Hustlers

by Chilton, Claire

  She stared at her suitcase. Her belongings were scattered on the floor around it while the case appeared to have been hacked apart with a knife. Her eyes settled on a smashed silver locket on the floor. Her mother had given her it before she died. It was the only piece of her mother that she had left, and someone had smashed it.

  On autopilot, her years of training kicked in, and she silently closed the door behind her. She tightly clenched her fists as she mentally cataloged the destruction of her belongings. Her senses went on high alert as she silently listened for sounds of the intruders. A part of her hoped they were still here. She’d take great pleasure in making them regret invading her privacy. She wanted to make them regret breaking her mother’s locket. She wanted them to pay.

  Exhaling slowly, she walked over to the fireplace, lifting a fire poker out of the rack beside it. She tested the weighty iron in her hands. It was heavy enough to do some damage, and harming them was all she could focus on.

  Turning on her heel, she studied the cracked door to her bedroom. The small apartment only contained three rooms: an open-plan living area, a bedroom and a bathroom. She stalked over to the door, tightly gripping the fire poker. If they’re still in here, I’m going to make them beg for an easy death.

  She glanced down at her hand when she realized it was shaking. Angry with herself for feeling any kind of emotion at a time like this, she gripped the rod tighter and gritted her teeth as she peered through the gap in the doorway.

  The room was empty. The mattress was ripped to shreds, and the bedframe had been turned over. The closet was also empty. The few clothes she’d hung in there were now strewn across the floor.

  Her hand shook again, and she clenched the fire poker painfully in her hand to try to strengthen her resolve against the irrational acts of her muscles. After scanning the room and concluding that it was also uninhabited, she hurried into the adjoining bathroom. The shower curtain had been ripped off, and her toiletries were littered around the small room, but there was no one here. Whoever had broken in had already left the apartment.

  She hurried back into the living area, heading toward the front door. She locked it and then turned around to face the room, leaning back.

  As she rested her head against the door, the fire poker slipped from her fingers and clattered loudly on the tiled floor. She exhaled a shaky sigh. Every muscle in her body seemed to be irrationally shaking. She tried to slow it down by tensing her muscles, but she just shook more.

  She focused on the room, trying to shake off the trembling in her limbs, but nothing seemed to work. It took her a few seconds to realize she was in shock. The feeling that someone had invaded her life and ripped it apart was impossible to avoid. Her logical mind told her that this was not her home. At worst, the damage would only cost her a couple of hundred quid, but the irrational shock seemed intent on reminding her how much she’d just been violated. She felt violated. Her things, although not worth much to anyone else, were her things. She’d had them for years. They were part of her identity.

  Refusing to give in to a physical reaction, she headed for the kitchen. Her food was scattered all over the floor, but a couple of candy bars had survived being stamped to death. She snatched one up off the ground and ripped off the wrapper. After gulping back the bubble of panic in her throat, she forced herself to take a bite of it. The sugar will get rid of the shock. Then I can hunt down the son of a bitch who did this.

  She narrowed her eyes at the room as she ate the candy bar, trying to work out her next move. Someone had clearly been looking for something, and she suspected they had been after the hard drive she’d stolen. That has to be the reason.

  Once the shaking in her limbs had abated, she hurried over to the fireplace, kneeling down on the hearth. She reached up inside the flue, searching the dark recess for her stash. She smiled when her fingers brushed against a cord bag, which was safely hidden on a rim inside the chimney.

  She pulled out the bag and then sat back on the floor, quickly opening it to ensure nothing had been stolen. She breathed a sigh when she found her phone, her laptop, the communications device and the hard drive safely concealed inside the bag.

  She plucked out the case containing her Bluetooth ear bud and opened it. She popped the bud into her ear, pausing for a moment to try to gather her wits before she called her father.

  She turned on the communications device. “Jimmy, are you there?” she asked.

