Clipping Thorns (Withered Rose Book 2), page 13
There are bodies all around the front entrance and near the windows of the club. People crawled out the door and escaped through the shattered windows only to die of their injuries on the street just outside. Most of the bodies belong to women, but there are more than enough corpses of well-dressed Russian men to ease the pangs of guilt stabbing through me.
The sound of screaming catches my attention and I turn to find Conrad wrestling with a naked woman. She shrieks as he handles her, grabbing at her waist and slinging her over his shoulder like she’s a little doll. She kicks and screams, but he silences her with a swack to her bare bottom so hard I can see the red print of his hand on her butt cheek as he nears me.
“I’m taking this one home.” He winks.
I grab his arm. “No, you’re not.”
Conrad frowns. “Why not?”
“Because we didn’t come here to kidnap women.”
“We just won our battle.” He adjusts the woman on his shoulder, making her yelp. “This is my prize.”
My voice comes out as a growl. “No, she isn’t.”
Beside us, Morgen spits on the ground. “I don’t know why you’d want one of these hookers anyway. It was a Russian woman who got us into this mess.”
No, it wasn’t, I think, it was Wolfgang.
Conrad shrugs like it doesn’t matter and slaps the woman’s butt again, marking her other cheek. She starts to sob.
In one swift motion, I grab him by the shoulder and take the woman from his arms. She screams and tries to twist free of my grasp until I set her on her feet, and she realizes she’s okay.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I say as calmly as I can.
Conrad grunts. “Gisela is locked up in a safehouse. I just want one night with her.”
“No,” I say plainly.
“I’ve never had a Russian woman—”
“I don’t care,” I start to seethe, but I cut myself off as I glance down at the woman before me. It was hard to tell in the pale moonlight and the hazy air, but up close I can see her skin is light brown and even though her hair has been straightened and dyed platinum blonde, the roots are still dark and curly. Her face is youthful and appears even more innocent with the tears gathered in her eyes. She is completely naked, but she doesn’t try to hide herself from me as she sniffles and wipes at her small round nose.
She looks like Rosa.
My heart climbs into my throat and I swallow hard to shove it back down. Conrad is still going on about sleeping with a Russian woman, but all I can register is this woman’s similarity to my wife. It’s uncanny and sends a ripple of fear up my spine.
“She’s not Russian,” I whisper, taking a step back.
Conrad ticks his head to the side. “What?”
I glance up at him. “She’s not Russian.”
My eyes flit through the crowd of survivors and corpses. There’s a body a few feet to my left, her torso is charred but there’s enough skin for me to make out her olive complexion and her wavy brown hair. A woman sits sobbing on the curb, naked except for her six-inch stilettos, she’s got tan skin and short black hair. There’s even a trio of Asian women holding hands by the entrance of the club.
“None of these women are Russian,” I mutter.
Conrad and Morgen start looking around too, realizing what I’ve discovered. That’s when it hits me. The Volkovs sell flesh—but not much of their own. They’ve kidnapped these women. Snatched them off the street the same way I snatched up Douglass when he was a teenager.
But this is different.
The Jägers are evil, I’ve never tried to deny or sugarcoat that. This is the mafia. It isn’t a pretty business, but I can be honest about who I am and what I’ve done. The Volkovs, however, are a different story. The ladies scattered around me are not musclebound men forced to join a different gang. They are young, helpless women who spend their days pleasing men with horrifying appetites.
As I glance around, I realize something about the prostitutes. They’re all wearing studded jewels latched tightly around their necks like chokers, but as I get a closer look, I realize they aren’t necklaces at all. They’re collars.
My stomach turns sour, and I sway on my feet. Two of the Asian women are wearing red collars, the other is wearing a white one, and the Rosa lookalike in front of me has on a pink one. I don’t have to guess at what the collars mean. I’ve never been inside a Russian brothel before, but when Wolfgang was engaged to Sofia, I spent a lot of time in Staten Island. Enough to hear rumors and horror stories that kept me away from the clubs.
The red collars are for women aged thirty and up, they’re older and more experienced, but they’re also cheaper and easier to book.
The pink collars are for women eighteen to twenty-nine, relatively fresh—or at least innocent enough in appearance to charge double per hour.
The white collars …
I glance at the Asian lady and take a step in her direction. Once I’m standing right in front of her, I realize the truth. It sends a wave of nausea storming through me.
She’s not a lady at all. Like the rest of the women, she isn’t wearing clothes, save for the collar around her throat. Her skin is dirty, but I can see the smoothness to it that only comes from youth. Her tear-stained cheeks are plump, her eyes are full of innocence. And while I take no pleasure in examining her bare frame, I can tell her body is still developing.
She’s a child. No older than fifteen.
I take off my jacket and move to wrap it over her shoulders, but she flinches away and holds up her hands to protect herself. My heart crumbles in my chest.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, but as the words leave my mouth, I feel bile rise up my throat.
There are dead men and women all over the place. No one in their right mind would believe I wasn’t here to hurt these women. I just blew a hundred of them to smithereens. The realization of what I’ve done hits me hard.
I drop the jacket and then double over to vomit on it.
