Finding Fate (Playing it Safe Series Book 1)

by Lisa Gerkey

  “What things? What’s going to happen to me, Master G?”

  I plead with him to tell me something to help prepare me for this nightmare.

  “Malcolm is probably going to sell you. It could be for one night you’ll be someone’s slave or fuck toy, or he could auction you off to the highest bidder and send you to another country. There’s no way I can tell you what your outcome will be. I’ve seen some end up dead.”

  “But… I can’t…I can’t go to another country. I need to stay in Tennessee. Please, help me get out of here. I’ll do anything.”

  I can’t stop the tears.

  I can’t allow them to ship me off to another country. What if I never find my way back? I need to get out of here, so I can get back to the ones who need me and depend on me.

  The door opens, with no knock or warning.

  I assume the man who has entered is Malcolm. He’s big, like Master G, but he’s older. He hasn’t said a word, and already my skin starts to crawl.

  “Well, well, well, Cinderella, we finally meet.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh, come on, little slut, you know damn well who I am. You’ve been sending me your pictures for years. It took me a while to hunt you down. I always knew you were going to make me a lot of money. There are a lot of hungry men who want a taste of you, Cinderella. They’ve been looking at your pictures for a long time. We’re finally going to make good use of this sweet little cunt you’ve been teasing us with.”

  Oh, God.

  The nightmare that started when I was a teenager is coming back to haunt me all over again. I knew it would, but this is worse than I’d ever imagined it could be. It ruined my senior year of high school. My whole life has been ruined because of this.

  When I was fourteen, I let a stupid boy talk me into sending him pictures. At first, it was little stuff, but he finally convinced me to show him everything.

  I was so stupid.

  I wish I’d never had access to the internet, but my parents trusted me. I was smart and always did well in school, and I never got into trouble. They never suspected anything like that was going on. They would’ve helped me fix the mess if I’d told them soon enough. I was too ashamed for my parents to know about the horrible mistake I’d made, so I kept it to myself.

  It turns out it wasn’t a fourteen-year-old boy after all, who was asking for the pictures.

  It didn’t take long until I was being blackmailed. I had to send more explicit pictures and videos, or they were going to ruin a lot of lives. It went on for years until my senior year, when every picture and video ended up on a website. Everyone from my school, our church, everyone in my whole town got a good look at Cinderella aka Madison, the town whore.

  Only I wasn’t a whore, or even close, but nothing I could say or do would ever make anyone believe that. Except for my parents, they believed me.

  “Are you ready to get this over with?” Master G uses a few fingers to wipe the tears from my face.

  “No, please, don’t hurt me,” I beg.

  Begging isn’t going to help me, but how can I not try?

  “Go stand in front of Malcolm’s chair.”

  He points to where his boss is sitting in a fancy chair across the room.

  When I don’t move, he wraps my hair tightly around his hand and drags me to where Malcolm sits.

  “Stand still. I’m sure you can manage that.”

  “Maybe we can call a few of the guards in to assist with Ms. Parker. They’d be more than ready to break our little beauty if she’s too much for you to handle there, Master.”

  Malcolm doesn’t seem too pleased with Master G right now. When he mentions the nasty guards, I stand up straight and cross my arms over my chest.

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  My voice is weak, pitiful, and I know it’s pointless to beg.

  “Kneel!”

  I watch Malcolm put a glove on his right hand and squirt some gel stuff from a bottle on it.

  “Let’s play with this pussy, princess. I need to see what I’ve got here. I need to put a price on it.”

  He throws his head back and laughs. Malcolm is amused seeing my discomfort.

  I close my eyes because I know there is no way to avoid it. I kneel to the floor at Malcolm’s feet.

  “Spread your legs. I want to see that little cunt.”

  Malcolm uses his heavy boot to kick my legs further apart. He gets up from the chair and squats down behind me.

  I flinch when I feel his hand touch between my legs. He slides his slick finger, back and forth and then I feel him press inside. When he pushes the second finger inside me, it feels uncomfortable, almost painful.

  “You have a tight pussy.” Malcolm chuckles again. “That’s good to know. How many cocks have you had, Cinderella?”

  I ignore him. I don’t want to talk to this awful man. Slap. His hand lands hard against my ass.

  “Answer the question!”

  “One, sir.”

  “Ha, Ha, Ha.” Malcolm is roaring with laughter.

  “I want her trained well, Master. Turn her into a good little slut. People are going to pay a hefty sum for this one.”

  I watch as Malcolm gets up and goes to the door.

  “Keep her fed and unharmed. Is that understood? If she requires punishment, I don’t want any permanent marks.”

  “Yes, sir. Not a problem.”

  I relax a little. Maybe I’ll find a way out of here. Maybe I can get through this and get back home. Back to my family.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Jensen”

  I’m tired as fuck after spending the night on the couch, but I know I’ve got to get this over with.

  I’ve been sitting in my truck for ten minutes while I work up the courage to face the Parkers today. Madison has been weighing heavy on my mind since I opened the folder and got another look at her.

  I can’t put it off any longer, so I suck it up and get out of the truck.

