by Nana Malone
“Yeah, well, yours too. We have mutually complicated our lives. Besides, I quite like your arse. Oh, the things that I would do for that arse…”
I lifted a brow.
“What, have you seen your ass?”
I whacked him on the arm then, and he laughed. “Relax, you have great tits too.”
My mouth hung open and I reached for him, but he darted out of the car. “Ah, uh-uh-uh. Come on, love.”
“I will kill you.” I jumped out of the car, grabbed my purse, and then zipped my jacket up against the chill. At least it wasn’t raining. My hair had ceased trying to conform into any kind of style these days. I wore my curls natural and wild. Lately, since I didn’t have a lot of time, there was no point in trying to fight the battle, trying to make it sleek and straight for work. Mostly because Ben kept me occupied until that very last moment when I absolutely had to get ready. So there was no time to do my hair.
He came around my side of the car and took my hand. “Come on, Miss Ashong, let’s go talk to Britney.”
The hotel we’d arrived at was made to look like a speakeasy. It had a very 1930s French vibe to it. The clientele was upscale, in the know, beautiful, and wealthy.
We located Britney in the corner of the bar, just like she’d said, wearing a red top. Her hair was pulled up into a low side ponytail, and she wore glasses. She looked absolutely normal. Her skin was pale, but her eyes were nearly as dark as mine. I approached slowly. “Hi, are you Britney?”
She looked up with a smile. “Hi. Who are you?”
I smiled. “I’m Olivia Ashong. We spoke on the phone?”
“Right, yes of course.” She shook my hand, and then her gaze skipped over to Ben, who gave her a nod. She frowned for a long moment, and then recognition lit her face. “You were there that night, with East.”
His brows lifted. “You remember that night? A little over ten years ago?”
“Good mind. Besides, you and your other friend were the best-looking blokes that night. I was really excited to be paired with East.”
He winced. “Yeah well, East has that effect on people.” He shook her hand and then waited for me to take a seat. I slid into the booth, and he followed. I didn’t miss that Erik was planted at the door and Scott had worked his way toward the back, likely to make sure that exit stayed clear as well.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.”
She nodded. “Of course, love. But East didn’t really tell me what we were going to talk about.”
I looked at Ben to start, but instead, he deferred to me. He was always doing that. At least lately. Letting me take the lead and be in charge. It was important to me, but the fact that he knew it was important to me and went out of his way to come with me on interviews made my belly do flips. “Right. So, I have been doing research for this book I’m writing about the experience of a woman named Caroline Ritter. She used to do a lot of human rights work. In my research, I found that she had a theory that young girls were being trafficked for, ah— How should I say this?”
Ben, ever helpful, offered up, “These girls were being sold for their virginity and then given back to their parents, less intact than they were when they were taken.”
“Right. What he said.”
Britney’s brows lifted. “Oh my God.”
“Right. I just want to ask you about your experience with the Elite, and what that was like.”
She frowned. “It was a long time ago.”
“Anything you can tell us would be really helpful.”
She toyed with the ring on her middle finger. Rolling it back and forth, then back and forth, while all around us waiters discreetly bustled, bringing people their drinks. A waitress hovered around us, and then she appeared magically with drinks. I frowned, about to shake my head and tell her we hadn’t ordered, when I realized that Eric had, in fact, placed the order for us. I had a tonic water, and Ben had scotch.
Britney stared at our drinks and then her gaze lifted to mine. “Look, I was nineteen and in school. My parents didn’t make much money. I saw an advert and, you know, I knew what it was.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Can you explain it to us, because I didn’t partake in any of the companionship that night, and I didn’t see what happened with you and East, but I don't know what you were told.”
She nodded. “You know, I’m not ashamed of it really. I did what I had to do to survive. I actually wrote my thesis on the use of power and sex as currency in modern systems.”
I leaned forward. “Who gave you the job?”
“Well, like I said, I saw an advert. I called the number and was told to turn up at a location. It was the Vanderbilt Hotel in the city. In the lobby, I was approached by a woman. She was very business-like, very matter-of-fact about the job.”
“So she told you that you would be required to have sex with men?”
“That, amongst other things. I was educated in the proper things to say, proper ways to dress, how to speak. There was training. And only after a six-month training period would I then begin my job. It was a one-night engagement. And then if I performed well, I would be able to see other clients.”
“Six months of training for a one-night engagement?”
She nodded. “The night of… I don’t know what you call it,” she addressed her question to Ben, who nodded slowly.
“Initiation.”
“Right, okay, the initiation. Before we arrived, we were given dossiers on who we would be paired with. Based on the client’s likes and dislikes, their wants and all sorts of things, what they like to eat and drink, what they don’t like to eat, their favorite restaurants… both what they said were their favorite restaurants, and where they actually frequented. Everything there was to know about them, we knew, including what kind of women they’d had sex with and if they frequently saw prostitutes.”
