And now Sylvia had to pretend she wanted a piece of that pie.
The office was sparse, but carried the necessities for a man like Alexander to remain low. Neat, comfortable furniture. A fully stocked bar. Take-out menus that only the bodyguards could order from.
A whole fuckton of security.
The monitors were on display in a side room that boasted an open door. Cameras tracked everyone coming and going from the whole building. Some of them were probably cameras that Sheen didn’t even own, but had the means to hack into. Streetlight cameras. Dash cameras that came within a certain radius. I’m so glad I wasn’t wired with a camera, holy shit! Sylvia was practically naked. The only thing Jim gave her? The dress she wore. One of her designer cocktail dresses she had bought with Joseph’s money. Jim had managed to, in one night, line her hem with a sheer-thin wire that would record everything on audio. No cameras. Sylvia’s job was to get Alexander to verbally admit as much as possible.
She was also glad that her boyfriend and the multiple agents surrounding the building were not in conspicuous vehicles. The vans were gone. The cars were parked back at the station building. Two junior agents jogged healthy laps around downtown. More senior agents waited for orders in nearby coffee shops that managed to stay open this damn late. (Which were not many.) Jim sat in Powell’s, pretending to read a book in one empty corner of the store – in reality, he was listening through his earbuds with rapt attention to anything Sylvia picked up on her mic. The most conspicuous people? Genevieve and Joseph had split up after the briefing. Genevieve was at the station overseeing the whole operation while Joseph drove around in an unmarked cruiser. A real cruiser also made the rounds, its sole purpose to distract from Joseph.
About twenty agents were currently on hot alert. And Sylvia was the only one currently in Alexander’s presence. She was unarmed, and hardly dangerous.
The man himself stood far away from the shuttered windows. A glass of brandy was clenched between his large fingers, a cigarette puffing between his teeth. Alexander waved three of his bodyguards close to him the moment Sylvia approached. One deft hand kept her from coming any closer. Shit. What? Was this it? Was he already going to have her head chopped off?
Or worse?
“Apologies, Sylvia.” He motioned something to the biggest bodyguard, a guy who could’ve easily been a star linebacker at any school in Oregon. “It’s necessary after last time.”
The bodyguard behind her grabbed her arms and held her place. Sylvia gasped, in time for the linebacker brute to pat her down from head to toe. His big, gnarled hands lingered way too long on her breasts and hips. Go on. Get a hard-on. I fucking dare you. Sylvia was used to this sort of treatment. Didn’t mean she liked it or that it was right, but she was able to keep a level head while one man held her down so the other could grope the shit out of her.
“She’s clean, boss.” The linebacker tightened his jacket around his broad torso. Hope your cock’s twitching after that. Should charge you a hundred bucks, fucker! “Didn’t find any wires. No jewelry, either.”
“Good to know that our guest took my threats seriously.” The bodyguard holding Sylvia released her. She patted down her hair and fixed the bugged hem of her dress. Jim, you’re a genius. The agents knew that Sylvia would be shaken down. “So lovely to see you, Sylvia.”
“Wish I could say the pleasure is mine after a welcome like that.”
“I hear such treatment doesn’t bother you.” His frown shifted into a heel-nipping smirk. “Or at least it didn’t last time when we were so rudely interrupted by your hero.”
Sylvia scoffed. “That man used me. I’d hardly call him my hero. You wanna hear the truth? He cost me so much work that…”
“I don’t really care, no,” Alexander said. “Fact of the matter is, Sylvia, the last time you and I dated, you were wired to try to catch me in some rather… unscrupulous business dealings. I have to take that into account. How can I trust you?”
“Well, for one, I’m not the cops’ lackey this time.” Sylvia forced herself to stand tall in front of this man who could command any one of his goons to shoot her in the head. Oh, she saw the sidearms swarming this place. There wasn’t a single man in the room who wasn’t carrying. She’d bet that even Sheen carried. “They used me. Told me that if I didn’t ‘help’ them they were going to send me to prison for years. All for trying to do some honest work.” She sniffed. “They’re no friends of mine. I’m here to talk to you on my own. Don’t even have a madam anymore. She up and disappeared on me.”