  I see Mr. Parker on the porch when I walk up. “Come in, Mr. Beck. Nicole is busy, but she’ll join us shortly. If you’d like to look around, that would be fine. Maybe you’d like to start with Madison’s bedroom?”

  “Yes, sir, that would be great. Lead the way.”

  I follow him through the house until he stops in front of a closed door.

  “I’ll leave you alone to look around. I’ll be in the kitchen. When you’re finished, you can join us.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  When I know I’m alone, I open the door and step into the room. Her bedroom isn’t decorated in pastel colors like you’d find in a lot of young women’s rooms. It’s decorated in reds, grays, and even some black. It’s not what I expected, but the room reminds me of Madison. It matches the rest of the rooms I saw when I followed Mr. Parker through the house.

  I avoid looking over at the bed. The last thing I need is to have those memories in my head. I’ve got an important job to do here, and I can’t do it if I let my mind drift back to the time I spent with her that summer.

  I open her closet and sift through her clothes. They look like any normal clothes a woman would have in her closet. It doesn’t look like her style has changed much over the years.

  The memories from our short time together come roaring back when my eyes land on a white swimsuit cover up. I’m not sure what her parents would say if they saw me with my face buried in the fabric. Her clothes smell like her.

  I move over to her dresser. I don’t dare pick up the tiny lace panties and sexy bras tucked neatly in the top drawer. Madison is very neat. She has everything in place.

  After looking behind some things and under a few more, I get down and look under the bed. I’m about to get up from the floor when I look over toward the nightstand. The bottom is open with an empty space underneath it.

  I see something black and shiny. It seems like an odd place to store something.

  I go over to the nightstand. It’s lightweight, so it doesn’t take much
to lift it out of the way. I’ve hit the jackpot. It’s a laptop. I pick it up and take one last quick look around.

  When I’m sure there’s nothing else to find, I go to the kitchen, where Mr. Parker is sitting at the kitchen table with a newspaper. I see Mrs. Parker is putting some chocolate chip cookies onto a plate.

  “Nana, can I pwease have a cookie now?”

  What the fuck?

  What is happening here?

  I feel like I’ve been hit with something more powerful than lightning.

  “Mr. Beck! Agent Beck, are you okay?”

  I swear I’ve been knocked straight on my ass.

  The little girl’s eyes…

  They’re the same green that’s haunted my dreams for years.

  Her hair.

  She has a head full of blonde bouncy curls. I reach up and run my fingers through my own hair. If I let it grow out, I’d have those same curls, only a different color.

  “Mr. Beck, Jenny asked if you’d like a cookie.”

  Mrs. Parker doesn’t seem to have a clue about what’s just happened here, but when I look over at Mr. Parker, I know he saw the same thing I just did.

  The little girl runs up, and tugs on my hand.

  “Come on, you hafta eat one, Mister. Nana’s cookies are the best. Isn’t that right, Nana?”

  “Is this, uh, is she?”

  I look at Mrs. Parker, hoping she understands the question.

  “Jenny is Madison’s little girl. She’ll be turning four soon.”

  I can tell the Parkers adore their granddaughter.

  “My mommy said fate gave me to her one summer. I am her favoritest summer ever.”

  I can’t do this right now.

  Fuck. Madison. What the fuck have you done?

  “I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Parker, but I’ve got to uh…I’ve…got another appointment that I need…I need to get to.”

  I don’t take the time to explain. I let myself out the door and head for my truck. Just as I open my truck door and place the laptop in the passenger seat, I sense I’m not alone.

  “Mr. Parker…I don’t know…”

  “Yeah, you do. You know.”

  It’s not a question. I could tell by the look on his face he’d put it all together right when I did.

  “I never knew. I didn’t know until now.”

  Some people say a grown man shouldn’t fucking cry, but if I don’t get out of here, I’m going to lose my shit right here in front of Madison’s dad.

  “Listen, I saw the look on your face when you looked at her. I haven’t missed the look on your face every time Madison’s name is mentioned. Just find her, please. Bring her home to us. Find that baby’s mother, Jensen. He slaps me on the back, and I watch him as he walks back into the house.

  I get in and start my truck up. I’m so lost in my thoughts, I don’t remember the drive to my house.

  I’m not in my house five minutes before my damn phone rings. It’s Jonathon Masters.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve found Madison Parker. I need you to come to the office so we can work out the details.”

  “On my way, boss.”

  I pick up the laptop and go into my home office. I lock the door because I don’t want to take the chance Kaitlyn is here and might walk in. I don’t want to be disturbed, or forced to answer questions right now.

  I need to go meet with the guys at the agency, but I want to take a few minutes to see if I can find something useful here, so I power up the laptop and wait.

  When I go through Madison’s old emails, and she has a shit load of them saved, bells start to go off in my head. One by one, the pieces start to fall into place. I keep clicking and reading message after message.

  Then I go through her photos, not because I want to see, but I need to know. It’s not pictures of Madison that are fucking with my head right now. It’s the other bitch I need to figure out.

  My thoughts jump from South Carolina to the last three years when my wife has spent so much of her time locked up inside her office with her computer…or going to her sex clubs.

