Twenty-One

by D. Victoria BonAnno

  The police had just finished up when the DJ himself appeared, casting a long shadow in the back doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Rafe.”

  Rafe walked over to him. He briefed Demetrius, praying that he could behave no differently than he usually did during an incident at the club.

  “Sorry, Boss,” he said. “He got your truck, too.”

  Demetrius didn’t move, only cutting his eyes to the retreating police car, then to his truck. There was no change in his face, or what Rafe could see above the mask, anyway, and yet the air around him felt tense and dangerous. Rafe had witnessed this before in the years he’d worked with Demetrius. This was the only time he had ever wanted to take a step back. His mind raced. He had no plan past slashing the tire.

  “I can call a tow truck for you, Boss,” he said, unable to think of anything else.

  Silence stretched. Rafe had the same feeling he’d gotten when he and his brothers were kids and played chicken by seeing who could bring their fingers close enough to a red hot stove burner.

  “Was your pickup damaged?” Demetrius said finally, his eyes still on his truck tires.

  Rafe looked over at his F-150. It was tucked away in its usual spot at the far corner of the parking lot, far from Bobby’s vengeance.

  “No, truck’s fine.”

  He felt like an idiot waiting for Demetrius to respond. A smart guy would have had a plan.

  “Is there anything in the bed?”

  “Just a tarp,” said Rafe.

  Demetrius gave a small nod. He looked at Rafe. The anger had dissipated, but there was still a strange tension in the air.

  “I need you to help me now, Rafe.”

  Rafe’s throat went dry. He cleared it.

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  “Tell Marcus to call the tow truck, then help me load the dolls into the truck bed.”

  xxi

  Rafe wound down what had to be the longest driveway he’d ever encountered, hoping Demetrius couldn’t see his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel in the dark. Demetrius had ordered him to shut off the headlights when they had turned onto a private residential street. Rafe didn’t have any bearings; he knew they were somewhere in Sylvania, near Toledo, but Demetrius had directed him down many back roads. The few homes he had seen in between large patches of woods were mansions. He knew Sylvania was a wealthier area, but he’d never seen a neighborhood like this, if it could be called a neighborhood with so much distance between each residence.

  He and Demetrius had carefully loaded five girls into the truck bed, laying the tarp over them as if they were a pile of lumber. The two smaller ones sat with them, one in between them and one in Demetrius’ lap like a child. Rafe’s heart was racing; not only because he had driven forty minutes with five human beings in his truck bed, but also because the girl in Demetrius’ lap was her. His lady with the sorrowful eyes. One.

  Other than Demetrius’ directions, they had not spoken a word. Demetrius did not even say the street names as he directed Rafe, saying only, “Left here, right here.” The feds probably would have gotten more information from him if they had bugged him with a GPS rather than a mic.

  Demetrius put the cell to his ear, casting a jarring light in the complete darkness of the wooded driveway. Rafe caught the glint of Demetrius’ black nails absently drumming against the curve of One’s waist. The sight sent a dangerous anger through Rafe, chased by a terrifying thought: Did Demetrius know about his affinity for One? Is that why he had selected her to be the one in his lap, why he petted her in that possessive way? Was he toying with Rafe?

  Rafe prayed Demetrius couldn’t see him clench his jaw. He had to keep it together. Demetrius was known for reading people so well that it made some of the new staff uncomfortable around him, but he wasn’t supernatural. Demetrius hadn’t been there the moment the bandage slipped and he saw One’s eyes. Rafe hadn’t acted like Bobby and asked stupid questions when the feds bugged him. And would Demetrius have him help with transporting the girls if he didn’t trust him? Rafe looked at the blanket of endless trees along the obscure, winding driveway. Wherever they were going, it was isolated, far enough from anything else that even a gunshot might not be heard. He wished he hadn’t had that thought.

  “We’re here,” Demetrius murmured into his phone. “Rafe, bring up the lights.”

  Rafe turned on the headlights. He had come to an elegant mansion with four tall white pillars in front of the door. A line of men stood in front of the home, dressed in black.

  “Hey, it’s Rafe!”

