The Tears of Odessa (An Atlas Hargrove Thriller Book 1)

by Ryan Schow

  “I bought her through a body broker,” he said. “But we are all body brokers, buying and selling and using. I bought her, used her, sold her to André. Then I got her back and sold her back to the man who sold her to me. This is our trade.”

  “Why would you send back used-up merchandise?”

  “There are more uses for a child than just sex, American asshole. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

  “Give me a name,” he said, not wanting to think about what he’d just said.

  Oleg gave Atlas the name; Atlas committed it to memory. It didn’t sound real, but then again, he’d run into a lot of people with stupid names.

  “When she arrived,” he said, “she was a virgin and…and—”

  “Go ahead,” Atlas said, his stomach working its way into his throat, all that pent-up anger stored away like jet fuel for later, when he needed that little extra something.

  In truth, he would rather not know the particulars of Kaylee’s introduction into the world of sex-trafficking, but he knew he needed every last detail for Leopold, even if said details were provoking within him a visceral reaction.

  “I was the first to break her in,” Oleg admitted, blood leaking from his nose and a busted-open mouth. “I take it you work for the billionaire?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “You let him know that she was tight when I got her, but loose as an old sock when I was done.” The sneer on his face sparked a fury in Atlas that had him punching the Russian in the testicles over and over again.

  Oleg’s howling was not as satisfying as he’d hoped. What gave him a deep sense of personal nourishment, however, was that one clean shot. Atlas actually felt one of the Russian’s testicles smash flat. He looked up at Oleg and saw that he’d passed out. Taking out his blade, Atlas thought of castrating him. He hesitated, though. Remembered how he got when he saw red. Maybe he’d cut off Oleg’s dick, but then what? Would he gut him? Saw off his head? Slowly, he put the knife away.

  When Oleg came back around, Atlas said, “One of your balls is pancaked. The other is functional. Whether or not that one continues to work is up to you.”

  “I put her into service,” Oleg said, practically whimpering. “She was a good earner. Eight to ten guys a day, three weeks, but she cracked. Couldn’t stop crying, puking. And the drugs weren’t working. She had a reaction, kept throwing up until there was nothing left but blood and air.”

  “Yet you still managed to sell her?” Atlas asked, horrified.

  “She’s a white billionaire’s daughter. They can fix her if they want, earn more money over long term, maybe punch her ticket by putting her in snuff film.”

  There it was, that extra usage Oleg had hinted about. Still, there was something that didn’t make sense. “You burned her out too quickly.”

  “That was part of the deal with the body broker,” he whimpered, his red-rimmed eyes now squeezing out a steady stream of tears. “One month, then she goes into general circulation. He said only when I ruin her completely does she stop being important. He said triviality is the best way to erase the trail. He said, make her nothing. Make her nobody. So I did.”

  “Why are you crying?” Atlas asked through gritted teeth. “Too much pain?”

  “I love the pain,” Oleg growled in English, but then he lay back down on the bed and started to laugh, slowly, painfully. “Tears are not from pain but from humor. It’s funny how precious things are to you Americans. Girls, their virtue, your ridiculous pride.”

  “Before you run that shit trap of a mouth anymore, I want to tell you a little bit about me. You see, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in prison. Do you know why?”

  “Because guys like you enjoy prison romance?” He laughed half-heartedly until he winced and the merriment died out.

  “Because I shot the heads off three cocksuckers like you. Guys who thought it was funny to hurt kids. You seem to think this is all a big joke. I’m here to tell you it isn’t.”

  “Kids are healing,” Oleg said, his eyes squinting, his gaze unfocused as if his mind was suddenly somewhere else. “If you can bleed them right, drink from them while they’re young enough and scared enough, you can watch your own cuts heal before your eyes! I told you sex isn’t the only market for these kids.”

  “I get it, snuff films too.”

  “Still more,” he laughed. When Atlas leveled him with a blank stare, he said, “Looks like you, my American friend, are even dumber than you look.”

