“That is very steep,” Valon murmured. He stepped forward, and I tensed, but he only pulled her top back into place. I didn't miss the possessive way his hands moved over her body, nor the gesture. He was already claiming her as his own.
“I could perhaps go as low as nine hundred,” I allowed. “Between friends.”
I was being presumptuous. He would expect that from a lackey: overgenerous and overeager. They say the difference between a prostitute and her pimp is that the prostitute only whores herself out for money.
“I will give you nine-fifty. For the night.”
“Deal.”
He handed me a wad of bills. I made a show of counting them without looking at them too closely. They could have been counterfeits, for all I cared.
Valon led Christina back towards the crowded floor. His hand on her ass, feeling her up through the skirt. Showing off his new plaything. He'd buy her a drink, take her out for a spin or two, and then retire to his private rooms for a quick victory lap.
But plans change.
Chapter Sixteen
Sacrifice
Christina
In the bowels of Mystique lights blurred and swirled rendered strobe-like by the writhing figures of the dancers on the floor as they cut in and out of the illuminating beams.
Is it really this easy?
I should have been petrified. I was the proverbial lamb in the lion's den. The old me would have been terrified. The new me was merely numb. It had to be done, exposing myself to a stranger. The way he had looked at me was revolting, yes, but there was power in that, too. Desire could be as intoxicating as any drug, even if you weren't the one experiencing it.
But even if Valon desired me, I knew he wouldn't hesitate to kill me, either — not if he found out who I was. What I was. And neither would his guards.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he simpered.
I nodded absently, scanning the crowd for a black leather jacket. There were many of them. Too many. Michael had disappeared into the mosh.
Maybe that was for the best.
Valon handed me a flute of bubbling champagne. The 'glass' was plastic, cheaply made. I took a sip. The alcohol tasted nutty and flat. Cheap. Cheaper than the plastic it was served in. I downed half the glass in a swig and regretted it as my stomach churned.
“We import our champagne from France.”
I doubted that — unless France was the name of podunk 'burb of Southern California that had a single scraggly little vineyard in the middle of its meth labs.
“That's impressive.”
He was disgusting.
I moved to set the glass down, deciding I'd had enough. More than enough. My heels were higher than I was used to. I nearly fell, which made me feel dizzy. Valon caught me before I hit the ground.
“You have a poor tolerance. For alcohol, at least,” he added slyly. “Hopefully you claim a stronger endurance in the bedroom. I want to feel those thighs squeeze around my waist as I fuck that tight little cunt into submission.”
I flinched, and he looked surprised.
“Why — are you shy, my petal?”
“Yes,” I said, in a small voice.
You're disgusting.
“But this is no outfit for a shy girl,” he said, stroking my breast with his knuckles. My skin buzzed and tingled unpleasantly as he brushed against one of my nipples. “It is the garb of a whore.”
I bowed my head, although something like rage began to encase my fear and give me strength. “I wear whatever he tells me to,” I whispered, keeping my eyes on my lap so he would not see the fury kindling in them. “I'm sorry you don't like it.”
“Its only crime is that it conceals your body from view.” His fingers slid down my back like drops of ice. “But that will soon be remedied.” He hesitated over that word, as if it were a placeholder for something less polite. “I look forward to discovering the rest of you.”
I shivered, and he lowered his hand. Oh, he was revolting, and he probably thought he was being charming, which made it even worse. His misogyny was so internalized that it wouldn't even occur to him that women might not be second-class citizens.
I forced a smile to my face, and tried to ignore the throbbing headache building up behind my eyes like the swirling clouds of a storm. It hurt to think, and the neon lights strung up around the bar left blurry trails of color when I shifted my gaze that seemed to throb in time to the baseline of the song.
The dance floor was sweltering. I didn't recognize the music playing, and the lyrics weren't in English. I looked at the other girls, many of whom had more skin exposed than I. Several looked painfully underage. They shouldn't be here, and neither should I.
But if I had my way, that would change. Tonight.
Valon ground against my skirt, and I could feel his erection. He was watching the girl in a low-cut bustier. She was rubbing her breasts against her partner's chest as they danced. He clearly wasn't looking at her face; her eyes — her eyes were dead.
Just like those trafficked girls on the boat.
“You should be friendlier to me,” he said, spinning me around so that we were face to face. His eyes were dead, too, as black and soulless as a starless sky. “I own this club. I can give you a future.”
He bent down, as if to kiss me, and I turned my face away. His wet lips touched my neck instead, as he ran his hand down my back, my sides. Our bodies were flush, and each movement dragged the fabric across my body in a way that I could feel all the way in my lower belly.
“You own this club?”
“And about half the girls you see here.” Valon shrugged this off, as if it weren't important, though he wouldn't have bothered mentioning it if the fact were of as little significance as he claimed.
Monster.
“I wonder if you taste as sweet as you smell.”
What was he smelling? All I could detect was sweat, body odor, the sharp tang of leather, and the skunk-like smell of pot as somebody lit up in a darkened corner. “I don't know,” I said, trying not to crane my head too obviously, trying not to let my breathing betray me as it increased with a hitch.