  “How you doin’, man?”

  “Rafe’s here!”

  Rafe squinted into the lights and realized that he knew all of the men. They were from the Oryx, either regulars or former employees or affiliates. The men pulled the tarp from the truck bed and hoisted the women out, sorting each doll to a specific man. Zach, a former bartender at the Oryx, took One from Demetrius and clamped a hand on Rafe’s shoulder.

  “Good to see you, bro,” he said. “It’s about time you were an attendant.”

  Rafe raised an eyebrow. “A what?”

  “You’ll fucking love it, dude,” Zach flashed him a tobacco-stained grin. “The pay’s great, and you don’t have to just fuck your one charge, because all the girls need experience with different dicks, right? So-”

  “Zach,” Demetrius appeared beside Rafe so quietly he nearly jumped. “Rafe’s just doing me a favour tonight.”

  Zach’s lips spread thin over his teeth. “Oh. Sorry, D. I didn’t mean to…I mean, Rafe’s cool, right?”

  “Just take One inside,” Demetrius ordered, his voice as cold as the autumn air.

  Zach scrambled away, taking Rafe’s lady by the back of the neck and leading her blindly toward the huge house.

  Rafe expected Demetrius to explain away whatever Zach had said, but he remained silent, his grey eyes on the house, browless ridges knitted in a pensive frown. Rafe didn’t break the silence. He glanced past the pillars in front of the front door to catch a glimpse of the address, but he found nothing. Still, he could identify Zach and every other man in black that had unloaded the girls from the truck. He hoped that would be something for the feds to go on.

  Rafe looked at Demetrius, the man he had followed so blindly for so long. He’d seemed different this past month, distracted. Even during October, the busiest time of year for the Oryx, his mind had seemed to be elsewhere. Maybe he was as crazy as the Oryx crowd claimed in their endless gossip. Maybe it had to do with the missing girl. Or maybe Rafe was looking for reasons to justify selling the guy out, he didn’t know. But something was different.

  As if he had heard his thoughts, Demetrius turned to Rafe, and even though Rafe was the bigger man of the two, he felt smaller somehow, as if he stood before a giant. Silence stretched and Rafe stood his ground like he always did. Many of the other bouncers were unsettled by Demetrius’ long, probing stares, but they had never bothered Rafe. He’d never had anything to hide from the man. Some of the more spiritually inclined Oryx regulars whispered about Demetrius’ ability to read minds, but that was nothing but New Age bullshit. Demetrius was just a man who knew how to read people. And Rafe was a man who knew how to hide emotions. Rafe’s mother once told him that someone only had as much power over you as you give them. Demetrius was good at getting others to give him power. His very presence demanded it. Rafe met the man’s stare with the same blank face he always had, trying not to think of the button mic, the feds, or his lady. He had willingly been bugged by feds and slashed a tire to find the truth about the man he called Boss. He wouldn’t back down now.

  Finally, Demetrius spoke.

  “Let’s go back to the Oryx,” he said. “The tow truck should be there by now.”

  Rafe almost smiled. He hadn’t expected a thank you; perhaps a threat or an entreaty for his silence. It was almost endearing that Demetrius knew Rafe wouldn’t have spoken of this to anyone had the circumstances been different. A strange feeling
gnawed at his conscience for a moment, somewhere between guilt and regret. He thought of One’s eyes, of her hand squeezing his. He gave Demetrius a small nod.

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  Chapter 26

  November 26, 2011

  “My name is Mariane McCandal.”

  “Your age?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Findlay, Ohio,” she pursed her lips. “Look, can we skip all the bullshit and just get to saying what you actually want to hear?”

  Detective Gatz’s dark brows met over the bridge of her glasses.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “How do you know Demetrius Heart?”

  Mariane tensed at the sound of his name, and again she asked herself what the fuck she was doing. Here she was, sitting in a hotel room somewhere outside of Cleveland, about to spew the secrets she had kept for years to a video camera pointed at her face. She’d hoped that Billman and Gatz would take her to Florida or Washington or somewhere else far away, like she’d seen in movies. They weren’t able to enroll her in Witness Protection until a case was made against Demetrius, so they carted her off to bumfuck Northeast Ohio to “put her at ease.” All Mariane could do now was cross her fingers and hope that Demetrius’ reach didn’t stretch this far.