Alexander looked at her incredulously. I can’t believe I ever thought this guy was handsome. His brows were uneven. Bags lined his eyes. Putrid gray hair laced his head. Not the hot silver, either. Gray. Sylvia knew that Sheen was around forty, but she wasn’t expecting him to look this haggard. Someone is ready to dump his business. Genevieve had been right. Tonight was their last chance. As soon as the shipment went out, Sheen was going to sell his enterprise.
“Are you trying to tell me,” Sheen began, “that you had no idea that your madam was working for law enforcement?”
“I mean, she wasn’t a very good madam, and her accent was kinda fake. But no. What are you talking about? She was a cop?”
“Yes, Ms. Rogers. A dirty, rotten cop that had to be taken care of.” That growl biting his words was nothing like Joseph’s. Sylvia’s boyfriend was pure, raw vitality livening up her loins. Sheen was like a wounded wolf getting ready for the last bite of its life. “So tell me exactly why you’re here. If you saw me only as a client you could milk of more than money, you wouldn’t be here in this room right now. Because I don’t have time for that. Neither do you, I’m guessing.”
“Well, a girl is willing to work out lucrative arrangements when necessary.” Sylvia wasn’t going to bat her eyelashes. Not only did Alexander not want to see that right now, but she was too nervous to convey it realistically. “But you’re right. I’m here for business, but not that kind of business, Mr. Sheen.”
“Then what business are you here for?”
“Like I told you over the phone,” Sylvia took two tentative steps forward, waiting for someone to grab her, “I’m interested in helping you. Being forced to go undercover taught me a lot about what it is you’re doing, Mr. Sheen. I think I can help you.”
This was it. The moment of truth. Years of acting, of pretending to be men’s dreams come true was about to be tested to limits Sylvia didn’t even know she had. Would Sheen believe her? Or would he see right through the whites of her eyes and find a lying bitch that wasn’t worth the wire sewn into her hem?
“Help me, huh? I’d love to know how you think I need your help.”
“I’ve been hearing all over town about your enterprise. Oh, you wonder how I hear such things? People notice when even the homeless and undocumented go missing. Not to mention that tiring crash that happened. You think I don’t know that was one of your trucks?”
“We had managed to keep that out of the media.”
“Yes, but you had told me enough about your business that I was about to put two and two together. Do you really think I’ve been so successful at my job by not being observant? I knew from the moment it was mentioned on TV that it was one of your trucks, one of your drivers. I got to see the full scale of what you were achieving. And you got away with it, too! I thought… that’s what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. That’s what I can use my skills for. I’ve always wanted to open my own pleasure house. I used to work for the best in the nation.”
Alexander’s jaw was set in disbelief. “I know. What is the point of this?”
“The point is that I know how to run my own sex business. The only reasons I haven’t started my own house are due to a lack of funds, those pesky legalities… and not wanting to deal with entitled little whores who can’t be grateful that they have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. They’re not even guaranteed that living here!” Sylvia wanted to vomit letting those words taint her lips
, but they were what she and Genevieve came up with in the commander’s personal office the night before. “Make him think you want to go into business together. Don’t play nice. He has to think you’re ruthless enough to make it in his business.” Oh, Sylvia could sound ruthless. She had heard it all in her few years, hadn’t she? All the names. All the implications. She could regurgitate them with ease. “What are you currently doing? Selling your goods to an acquirer in, where, Thailand? Why stop there? Send me to Thailand and let me set up a house. Give me the capital… and the best goods you acquire. Next thing you know, I’m running the tightest ship south of Shanghai, and your billionaire buddies are enjoying their sex tourism with a side of you making serious bank. Because after the house is paid for, all I’ll ask for is a nice salary for my efforts. The rest goes right back to you.”