  “Ellie! Where the fuck have you been? Are you okay?” Jimmy’s voice caused her to wince as he shouted down the earpiece.

  “Yeah, I—I had a bit of a problem.” She glanced around the room.

  “Your dad’s going mental. Have you seen him yet?” Jimmy asked.

  “What, Dad’s here?” She widened her eyes. “He can’t come in now. I don’t even know if we have anything yet.”

  “He left a few hours ago when we couldn’t get hold of you. He was pissed. What happened? Why did you lose contact?”

  “I er, went on a date,” she muttered.

  “Are you fucking shitting me?” Jimmy cried.

  “That’s not all. Someone turned over my room.”

  “What were they looking for, your virginity?” Jimmy asked.

  She scowled. “Oh, very funny. I took a hard drive from Starling’s suite. I think it will provide the leverage we need. I think they were looking for it.”

  “Did they find it?”

  “No. They turned over everything else though. Good job I was out on a date when it happened or I’d have been ripped apart too,” she muttered, glancing around the room at the carnage.

  “We need to get you out of there. Come out now, and bring the hard drive. We can work out the rest once you’re safe.”

  She nodded. He was right, and his concern was reassuring. “Thanks Jimmy. I’m coming home.”

  She stood up and threw her belongings into her bag. It would look like she had turned over the place herself when she left, but that didn’t matter. Her identity here was fake anyway. She just needed to take everything she wanted to keep with her, and then get the hell out of the hotel.

  Hurrying to pack everything, she scooped up the remains of her mother’s locket, hoping it could be repaired. Once she had everything, she took one last look around the room. Then she slipped out of the back door, and hurried toward the staff entrance for the hotel.

  She felt a moment of sorrow as she rushed down the corridor, past the elevator to the staff room. She wouldn’t be able to explain to Matt why she had left. She shook her head. That was probably a good thing. It was never going to work out for them. She slipped inside the staff room, intent on clearing out her locker before she left.

  She frowned when she opened the locker. Inside, she found a cell phone resting on top of her folded uniform. She narrowed her eyes at the device. It wasn’t her phone.

  She picked it up and swiped the screen, which lit up. After checking the phone, she found that there were no numbers on it. There was nothing on it except for one video clip.

  She frowned. “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Jimmy asked.

  “Trouble,” she muttered as she pressed play.

  The video showed a man bound to a chair in a dark room. He had a hood over his head. Beside him, someone was holding a gun to his head, but she could only see their torso. There was no sound, but she had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She recognized those Italian shoes.

  “Oh no,” she whispered.

  “What?” Jimmy asked.

  Her heart skipped a beat as the hood was ripped off the man’s head to reveal her father’s face. He had a cut across his left cheekbone. But other than that, he appeared unharmed.

  The person beside him pressed the gun to his temple. “No!” Ellie cried.

  White words flashed across the screen: Bring us the hard drive tonight, or you can watch him die.

  She gripped the phone as the video clip abruptly ended.

  “What happened?” Jimmy asked.

>   “They got dad. I need to fix this. They’ve got dad.”

  Ellie burst into her father’s loft, which was an open-plan apartment inside an old industrial building. She gripped the bag on her shoulder when she realized that her father wasn’t here. Some part of her had been hoping he would have escaped and already be here waiting for her, but she only found Jimmy inside the room.

  Jimmy glanced up from his computer. He frowned at her while running his hands through his spiky blond hair. The worry on his face made him appear far older than his fifteen years.

  “Did you get into the hard drive?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You need to see this.” His voice was darker than she’d ever heard it. She threw her bag on a nearby table, and quickly crossed the room, heading toward him.

  She stood behind him, peering at his computer screen. There was a frozen movie image of a redheaded girl on the screen. “What is it?”

  “Some bad shit,” Jimmy said before he clicked the play button.

