an excerpt from
THE SECOND BETRAYAL
A Lexi Steele Novel
by Cheyenne McCray
© Copyright Cheyenne McCray, 2009
All Rights Reserved, St. Martin's Press
Chapter 1
Little Red Riding Hood
It had been a mistake having totally wild, raunchy sex with Nick Donovan during our first assignment together.
Including the hundred or so times we ended up in bed—or up against a wall, on the kitchen table, on the floor, in my office—when we weren’t working on Operation Cinderella.
The breath I sucked in burned my throat as I tried to control my lust while I watched Donovan. His jeans tightened against his muscular ass as he bent over the shoulder of Agent Kerrison to look closer at the wide screen monitor in front of her.
Donovan had become like a drug to me. An addiction. I couldn’t get enough of him.
I pushed my hair out of my face in frustration. Lexi Steele had never allowed distractions like Nick Donovan. I had to get a grip.
I’d been telling myself that for a good six months now, since early June, a couple of weeks after we finished our first op together. Here it was, the end of November, and I still couldn’t get enough of Donovan.
“Damnit,” I said under my breath. “This infatuation has so got to stop. It’s like being a freaking teenager.”
Another thought crossed my mind as I watched Donovan, a thought that was always there and wouldn’t let go of me. The big man held so many secrets tight to his chest and had never let me in far enough to know what any of them were. I had spilled my guts about what had happened when I was in Army Special Forces, and how I’d been forced into being an assassin. Why was Donovan keeping every bit of his past from me?
I shook off the thoughts. This wasn’t the time for lust or secrets. It was time to get back to work. I turned my thoughts to the current op and headed toward David Takamoto
Takamoto stood at the opposite side of the banks of monitors and screens of our Team Center, TC. A blue glow encompassed the whole of the Command Center, the glow given off from walls of screens in the CC where various teams tracked activity on their assignments.
Agents had put up holiday decorations here and there, some for sheer amusement, like a small Santa who dropped his pants every time someone walked by.
There were also some decorations on agents’ desks reflecting their own holiday beliefs. A silver and blue depiction of a Jewish menorah with its white candles. A picture of a Kwanzaa kinara with its colorful candles—three red, one black, and three green.
Some wiseass had put up a Mexican donkey piñata in a corner of the CC—a picture of Special Agent in Charge Carter on its nose. Our SAC would be entirely oblivious considering he spent his time in his first floor office playing computer card games as he waited out the last year until his retirement.
Of course our Assistant Special Agent in Charge might not find it amusing. Our ASAC, Karen Oxford, was tough, fair, and had no obvious sense of humor. But then again, the picture was still up and the donkey had been there two weeks before Thanksgiving. Maybe she had a sense of humor after all.
A soft buzz and hum filled the CC as agents spoke into headphones and kept track of their assignments on the high-tech large screens. I smelled pine from a small Christmas tree that overpowered the familiar scent of climate controlled air as I passed the tree.
“Steele.” Takamoto caught sight of me and I tilted my head to meet his brown eyes when I reached him. “I was just about to find you give you the news. It’s about Wolf.”
A petite five-four, I had to look up at most of the guys at RED. Seemed that Karen Oxford, my ASAC—Assistant Agent in Charge—liked to hire male agents six feet and over. Or maybe it was a coincidence.
Ha.
Most of the guys on all RED task forces made me feel like I was in the land of the giants—just like my four older brothers did. Even my twelve-year-old brother towered over me. Little shit. Make that big shit.
“I’d give anything for news on Hagstedt.” I put my palms on my hips as I met his Takamoto’s gaze. “Tell me you have something on that bastard.”
Takamoto was excellent at schooling his expressions and right now I wanted to shake him for looking so calm. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks, causing his shirt to pull against his runner’s athletic physique. He pressed his shirts and slacks so stiffly I don’t think a wrinkle would dare sneak in. I managed not to look down at my T-shirt and Levis that I’d snatched out of the laundry basket this morning and felt the material almost crawl with wrinkles.
“Operation Big Bad Wolf looks like it could be hot in Manhattan just like we expected.” Takamoto glanced in the direction the group of agents on his intel team. “Rublev just reported in after she sent us the coded message. She said the Elite Gentleman’s Club is definitely Hagstedt’s. She overheard a conversation that verifies what info Johnny gave us. And if we can crack that coded message she intercepted earlier, that may give us all we need to get in there and get to Hagstedt.”
I wanted to grip my fist jerk my elbow back in a yes motion. We’d known the key men were involved in kidnapping and prostituting young women in their club, but we hadn’t known for sure if that operation was part of Hagstedt’s enormous human trafficking ring. “Thank God. We’ve been working that club for how long once Rublev was in?”
Takamoto shook his head. “At least two months.”
“About friggin’ time.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe it’s been over six months since we brought down his man Cabot in Cinderella.”
Operation Cinderella had been a huge coup for the Human Trafficking and Sex Crimes Unit which was part of the Recovery Enforcement Division. RED was a clandestine offshoot of the NSA and we had clearance to do any damned thing we wanted to.