  Oleg barked up that same irritating laughter, but instead of hitting him again, Atlas withdrew the blade and showed Oleg that he didn’t appreciate his behavior. The man fell still quickly. Apparently, he didn’t like knives.

  “I’m here because it takes a certain someone to do the kind of thing I’m about to do. At first, I didn’t think I was that person. A cold-blooded killer. I actually felt bad for the three guys I took apart with a shotgun. But then I killed a fourth guy in prison. A real son of a bitch, like you. I all but gutted him. Not with a knife like this one, but with a prison shank. You know what a shank is?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “That was two days ago. Then I killed the three idiots you rented Kaylee to. Shot two of them, beat the other to death with a baseball-sized block of ice. Now maybe he was already dead, or maybe he wasn’t. Either way, I shot him in the face when I was done. And you know what?”

  “You enjoyed it,” Oleg said, spitting a glob of blood on the side of the bed.

  “Yes,” he said, the word practically vibrating.

  “Predictable.”

  “Not for me. But those guys went too quickly. So did your guards out back. I did one of them, and my friend did the other two. So that’s five dead bodies in just two days. Eight total if you count the first three.”

  “And I’m going to make nine?” Oleg asked, laughing low this time.

  “Where is she?”

  “Odessa, you prick.”

  “You need to be very clear with me, Oleg. I want names and addresses. Anything less than that and I start cutting off parts of your body.”

  “Like what?” he mocked.

  Atlas’s answer was to cut off his thumb. The shrill screaming in Atlas’s ears was deafening, but the minute Oleg’s thumb came off, the last thing he said was one name. He was kind enough to give Atlas an address as well, even if he did so mumbling and blowing small snot bubbles when he spoke.

  In the upstairs hallway, someone started kicking in the locked doors. Kofi. He heard a female voice inside: Cira. Then he heard girls. Lots of them. A dozen, maybe more.

  After cutting off his thumb, Atlas couldn’t seem to rouse Oleg beyond a slobbering daze. The Russian had gone into a state of shock. Just like André. Instead of pressing his luck, or waiting around to torture him some more, he shot the creep in the head and went to join the others downstairs. There he saw Cira and the girls. He didn’t see Kofi, though.

  “Everything secure upstairs?” Cira asked.

  “Nothing survived. Where’s Kofi?”

  “Double-checking.”

  “And Kaylee?” he asked, even though he knew the answer to that question.

  “Not here.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, unable to get Oleg’s confessions out of his mind.

  “Yeah.”

  “I found Oleg,” he said, grabbing a chair and trying not to look at the girls. Just seeing them made him want to go back up to Oleg’s room and cut the man to pieces.

  “What did he have to say?” she asked.

  “Said he broke her in, pimped her out hard, then sold her to some guy in Ukraine.”

  She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then she looked around at the girls they were able to save. Atlas finally looked at them. He was hoping Oleg had been lying, that Kaylee was there, that he was messing with Atlas. He didn’t see her, though. He’d known he wouldn’t.

  “Do you know where in Ukraine?” Cira asked.

  “Odessa.”


  Unable to tear his eyes off the children—seeing that thousand-yard stare in their eyes, the track marks on their arms, the bruising on some of them—he said, “You need to arrange for them to be taken care of.”

  These girls were too young for this type of abuse. No one should have to endure this. No one of any age.

  “That’s not what we’re here for,” Cira said, surprising him.

  Like André’s children, Oleg’s girls ranged in age from five or six years old to sixteen or seventeen. The older ones were protecting the younger ones, their bonds apparent, the need for each other their only lifeline in this nightmare. For a second, he wondered what was going to happen to their mental faculties when they got away. Or when they separated from each other. If all they had were the memories of Oleg’s place, of all those faceless men and the untold horrors of their sexual abuse, could they ever truly heal? His heart broke looking at each and every one of them.

  “I don’t care why we’re here,” he snapped. “We need to get them taken care of.”

  “No,” she said firmly, her gaze like a blade against his neck.

  “YES!” he roared, scaring the girls and Cira alike.