Conrad and Morgen are by my side in an instant.
“What’s happened!” Conrad starts yelling at the women, but I grab his sleeve.
“Leave them!” I snarl, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
He stares at me in shock, but before he can question me, I grab him by the tie and yank him toward me. “You want a prize? Take these women. All of them.”
“I don’t understand…” his voice trails off as he eyes the underaged girl beside us. She’s staring at us both through wide, unblinking eyes. The other two Asian women behind her are crying and babbling in what I think is Japanese.
Without words, Morgen removes his jacket and shocks everyone by speaking to the women in their native tongue. His voice is higher, gentler, almost soothing as he carefully approaches, holding his jacket out for the young girl to take. She grabs it and clutches it to her chest and then starts to sob uncontrollably.
“Contact Gio,” I grunt to Conrad. “Tell him to prepare a safehouse for these women.”
“You want to house Russian women in our shelters?” Conrad challenges.
I punch him so hard I’m not sure if I’ve broken my hand.
“They’re not Russian!” I shout, kicking him in his side as he reels back from my punch. “Look at them!” I jab a finger at the group of Asian women and then wave my hand around at all the others.
“They work for Russians.” Conrad rubs his jaw. “It’s the same thing. Just like the women at The Club. I don’t see why you’re so upset right now.”
I step closer to him. “These women work against their will. They are nothing like the women of The Club.”
I watch his eyes widen as understanding sets in.
The Club is just as much a whorehouse as it is a strip club and a cigar lounge. I’ve taken women home from there, ladies I bought for thousands of dollars for just one night. But they weren’t like the women standing around me now. First of all, they were all women. Consenting adults who willingly accepted the money I offered and the pleasure I gave them. Nothing we did was beyond their control or desire. Yes, they sold their bodies to me and probably twenty other men that week alone. But they worked for Conrad, they weren’t owned by him. They signed contracts with The Club and received pay for their time. And they could quit whenever they wanted.
My eyes lock onto the collars of one of the women in front of me. The ladies of The Club aren’t dogs. They aren’t sex slaves. We use their bodies. I won’t deny that. But we’ve never abused them. Not like this.
What makes it so much worse is that these women were taken. Kidnapped from their homes or their schools—or God knows where. Any one of them could have been Rosa.
Conrad doesn’t speak for a long moment. His eyes are fixed on the teenager who’s sobbing at his feet. After a few moments of silence, he simply nods and says, “Okay.”
“We don’t have enough room in the trucks to carry all the women,” Morgen says.
Douglass joins us, he isn’t wearing his jacket anymore either. I glance over my shoulder to find that he’s given it to the Rosa lookalike. He says, “Hans and Aldo are out of reach, sir. They made it out okay, but they had to rush to a hospital for Aldo’s injuries.”
“The Stronghold remains by the docks,” Ja’meek reminds us. “There is plenty of room on the boats to carry everyone.”
I nod at him. “Let’s get these women out of here.”
“We’d better hurry,” Douglass says. He’s standing a few feet away, staring into the distance. With the wail of sirens growing nearer, I don’t have to wonder what he’s looking at.
“Conrad, Morgen—get as many of the girls into the trucks as you can. The rest of us will have to make it to the docks on foot.”
Both of them shake their heads. “Onkel Uwe will kill us if he finds out we let you walk while we took a ride.”
“I’m also staying,” Douglass announces.
Conrad grimaces. “Why? You’re a Hunted grunt.”
“I am the underboss’s personal guard.” Douglass takes a large step forward. “And I am his most trusted ally.”
I smirk, proud of Douglass, but also pleased to see my cousins and my guard fighting to stay by my side. The loyalty is almost overwhelming—though I don’t miss the fact that Ja’meek says nothing and offers no aid in this situation.
As the sirens grow louder, Ja’meek says, “Whoever is going or staying doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get out of—”
Here was the next word that should have left his mouth, but he’s cut off by a gurgling shriek as a bullet tears through his throat. His blood spatters everywhere, spraying me, Conrad, Morgen, and even the naked women nearby. Douglass lurches forward and grabs Ja’meek as he falls to the ground, but there is no time to comfort him. A spray of bullets flies at us from the hazy darkness. Conrad and Morgen both dive for cover, I grab the teenager and drag her to her feet as we scramble behind a hunk of twisted metal. I think it’s a partially melted table flung out of the window during the explosion, but it doesn’t matter now.
“We’re surrounded!” I hear Morgen scream.
Conrad pulls out his handgun and starts firing over the stone steps he’s hiding behind. Douglass has miraculously managed to clamber to safety behind the truck. He shouts over to us, but I can’t hear over the endless assault of bullets. As I peer into the distance, I can just make out the inky silhouettes of the Wolves who’ve come to kill us.
“We have to run!” I scream. “All of us!”
Conrad turns and shoves his brother toward me. “Get out of here! I’ll cover you both!”
Douglass pulls around in the truck, shielding us from the bullets, but getting sprayed down on the other side. He ducks and leans low in the driver’s seat to avoid getting shot but as I open the door to let the teenage girl inside, I notice blood on his shirt.