Yeah, Cinderella had been a success, but Wolf had not been going so well. Beyond six months of fruitless searching over the summer for Anders Hagstedt grated at me more and more every single day. The so-called mastermind of countless human-trafficking rings in China, Russia, Switzerland, and the U.S. needed to be brought down. Now. We doubted Hagstedt was his real last name, but we’d still run all the leads we could on anyone with that surname with no luck.
Takamoto inclined his head in the direction of the “dungeon” as we liked to call our geek squad’s domain. “Now if the geeks can decipher the coded message, we might get some more detailed info. It’s been six hours and the geeks are still working on it.”
“The new agent, Kerrison, thinks she can crack it,” I said. “She’s only had it fifteen or twenty minutes, though.” My chin-length hair brushed my cheeks as I looked over my shoulder.
I swiveled my gaze back to Takamoto. “I think we’re real close to putting Little Red into play.”
Before Takamoto could respond, I sensed Donovan behind me and caught his musky, spicy scent. My body immediately responded to his presence with an aching desire that made me want to scream in frustration.
Oxford had paired Donovan and me up as Team Supervisors during Cinderella and she’d decided to keep us working together instead of giving Donovan his own team. Karen Oxford was one incredibly savvy, observant woman, but I don’t think she knew about my sexual relationship with Donovan, or she would have separated us. Or canned one of our asses. Hell, probably both of us.
The ten inch difference in mine and Donovan’s heights had never been a problem when it came to sex. His blue eyes didn’t show any emotion that might tell me how he felt about the two of us. No, his gaze was entirely professional. Good. That’s how it should be—I hoped I looked just as professional.
Donovan looked from me to Takamoto and back. “Kerrison deciphered the communication.”
It took some effort, but I managed to keep my jaw from dropping. “She decoded the message in twenty minutes?”
“Fifteen.” Donovan’s expression bordered on grim as he continued. “Hagstedt’s operation isn’t relegated to one or even a few clubs. It looks like Hagstedt is doing exactly what we’ve been able to gather from intel,” Donovan said. “He imports girls from Switzerland, China, and Russia, and forces them into prostitution in clubs in all of New York City’s boroughs. The club we’ve been watching on Sixtieth Street is more or less the headquarters for his New York op.”
Rick Smithe gave a low whistle behind me and I cut my gaze to my left to see that he and George Perry had joined Takamoto. “What do you know? We finally got something,” Smithe said.
Women being lured into the wrong hands with promises of jobs in America, then being prostituted once they arrived in the US was nothing new—other teams on our task force were working on various ops related to all types of human trafficking including that.
But to finally find a ring firmly tied to Hagstedt was like raking in the dough from a billion dollar lottery. No—giving the slimeball a bullet in the brain would be the winning ticket. This was more like watching each Powerball number start to fall into place.
A shiver of excitement tickled my skin from anticipation of getting my teeth into the Wolf op that was finally going somewhere. Hagstedt was a big fish. Probably the biggest mastermind of human trafficking in the world from the intel we’d gathered.
I gave Donovan word on the latest Takamoto had just relayed. Adrenaline started rushing through me from the excitement of an oncoming hunt. “What do you have that Kerrison came up with?”
Donovan was holding two pieces of paper and he raised his hand. For a moment I couldn’t take my eyes off of his thick wrist and the black hair on his forearm, and I could almost feel myself tracing my fingertips over the back of his hand. I swallowed and met his gaze. Damn. This overwhelming desire I had for Donovan had to stop.
He handed me the pages and I took them and skimmed the gibberish on the first paper. “The code’s so complicated that Taylor and his geek squad couldn’t make sense of it in six hours. And Kerrison did it in fifteen minutes?” I repeated more to myself than any of the men standing around me.
Oxford had told me that Kerrison had one of the highest IQs in the world and had also sailed through Quantico’s intense physical tests—supposedly she could kick major ass. A Harvard graduate at twenty with an IQ as high as Stephen Hawking or Marilyn vos Savant, Kerrison made an incredible addition to my and Donovan’s team. On top of that she was model beautiful which could work to her advantage in some undercover ops.
My skin prickled as I read the decoded message on the second page. “Hagstedt is supposed to arrive in Manhattan within the next few weeks,” I said.
I glanced from the paper to Takamoto, Perry, and Smithe as I continued. “It actually names the Elite Gentleman’s Club and names the asshole who oversees Hagstedt’s entire New York City human trafficking ring. His name is something we’ve never been able to get since he doesn’t talk with anyone but a couple of his men and the Madame, from what Rublev has managed to see. And they call him Mr. G.”
“Holy shit.” Smithe’s grin was almost dangerous. “We’re going to put that bastard’s ass in a grinder.”
Perry tilted his head to look at the paper as he rubbed the back of his neck. “What kind of name is Beeff Giger?” Perry touched the sides of his dark GQ haircut. “Sounds almost cliché, like Rocko or Shorty.”
A metrosexual, Perry was always primping. He was supposed to have been my submissive in the last op—I’d ended up being the submissive, but to Nick Donovan who’d been my “Master” in a private BDSM circle. Not something I wanted to repeat. I’d been whipped enough in my former life as an assassin, and even though things had gotten pretty erotic with Donovan, I’d skip floggings any day. Especially bamboo. That hurts like a sonofabitch.