  “He’s the manager and resident DJ at a club I go to all the time,” she answered.

  “And what club is that?” asked Gatz.

  Mariane rolled her eyes. “The Oryx in Hollington, Ohio. Can we hurry this up?”

  Billman, seated on the shitty double bed, smirked. “You have somewhere to go?”

  Mariane glared at him. Gatz held up her hand to halt a potential argument. “We know you’re nervous, Mariane, but the sooner you cooperate, the sooner we can build a case.”

  Mariane snorted and leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, right. You guys don’t have shit. The only reason you even knew about me is because I left the fucking message.”

  Gatz shook her head. “We have more than you think.”

  Something in Gatz’s expression made Mariane believe her. She wondered who else they had gotten to talk, but she knew they wouldn’t tell her anything.

  “Now,” Gatz continued. “On the night of November fifth, you left a message on Dr. Leroux’s office answering machine regarding his missing daughter and you left Demetrius Heart’s name in that message. Why did you implicate this man?”

  Implicate. The word made Mariane want to call everything off. She imagined hitching a ride from the hotel and getting as far as she possibly could. She steadied herself. It was too late now. The least she could do is give up as much information as possible in hopes that Demetrius would end up in prison. She rested her forehead on the heels of her palms.

  “Because Demetrius sells women.”

  Gatz reached over and patted Mariane on the arm. “Can you say that louder, please?”

  Mariane swallowed. “He sells women.”

  The silence was agony.

  “When you say he sells women,” Billman said slowly, as if he thought Mariane would spook, “what do you mean?”

  Mariane sighed. Her hands were shaking again. “Like for sex. Sex slaves. Human trafficking, or whatever.”

  “How do you know that Demetrius Heart is involved in human trafficking?” Billman asked, rising from the bed.

  “Well, everybody thinks so,” Mariane said, trying not to watch Billman pace back and forth. He reminded her of a lion at the zoo, pacing endlessly in a glass enclosure, maddened by the scent of unattainable prey. “Like, he brings in these girls wrapped in black bandages to the club every year. They don’t move or talk to anyone. The bouncers say he brings them from his house, and they’re different girls every year.”

  “And you think these women are prisoners?” asked Gatz.

  “That’s what some people say. A lot of girls have asked Demetrius if they could be one of the dolls next year, but he says he finds them himself.”

  “How do you know these aren’t just rumours and he hires these women to be dolls every year?”

  Mariane looked at the detectives. “You told me I won’t be implicated for withholding information,” she said. “But if some of my information is about…another crime, can I get in trouble for that?”

  Gatz and Billman exchanged glances. Mariane told herself to breathe. She was already in so deep. She couldn’t panic now.

  “Was this a crime you committed?” asked Gatz.

  “No, I kind of…witnessed one, I guess. I’m not even sure if it was a crime, it was more self-defense. I just…don’t know what happened after.”

  She was babbling and she knew it, but Billman seemed to make enough sense of what she said to reply.

  “All right,” he said, flexing his fingers. “Tell us what you saw. How does it pertain to Heart’s involvement in human trafficking?”

  Mariane felt a little sick. She swallowed a lump of tension in her throat. “It confirms them. In a way.”

  Gatz nodded for her to continue.

  Mariane’s hands trembled uncontrollably now. The room began to wobble.

  “Can I please have a smoke?” she gasped, suddenly struggling for breath. “I’ll tell you, I promise, I just…I need to calm my nerves.”

  Another glance between Gatz and Billman. Billman gave his partner a nod.

  “Out on the balcony, please,” said Gatz.

  Mariane didn’t even remember getting up and putting on her coat. She was just outside, a light but brutally cold wind nipping at her shaking fingers as she struggled to light a cigarette. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She’d never breathed a word of what she had witnessed to anyone, and now she was about to spill her guts to two detectives and a camera. Christ, what was she doing here? Why had she left that fucking message? She’d kept her mouth shut about Demetrius for years. Why hadn’t she done the same now?

