door shut behind him. I waited a few moments before peering out from my hiding spot. How could I follow him?
I stood up and looked at the yellow pad, laying where he’d left it. An idea struck and hope surged through me. Please, please let it work.
The desk drawers were neatly packed, and I found a pencil quickly, turning it onto its side and lightly dragging it across the empty notepaper.
‘Yes!’ I said as letters appeared. An address! An industrial estate on the other side of town. Perfect.
The door swung open with force, and I screamed, thrusting the paper into my back pocket.
‘Maeve, what the fuck are you doing in here?’ Cam said, his eyes narrowing at me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
CAMERON
I’d gone to help Katie grab her things, but instead of going to Benny to get the car, Maeve was in my father’s office. It was the last place I’d expected her to be, but I’d looked just about everywhere else. I only dared to check the office because my father had left the mansion in a hurry.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Anger rippled through me at her guilty expression. I thought we were trying to figure out a way to be together, but she was still sneaking about, trying to find dirt on us. ‘Do you have a fucking death wish? If he’d have caught you...’
Maeve visibly bristled, pulling herself up straighter under my glare.
‘I heard him on the phone. He’s trafficking.’
The room spun around me at her words. My dad was shit, but he would never...
‘Trafficking kids too,’ she swallowed hard as I steadied myself with a quaking breath.
‘He isn’t. Even he wouldn’t.’ I refused to believe it. My father was a moral degenerate, but there was no quarter given to people dealing in the skin trade, no matter who you were. We had enough money and power that the risk wouldn’t be worth it for him.
‘You don’t believe me?’ her voice accusatory as she crossed the room toward me. ‘Your father is a piece of shit. How does it even surprise you that he would be involved?’
‘What proof do you have?’ My mind whirred, judging every conversation, every business action I’d ever had with my father. There wasn’t even a whisper of evidence of it. It couldn’t be true.
‘I heard him on the phone. I have an address he wrote down.’
‘An address? What the hell does that prove?’ My voice pitched louder that I meant it to and I cringed when Maeve shrank away from me, her eyes widening.
‘I’m going to go find proof.’ Her face steeled as she moved toward the door. ‘Maybe then you’ll get the stick out of your ass and believe me.’