Takamoto shrugged in response to Perry’s question. “Beeff is actually a Swiss variant, like Giger, his last name.” Takamoto pronounced the names perfectly as he looked over my shoulder at the page, too.
“We think our inside cooperative, Jenika Rublev, has been doing her job in finding ways to make the handlers suspect the gentleman’s club Madame is catching on to their real operation—that it’s not a strip club with willing prostitutes.” Donovan glanced at the three men beside me. “These boys are starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the Madame.”
“We need to pull her out or she’ll end up permanently visiting the fishes in the Hudson,” Takamoto said.
I nodded. “We’ll be able to roll Little Red into gear in no time. But we’ve got to hurry.” I glanced at the huge atomic clock on one wall with its glowing blue numbers. Almost two in the afternoon. “Smithe, grab Weiss, Fairbanks, and Jensen and meet me and Donovan in Conference Room Four. Three sharp. Takamoto and Perry, I want you there, too.”
“Can’t wait to see what you’re cooking up in that ruthless head of yours, Steele,” Perry said with a grin.
Same here. “Three,” I repeated before I turned to head up the steps to the catwalk that led to the Team Supervisor offices.
Damn, a hot lead. But we had to hurry and get “in” before Hagstedt arrived. We needed to make our case solid to tear down his entire house of cards.
Donovan fell into step beside me, and like always he made a point of shortening his normally long strides so that I wouldn’t have to jog to keep up with him. As my partner he’d be going in on any op we put together, and the thought sent something indefinable curing in my belly. Or at least something I didn’t want to define.
My new running shoes squeaked on the metal stairs that led out of the Command Center. I glanced up at Donovan as we stepped on the black and white tiled catwalk at the same time. He was looking at me with such intense scrutiny that hair pricked at my nape.
“Hold a second,” Donovan said and we came to a stop in front of the glassed-walled offices of four other Team Supervisors. Donovan was already walking back to Kerrison who now stood at the top of the stairs we’d just taken from the CC to the catwalk.
I didn’t follow him. I never liked trailing after someone like a lost puppy and I figured he’d relay whatever message the junior agent had.
I couldn’t resist admiring Donovan’s biceps that bulged as he braced his hand on one of the rails that ran along the catwalk as he spoke with Kerrison. The powerful muscles of his shoulders flexed beneath his black T-shirt when he moved and his short, dark hair needed to be ruffled.
My mouth watered as I trailed my gaze down his athletic physique—all six feet, four inches of him—to his Levis that were snug against his tight ass and muscular legs. When I moved my gaze up again I studied his almost harsh but incredibly sexy profile. I couldn’t see his vivid blue eyes, but the stubble on his strong jaw made me itch to caress his cheeks, to see my fair Irish skin against his darker flesh.
Donovan headed back toward me while Kerrison returned downstairs to the hub of our RED unit. I went into my office, Donovan right behind. He closed the door.
My gaze fell on my red heavy-duty Everlast punching bag that I kept in my office. I could sure use it now to work off the sexual tension from the distracting feelings I’d been having over Donovan.
I plopped onto my padded leather seat behind my desk. Besides the punching bag, my large screen monitor, and my desk, my office was almost bare. The exception being a framed photograph of my entire family taken two years ago. All five brothers, my sister, Mammy, Daddy, and me.
“If we hurry and make our move,” I said as I swiveled slightly in my chair, “I think we can put Operation Little Red Riding Hood into action.”
Donovan folded his arms across his broad chest and hitched one shoulder against the doorframe. “Agreed.”
Enthusiasm for our plan took over and I rested my forearms on my modern, sleek black desktop and leaned forward. “Smithe’s team just needs to put the finishing touches on the fictitious history for me.” I almost rolled my eyes at the thought of Smithe who was always up to something. Fortunately it was all good. Most of the time.
With a very unladylike snort, I continued. “Of course Smithe embellished the rap sheet, but it still comes down to me having run a successful cathouse for nine years here in Boston. Smithe even managed to create fake articles in the Boston Globe and several other rags about me being busted for my girls having sex with clientele willing to cough up the money.”
“How long since the bust?” Donovan looked so sexy the way he leaned up against the door. . .
Jesus. Being so hot over Donovan was not exactly conducive to keeping a clear head focused the op right now. “A year since the bust. Long enough to be sure no one would pay any attention to me now. I’ve had plenty of money to last me, blah, blah, but now I need the income to continue my comfortable lifestyle.”
Donovan nodded. “Exactly what we wanted.”
I rocked back in my chair. “The rap sheet Smithe came up with is good. Nothing on it that would put me on the radar with any government agencies. This Beeff Giger bastard will see my solid history of handling girls. I’ll have moved to Brooklyn to get away from the heat in Boston and stay low for a while. I’ll even tell him that I’ll go by another name just so word doesn’t get out I’m the new club’s Madame.”
“I don’t think we’ll have a problem getting you in once the current Madame is out.” Donovan looked thoughtful. “I assume Smithe has my background completely set up so that it won’t be too big of a problem getting on as one of the handlers.”
“You’ll have to rough yourself up a bit, Donovan.” I leaned back in my chair as I appraised him and tried not to smile. “You don’t look like a hardcore prostitute handler.”
“And you don’t look like a hardcore Madame,” he said, his tone dry but almost amused.