  Chloe’s face hovered in her mind, and she felt a shadow of the guilt that had driven her to leave the message for Dr. Leroux. She didn’t need another face haunting her. She already had one; the face of a dark-haired man, young and wild-eyed with anger and fear. Ramirez. That was the only name she’d known him by, and that was only because it was tattooed across his forearms in big bold lettering. He’d been wearing every day street clothes at the Oryx, which made him stick out in the worst way at the themed club. Normally men who wore street clothes into the Oryx came in there to start trouble, so her fellow patrons had done their best to leave him isolated. Mariane would have avoided him as well but the space next to him was the only spot available at the bar, and she’d needed a drink.

  He’d been quiet when she’d first sat down to order a drink, and she’d tried to give him his space. He looked wired, his body tense like a coil ready to spring. It was only after she’d taken her first sip of whiskey that he’d spoken.

  “Do you know where the dolls are?” he’d asked in a shaky voice she could hardly hear over the blare of the dance floor.

  Mariane had relaxed a bit then. He must have been here before if he knew about the dolls.

  “They’re on the dance floor where they always are,” she’d answered.

  Ramirez, a boy no older than eighteen, if that, lapsed back into silence. The rest of the night had been routine for Mariane; she drank, she danced, she socialized. She was a regular queen of her hive, and she didn’t give Ramirez a second thought until he’d appeared at her side out on the smoking deck, his dark eyes flitting about as he babbled about Demetrius. She was used to newcomers asking about the DJ, but the boy’s questions weren’t typical.

  “Is he always in the DJ booth? Does he take breaks? Does he ever come out here?”

  “Dude, I don’t know,” Mariane had said finally. She’d been about to walk away when the boy grabbed her arm.

  “He has my sister,” the desperation in his eyes had made her nervous. “She was in Detroit, and he…took her.”

  Mariane had heard the rumours about Demetrius having sex slaves by
that point, like everybody had, but she’d always thought those rumours had been about kinky BDSM-type shit, if they were true at all. She didn’t link the rumours with what the boy was trying to say. She just thought he was crazy.

  “Get off,” she’d said, wrenching herself from his grip and heading back inside. She made a mental note to tell the bouncer she’d been dating at the time about Ramirez, but as the night wore on, it slipped her mind.

  Mariane had lingered after the bar had closed, waiting for her bouncer in the parking lot. She smoked and watched Rafe and Demetrius load the dolls into Demetrius’ truck. A few minutes after they’d headed back inside, Ramirez appeared in the parking lot. Mariane watched him circle Demetrius’ truck a couple of times.

  “Amanda?” she’d heard him call. “Amanda, are you in there?”

  Then, to her shock, he pulled a handgun out of his pants and climbed into the passenger’s side.

  The sight of the gun had made Mariane’s stomach lurch. She’d run back inside and practically barreled into Demetrius himself.

  “You can’t be in here after hours,” Rafe called to her from the bar. But Demetrius saw the lit cigarette in her hand and pulled her back into the doorway.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “There’s a guy with a gun outside! He’s in your truck!”

  What she could see of Demetrius’ face didn’t change at all. His eyes were as expressionless as the mask below them. He went outside without a word to anyone.

  Even now, she couldn’t explain why she followed him out there, why she stood in the doorway like a peeping child, but she had. She’d watched Demetrius take his ever-present knife from his pocket and storm right up to the truck. It all happened so fast. He ripped open the passenger door. Mariane heard a sound like a firecracker that didn’t immediately process in her brain, because her bouncer had opened the door and dragged her inside. He’d refused to listen to her about what she’d witnessed.

  “It’s D’s business,” he’d said. “Don’t say anything about it.”

  Mariane smashed out her cigarette on the hotel balcony rail. Her hands were no longer shaking, yet she didn’t feel any more at ease. Demetrius never mentioned that night again, and Mariane didn’t, either. She didn’t dare ask him what had happened to the Ramirez boy, or about the bandage that concealed a bullet wound. She hadn’t breathed a word. But she was about to.