  The girl in the movie was inside a hotel room. Ellie instantly recognized the décor. The insignias on the rugs were the same as the ones in Starling’s hotel chain. It was a girl inside one of Starling’s hotels. Judging by the room, it wasn’t inside the Manchester hotel. It could be anywhere.

  She frowned as she watched the hotel room door burst open, and two men with masks rushed into the room. They caught the girl and tied her up with silver duct tape. “What is this?”

  “Wait a second. It gets worse,” Jimmy’s said, turning toward her with a grimace.

  Ellie widened her eyes as the camera switched to a different scene. The same girl was led inside a dark cell. As she was shoved inside it, Ellie could make out other girls in cells nearby it. “What the hell is this?”

  “I think it’s human trafficking,” Jimmy said as he paused the video. “I think Starling is taking people from his own hotels and selling them to the highest bidder.”

  “Oh, we did not sign up for this shit.” She shook her head.

  “What are we gonna do? If we give him back the evidence, these people are probably going to die. If we don’t give him it…” Jimmy trailed off and shook his head.

  She narrowed her eyes. “We can’t let him get away with this. I mean, I’ll rip off a scumbag and take him for everything he’s got, but this? Nah, we need a new con. What would dad do? There’s gotta be a way we can use this to get dad back, and to put this asshole out of business.”

  “What about a fixer?” Jimmy minimized the screen, so that the image of the girl crying wasn’t visible anymore.

  “Starling’s got half of the city council in his back pocket. We could try the police, but I’m not overly confident that constable who can’t spell his own name is going to be sophisticated enough to save any of these people.”

  “Riley owes your dad more than one favor, and he’s not too shabby at stealth.”

  She nodded. “Alright, but I’m not leaving dad’s welfare in the hands of someone else. I’m gonna get dad. You’re gonna get Riley. Once I’m out, Riley can go in with his team and arrest this fucker. First, you need to find out where they’re keeping dad, and we’re going to need some evidence that Starling’s behind this to get Riley onboard. I doubt he’ll take my word for it.”

  Jimmy tapped on his keyboard. “I’m already ahead of you on that. This video and the footage sent to the phone came from the same device. That’s evidence that whoever took your dad, took this girl too. You just have to make sure your dad’s kidnapper is exposed, and Riley can take it from there.”

  “What about dad? Where is he?” she asked.

  “The GPS on his phone was working up until you got the video. He was inside the same hotel you were.” Jimmy checked his watch. “That was two hours ago. Chances are, he’s still there, but we can’t know for sure.”

  “He’s gotta still be there.”

  “How are you going to find him? There are a lot of rooms in that hotel.” He turned to face her, his electric blue eyes filled with concern.

  “I’m gonna use Starling’s son. Matt will know that hotel better than anyone.”

  “Can you trust him?”

  “I don’t have a choice.” She pulled a gun out of her bag and weighed it in her hand. “But I won’t be going in alone.”

  He widened his eyes. “We don’t use guns.”

  “We do when they’ve taken my father.” She scowled and shoved the weapon down the back of her waistband.

  Ellie hurried out of the elevator at the penthouse suite. Her heart was racing. What if Matt’s not there? What if his father is instead?

  She clenched her hands into fists. Whatever she ran into, she was going to deal with it. No one hurt her family and got away with it. Narrowing her eyes, she strode down the hall toward the door.

  She paused in front of the closed door, about to knock on the polished mahogany wood. How am I going to explain all this to Matt? She didn’t think that telling him his father was a monster would be the best way to start.

  Fighting her indecision, she raised her fist to knock on the door. The door swung open at the same time, and she came face to face with Matt.

  “Shit, er, Matt—”

  “Thank god you’re safe.” He interrupted her, pulling her into his arms. “Quick, come in here. I need to talk to you.” He pulled her into the room, releasing her as he turned to close the door behind them.

  She spun around as he locked the door and then turned to face her.

  His lazy smile was missing as he frowned at her. “I need to tell you something. I don’t know where to begin.”