“All it will take is a little wardrobe change and just the right made-up look.” Georgina, my best friend and fellow RED agent was brilliant at helping me with that kind of thing. Plus she currently wasn’t on an undercover op. “Yeah, makeup and adding about four inches to my height.” Thank God for stilettos.
The corner of his mouth quirked in one of his rare smiles and he look so incredibly hot and sexy that I instantly wanted to jump his bones.
If he took me hard and fast, we could do it in a few extra minutes. . .
To my huge disappointment he simply nodded. “I’ll take care of things on my end.”
“We need to move now. Twenty-four hours after the meeting, our team better be fully prepared and standing at the gates to board the plane to JFK to put Operation Little Red Riding Hood in motion.” I cocked my head. “Once we get our claws into enough meat to get Hagstedt, we shift to Operation Big Bad Wolf.”
Donovan studied me with his damned incredible blue eyes but no discernable expression on his harsh but handsome features. I know he hated it when I took control and didn’t ask his opinion. But even after working so many months together, I still couldn’t help my natural inclination to make decisions on my own.
“We’ll change things up a bit and bring Kerrison in on Little Red to replace Jensen,” Donovan said in a way that sounded like he considered his statement a done deal. “She’s new, but from everything I’ve seen she’s got what it takes and the field work will be good experience for her.”
I didn’t let my surprise show that he’d recommended the new agent, and that he wanted her on the inside with me. “That’s not a good idea, Donovan. Kerrison’s untrained and not ready for this kind of undercover op.”
Donovan gestured to my glass wall that gave a perfect view of the CC. Kerrison was sitting in front of her monitor, her long sunset red hair pushed over her shoulders. “She’ll be perfect for decoding any messages that might come your way when we get you two on the inside,” Donovan was saying. “Plus, we can really use Jensen in surveillance.”
Of course Donovan was right. If Kerrison could decode anything as fast as she’d taken care of today’s intercepted communication, she’d be an incredible asset on the inside. Marti Jensen was top notch, but she could be used on the surveillance and raid team just as easily.
Still I found myself pushing it. “I know I wouldn’t have a problem with Jensen avoiding the kind of attention the bastards might try on her. If anyone got rough with her, she knows how to take care of them.”
“Kerrison can do the job.” Donovan met my stare with a solid look. “Martinez can prep her on using the same bracelet Jensen would have worn, and he can size a ring for her. It won’t take him long to brief her on the narcotics contained in the jewelry that will keep any sonofabitch away from her if she’s forced to use them.”
Donovan’s words brought me to a halt and I cocked my head at him. “During Cinderella, you told Oxford you didn’t want to put me in the kind of danger I ended up in. As if a woman can’t hold her own.” I cocked my head as I studied him. “And now you’re ready to let a junior female agent throw herself into a pack of wolves?”
Irritation flashed across Donovan’s features. “You know I think all of RED’s agents, female or male, are equally capable.” He was quiet for a moment as his eyes held mine and his tone softened. “But Cinderella—from the beginning I had a bad feeling about that op.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I held my palm to my T-shirt, over the Chinese symbol meaning dragon tattooed around my bellybutton.
That op had gone bad. Real bad.
“We came up really lucky with what Rublev got through to us.” I figured I’d changed the subject super fast since thinking about what was beneath that dragon tatt wasn’t something I liked. “What she’s doing isn’t pretty. And it’s dangerous for her to be taking chances like she did to get that intel.”
Jenika Rublev had been a willing prostitute in a cathouse in Nevada, but I still didn’t like the fact that she was having sex with men—and sometimes women—to feed us intel from the inside. Even though I’d been the one to go to her and offer her the assignment and the cash.
“Rublev made the choice, Steele. She jumped at the hundred grand to put aside for her twins’ college education,” Donovan said. “Not to mention part of it will help her get out of that Nevada shithole. Once this op is over, RED will make sure the job they land for her in the private sector will be damned good paying, too.”
I sighed. “She was a lucky find.”
When Donovan came up with the idea to find a Russian prostitute to work as a cooperative, I hadn’t been crazy about the idea. But I’d still contacted some of RED’s branch offices until I hit pay dirt in Nevada. I should have started there instead of LA and New York City since prostitution was legal in some parts of Nevada. One of the Las Vegas agents recommended Rublev. Wasn’t sure exactly how the agent was familiar with the prostitute, but from the way he talked about her, I had my suspicions.
“Rublev can take care of herself.” Nick leaned back in his seat. “She’s been doing that since she emigrated from Russia.”
“I suppose.” I rested one forearm on the desk and glanced at the monitor which had the beautiful prostitute’s dossier next to Kerrison’s. “She did say that the Madame at her Nevada cathouse made sure her working girls knew how to de-ball any man who tried to get rough.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Donovan winced at the “de-ball” comment. Men.
Rublev had turned to prostitution when she came to America and couldn’t find a job during the sinking economy. She brought in six figures in the cathouse, so she had stayed with it for the past two years to care for her twins and to be able to set some money aside.
Fortunately for this op, Rublev looked barely seventeen even though she was twenty-two. These bastards liked their girls young. We’d shipped her to Russia with her own fictitious background—using our Moscow contacts—and she easily made the cut in one group of girls to be taken to a New York “modeling agency.”