  “You’re not calling the shots,” she hissed, not backing down but closing the distance between them instead. “And neither am I.”

  “Well, start,” he said, quieter but no less mean.

  “I don’t make the rules, Atlas, but I damn sure follow them.”

  One look at the girls and all he saw was Alabama. It killed him that he didn’t know what his daughter looked like now, just what she’d looked like four years ago. If she was even alive, would he recognize her? Would she recognize him?

  In those deadened eyes of his, fear managed to crowd out the lifelessness. The sight of these girls all gathered together gripped him, squeezed his heart, damn near leveled him. He felt the familiar prickling behind his eyes, the tears beginning to form. He had hurt so much over the years. He couldn’t take any more. So he turned away, looked upward in an attempt to forestall these liquid betrayals. He quickly lost that battle. Even looking elsewhere, he couldn’t stop seeing the kids killed in Vacaville, their little bodies mangled by the Mustang, or Alabama when she was young and used to sit on his lap and say how much she loved her daddy.

  “Get the name of an outreach company, and make sure they’re vetted,” Atlas said, clearing his throat and discreetly wiping his eyes. “Half these rescue establishments are more efficient at pimping out the girls than scumbags like André and Oleg.”

  “That’s not what we’re here for,” Cira said again, but softly, like she understood.

  “Well, I’m not doing squat until it gets done,” he said, turning around, defiant despite his near breakdown. “If you want to get Wentworth on the line, I’ll tell him myself.”

  Cira stepped outside, presumably to call Leopold. She came back a few minutes later and said, “He’s getting a team on board now. He should have someone here in the next few hours.”

  “Great. Well, let’s see if there’s someplace we can order food while we wait. We’ll feed them as well. They look hungry.”

  “Half these girls are doped up, starved, dehydrated,” she said. “Plus it’s late, Atlas. Too late.”

  “You think I forgot how to tell time?”

  She stared at him. “Are you paying for this, Atlas?” she finally asked, tired, her patience worn thin. “Because I’m not. And you don’t get to say what our benefactor does or doesn’t do with his money.”

  “Our benefactor is paying for this,” Atlas said. “How much is a little takeout going to cost? Is it anything compared to the war chest he has?”

  “You want food?” she asked, taken aback but handing him the phone. “Then you call and tell him.”

  He snatched the phone from her, slid it into his front pocket and said, “Your lifeline to the civilized world is now in my possession, which means you’re at my mercy. And for you? For even hesitating one second, I don’t have any mercy for you!”

  She threw a punch that caught him flush in the eye. He backed up on his heels, parried the second shot, then spun around and grabbed her by the ponytail. She drove an elbow back to him, but he felt it coming before she even knew to throw it. He yanked her arm behind her back hard enough to stop it, then half-walked, half-shoved her over to the nearest child. Atlas knew she wanted to cry out, but all she did was curse, growl, and threaten him with grievous bodily harm.

  “What’s your name?” he asked the child in Russian.

  “Nadia,” she said, scared.

  “And how old are you, Nadia?”

  “Nine.”

  Cira was still struggling to get loose, but Atlas had a firm grip on her. Ignoring her outburst, to the child, Atlas said, “Tell me how you got here and she won’t get hurt, but you won’t get hurt either.” He translated this for Cira, so she knew what she was in for.

  The girl was scared at first, but then she told them how she had been taken from her parents while she slept. She said her father had tried to stop the men, but they’d killed him. Nadia then said that different men would go inside her all day long, and that it hurt, and that she’d cry a lot, even though they’d told her not to. Atlas translated her statement to the letter.

  “Stop,” Cira said, sniffling.

  “Show me your arm,” Atlas said to the child. Nadia lifted her arm. There were needle marks from drug abuse. Nothing she had done to herself. Nothing she’d ever do to herself. “Did you do this to your arm?”

  The child shook her head.

  “Atlas,” Cira pleaded as he translated. “I get your point.”