Alexander crossed his arms and relaxed against the edge of an empty desk. “Go on.”
Oh my God, he’s falling for it? The man really drank money out of a dirty wineglass, didn’t he? “Think about it. How much money do you make per girl now? Twenty grand? Fifty grand?”
“Theoretically?” Alexander laughed. “Try seventy-five.”
Wow. “That was more than I was expecting. But either way, how much more could you make if those girls were investments instead? A high class place can easily bring in a hundred grand in one night. Easy.” Sylvia sometimes saw upward to a million dollars drop at the Château where she worked. Get a bunch of billionaires buying all the good booze, ordering up all the priciest services, and then making investments in the whole place? Bam. A million bucks charged to credit cards from all over the world. Sylvia always reveled in the pride she felt knowing she had worked to make that happen.
“And how much would a place like that cost me to start up?”
“Oh, well, you have to find a place big enough in a nice enough neighborhood… renovate it… buy supplies… get the girls… pay the bribes to the local authorities so you can operate without interruption… sounds expensive, but this is Thailand we’re talking about. You’d make your investments back within a month.”
“Normally I would ask people pitching me business ideas to draw up extensive plans and hand in a million references.” Alexander uncrossed his arms. “Normally. You’re not normal, though, are you Sylvia?”
“I should hardly hope to be normal. Normal is boring. Normal doesn’t make money. I always want to go to the next level and tap into my real potential.”
That’s what I told my old madam when she was interviewing me for the courtesan house. It had worked on her. Here was hoping it worked on a man like Alexander Sheen.
“What an entrepreneurial thing to say.” Alexander snapped his fingers. The linebacker bodyguard stepped forward. “Go get the girl. I want to know what Ms. Rogers thinks about her moneymaking potential.”
Sylvia turned her deep inhale into a smile. “Of course,” she said, watching the bodyguard slip out of the room, “I wouldn’t expect to be handed something like that. I’d be happy to give you my honest expertise, Mr. Sheen.”
He murmured something to another bodyguard who pulled out a netbook from his briefcase and sat in the far corner, typing away. To Sylvia, he said, “Oh, you’ll do more than that.” Within five seconds the bodyguard was back, lugging a young bound and gagged woman who looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. Yet her dark brown eyes were pools of fire as she stared back into Sylvia’s soul, a painful burst of recognition settling deep in both of their stomachs. “You’re going to prove your loyalty to me.”
Sylvia couldn’t hide her surprise. Maybe that was for the best. Alexander would’ve been sorely disappointed if he didn’t get some rise out of her. But what was Sylvia supposed to do with Reina Montoya pushed down to her knees for everyone to make a mockery of?
Other than play along, of course. After all, Joseph had used her. He had betrayed her. That was the mindset Sylvia had walked into this operation with, and no matter how many squeals Reina emitted the moment she recognized her brother’s girlfriend, she would have to pretend that this was the happiest day of her life.
The trick? Not letting anyone listening in on her wire know that it was an agent’s sister in the room. That would be like taking a bush fire and letting it consume the whole forest long before the helitack arrived.
Chapter 32
Joseph
Come on, Sylv. Keep your head in the game.
Joseph turned up the radio in his police cruiser. Jim was retransmitting everything Sylvia’s wire sent to him on a ten second time delay. I can barely keep up with what’s going on. His throat had gone dry the moment his girlfriend was in the same room as Alexander Sheen, the man who had tried to force himself upon her. And now I can’t sweep in and save her. I have to hold myself back. Meanwhile, his stomach churned to hear her so easily say that she wanted to become a madam to a house full of sex slaves.
Alexander Sheen hadn’t outright admitted to anything, of course. He was smart. He was going to make sure Sylvia really was on his side before giving her any ins to his business.
Naturally, Joseph had not expected a woman to be brought before Sylvia for her opinions. He was glad he couldn’t see who it was. The man had a strong stomach for a lot of things he saw and heard on the job, but having Sylvia laugh while she candidly spoke of how much they could get for each of the girl’s orifices was pushing even his limits.