Ben sat back. His brow furrowed. He was likely wondering exactly what his partner was told about him. “On the night of the event, we were picked up from the Vanderbilt Hotel in limousines. Our outfits were paid for and picked out for us. We all changed at the hotel. We’d studied our partners. When we arrived, we were to spend time with them and no one else. The idea was to treat them like they were the only people that existed in the room.”
“I remember a little of that. My ‘partner,’ as you call it, wouldn’t leave my side.”
Britney shook her head. “Oh no, we weren’t allowed to. We were told if we left our partner’s side, there would be consequences. I knew I would not be paid. Now if your partner left on their own accord, that was different. Which, you know, looking back, it was so long ago, but I got the impression that East wasn’t allowed to leave.”
I glanced at Ben. The muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t answer. I turned my attention back to Britney who was already continuing. “For East, there were two of us. I forgot the other girl’s name. Chloe something, I think. We were told to make sure that he enjoyed himself. We were told he was adventurous, liked it wild, and that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t try once. But we were told to show him special attention.”
Ben leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “What do you mean by ‘special attention’?”
“In his dossier, there was a photo of his old man. I didn’t know who he was, but they said that the gentleman had tripled both of our prices to show East the works.”
Ben cleared his throat. “What is ‘the works’ exactly?”
That was the only point in the whole conversation that I’d seen Britney’s cheeks pink up. “Um, sex, obviously. But also, sex with each other.” She swallowed hard, and she looked at me when she said the next part. “No holds barred, so anywhere he wanted to have sex with me, um, he could.”
My jaw hung open. “Jesus Christ.”
“No, it’s fine. East… He didn’t.”
I shook my head. “Oh no, we don’t care whether or not he slept with you. That’s not the point. What we’re trying to ascertain is i
f you were there of your own free will.”
“Yeah, I knew most of those girls. We’d been in training together.”
I sat back and frowned. That was not the experience I expected her to tell me she’d had. “Oh, we didn’t know. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.”
“That event with the young guys, that was what we bargained for. Some girls had sex, I’m sure. But they were bragging about it or complaining that their partners didn’t last for long.”
Ben coughed a laugh. It sounded an awful lot like relief.
Can you blame him?
No, I couldn’t really blame him. Who wanted to be told that the organization that you had given your life to was trafficking young girls? And there was no way he could function with that knowledge.
I frowned when my brain focused on something that she’d said.
“The young guys?”
She swallowed hard then and took a sip of her water. The condensation sliding on the glass made her fingers wet. “Afterward, we were paid fifteen thousand pounds. It was a lot of money, and I needed it for school.”
“No one is judging you.”
“Are you kidding? I was judging myself. For that event, it was fine. It was easy. The money came, and I didn’t really have to do anything for it. Just stand and talk to a perfectly handsome guy for three hours. But afterward, when I was paid, I was curious. That woman who recruited us said that if I liked the kind of work I’d done, she had more. And she was making that offer to the other girls too. I needed more money. My school was going to be paid for at that point, but I figured with living expenses and being able to send a little bit home, I was curious about the rest of the offer. I thought it would be just as easy.”
I frowned, taking notes as she spoke. “And it wasn’t?”
She shook her head. “No. She took us to some party, and the men that were there, they wore masks. I don’t know, it was weird. But anyway, they weren’t good-looking like the boys that we’d met, but they still required us to be refined, elegant. No one needed me to be a virgin or anything, but they were rougher.” She swallowed hard. “Not gentle. There was no conversation. And I’d agreed to be there. I did. I’d done it for the money. I just… I didn’t know that they would get so rough.“
A cold sweat broke out on my skin. “Do you remember anything about where you were taken or any of the men?”
She frowned then. “I remembered one of the men, actually. I could have sworn he must have been there at the first event.”
Ben clapped his hands together then. “What do you mean?”
“His voice, when he spoke, he not only sounded familiar, but he said, ‘I requested you, specifically.’ And I’d never done the job anywhere else, so the only other place he would have seen me would have been at the previous event.”
Ben cursed under his breath and brought all the tension back to the table. “Britney, the other girls that were there, did you recognize any of them?”
She shook her head. “Not many. There were a couple of the same girls from the initiation, but most of them were new and they seemed to be quite a bit younger. They looked like me, but less mature. And they were in tears.”
Ben’s voice was showing no spike of emotion. “Think, Britney. Did you talk to any of them and find out their names?”
She shook her head. “We weren’t allowed to speak. There were some hushed whispers, but most of the girls, I don’t know, it’s like they were out of it. While we were in the limousine, some of them were crying.”
“Do you remember where you were taken?”
She shook her head. “No, it was somewhere out of the city. Not anywhere I recognized. A fancy house. Although we headed south a little bit when we left the city, I guess. I could probably draw the house for you. It looked like a French chateau or something. Sorry, I’m not much help beyond that.”
“The men you met the second time, you said that they were older.”
She nodded. “Oh yeah, I could tell. Less muscle tone. But they were rich, we could tell that by their dress and their cologne. And while they weren’t as toned as the guys at the initiation, we could tell that they took care of themselves.”