Valon was our man. I'd just confirmed it.
Michael, where are you?
“Would you like to find out?”
What? I stared at him, blankly, not understanding what he was asking.
Valon elaborated, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the foreign music. “Would you like to find out how you taste?”
He smelled like sour milk, and sweat. I couldn't remember what I'd eaten last, but at the thought of kissing him it threatened to rush up my throat.
I thought of those girls in the picture, crammed into a boat like sardines in a tin can. I thought of Suraya. I thought of the underage girls who looked like they should be reading Romeo and Juliet instead of having sex with men old enough to be their fathers.
Think of Adrian Callaghan.
“Okay,” I said.
Valon needed no further urging. He grabbed me by the wrist, past a group of people who looked like they were taking drugs. Down the hall were two bathrooms, both with long lines. We went past those, up a flight of stairs located discreetly down an adjacent corridor. Valon took them two at a time, forcing me to run a little to keep up with him.
He used a key to open the door, revealing what looked like the bedroom of a seedy hotel. It smelled like sex that someone had tried to cover up with cheap incense. It hadn't worked.
Valon's tongue darted into my mouth. It felt like a slimy invertebrate in its last death throes. I squeezed my eyes shut. One of his hands was at the base of my neck, working the knot of my halter. He growled a curse and tugged the fabric aside.
He whirled me around, pushing me up against the door. It slide closed behind me with an ominous click. Valon began mouthing my bared breast with quick, angry motions. I cried out when his teeth grazed my nipple. He seemed to mistake that for passion; he ground his hips into mine with a moan.
“You really are as sweet as
a cherry.”
My skin crawled. Everything about this made me feel queasy and ashamed. As the child of a devout Catholic, I had been taught that sex was a necessary evil at beast — and even then, only within the context of marriage. I had learned that it could be about pleasure, too, but it would take years to undo all those tangled mental knots, and being with this man right here and now was making the teachings of my mother and my childhood priests come back, full force. I felt grimy and disgusting, as if I were an apple and sin were the worm winding its way through my rotten and blackening insides.
I had told Michael I could do this, but it took effort to be with a man you found offensive. This was sexual playacting, and I was a mediocre actress at best. If I failed, I'd be killed. Or worse.
He herded me towards the bed and I tried not to think about what was coming next. Is he buying it? The reek of sex was stronger here. I tried not to think about when the sheets had last been washed. I needed to distract him until Michael made his appearance. That was my one task. I could do this. I could.
“Lie down.” It wasn't a request.
My body felt like a balloon whose strings had been cut. I was floating above myself. So…dizzy.
Why do I feel so strange?
Light flashed with aggressive violence in my periphery. Valon had pulled out a knife.
“No—”
The straps at my neck tightened, and went slack, and so did the air in my lungs. I let out a shaky breath as my top pooled to my waist and Valon slipped his knife back into his pants. My head throbbed.
Where was Michael? What if he didn't come?
Could I have sex with this man?
“Please,” I whispered.
“Did you think I was going to cut you?”
“What do you think?” My mouth couldn't quite form the words. A blessing in disguise.
What's wrong with me?
“I'm not going to cut you.” Valon pinched both of my nipples, hard. Or tried to. “Not if you're a good girl.” They were still damp from his mouth and it was hard for him to get a grip. “You know how to be a good girl, don't you?”
My heart was pounding. I could barely keep my eyes open, in spite of the terror.
He stared at me, and his eyes slitted.
“I've changed my mind.”
You have?
He released my breasts to unbuckle his pants. I looked at him and then away. No, he hadn't. He wasn't wearing anything beneath.
“I want to fuck your tits,” he said coldly.
There was a solution to this that didn't involve sex. I could injure his genitals. They hung in easy reach. I just had to make sure I could keep him from screaming for his men. But then I wouldn't get any information. We would lose our most promising lead.
Valon placed my hands over my breasts. It felt strange, touching myself this way. When Valon had arranged me the way he'd liked, he slid his stubby erection between my breasts. His skin was damp with the sweat of his thighs and smelled slightly sour.
Oh God.
“Keep your hands just like that.” His tongue darted out to swipe over his lower lip. “After this … maybe I'll fuck you in the ass.”
I was startled into saying, “W-what?”
“I don't want to look at your cum-stained face when I'm fucking you. I don't want to be reminded that I'm having sex with a whore.”
“That's a terrible thing to say.”
A mistake. A real whore would have been trained not to take offense.
Valon gave an experimental little thrust, his vulpine face tight with pleasure. He didn't appear to notice I'd spoken at all.
“All whores are the same,” he said. “Proud and haughty, even as they're spreading their legs for cash. They think money keeps them out of the gutter, but it doesn't stop them from knocking back the drinks men buy them just for an hour of their time. Bah.”
He spat on the floor.
“But when they're asleep …” The beginnings of a smile played on his wormy lips. “Their faces change. They lose that hardness and that ugliness. They look almost innocent. Holy. Spiritual.”
“That's blasphemy,” I said hoarsely.
He smiled; it was a gruesome sight.
“That is different. A whore with religion. At least you have practice being on your knees.”