“It’s too bad she’s not blond,” Sylvia said, each word enunciated as if she were thinking of them so far ahead of time. “They’ll get us the most money, of course. Then redheads. But if you break her down soon enough, she may sit still long enough to bleach her hair. The clients won’t care. They’re there for the fantasy. I bet this girl could provide an excellent fantasy.”
“How much would a fantasy like that go for?”
As happy as Joseph was that Alexander was going along with this, he had to check out after that. It was bad enough this poor girl was probably scared out of her mind and now hearing her fate as the unwilling courtesan of some renovated house in Thailand. (Or Cambodia, as Sylvia soon suggested. She had contacts in some local government there. Apparently a person in charge was once in love with her. All she had to do was offer him a few favors for old time’s sake, and they would have the cheapest bribes around!)
Sick.
It’ll be amazing if I can get it up sometime this next month. He hoped Sylvia wasn’t planning on marathon lovemaking sessions after this was over. A man couldn’t wash these words out of his head like he could grime off his skin.
“You make compelling arguments,” Sheen eventually said. “All right, Sylvia. I don’t have much time to talk business. I’ve got a, you know, business to run as of tonight, and I can’t stay in Portland much longer.”
“I hope you’re not planning on selling your whole operation off, though. If you can procure more girls of this one’s caliber, we would have the nicest place in Southeast Asia. We could charge lower prices than what you get in the West, while still turning a huge profit. We’re talking millions, untaxed once it passes your palm. It won’t work unless you can provide a steady stream of nice young women, though. They tend to get a bit… used up. Quickly. Especially if they don’t learn to cooperate.”
“I get what you’re saying. This would be a high turnover operation.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll think about it. By the way, Sylvia, you seem to know who this young lady is.”
There was silence. She knows who it is? It must’ve been someone from her neighborhood. Or, ugh, someone she worked with. No wonder he wants to test her loyalty.
“Joseph,” his mother said over his radio. “Are you getting all of this?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. As soon as we have definitive evidence, I’m leading a team in. I’ll need you to stay checking the perim…” She was cut off.
“Hello? Commander?” Joseph reset his radio in case the problem was on his end. “Mother?”
Shit.
At least he knew she was safe at the station, even if she was prepping herself in gear, getting ready to bust down the door of one of Portland’s biggest threats to public safety. Wish I could do more. His orders had been clear, however. Listen and watch. He’d be called for backup if necessary.
“…Shit!... Get him out of…!”
Joseph almost leaped in his seat. He grabbed his radio, speaking as loudly as he could into the receiver. “Commander! What’s wrong? Is everything okay there?” When he didn’t get an answer, he switched to Jim’s line. “Jim, you got anything?”
“Nah, man. It’s all fuzz over here too.”
The last thing Joseph needed right now was another surprise. Like someone knocking a heavy fist against the passenger side window… before aiming a gun right at his head.
His mother had been right. Shit!
“Open the door,” said a hooded figure. “Before that marked officer comes rolling back around this way and thinks you’re in trouble.”
Joseph kept one hand up as he slowly reached to unlock the door. Now was not the time to brandish his own gun and fire. Good thing, too, for as soon as the door was opened, the hooded figure put their gun away and slid in next to him.
He instantly recognized that cinnamon-vanilla perfume.
“Hello, loverboy.” Stella removed her hood. “You’re so surprised to see me!”
Surprised was an understatement. More like out of his fucking mind.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He exhaled roughly, slamming both hands against the steering wheel of the unmarked cruiser. “I’m working. Now is not a good time for your games.” He couldn’t even hear Sylvia right now. She and Sheen were still talking business. But with Stella here to distract Joseph? What good was he at his damn job?
“I know you’re working.” She brandished her weapon again. And another one. Two Glocks that were apparently in need of reloading. How many bullets was this woman carrying in her sweatshirt pocket? “So am I?”
Damaged Goods Page 37