It had gone exactly as we’d expected, with her ending up in a so-called Gentleman’s Club. We just hadn’t know which one until she ended up in the Elite Gentleman’s Club in Manhattan, and two months ago got word to us where she was.
Pay dirt.
“Instead of going with everyone tomorrow on Saturday, you’ll head out at nine p.m. on Sunday,” Donovan was saying, drawing my attention fully to him. My skin prickled like a porcupine starting to bristle. He was giving me an order? “You need to be with your family for Sunday Supper,” he continued. “Zane said Ryan is in port. It might be awhile before you see all of them again.”
Heat crept from my body to my neck and to my face. There I was, barreling through life as usual and Donovan had been the one to remind me of the most important day of the week for my mammy and daddy, as well as the rest of us. With Ryan on leave from the Marines, all five of my brothers would be here as well as my sister.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
I adjusted the large flat screen monitor so that we could both see it as he seated himself in one of the two chairs on the opposite side of my desk. We spent the next forty-five minutes laying out plans for our backup team, surveillance, and every detail down to making sure out fictitious personal rap sheets were perfect.
We added a rap sheet for Kerrison that included being busted with me for her part in running the club. She’d managed the finances for that part of the business which included taking cash for the customers paying for sex from which her own cut.
When it was time to head to the conference room, both Donovan and I stood, and I walked toward him. He wrapped me in his strong embrace and gave me one of his amazing kisses before we left my office.
No doubt about it. I was addicted to Nick Donovan.
Chapter 2
Dasha
Beneath Dasha’s palms, the clear plastic pole burned hot as glass heated in a forge. While she pole danced, thundering techno music in the main floor of the club made her head pound from the inside out. Her mouth hurt, her lips quivering, from forcing herself to smile so she wouldn’t be punched by her handler.
Dasha, Yulia, and a blond girl, Jenika, who had become Dasha’s friend, were on stage. The three of them writhed around the poles mounted along a narrow raised strip of the stage in the middle of the “gentlemen’s club.”
A whorehouse, a prison, was what Dasha called it. Two months of being in the depths of hell. But she had learned to never say anything loud enough for one of the handlers to hear. The bruise on her cheek still ached from the one and only time she had referred to her life as it now was. What she was.
Проститутка. Prostitute.
Strobe lights flashed in the smoke-hazed room making the glitter inside the clear pole sparkle in the colored lights. Jenika said it looked like fairy dust. Dasha thought it looked like poison ready to seep through the plastic and kill her. Maybe death would be better than this.
But if she killed herself, мать and отец, Mother and Father, would be murdered. If she tried to escape, if she tried to talk to anyone, they would murder her parents. First one. Then the other left alive in case she tried something else. The handlers had practically beaten that knowledge into all of the girls. That their families and friends would be killed no matter what they tried.
Dasha barely kept back tears as she tried to do what Madame Cherie instructed all of the girls to do—act like she was having sex while rubbing herself up against the pole. “Be sensual,” the Madame would say.
Be a good whore, Dasha always thought.
“Show us those tits, girly!” came a slurred, drunken man’s voice.
Dasha raised her head and saw the man was staring at her. His bald scalp shone beneath the lights as he raised a fistful of cash. Shame crept through her like a thousand Russian Ratsnakes. From the leer on the man’s face, she feared he would be the one crawling on top of her in a back room after this song was over. A shudder wracked her body hard, but tried to make it look like the shudder was part of her dance.
More men shouted at her to take off her what little she had on—the strip of cloth covering her nipples and her g-string.
Jenika could act like she enjoyed being a prostitute while Dasha struggled to wear a fake smile. Jenika always met several men’s gazes as she danced, her blue eyes giving the invitation for something more, something erotic. She danced like the Madame had constantly worked to teach all of the girls over the past two months. Jenika had tried to help Dasha with her performance, but Eddie always interfered.
Eddie was Dasha’s handler and he acted as a bouncer when the girls danced. Dasha glanced his way. His muscles flexed as he crossed his arms over his huge chest. He gave her a look that told her the bruise on her cheek beneath her heavy makeup wasn’t the only one that would be on her body if she didn’t do what she had to.
When Dasha slowly started to take off the thin material, revulsion crawled up her body to her throat and threatened to make her throw up on the stage. It didn’t matter how many times she had stripped in front of leering men over the past weeks, she always had the desire to puke. Sometimes women watched them dance, too. Sometimes women went with her to the back rooms and made her do things that made her as sick as when she was with a man.
Dasha tipped her head back so that she wouldn’t have to look any man in the eye as she swallowed down the frothing sensation in her throat along with the taste of bile. She flung the bra onto the stage while men whistled and shouted horrid things they wanted to do to her.
“Come ’ere girly,” came the same man’s voice as her nipples hardened from the cool air being pushed down from the fans above the stage. How she hated her body’s natural reactions. “I’ve got somethin’ for ya,” the man called out louder to her.
“Show us that fuck-me look, Jewell baby,” another man said.
Jewell was her stage name. Jewell was her whore name.
Dasha forced herself to look at the man, hold his gaze and dance toward him as he rubbed his crotch with his free hand. She almost stumbled in the high, thin heels she had to wear every night. Her movements were stiff, awkward, but the men in the room didn’t seem to care. Man after man called out for her to take off the g-string, too.
