Chapter 5
I wake up with a start feeling like something is off and I can’t quite put a finger on what it is. I look over to my right and see that the mystery woman is still asleep and that's when it hits me I didn't have the dream. I head to the bathroom to take care of my morning needs, once done I flush, wash my hands, brush my teeth, and wash my face. That done, I take a proper shower, I don’t take long and I hurry to get out. I dry off, moisturize so I’m not ashy as hell like Savvy says, and throw on some boxer briefs, jeans, tee-shirt, and my boots. As I am lacing up my boots I hear a small voice coming from the bedroom and go out to see what’s wrong,
“Can you help me to the bathroom please?'' the mystery woman says, I really need to ask her what her name is.
“Sure,” I say and grab the tee shirt off the foot of the bed and help her put it on and carry her to the toilet.
“I can manage,”, she says, once she’s seated. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
“Ok,” I say and start to head out of the bathroom, once I get to the door I stop and without turning around I ask her, “what is your name?”
“True, what’s yours?”
“Nice to meet you True, I’m Atlas,” I say and walk out. I head to the dryer and pull out the sheets, towels, and her bra and panties. I place an order with a local dinner and pay extra for delivery. Once that is done I head back into my room and ask True if she is ready to which she answers the affirmative. I help her up and stand with her as she washes her hands, brushes her teeth, and washes her face. I put leave-in conditioner in her hair last night and braided her hair in three braids. I walk with her to the bed where she sees her bra and panties. I leave her to put them on when I hear the doorbell. The girls have scattered and if I didn’t know better I wouldn’t believe anyone was here other than me. I open the door and it’s the food. I take the food and give the delivery guy a generous tip.
Taking the food to the dining room table, I begin to unpack it and the girls begin to filter back in. I make True a plate and a glass of orange juice and take it to her. I ask about her clothing and shoe size and leave her to eat in peace. I go to the dining room and get the same information from all the girls in there. That done, I tell them not to leave and not to answer the door and that I would be back shortly. I head to my truck and head up the street to clothing store where I simplify things by picking up sweatpants, tee shirts, sneakers,basic underwear, I skipped getting bras but I did get those tank tops with the built-in bras and some other basic essentials, pay for everything and head back to the house. Once there I give the girls the bags and let them work out who gets what. I take True’s bag to her in the bedroom to find her asleep. I lay the clothes on the bed for her and walk out of the room and go to my temporary office. A couple of hours later and Doone is at the door,
“Jesus Atlas what did you do?” Doone says as he sees the fifteen girls I rescued from the hellish existence they were heading to.
“I got these girls out of being sex trafficked. Some of them have homes to go back to most either don’t or don’t want to go back to their families since it was their family that sold them into the sex slave trade, can you help them?” I ask Doone.
“Yeah, let me make a few calls,” Doone says.
Several hours later I watch the last of the girls leave with Doone. He called in a few favors and got some of the girls who were in really bad situations new identities. I helped to secure finances and housing and hopefully, this would be a new start for them. I put some latex gloves on and begin cleaning every inch of the apartment, wiping, vacuuming, and disinfecting everything. I made True another bowl of soup, a small sandwich and some Gatorade for electrolytes and brought it to her hours ago. When I get to the bedroom she is dressed in the clothes I bought for her and is sitting on the side of the bed. Although she looks stronger she still looks like she’s been through hell.
“Is it time to go?” She asks.
“Yes,”
She stands up while favoring her left side and slowly walks to me. I make quick work of cleaning the room and walk her out to the truck. I’ve bagged all the linens and sprayed all the surfaces with a hydrogen peroxide mixture. If anyone does find the apartment there won't be any DNA or fingerprints to lead back to me, True, or any of the girls. I throw the bags of linen in the back of the SUV and head towards home. Halfway there I take this SUV to a chop shop, burn the linens in a ten-gallon steel drum and get in the other SUV and continue on home. I stop long enough to grab food and a pillow and blanket for True and push it home using the back roads.