I force myself to ignore his injury and focus on the other women, beckoning them over to the truck and helping them scramble inside as quickly as possible. Conrad and Morgen give us cover fire, but it’s obvious we’re losing this battle.
“To the docks, immediately!” I shout to Douglass. He glances back and gives me a firm nod before I shut the door, then I duck and run to my cousins. “Let’s go before Douglass leaves! He’s giving us cover!”
They both nod and start to run in the opposite direction. There are still women shrieking and running past us, one even grabs Conrad by the sleeve and starts screaming in Spanish for him to help her. He swings her up over his shoulder and keeps running like she weighs nothing. Morgen grabs a woman too, though he handles her more carefully, carrying the bleeding dancer bridal style instead of like a caveman.
I don’t get to rescue my own damsel in distress. I have another person I want to save.
In the chaos, I sneak away from Conny and Morgen and run around the back of the truck, peeking out to find Ja’meek lying on the ground. There is blood all over his shirt, but he’s still alive, clutching his neck and slowly crawling away.
I drop to one knee and pull out my handgun, giving him cover fire as I shout, “Come on, Ja’meek! Just a little further!”
He sees me and a fire immediately ignites in his eyes—a will to live. I empty my gun and then reload and fire off round after round as he crawls toward me. It’s a grueling process that leaves me sweating from nerves and fear and the heat of the guns blazing around us. I can hear my cousins screaming for me to leave him, but I won’t. I can hear Douglass and the dancers inside the truck shouting for us to get a move on, but I refuse.
Ja’meek is on my team. He’s here because King James is a good man who lent aid when I needed it. Like the German on the bridge, he’s placed his life in my hands. Chosen to blindly trust me, even though I barely trust myself.
I won’t leave him.
He takes a bullet to his back and his body jerks as he cries out, eyes squeezed shut, teeth snapping together in pain.
“Keep going!” I scream, reloading my gun, but I know it’s already too late.
The black silhouettes in the distance have turned into blurry images of men in uniform. Black cargo pants, combat boots, and full raid gear. They march up the street in perfect formation and then scatter as they realize they’re close enough for personal assault.
Two men run right at Ja’meek, but they don’t kill him. They grab him by the ankles and begin dragging him away.
There is no way I can get to him without being shot down. There is no way I can stop the men from taking him away. Even if I weren’t on my last magazine, the men are in riot gear. My bullets won’t do anything to them.
But they will to Ja’meek.
I had refused to leave him. I know I’ve failed that promise now. But I can at least make sure he doesn’t die to the Russians. I can make sure they don’t get to torture him all night, just as we will do to the man we’ve captured. I can make sure he doesn’t die with a shocked look on his face, like the nameless German on the bridge.
I raise my gun before I change my mind, and I fire a single shot into his forehead.
It seems like silence rings out after the bullet penetrates his skull, sending his head whipping back like he’s been struck with a bat. My cousins are further down the street, Douglass is still leaning down in the front of the truck. No one knows what I’ve just done. So I cry in secret, a single tear racing down my cheek.
It burns.
I wipe it away as the guards take him anyway. They’re upset that I’ve ruined the interrogation, but they’ll take his body regardless. If only to hang it outside a building and celebrate later.
When they recede into the darkness behind them, all that’s left is a bloody streak on the pavement. Only when Ja’meek is gone do I turn and run to catch up with my cousins.
Sixteen
When Amy told me I’d be moving into a safehouse, I thought I’d be holed up in some underground bunker. Instead, I’m in one of the luxury hotels owned by Marco Segreto. We’re in Harlem, which seems a world away from Gio’s penthouse or Papa’s old mansion, but I’ve been here enough times to still feel comfortable—especially with the double-king sized bed, the silk curtains and velvet pile carpets that feel like cushions beneath my bare feet.
I am living in luxury, but it doesn’t feel like it.
There are fifty other women and children in the building with me, each of us has been given our own room, but the rooms will be changed every week and we’ll switch hotels every month to make sure we aren’t in one place for too long. There are five guards on each floor, and we only stay on the second and third floor, so we aren’t too far from the bottom exits—or the ground. We don’t want to be up high enough to kill ourselves if we’re ever forced to flee from the windows.
There is still a staff assigned to the building to cook and clean for us. Gio even made sure to bring over enough clothes to fill a mall so we can pretend to go shopping and dress up like we’ve actually got somewhere to go. Some of the younger girls enjoy all the new clothes, but the older ladies just wrinkle their noses and remain in their rooms all day.
I appreciate the distraction, the good food, and even the guards, but I don’t feel safe. The last time I spoke to Amory was the day I said goodbye, almost a week ago. Since then, I’ve gotten only one text and it was a simple message saying, ‘I love you.’
Believe me, I know my husband is busy. I know I’m probably not his priority right now. But I feel jittery and slightly paranoid. I need to hear something. I need an update of some sort. Anything to let me know he’s still alive, at least. If I could just get that, then I can handle everything else. The anxiety, the stir-crazy, skittish nerves that make me want to climb the walls. I am itching to go out and breathe fresh air, to walk the gardens around Amory’s estate and fall asleep with a book in his giant library.
