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He kissed her then, soft at first, but rapidly, he took more and more of her until he pressed her against the couch. He wanted to devour her. It wasn’t enough, her tongue touching his. Her breasts pressed up against his chest. He wanted all of her.
When he broke the kiss, he groaned.
“Soon.” He promised himself, though he kept his eye contact with her. “I’m going to fuck you so hard. Soon.” He pressed one more kiss to her lips, then moved to his feet.
When he rounded Garrick’s desk, Garrick was already sitting with a glass of whiskey, the laptop fired up, and the flash drive was sticking out the side. Bastian poured a glass and leaned against the bookcase behind Garrick’s desk.
“No password?” Bastian asked as the drive opened on the screen.
“If he intended it just for Ursa, maybe he didn’t think it needed one.”
Two file folders were inside the drive: Catalog and Delivery.
Garrick moved the mouse to hover over the catalogue folder, moving slightly to the side to look at Ariella.
“She’s fine.” Bastian put his glass back on the desk. Ariella sat curled up on the couch, her feet tucked beneath her as she leaned her head on the cushioned arm. “Let her rest.”
Garrick double-clicked the file. Image files, over a hundred of them, popped up. Each image was named with what looked like an identification number. Hovering over the first one, a small preview screen opened.
“Open it,” Bastian leaned over Garrick’s shoulder to get a better look at the screen.
Garrick double-clicked the file, and a picture of a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, spread across the screen. She had dark hair and a pale complexion like she hadn’t seen the sun in a few weeks. The dark circles added to that theory, although someone had tried to cover them up with makeup. Bright red lipstick painted her lips, and she had a forced, tight smile that wasn’t mirrored anywhere else on her expression.
“Were they trying to make her look like Snow White?” Garrick asked, disgust dripping through the words.
“Maybe.” Bastian pointed at the small caption at the bottom of the picture. “Snow. I guess they were. What’s that?” He tapped a small spot on her cheek.
Garrick enlarged the photograph.
“A bruise.” He expanded it further. Definitely a bruise. “That must be the price.” Garrick pointed out a banner beneath her name.
“Fifty grand?” Bastian frowned. “A girl’s life is only worth fifty grand?”
“Some of them are higher.” Garrick closed the image and scrolled further down in the folder.
“Fucking disgusting.” Garrick closed out of the folder and opened the Delivery folder.
Bastian glanced over at Ariella, hoping she wasn’t listening. It looked like she’d fallen asleep, but he knew her too well to fall for that. Her eyelids were fluttering. She was trying to hear everything.
His instinct was to take her upstairs, to hide the horrors they were looking at on this drive, but Garrick was right. She was stronger than Bastian gave her credit for and needed to know what was happening. No matter how involved her father might be, or how hard she might find it to process.
That was their job, to help her understand and to heal whatever hurt she might get in the process.
“These instructions are fucked up.” Garrick scrolled through the document. “It gives specific times and places. If this drive got into the wrong hands, this entire thing would be blown up.”
Bastian read over the instructions.
“The delivery date is in five days.” Bastian pointed out. “And it’s happening here in Kassel.” The industrial transit system moved cargo from one city hub to another without using passenger rails.
“There’s a direct line from Caspian to Kassel. Why would she not have the delivery take place in Caspian?” Garrick’s brows pulled down. “Wait.” He scrolled further down to an itinerary. “Who is Collin Tiryns?”
Bastian leaned closer to the screen, quickly reading over the rest of the information given on the itinerary.
“Fuck.” Bastian wiped his hand across his mouth. “Ariella, come here.”
She opened one eye. Seeing him looking directly at her, she opened the other and swung her legs off the couch.
“Tell us how the exchange went, what exactly happened,” Bastian ordered, folding his arms over his chest.
