She nods her head, the tears still streaming down her cheeks, and I don’t believe her for a second. She doesn’t trust me, and she shouldn’t, but I can’t tell her the truth. I can tell her that after I blindfold her and walk her out to the truck waiting in front of the house that she’s going to be taken to safety.
People talk, and if she leaves not looking scared or heaven forbid grateful for the news, the entire operation could go down in flames.
Lauren—Lola—is my only ally here, and she’s down in the basement in a fucking cage.
“I won’t tie this tight,” I say as I approach her with the blindfold.
She squeezes her eyes closed, her body instinctively angling away from me, but she holds her ground.
Lisa is a little liar. Like I suspect all the women downstairs are. Her real name is Catherine, and she isn’t from San Francisco like she claims. Her family is from Colorado, and she took off with her boyfriend to California when her parents tried to get her to break up with him. She’s also seventeen, not twenty-two like she answered on her paperwork.
My handler has been trickling in the information as he gets it, but I knew we had to get her out of here first. If Berto or anyone from his gang found out just how old she really is, we would have bigger issues on our hands. The younger they are, the better price they pull, as fucked up as that is.
Her breaths are harsh, blowing in and out erratically from her nose as I tie off the bandana around her eyes.
“I’m going to help you,” I assure her. “One foot in front of the other.”
She whimpers, a heartbreaking sound I could go a lifetime without ever hearing again as I turn her around and lead her with a hand on her arm out of the office, down the hall, and out the front door.
“Slowly,” I say. “There’s a step. And another, and another.”
“Who bought me?” she asks.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
God, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. I want to ease her worry, but I can’t. Angel watches from the front door, his huge arms crossed over an equally muscular chest.
“Is this my sweet Lisa?” the man asks as he climbs out of the truck. “Turn around, girl. Let me get a good look at you.”
This is all for show, and I’m well aware that it is. The buyer is another undercover agent, but this show is for Angel’s benefit and whoever else may be lurking in the shadows. Some of the best advice I’ve ever been told when working these types of jobs is to never break character. I could’ve blown it in the bedroom yesterday with Laur—Lola. I shouldn’t have even had her brought back up from the basement, but the guilt was eating me alive. It still is. Her assurances did nothing to calm that pain in my chest, that echo in my head telling me I’m a bad man who has become the thing I’ve spent my entire adult life fighting against.
“Nice, nice,” the agent says as his head angles toward Catherine, but his eyes dart all over the front of the house. “Got anything younger? I might be in the market for more than one.”
“She’s the youngest I have,” I explain, my way of telling him that we don’t have enough information on the others yet to get them out of here safely.
I know it seems kind of counterproductive, but men are selling their daughters, nieces, granddaughters, you name it at an alarmingly increased rate these days, and we have to make sure the families we’re sending them to are healthy ones. Otherwise, we have to find alternative arrangements.
“That’s disappointing,” he says with a nod before pulling an envelope from his pocket. “Maybe next time.”
I count the cash he’s handed over, noting with a nod that I see the tiny chip inside.
“Until next time, Javier.” The agent gives me a soft salute before escorting his new purchase to his truck.
He buckles her in, handcuffing her wrists to a bar attached to the dash before making his way around to the driver’s side. The women and girls didn’t used to be handcuffed because they were being taken to safety, but they don’t know that and more than once, they’ve tried to jump from a moving vehicle just to escape.
“One down, five to go,” I tell Angel as I walk past him, giving his back a little smack with the money. “I’ll get this cash sorted and give you your cut in the morning when you bring that pretty redhead to my office.”
He follows me inside, hot on my heels. “Why?”
“Why what?” I ask, dropping the envelope to my desk like being handed a couple thousand dollars in one transaction is no big deal before sitting down in my office chair.