I loathed him.
“Are you tired? You should be. I put enough drugs in your drink to knock out a woman half your size. We should have just enough time for a quick titfuck before you lose consciousness, and then I will pop your last namesake as a parting gift. Your tight little virgin ass.” He thrust again, harder, twisting one of my pinned nipples. This time he got one in a vice-like grip, using his nails for purchase, and I screamed. “You should be grateful. You won't feel any pain at all — until you wake up that is.”
He was right. A terrible grogginess was settling over me like a spiderweb. Soft, strong, deadly.
Drugs. He's drugged me!
As Valon moved again, raising himself up for a deeper angle, I reared up and caught him under the jaw with my head. He fell off me with a roar that filled me with a blazing satisfaction.
I sat up awkwardly, and the room spun.
Over my gagging, I heard him say, “You bitch!”
I lashed out with a foot, aiming towards where I thought his crotch was — that had been his mistake, not tying me down in his arrogance — but I was having trouble focusing my eyes. My vision blurred: Valon's knife left streaks of silver in its wake as he pulled it out.
“You're going to regret that.”
I heard the click I had come to recognize as the sound of a gun's safety. In the sudden silence that followed, Michael said, “Back away from her, Valon, or I swear, I'll shoot you in the fucking dick.”
It's about time.
Michael
I'd been waylaid by Valon's security personnel. I had been concerned at first — with Callaghan trailing us so closely, a tip-off was well in the ballpark of possibility — but their threats were too vague, too mild, to indicate that they knew they were being stung. They had seen me come in with Christina and also seen her leave with Valon. I realized that this was their way of informing me of the club's droit du seigneur. Other men in the past probably hadn't taken well to the thought of Valon stealing their women.
Once I ditched the guards, I looked around for Christina and Valon. They had disappeared from the dance floor. I slipped back into the crowd, making my way towards the bar. I asked one of the women if she wanted to get a private room. She told me there was only one, and it was currently in use. With a bit of persuading, she was able to tell me where.
How lucky for me.
Valon wasn't sure whether to cover himself or to lift his hands in surrender. I corrected my aim, forcing him to choose. “Hands up and don't try anything cute. I'm a good marksman and I can assure you — I can shoot you before the scream leaves your throat.”
“What the fuck is going on? Your woman is out of control.” The outrage in his voice was for show. He was quick to obey, as I knew he would be. Men who prey on women are often cowards. They choose their victims precisely because preying on the vulnerable makes them feel strong.
But sometimes they pick incorrectly. There were swellings around his jaw and genitals. She wouldn't meet my eyes as she climbed off the bed. I shrugged out of my jacket, shifting the gun to my left hand, my dominant hand, and tossed it to Christina.
She slid it on, but didn't zip it up. Her hands were shaking, and badly. I studied her face, and her eyes looked huge and very dark. Drugs?
“What's going on is this. You tell me what I want to know, and I'll decide whether or not you're lying. If you are, or if I decide that you are, I shoot you in the dick and you get to spend the rest of your life as only half a man, mocked by the very whores you used to abuse. Lucky, lucky you.”
He sobbed. I ignored him.
“If you persist in lying to me, I will shoot you in other places. Painful places. Nonlethal places. We will proceed
from that point until you either die of blood loss or tell me what I want to know. But unless you are very, very stubborn, or possess an extraordinarily high tolerance for pain, I think it'd be best if you do yourself — and me — a favor and simply tell me what I want to know. That's what most people do.”
Valon had gone white as a piss-soaked sheet. His erection shriveled up between his legs, as though trying to deflect attention from itself.
“W-what do you want?”
“Answers.”
“T-to what?”
“What the fuck do you think? You think I'm here to shoot the shit with you? You think that's why I've got this?” I brandished the gun. He flinched and I was glad.
“The women in this club had a lot to say about you. That you prefer your women unconscious. That you would much rather fuck a woman in the ass than in her cunt. What the hell is the matter with you, Valon? Are you gay? No.” I answered my own question, even as the outrage began to manifest on his sick little face. “Most gay men wouldn't treat women the way you do. They wouldn't play these sick little games that you play.
“Why do you hate women so much, Valon? Was it your mother? I bet your mother touched you,” I said. “I bet she breastfed you until you were eight, or some fucked-up shit like that. That's why you can't fuck face to face, isn't it? It's why all the women you fuck have to be unconscious, and taken from behind. You love a nice pair of tits, but as soon as you touch them, all you can see is mommy fucking dearest.”
“Fuck you!” he screamed shrilly. His face was sweaty and bright red, but his cock had started to become erect again. I must have actually hit on some variant of the truth. What a sick fuck.
“How much money does Adrian Callaghan pay you a month to pass on his shipments, you disgusting piece of shit? You motherfucker,” I added casually. “How much is the price of a human life?”
“How do you know that name?”
“You're not asking the questions here. I am.” I shook the gun at him. “How much?”
“Ten th-thousand.”
My expression must not have been comforting. Liquid ran down the inside of his leg.
He'd pissed himself.
Cease and Desist (The IMA Book 4) Page 19