When she reached the side of the stage, the man with the handful of money stuck a few of the bills in the front of her g-string. He shoved his fingers down hard enough that his fingers brushed her trimmed pubic hair.
“That’s it, baby,” he said as more men pushed dollar bills through whatever spot on her G-string that would hold the cash.
The stench of male sweat, sour beer, and cigar smoke nearly gagged her now that she was so close to the men.
Someone gave a hard jerk on one of the ties on her g-string and Dasha gasped. The tiny bit of cloth started to fall away. Dasha stumbled back and the men shouted louder and louder as the last barrier dropped from her body and the cash floated across the stage.
Shame made her inside sick, like she was filled with slick crude oil. The shame and horror would never end. This nightmare would never end. If she tried to escape, the men promised they would kill Mother and Father.
Dasha’s legs trembled as she turned, bent over, and grabbed her ankles, completely exposing the part of her womanhood that she now despised.
The pulsing beat of the song ended and Dasha’s whole body felt like she was bleeding from every pore. She could almost feel blood coating her skin.
She straightened, completely nude, soon to be forced into acts that sickened her even more. As she walked toward the three stairs that led down from the stage, she swayed her hips like Madame had taught her. Why couldn’t she ignore the men who continued to whistle at her and shout horrible things?
“I’d like a piece of that.”
“I’ll fuck her right here. Just spread your pussy, baby.”
Dasha held her hand to her belly as if that could settle the sickness inside.
Why couldn’t she leave her body and visit someplace in her mind like Yulia did? Where did Yulia go when she traveled outside her body with her mind?
Dasha glanced over her shoulder and saw her pretty friend whose brown eyes looked blank, empty. Yulia followed Dasha off the stage, but was the girl even aware of her own movements?
When Dasha stepped onto the floor that was sticky beneath her heels from spilled alcohol, steel fingers grabbed her upper arm and jerked her sideways. Dasha let out a small cry as she tripped and fell against the handler who forced her to her feet again while almost dragging her across the room to the Madame who scheduled all of the girl’s appointments.
“I’m going to let you have it good if you don’t pick it up during the show,” Eddie said close to her ear, his breath hot and foul with beer. Dasha flinched. “I think I’ll have to teach you a lesson anyway. How much depends on how you behave the rest of the night.” He stroked her hair away from her ear. “Maybe you screw up so much because you like what I do to you, slut.”
The man’s touch and his words made the ratsnakes in her belly squirm and push their way into her chest. He was one of the men who forced himself on her, sometimes in front of other men or the girls. Sometimes in front of everyone. And sometimes alone where he would hurt her in ways that no one would see. Make her scream and cry and beg.
Which was worse?
Dasha tried to pretend Eddie was nothing but a stranger she had never seen before as he took her to the Madame. Block him out like Yulia does. Force him out of your thoughts.
They were almost to the Madame who was speaking with the horrid man who had waved the handful of American dollars. Madame Cherie was a beautiful but sharp-tongued woman who constantly trained the girls to dance and please men. It seemed strange, though, that the Madame never treated the girls like wares for sale. Sometimes Dasha thought the Madame might not know that none of the girls had chosen to be whores.
Was that possible?
One of Dasha’s stilettos skidded when she stepped into a puddle of spilled alcohol and she almost fell, but Eddie had a tight hold on her. She cringed and flinched as, at the same time her handler steadied her, a man bumped into her. The man tugged her bare nipple and another man slapped her naked backside hard enough that she knew there would be a mark.
Because of threats against their families and friends, none of the girls ever said anything aloud about being taken from their homes, their country. Nothing about the fact that they did not choose to be whores ten, or even fifteen, men a night. Could the Madame not know because a word was never spoken about it? Always the cruel handlers were close.
Yet couldn’t the Madame see from the girls’ expressions, their lack of pleasure in their task that they did not belong in this place?
Sometimes Dasha thought she saw something in the Madame’s eyes. As if she suspected something was not right. Dasha prayed the Madame would learn the truth and find a way out for them all and for all of their families and friends to remain safe.
It was the only hope Dasha had.
Chapter 3
I would sell my soul
“It’s so good to have every one of my ducklings around me.” Mammy gave a broad smile like she always did when the seven of us joined her and Daddy around the family supper table.
She reached over and squeezed Willow’s hand. “And my newest girl.” Mammy looked around at the bunch of us. “Who can kick all of your arses at basketball.”
We all laughed. It was true. Willow was five-eleven and had been such a good point guard at NYU that the WNBA had even tried to recruit her out of college. Instead she’d gone on to get her doctorate in education and married my formerly bachelor-for-life oldest brother Zane.
Zane smiled and squeezed Willow’s hand and winked at her. I have to say the grin she gave him was naughty, and I almost grinned myself.
“Is anyone up to the challenge of a little three on three?” Willow asked with a wicked smile.
Noise around the table broke out with the guys insisting this time they were going to beat her, Zane, and me. Picture five-four me next to five-eleven Willow and my over six feet tall brothers. I could still kick major ass, though. I was quick and hard to block and had a mean layup. My younger sister Rori was shaking her head. She never joined us—might break a nail.