  Who the hell am I married to?

  “Goddamn it!”

  I shove shit off the desk. I pick up an empty glass and slam it against the wall and watch it fucking shatter.

  There’s no one around to see me or hear me lose my shit.

  I’m like a fucking madman right now. I shove more shit from the desk to the floor.

  Yeah, I’m losing my fucking mind, talking to myself and all that shit.

  Finally, when there’s nothing left to destroy, I sit down and take some deep breaths and get my shit together. Jon sees everything, so I know when I get to the office, he’s going to know something’s up with me.

  When I walk into Master’s Security, I know some major shit is about to go down. There are several men sitting around the large table that sits in the middle of our conference room.

  I see Grant is here, although if you didn’t know him as well as I do, you’d never recognize him the way he looks. He’s been working undercover inside of a trafficking operation that’s going on right here in the city.

  “What do we have, Jon?”

  “We know where Madison is. What we have to do now is decide the best way to get her out.”

  I sit and listen to the back and forth talk between our guys and the informant we’re working with. Malcolm Phoenix is a big shot criminal that’s been under the authorities’ radar for a long time. He deals in drugs of every kind, but the women’s lives he’s been responsible for ruining is what has him on this agency’s radar. The FBI is more concerned with getting Malcolm than they are with getting the girls out. Since Malcolm has his operations scattered everywhere, it’s hard to pinpoint his location. He could be at any one of them.

  That’s one of the reasons we’ve got Grant in there. We’ve been looking for the perfect opportunity, not only to get the females out, but to put an end to this bastard’s business at the same time.

  I’ve been on board with the waiting game, but now that it’s personal, my willingness to wait is gone.

  “How hard can it be? Any of us have enough training to go in there and get her. We’ve done it before, Jon.”

  It’s not usually smart to question the boss’s decisions, but sometimes it’s necessary.

  “This shit’s been following her around since she was a child, Jensen. Do you think it’ll stop just like that if we go in there and take her out? She’d have to go into witness protection. You need to consider she’s not the only woman there. Another day isn’t likely to change a whole lot. These women have been tortured and raped from the minute they get pulled off the street. They’re going to need years of therapy, and counseling, either way we do this. I think the smart thing to do here is sit down, and form a solid plan, so we can put an end to the whole fucked up thing.”

  “You don’t understand, Jon. Madison is…”

  “Madison is what? Are you telling me you know this chick, Beck?”

  “I’m not telling you shit right now, Jon!”

  I’m wound tight from everything that’s going on. I’ve had enough of listening to Jonathon make excuses about why we need to wait to get the women out of that damn shithole.

  I storm out of the meeting, needing to put some space between these fuckers and me.

  When I get to my office, I’m not alone. This time it’s not Jon on my ass, it’s his brother, Grant.

  “What the fuck do you want, G?”

  “I want to talk to you a few minutes. Is it true? Do you know this girl?”

  I walk over to the one window in the small office. I lean my forehead against the pane and close my eyes.

  “I met her four years ago, when I was on vacation. We spent some time together…I…fuck. I found out some shit today. I don’t know how I feel about her right now, G. A part of me wants to find her and hold onto her because I haven’t been able to forget about her, but today…she has a little girl, G. I saw her today. She’s…she’s three,
going on four years old. I don’t know how Madison lives with herself. Why didn’t she track me down, and tell me I have a child? I didn’t know Madison’s last name back then, but she knew mine. She could’ve found me, G.”

  “Fuck man. If you were with her four years ago, she’s twenty-one now…”

  “She didn’t tell me. I met her at a dance club in South Carolina. You had to be twenty-one years old to get into the place. I didn’t have any reason to question her. I could tell she was innocent, but she didn’t come across like a seventeen-year-old.”

  “If you need to take some time…I’m not sure you need to be working on this, Jensen.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Today. You don’t want to hear the details. What those women go through…”

  “Can you get me in there? I’m new enough around here, not many people know me…”

  “Malcolm wants someone to… break her. If you get in there, man, you would have to make her believe you’re one of them. It would blow our cover wide open if Malcolm figured out she knows you.”

  “Fuck. I…I can do it. I don’t know how I feel about her, G. For all I know, she played me four years ago for some reason. Either way, she’s a little girl’s mother. I want to get her out of there, in one piece.”

  “Get out of here, Beck. I’ll talk to Jon, and then I’ll see if I can get it set up. Don’t fuck it up if I get you in there.”

  “Another thing, Grant…I need you to get someone to look at this laptop. It’s Madison’s. I found it when I was searching her bedroom today. There’s…there’s a lot of shit there…and tell them to get a warrant to search my house…You’ll understand why after you see what’s on the computer. I’d like to keep this quiet until we have everything we need. I want to be certain before anyone else is brought into it.”

  “You’re my friend, Jensen, so I’m not going to ask questions…I just…never mind. I’ll look at it, and get everything taken care of.”

  “Thanks, G.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Madison”

  I sit up straight on the side of the bed when I hear the door being unlocked. It isn’t time to eat, so I don’t know who’s about to come in.