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I only watched enough to verify that they were what they said they were. It wasn’t easy on me, and I was half drunk before I could finish that part of my investigation.
The only thing I was glad of was that my little guest didn’t seem to be in any of it. My guess was that they had still been in the process of grooming her to be one of their actresses. But others had gone through all of it, and God only knew where they, or their bodies, were now.
It pissed me off. It was even more offensive that they ran the whole thing like any other part of our business, including ledgers, asset lists, and information on the current and former occupants of those rooms. Clearly, this was a side business that grew beyond what they could hide, and Vasily had them killed for it.
I still didn’t know what exactly the Ivanovs had been doing for Vasily above board. Probably some more normal camgirl and porn stuff. The man I knew wouldn’t stand for any of the rest of it unless it was completely faked.
I doubted anything the Ivanovs did was faked. Among their assets, I discovered files on over two dozen women and girls.Some had been put in front of the camera, while others had washed out in some way. The notes were very telling.
Name: Carlie O’Brien. Stage Name: Crystal. Age: 17. Hire age: 14 Status: Sent to brothel.
Name: Maria Castellanos. Stage Name: Mija. Age: 12. Hire age: 8. Status: Suicide by escape attempt.
Name: Michelle Carter. Stage Name: Baby. Age: 4. Hire age: 3. Status: Trainee—Uncooperative, may wash out.
Michelle Carter. That was the youngest entry, and the details seemed to match my little guest. Out of curiosity, I logged onto my own computer and got online to run some searches on her.
Within seconds I had news articles dating back almost a year ago and a brand-new fundraising campaign on a crowdfunding site. I started going through them, my eyes widening as I took in the full story of the little girl in my guest room.
Michelle Carter had been taken from negligent caretakers at a local daycare eleven months ago by a woman who had claimed to be her mother Alissa’s sister.
I sat back hard at the name.
It was no coincidence, this was her daughter. I just fucking rescued my old lover’s missing daughter without even realizing it.
I clicked on another article.
Ms. Carter is suing Little Tykes Daycare for negligence. Chicago PD have reassured us that they are doing everything they can to find little Michelle, but after eight months of looking, they’ve turned up nothing. The owners of the daycare, Darren and Misty Ivanov—
“Ivanov!” I looked them up and quickly confirmed that they were brother and sister-in-law to Darren. A family racket involving snatching kids. Over the last ten years, three others had been taken, but the other three disappearances had been pinned on non-custodial parents who had also vanished. Yet each one of those missing kids matched with someone on the Ivanovs’ employee list. The list I’d found only mentioned kids, there was no way of knowing how many other women had been trafficked by those sick fuckers for their movie business.
I frowned. Did Vasily know about Darren’s involvement? If his brother deserved a bullet, he certainly did too. I made a note to bring this to Vasily’s attention. That was one hit I would leap at the chance to complete.
The articles described Alissa as a single mom with no man or family in the picture to help her. She had struggled for almost a year trying to get her daughter back, and the fundraiser was just her latest attempt. I was guessing the police had been useless or worse in helping her out. The Ivanovs had operated under Vasily’s protection, and he had the local police in his pocket.
God. So that meant the Ivanovs used protection offered by my boss to keep poor Alissa from getting her kid back and getting justice.How she must have suffered, she and her kidnapped daughter, who had fought for herself even while tiny and mutewith fear. At least now I had the chance to make some of what she’d gone through right.
And I was absolutely going to do that.
As for Vasily, if he found out and didn’t like how I’d handled the situation, he could kiss my ass.
Chapter 5
Alissa
Two days after my breakup with Alan, I woke up to eleven emails from him and a message from the fundraising site. The emails were the kind of ridiculousness I had expected—how he would only come back if I agreed to stop looking for Michelle and focus on him, how he missed me, how he thought I was an idiot, how he felt like killing himself, how I was a bitch who needed to learn who was boss, and on, and on, and on.
I scrolled through them, feeling barely a twinge of guilt, anger, or sadness. I was cried out. The loneliness still gnawed at me, but next to our lackluster relationship and the violence he’d done to my heart and my trust, it was bearable.
At least he hadn’t landed on my doorstep while in that state. The last thing I needed was for him to turn into a stalker ex. Especially one with cop powers. I wasn’t that scared for myself, I was too exhausted. But if I was gone, who would keep the search for Michelle alive? I was catastrophizing and I had to stop it. Alan was an ass, but he was just a regular ass, he’d slither off into the distance and find some other desperate woman to prey on.
I sighed and went to make tea. I stood at the window in my robe and slippers while the fog in my brain slowly lifted and the smell of Earl Grey filled the room.
I kept scrolling through the mess of Alan’s post-breakup breakdown on my phone, keeping an eye out for any red flags that should send me to court for a protection order. Fortunately,there was nothing threatening beyond his manipulative threat to end himself, which I knew was bullshit. His ego was too big for him to even consider a world that was not graced with his presence.
I finished scrolling through the last one, pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation, and retrieved my steeping tea to go sit at my tiny dining table. I remembered the notification from the fundraising site and opened it, trying to focus enough to figure out its contents. I had received a donation. Well, that was encouraging. I made a mental note to check the site as soon as I was on my laptop.
I went through my morning routine as mechanically as ever, taking my antidepressant and my vitamins, showering, dressing, then watering the plants and making myself eat breakfast. I didn’t taste the scrambled eggs, toast, or strawberries. I felt their texture with my tongue and teeth, chewed and swallowed, but it was like taking my pills—nourishment without enjoyment.