My oldest brother, Zane, also worked for RED, only no one in our family or any of our friends could know. Their lives would be in danger because of our line of work, and neither of us was willing to take that chance. Family and friends thought Zane was still Secret Service.
They also believed that after my time in Army Special Ops, I went on to work for an interpreter service. I speak nine languages, so no one has ever had a problem believing that.
The people around me—even at RED—never knew I’d been an assassin in the past, and they never would.
The only exception was Nick Donovan, who had drawn every bit of my horrible history out of me. Over strawberry crepes one morning during our last op I told him everything. Well, almost everything. Donovan must have put something into those crepes to make me talk so much—other than making them orgasmicly good.
Yet, even after I’d let it all hang out, he still wouldn’t tell me anything about his own past.
It was starting to piss me off.
I turned my focus back to my family.
“You sure went all out for supper, Mammy.” I sighed with my hand on my full belly and slumped in my seat where I sat between my brothers Zane and Evan.
Nettle soup, roast stuffed loin of lamb, celery with cream, and cauliflower in cheese sauce for dinner. Yum. Mammy made the best Irish dishes in Boston.
I grinned at Mammy and I caught what I thought was a hint of wistfulness in her gaze. That one look made my thoughts pause before Troy spoke.
“Mammy likes to spoil the Marine,” Troy said with a snort as he gestured with his fork to Ryan. Our brother was back from his latest tour with the Marines. Ryan was Special Forces and built like a tank.
Ryan didn’t have any kind of witty comeback like he normally did. Instead he concentrated on his food and putting away as much of Mammy’s good cooking as he could shove into the gut of his huge six-two frame.
“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Evan said as he pointed at Ryan with his butter knife. Evan, Troy, and Sean laughed. I frowned.
Daddy leaned back and stretched his arms before clasping his fingers behind his head as his blue eyes met Mammy’s. “That’s my Molly,” he said. “Perfect supper as usual.”
“You just want your sweets, Keegan.” They smiled at each other and like always love was there—except something was different.
My supper started to sour in my stomach. What was wrong? It must have had to do with Ryan since he was acting even more strange. Not to mention he was back from his last tour so soon. He’d only been gone around seven months.
Mammy stood, her large bosoms stretching the fabric of her flower print dress. “I’ll need two of you to help me carry out the dessert.”
“I’m there!” Sean pushed back his chair.
Troy beat the rest of us, too. “On your tail, kid,” he said as the pair headed to the kitchen with Mammy.
I glanced at Ryan who for some reason had decimated a perfectly good piece of cauliflower. It almost looked like mashed potatoes. His jaw was tight as he pressed the tines of his fork into the cauliflower. I frowned. Whatever it was had to be serious for him to act this way. It was going to drive me nuts if I didn’t find out what it was. Soon.
Mammy, Sean, and Troy came from the kitchen each carrying a plate with our desserts. “Porter Cake,” she said with a cheery smile. “Made with Guinness, of course.”
“Porter cake’s the best.” Sean thought every desert Mammy made was the best. He plopped himself down in his seat and set the cake he’d been carrying directly in front of him on the table.
Evan reached across the table and snatched the cake plate that had been in front of Sean. “You’re not hogging the whole thing, brat,” Evan said.
“Hey.” Sean scowled. “Give it back.”
Evan was cutting himself an enormous piece. “When I get mine, kid.”
I shook my head. Over the summer my twelve-year-old brother, Sean, had suddenly gone from a kid to a gangly almost-teenager on the cusp of “the dark side” as Daddy liked to say.
It wasn’t long at all before the three cakes had been devoured. Mostly by my five brothers, even though Willow and I had healthy appetites, too. Rori just picked at hers as usual.
When we were finished, Daddy insisted on a round of single-malt Irish whiskey. That was different. He usually only brought out the whiskey on Christmas and on New Year’s Day.
Daddy finished pouring us each a glass two fingers high with whiskey. Even for Rori who tried to protest that she didn’t want any.
When he’d made his way around the table, Daddy set the bottle down and it clunked on the plaid tablecloth that covered the aged maple wood table. He raised his own glass. “Here’s to the Steele family, together in body, soul, and heart.”
Everyone looked as puzzled as I felt but murmured back “to the Steele family,” before we followed Daddy and slammed back the contents of the glass.
I drank mine in one swallow and felt the harsh burn of whiskey hit my throat. Having been a sniper in the Army’s Special Ops, surrounded by males, I’d learned how to drink my whiskey without choking. The alcohol rushed to my stomach harsh and hot.
Rori and Sean both coughed. Daddy had even given my twelve year old brother a small shot? Definitely something was up.
My heart started to drop as Daddy set his empty glass on the table as hard as a judge hitting his mallet to bring the court to order. Everyone at the table went quiet as Daddy went to Mammy’s chair and he gripped the high spindles that rose to either side of her.
Ice crawled over my skin and in the silence I glanced at each member of my family, all with an expression of confusion, concern, maybe even fear. Ryan didn’t look up. He just stared into his empty whiskey glass.
Daddy cleared his throat and I looked at him. I took in his face that was rough with whiskers and the skin around his green eyes lined with age. His skin was tan and weathered from a life of hard labor as a mason, and his hair gray, streaked with white, but his eyes were still as glass green as my own.
