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“Exactly.” Broderick straightens. “That is exactly what I need. The vulnerable are the most easily shaped.”
“There has to be another way.” He’s already sent stock…who was it? Who did he grab, and what is going to happen to them?
Nothing good. Nothing but their worst nightmares come to life because they will be slaves. To the system, to a master, and they will have to pay the same way I did. For no other reason than they wanted to escape. Their reasons for being on the street don’t matter. All that matters is they’re nothing but cattle now for Broderick to round up and export to a place of his choosing.
“You’ll come around to my point of view. I’m sure of it.” He taps me underneath the chin and forces me to look at him. “Trust me, Aria. It’s for the best.”
I want to rage at him. The best? He thinksthisis for the best?
I’m a gutted fish, my mouth still opening and closing, but no sound escaping from it. I want to erupt. The tears are close and scorch the back of my eyes, but Broderick is the one talking to me. He strokes the side of my face once before slapping at me, a quick tap to remind me who the boss is here.
“Now, unless you want to go and make yourself useful, Aria, I’ve got to get ready to leave town. I’m going to New York for a few days, and while I’m gone, you’ll answer to Antoni.”
“I know more about this business than Antoni,” I mutter, still numb. Still reeling.
“That may be true, but you have to sort through the folder I’ve left on your desk. It details much of the new operation, and I hope I can count on you to iron out the details of this expansion.” He’s back to looking at himself in the mirror and grabs a suit jacket from a velvet hanger. “You’re dismissed.”
This is worse, I think to myself, so much worse than having him choke me the other day. So much worse than anything I’ve had to do to make it ahead in his life.
I blink back tears only to have some of them creep out of the sides of my eyes anyway. Luckily, I'm on my way out the door before Broderick looks at me again.
No, he won’t look at me.
He’s got what he’s wanted, and he knows I’ll be on the case like I am with everything else he’s thrown my way.
Blake doesn’t even get up when I plod back into our office.
Broderick wants to take the Black Market Syndicate in a completely different direction, and for what? To clean up the streets?
There is nothing altruistic about this path. Nothing good about it because he knows this is where I came from. He knows it’s wrong to treat vulnerable men and women like they’re nothing.
How hard did I have to work to realize I had value? And worth? How hard do I still struggle with those things where every day is just a rinse and repeat of me looking in the mirror, trying to see why I deserve anything in my life.
I drop down on the desk like a stone and feel the weight of this new emotional anchor around my neck, dragging me into the pits of hell alongside the man I love.
My mentor, my lover.
The rest of the day passes in a blur, and when I fall asleep that night, I see him again.
I see the scene that’s replayed in my head since it happened.
The streets are mean even when you know how to navigate them, and there are people out there who will cut you open for a warm place to hide as soon as they walk by you. The alleys are only traps unless you’re savvy, and I always considered myself savvy since running away at twelve.
By fourteen, I knew what to do. Mostly.
But in the dreams, I’m starving again. I feel every one of my ribs, and my cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass. Cold, shivering, bleary-eyed, and terrified I won’t wake up in the morning to see my next sunrise.
The group of kids I’d traveled with have all dispersed, some of them to homeless shelters and others six feet under, but both places seem equally unreachable.
And there is Broderick, stepping out of a discrete black SUV wearing a pressed suit and a sky blue tie that brings out the kindness of his eyes. He holds out his hand to me and offers me a way to get out of this life.
Except this time, he’s got a rope in the other hand.
In my dream, he throws the rope over my head and pulls it tight so that the strands choke me, cutting off my air supply. He drags me into the back of the SUV and throws me in the trunk with the rest of the kids I used to know, assuring us with each passing mile that it’s better this way.
This time…he’s just like the rest of the men out there instead of my avenging angel.
I wake up covered in sweat with my stomach gnawing a hole through me, and the room weirdly chilled. To the point where I imagine seeing my breath puffing out of my lips in white gusts.