  “Before you were taken, did you ever hurt yourself, or take drugs?” Atlas continued. Nadia shook her head again. Atlas kept at her with the questions, and as pained as he felt with each and every answer, he somehow felt like he needed to drive his point home with Cira: this trip wasn’t about one girl for him, it was about many. “What else have they done to you, Nadia?”

  Here she started to cry, to look down. One of the girls put an arm on her shoulder to soothe her, let her know she was not alone.

  “Tell me and I will save you, make sure this never happens to you again, but if you don’t, I’ll save everyone but you.”

  Through her tears, the child told them about the sex movies they had made, how Oleg sold her friend in a movie where she had to die in front of the camera, and how her older sister had been taken too. Atlas translated everything he could, making sure Cira felt the child’s every gut-wrenching divulgence.

  “Where is your sister now?” Cira asked through wet eyes. Atlas no longer had a hold of her arm, but Cira didn’t seem to notice. He translated the question to the child, which caused Nadia’s little body to start shaking.

  “I don’t know,” she cried.

  At that point, Cira pulled the girl into a hug they both seemed to need. When Nadia let go, Atlas said, “This is why I needed you here.” He returned her phone to her and said, “Call your hotel concierge, find out who’s open for food service and see if they deliver. They will say no, but you’ll insist. Make it happen.”

  She wiped her eyes, took the phone, then turned and walked out without saying a word. When she came back in, she said, “Kiera will stay here to help you with them. The concierge is having the kitchen make the meals. I’ll take the taxi to pick it all up.”

  “It’s not safe for you to go out here,” Atlas said.

  “Yes, it is,” she replied, unwilling to look at him. “Kofi is coming with me.”

  “The house is clear,” Kofi said, returning unharmed.

  “You’ll keep her safe?” Atlas asked about Cira. Kofi nodded. “See to it.”

  “I’m no paper tiger,” Cira said.

  When he looked at the front door, he didn’t see Kiera at first, for she was standing in the shadows. But then she was there and suddenly she was all he could see. Before Kofi left, Atlas had forgotten to ask about the pool house.

  He walked over to Kiera, his eyes narr
owed. She had her hand on her pistol, a firm look in her eyes.

  “No need to flex your dick here, sweetheart,” he said, not liking her cold demeanor one bit. “We’re all friends, and we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?”

  She didn’t speak. This odd disconnect was uncomfortable. A few more girls cautiously made their way down the staircase, like cats exploring a new space or new people for the first time.

  “If we leave, they’ll kill our families,” one of the older girls said. “That’s what they said, and we believe them.”

  Very clearly, Atlas said, “I’m going to kill them all before they even get that chance.”

  After killing André and his two cohorts, Oleg’s guard, and finally Oleg himself, he rightly assumed people would take him at his word.

  “Before you go,” Atlas said to Nadia, “I need you to tell me exactly how this works. This whole operation from top to bottom, if you can.”

  Reluctantly, she detailed the bits and pieces of Oleg’s operation, which he understood but could barely stomach. What she said fit perfectly for the sex trade. It also battered his heart and scraped his very last nerve. When he showed her Kaylee’s photograph and asked if she’d seen her, Nadia nodded and said, “The American.” But then another girl chimed in and said, “That is what all Americans look like. But also there are girls with blond hair.”

  “You’re sure it’s her, though?”

  Nadia nodded. “Kaylee.”

  He looked at Kiera, who seemed to be paying attention to the entire interaction. “Oleg said he sold her to a man in Odessa, Ukraine.”

  “There are no men in Ukraine doing this,” the older girl who joined the conversation said, “only pigs.”

  Another of the girls walked up to him. She was maybe six years old, or seven. He started to say something to her, but she walked right past him and went to Kiera instead. The child looked up at the bald mute. Kiera neither smiled nor expressed a single emotion other than to look down on her with empty eyes. She was like a robot wrapped in human flesh. The Terminator of the 2020s.

  The young girl pushed her hair out of her face, then reached for Kiera’s hand. When she curled her little fingers around it, Kiera froze, then parted her lips enough to let out a silent surprised gasp. Whatever this armed defector was feeling at that moment, it certainly looked new to her.