I clenched my hand around my whiskey glass and brought my gaze to Mammy’s. Her throat worked and my body grew colder still as I realized she was trying to put up a brave display so that we would all be okay with whatever news they had. Her cheeks that normally had a rose hue seemed pale. Was she thinner? She was. Mammy had always been robust, slightly plump from her cheeks to her ankles. Why hadn’t I noticed earlier?
Dear God. Don’t let this be bad. Don’t let this be bad.
Daddy cleared his throat again. His Boston Irish brogue was strong as he spoke. “I guess there’s no beatin’ around the bush. I can tell from your faces you have your suspicions that we’ve not so good news to tell.”
Everyone else remained silent. I was so cold my teeth started to chatter.
“Molly . . .” He paused and patted Mammy’s arm with one hand while gripping her opposite shoulder tight with his other hand. “Your mammy has breast cancer.”
Pressure squeezed my head as if all the air in the room pressed against while it took my breath at the same time. Muffled silence. My blood throbbing in my ears. Heart in my throat.
Mammy, breast cancer? I started to shake. No. God, no.
“Come now.” Mammy’s words and her own light Irish accented words barely made it through my nearly deaf ears. She gave us her normal no-nonsense look, as if she was pushing away any emotion that might be inside her right now. “No sense in you all looking like it’s the end of the world.”
“Mammy!” Rori flung herself from her chair to our mother and Rori’s sobs were loud as she wrapped her arms around Mammy’s neck and cried against her large bosoms.
I stared at Mammy’s bosoms as voices started reverberating in my muffled head. She had cancer. There. Strange thoughts went through my mind as I sat in my chair. Her thick gray hair might be gone soon. Her breasts, too.
What if the cancer had progressed farther? What if—
I squeezed my fists on the checkered tablecloth. A strangled sound tried to come from my throat but didn’t make it out.
Everyone but Ryan and I had gone to Mammy to hug her. Daddy must have told Ryan about the cancer to bring him home, to be with us when he told the rest of the family the gut-wrenching news.
My big, hulking brothers didn’t bother to hide the tear or two that trickled down their cheeks. I caught a glimpse of Rori’s blotched red face and swollen eyes.
And still I sat.
My skin numb. My face numb. My eyes as dry and painful to blink as my dry throat hurt to swallow.
Daddy gripped the spindles on the back of Mammy’s chair and his fingers were bloodless. He bent his head, his chin touching his chest, his eyes closed.
“Everything’s going to be fine.” Mammy’s voice wavered yet at the same time sounded strong and determined. She shooed everyone away. “Go on now. Sit down.”
Rori was the last to release Mammy and force herself away, tears still slipping down her blotchy face.
Still I sat.
I couldn’t move. My muscles didn’t want to work. Didn’t want to obey me as I told myself I should go to my mother. Hug her. And let loose the tears that burned behind my eyes. Tears backed up from countless years of being unable to cry. Even now at the most important time of all.
Shame burned my cheeks as my brothers and sister returned to their chairs and sat. Mammy met my gaze and smiled, like she knew what emotions were building inside me that wanted to spew like a volcano, my body shaking me with the force of it all. Her eyes said it was okay. Everything would be okay.
I knew it wouldn’t.
Mammy turned her gaze to Daddy as she looked up at him and patted one of his hands that gripped a chair spindle. When he raised his head he was tightlipped, his normally tanned face pale and drawn.
Daddy started to talk, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat then managed to speak. “The biopsy report showed the cancer is invasive.” The sound his throat made when he tried to clear it again was strangled.
Mammy patted his hand and she said what I knew he couldn’t. “The doctors started me on chemotherapy last week.” She spoke easily, as if this was a simple thing. “The cancer is far enough along that the docs need to shrink it before they perform surgery.”
Her words didn’t seem real. None of what she and Daddy said felt real.
Ryan finally looked up from his plate and looked at our mother. His voice was rough, serious. “You’re too Goddamned tough to let it win, Mammy.” He looked around the table at all of us. “She’s going to beat it. She raised all of us, didn’t she?”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, child,” she said as she always did if any one of us strayed that line.
Mammy then moved her gaze to each of us and there was strength and determination in her gaze as she spoke. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
“Deuteronomy 31:6,” I found myself saying in a whisper, the words coming to my mind automatically from my Irish Catholic upbringing. I had long ago turned away from the faith I had grown up with. But at that moment I found myself praying that there really was a God and that Mammy’s faith in Him would eradicate every bit of cancer from her body.
I finally found that I had the ability to move my body. The chair legs scraped against the wood floor as I pushed my chair back. The ache in my legs was as if my muscles still wanted to refuse me, but I made it to Mammy. The wood was hard beneath my knees as I knelt beside her chair and wrapped my arms around her waist. I pressed my cheek against her bosom and squeezed my eyes tight.
“I love you, Mammy,” I said as I breathed in her scent that reminded me of nothing but love and home and precious memories. “I love you.”
Her lips were soft against my head as she pressed her lips to my hair. “I know you do, child. Everything is going to be fine.”
I wanted to believe her, but I said nothing and just pressed myself closer to her and held her tight, as if that would anchor her to earth forever.