Finally, after driving for almost seventeen hours I’m home, my home, not the compound. No one knows I own this house. It's in my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. I park the SUV in the garage and go around to get True out. I carry her in the house to the spare bedroom across the hall from my room and lay her on the bed, take her shoes off, and cover her with the comforter. I go across the hall to my room, I sit on the bed and hold my head in my hands and ask myself what the hell I just did?
Victor
I walk through my house to see all my guards are dead and the girls are gone including True. When Roman called me and told me he found everyone dead I came home asap to find this shit. I found the guard in my bed and above the bed in blood were the words next time. Mother fucker!!! No one has ever gotten this close to me, had I never gotten that call that forced me to leave that would have been me dead in my bed. I have gotten too lax in my personal security, obviously, that has to change. I want to put a bullet in every guard here but it’s not their fault, they weren’t even there.
I scratch the side of my head with the barrel of the gun I don’t remember pulling out. I have been careful in my dealings over the years not letting anyone I have had a problem with live. I made sure not to have children so they could not be used against me as leverage. But someone must have slipped through the cracks and I have no idea who it could have been. It has taken me over thirty years to build my empire, when I got into this game I was young and broke but I was smart and ambitious. During those early years when I was trying to make a name for myself I made a lot of mistakes. I moved up the ladder and became invaluable to the head of the cartel. I watched him and learned everything I could including the routes and contacts, once I learned everything I could I began to create a shadow cartel right up under Carlos’s nose. Every move he made I made a matching one and before he knew what hit him I had completely taken over and destroyed his organization. I killed him, his wife and children, and every loyal soldier he had. I learned to use pressure points to make moves to expand my business out of Columbia into the southwest of America. It took more work than I originally thought it would but I eventually found a way to expand in the US and now I pretty much run the entire southwest US. It was during this time I was the most sloppy in my dealings, I hadn’t learned to not leave witnesses or people who might want vengeance alive. And I was working with a bunch of idiots, they fucked up so many deals it’s a wonder I was able to kill Carlos and take over his organization. I put them on low level work like managing my smaller businesses, things I didn’t care about if they fucked them up. But now someone got close to me, not just close to me but in my house and I have no idea who it could be.
I pick up the guard's dead foot and throw it off my thousand dollar bedding and take a seat. I called a cleaning crew in to get the bodies and clean up the mess, and made plans to go to my compound near Buenaventura until I can get this under control. I checked the video feed but someone wiped the supposedly unhackable security system so I have no idea who was here and anyone who did see who did this is dead. I called the guy who brought the girls in but he answered and told me not to call him anymore. He found his guys dead too, all the girls were gone and his video feed was wiped clean too.
“Eduardo!” I bark into the phone, “get off your lazy ass and get the jet ready, I need to be in Buenaventura as soon as possible.”
Eduardo handles my travel but he has become a lazy, fat, complacent waste of space. Maybe I’ll kill him and let someone else take his job, he’s damn near useless. Could it be something connected with True? I should have just killed her but she had to learn a lesson, and now she is gone too. She is a loose end I should have ended years ago, but I thought maybe one day she could be useful. Now I regret that decision, over the years she has mostly been on the periphery of my life and not quite important enough to change that.
The sound of the barrel of the gun dragging along the hallway wall is like nails on a chalkboard in my ears as I make my way to the room I was holding her in. I lean against the door jam and look at the bed she was tied up in as if I can make her reappear there. Is she dead, will she come back, is this her doing, is it even connected? Until I get answers I will go away, my second in command will remain here to investigate and get answers. If he fails I will flay him alive and kill his entire family, children and parents alike. Max walks up to me and before he can open his mouth I turn and shoot him in the head. If I can’t kill who I want to, he can serve as a proxy. I feel a little better as I walk back out of my house, get in the car, and head to the airstrip.