Before I can respond, my stomach offers its own long, low, rumbly reply.
I wrinkle my nose, and Nick smiles. “Sorry,” he says. “I doubt they’ll have cake tonight. Stefano isn’t big on dessert. Always watching his figure.”
“Maybe that will be the end of things with Beatrice. She’s a fan of pie for breakfast. Or cake. Or pie and cake if that’s doable.”
He shrugs. “I would certainly consider that an irreconcilable difference. I’m sure Bea’s not big on kidnapping young women and selling them into sex slavery, either.”
“But we can’t tell her that.” I squeeze my eyes shut as my breath rushes out. “We have to get her away from him, Nick. It’s like watching a kitten climb into a shark’s mouth.”
“I don’t think sharks and kittens share a habitat.”
I open my eyes and offer dryly, “Neither should Stefano and Beatrice.”
“Point taken.” He nods toward the door. “We should go. They’re used to me running late, but not too late.”
I sigh and collect my purse from the bench at the end of the bed.
“Don’t worry,” Nick says, rubbing a hand gently up and down my back as I straighten, the touch both fizz-inducing and comforting at the same time, which means this can’t be over soon enough.
Attraction is one thing. Craving the comfort of someone’s touch is something else entirely—something even more dangerous.
“We’ll figure it out,” he adds. “Worst-case scenario, Beatrice realizes their love isn’t meant to be when her boyfriend ends up behind bars. I reached out to Neville before my shower. I couldn’t reach Blaire—there was a bad connection or something—but it turned out for the best. Neville’s on board, and I’m clear to take things to the next level with Stefano.”
I freeze, my attention jerking to his face. “Really? He thought that was a good idea? Even with the crackdown on drug trafficking in Gallantia?”
“No, he agreed with you there. But…” He trails off, the look in his eyes making the hairs lift at the back of my neck. “He suggested we could find ourselves in need of…extra company. In the bedroom.”
My eyes widen. “Extra company? Like one of Stefano’s sex slaves?”
“Or more than one,” he says softly, clearly sensing my distaste for the plan. “If we’re the sort of couple who enjoys variety and bores easily, we’d have ample reason to be in regular communication with Stefano, discussing things that we can’t safely discuss via traditional channels.”
I exhale. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either, but I couldn’t think of a better in. Can you?”
My thoughts race, but my head is too crowded by fear for my cousin and disgust at the thought of dipping so much as a single toe into the world of human trafficking. “And what do we do with these women once we’ve procured them?” I ask. “We can’t send them back to their old lives or their families. At least not right away. If we do, Stefano will hear about it and know we’re full of shit. And then we’ll be dead, and the bad guys win again.”
“We’ll get the women set up in a safe house until Stefano’s in custody. It won’t be ideal, but they’ll be far better off than if they’d ended up with someone else.”
I cock my head. “Unless Stefano starts kidnapping women with the two of us in mind. Then we’ll be directly responsible for ruining innocent lives.”
“That won’t happen.”
“You don’t know that,” I press. “He caters to his clients. If he doesn’t have a woman who fits our kink, he’ll send someone out to fetch a girl who does.”
“We’ll make it clear that we’re open to variety. That we like surprises and are up for anything. We’ll make it easy for him to set us up with existing inventory.”
A sour taste rises in the back of my throat. “Inventory. Ugh.”
“You know what I mean. And what I don’t mean.” He curls his finger over my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Believe me, I find this as repulsive as you do, but if it enables us to shut him down for good, it’s worth it.”
I swallow hard. “All right. But nothing happens while we’re here. It isn’t safe. Too many things could go wrong. We’ve already got Beatrice to deal with. If we’re compromised, it will be hard enough to safely get her out without adding another terrified, traumatized woman to the mix. Better if we say it’s a special gift for your birthday or something and arrange for delivery once we’re back in Gallantia.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. We’ll say we’ve been mulling it over for a while, and my birthday was the perfect excuse to pull the trigger.” He drops his hand to thread his fingers through mine. “Sound good?”
I glance down at our joined hands and back up at Nick with a raised brow.
He tightens his grip as his lips curve. “Just felt like you could use a hand.”