I nodded slowly. She’d been taken to one of those parties. “Thank you. You’ve been really helpful. Do you think you might be able to speak to some people from Interpol about your experience and what happened at that party?”
She frowned. “Oh, it was so long ago. After that party, I vowed never to go back. I took my money and ran.”
“How were you paid?”
“Wire transfer, and I signed a non-disclosure agreement for a period of ten years which has just expired. That’s why I agreed to talk to you.”
“They made you sign a non-disclosure? Jesus Christ. If it’s lifted now, what are the chances that any of that information is valid?”
Ben reached across the table and took her hand. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with us.”
Her eyes went wide and she stared at him, her gaze going slightly glassy as her lips parted.
Oh Lord, he was about to give the poor girl a heart attack. “We really do appreciate this, Britney. Are you willing to speak to Interpol? Tell them your experiences?”
“Yeah, I’m willing to talk, I guess. It’s not like I have many specifics to give them.”
“I’m sure your firsthand recollections are still going to be important. We really appreciate it.”
She nodded. “That first event, I knew what I was getting into.” Her gaze was direct when she met mine. “No fear. That second one, I didn’t bargain on that. I didn’t ask for any of that.”
Ben’s voice was low and stern, and it brought tears to my eyes. “You didn’t deserve any of that. None of it was your fault.”
The way he said it with such conviction made me want to hug him, to hold him, to never let him go. Even in the midst of his world potentially blowing up, he still found a way to make this girl in front of us realize that she didn’t deserve what had happened to her.
This was a man to love.
Yeah, you love him, all right. This is also a man to keep.
15
Liv
Ben had been quiet and distant since the interview with Britney. He said he just had work to do, but I could tell her answers had shaken him. There had been relief in his eyes when she said that there had been nothing untoward about what had happened at the initiation. But the worry, the concern, that one of the men from the initiation, one of the older men who had been at her second job had hurt her, that was shaking his whole world center. And I got it. I just wished there was something I could do to help. There was a part of me that wanted to make this better for him in some way, but I couldn’t. The truth was the truth, and we were going to uncover it one way or another.
I was running back from a meeting, trying to determine if I had time to grab a quick sandwich before I had to be at the status update meeting, when I found a tiny brunette sitting at my desk. “There you are. I brought lunch.”
“Oh, my God, Telly, I could kiss you.”
She perked up, sitting straighter. “For real? Because I have been wondering about that for over a decade. Could we have been a thing? Maybe if I had tried harder instead of friend zoning you right away.”
I snorted. “Shut up. You’ll still get a kiss though.” I leaned over my desk and the Báhn Mì that she’d laid out with napkins, and I kissed her on the nose. “You are the love of my life.”
“Are you sure it’s not that big dick? Because I have a feeling you might kick me out of bed for that.”
“I have a feeling you’re right. But I do love you.”
She laughed. “So, how did it go yesterday? By the time you guys got home, I was knee deep in work stuff. You know, my real job, the one that people pay me for, not all this clandestine running around shit.”
“Yeah, I figured I’d catch up with you today. It’s been kind of tense.”
“Did you find the witness?”
&
nbsp; “Well, yes. She was at the initiation ten years ago, but she said that all the girls there were just like her. They were trained for sex jobs on how to be the perfect, well, escort to a bunch of rowdy teenagers.”
“Oh, so they weren’t forced?” she asked as she pulled her feet onto an empty chair and crossed her legs at the ankles.
“She said that for the event at the initiation, it was consensual. Apparently, they met some woman in a hotel to basically answer a job ad. And if they agreed, they were trained for six months. They were given diction and elocution lessons, taught how to walk, carry themselves, and be the picture of everything a man could want.”
Telly snorted. “Yeah, that’s what we all want in life.”
“Tell me about it. But get this. They paid her fifteen thousand pounds.”
Telly coughed and chugged down her water, trying to clear a piece of the spicy sandwich from her throat. “How much?”
“For six months of training and one night of work, fifteen thousand pounds.”
She blinked. Then blinked again. As if her brain stopped processing for a moment. “That training, was it all day, every day?”
I shook my head. “No, she was still going to school full-time during her training. On the day of the event, they were dressed, driven there in limos, and they had to just study up on their guy, his likes and dislikes. It’s crazy.”
“So she was a custom-made escort?”
“Sort of. She did mention that for the girls who did well, there was an offer for a secondary job. For even more money. She was going to school and paying her way, so she agreed. Apparently, appearing cultured for rich private-school boys wasn’t on the agenda the second time, and it was a very different event. All the men there were older, sophisticated, wore masks, and they were, in her words, depraved. She didn’t really go into more detail, but she led us to believe that some of the things happening were not consensual.”
Telly whistled low. “Fuck. How did Ben take it?”
“You mean other than horror? He was so sensitive, you know? He held her hand and told her none of it was her fault. He was good with her.” I clasped my hands together as I recalled how small Britney had made herself as she spoke. “And you could tell that she’d just shoved what happened away but still had nightmares about it.”
