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He backed off and Jagg’s hand dropped. The men were near, but not interfering. The three of them gave her space, or maybe it was Ludlow they wanted to put at ease.
“Heather Lantry.” One step. “Michelle Cadlow.” Another step. “Stephanie Weet.” She stopped by the couch. “Anna Emin.” The guy wouldn’t even meet her eye. “Yvonne Ingham.”
“I don’t know nothing,” he said and tried to stand up.
That was her father’s queue to barge over and shove him down again. “You want me to let my boys at you?” he growled. “I got no problem with a little mess.”
His boys. Her brother’s glare was dark, precise, tough enough that even she questioned her safety.
And Jagg… glancing back at him didn’t take his focus from the man under his scrutiny. The bad boy mothers warned their daughters about. Wow. That edge. The sharp shadow across his soul stretched out to shield her.
Keeping a smile from her lips was difficult. Ludlow didn’t need to see that. What he needed to see was a sure woman, one completely safe and protected with her trio of soldiers.
“How many were there?” she asked, keeping her voice cool and level. “How long has it been going on?”
“Miss, I am… I know nothing, you know? The Director will kill me. Whatever I say, I’m fucked—”
“So what harm is there talking to us?” she asked. “I want to know—”
“All I did was drive,” he said, smacking the arms of the chair. “I was a fucking driver. They told me where to go, who to pick up—”
“And you never thought to question why you were picking them up?”
“He knew,” her father said.
“Yeah, I think he did. Because those women started showing up. Those same women you picked up, they ended up dead wearing the Manzani mark.”
“They mark every woman who earns for them.”
“Willing or not,” her father muttered.
“They were drugged. They got in the car, doors locked, they couldn’t get out, even if they wanted to.” Was that a point of pride or regret? “Once you’re in it, you’re in. Nothing any of us can do ‘cept what we’re told.”
“Where did you take them?”
“The hotel, you know, the Carlyle. That’s where it all happened.”
Words were so easy to say, but the terror those women must’ve endured. “Did they fight? Scream? Beg for freedom?”
“No, no way, they… I got this mask I put on, had it round my neck, you know, where they couldn’t see.”
“A mask?”
“I flipped a switch, I don’t know what gas it was, but those—they… they were out, you know?”
Drugged. Driven to the Carlyle where they’d wake up and…
“God, they must’ve been terrified.”
A loud buzz droned.
“What is that?” Ludlow asked, bouncing to the edge of the seat.
“We’re not alone,” Jagg muttered around the same time Sutherland came running in. “Swerve’s outside with at least a dozen guys.”
“Fuck,” Ford said.
The door opened again.