  She silently studied him. Something was clearly going on. “What is it?” she asked eventually.

  “I thought he’d got to you. Shit, I fucking knew I should have stayed with my mother. I think my father is doing something bad. I went to your room to ask you out tonight, but it was a mess. I’m sorry. Someone ripped apart all your belongings. When I saw it, I thought my father had got to you.” Matt shook his head.

  “Does your father kidnap girls from their rooms often?” She narrowed her eyes.

  “What? No, he sends them away. Every time I date someone he doesn’t approve of, he pays them off and sends them away.” He shook his head. “But when I saw your room, I thought…” He trailed off.

  “You thought what?” She folded her arms. Did he know what kind of man his father was?

  “I don’t know!” He ran his fingers through his hair, looking frustrated. “Something bad.”

  Ellie sighed. He didn’t know anything, but he obviously suspected his father of being bad. “He did do something bad. He kidnapped my father,” she said. It was risky, but finding her father was going to be a lot easier with someone who knew this hotel inside and out.

  “What?” He widened his eyes. “How do you know?” He frowned. “Why would he?”

  She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and opened the video. She showed it to Matt while studying his reaction.

  He gasped when he saw the gun. “What is that? What hard drive?” He appeared confused.

  “I took a hard drive from this room. There is evidence of criminal activity on it. Shortly after, someone turned over my room and kidnapped my father. It has to be your dad. I need your help. I need to find my father before they shoot him.”

  He stared at her with wide eyes. “Hold on, back up a moment. What criminal activity, and why not just give them the hard drive?”

  “Human trafficking, and because I don’t trust them,” she said, trying to keep the urgency from her voice. “I need your help.”

  “You need my help to take down my own father, so we can find yours?” he asked incredulously.

  “Er, yeah.” She winced, realizing that she was asking a lot of him. “Look, I know it’s your dad, but he’s a bad guy. He’s—”

  Matt waved away her speech. “Oh, I fucking know that. The guy’s a nasty bastard, but what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be anywhere near him.”

  “You kne
w he was doing this?” She stepped back, unsure of if she could trust Matt.

  “No! I just knew he wasn’t good. I can’t explain it. I…You don’t treat people the way he does if you’re normal.” He grimaced. “What I mean is, why not just give him back the hard drive, and get your father back?”

  “What about the people he’s got in cages, who’s going to help them?”

  “Maybe we should call the police.” He reached for the telephone, but she grabbed his hand.

  “No. If we call the police, he’ll kill my father before we can get to them. We need to find him.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Matt glanced up at her, dropping the phone back in the cradle.

  “He’s here. He’s in this hotel. Is there anywhere that’s dark and unused by residents and staff?” She glanced down at the video footage that was frozen on the screen. “It’d have exposed pipes on the walls. It’ll be damp, judging by the rust on them. Is there a place like that in the hotel?” She looked up.

  Matt frowned for a moment, causing a crinkle in the skin between his eyebrows. “It sounds like the old tunnels under the hotel.”

  “Then that’s where he is.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  He grabbed her arm pulling her to a halt. “Wait.”

  She spun around with her hands on her hips. “For what?”

  “I’m coming with you.” He looked so earnest, so honorable.

  “You don’t have to. This is going to be hard for you. I-I don’t want to hurt your family.” She turned away from him. The situation was awful. He was a good person, and she was about to destroy his father. The last thing she wanted to drag him into this mess with her.

  He pulled her into a hug. “I’m not letting you do this alone,” he muttered into her hair.

  For a moment, she allowed herself to sink into the warmth of his chest. Then she pushed him away. “Okay, but if we’re doing this, we need to do it now. Come on.”

  Ellie hurried down the dark tunnels under the hotel. The hotel was a listed building with ancient tunnels running beneath it. She tried to ignore the goosebumps as she brushed past cobwebs, heading down the dark passage with only a shaking torchlight illuminating her way.