To Have A Heart (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 7)

“He wants to hide what he has been up to. You must understand that Melrose has a lot to lose if you give testimony in court about what he has forced you to endure in his house. He is not only going to lose all his connections within ton, but Melrose loses business connections which could effectively stop his income. That isn’t likely to bother him too much but ending up behind bars for the kidnap and slavery of several women would destroy his reputation. It would be so damaging that nothing and nobody could ever help him retrieve the life he once had once he lost it. Ton survive purely on the strength of their reputations and connections. Something this scandalous would shatter Melrose’s lifestyle as he knows it. I am afraid that as far as he is concerned, it is now a matter of your life or his. You, unfortunately, are expendable and so are we.”

“But surely he must know that you are working for the War Office. If his connections go to the Att

orney General’s whatever, Melrose knows who you are and that killing you will get him kicked out of society,” Mallory countered.

“You don’t understand.”

Callum ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t at all sure that he understood why men who were held in such high regard by many in society would risk it all to kidnap women.

“Melrose thinks his contacts can get him out of trouble should he ever be arrested for his part in the kidnaps. His contacts go all the way up. The Attorney General is the next to be arrested now that Argent is behind bars, but we cannot find him. He has vanished. We don’t know if he is hiding out at one of his friend’s estates and cannot go through every country house in this land searching for him. We just don’t have the manpower. So, we are going to have to wait for Raymondson, the Attorney General, to show his face again. When he does, he will be arrested. So will Melrose. We only found you because we knew that Melrose was a friend of Argent. Argent has been helping his friend move the kidnapped women around the country and arranging for them to be kept in his friends’ country estates. You were assigned to Melrose’s house. He was going to keep you there and use you as a slave in his kitchen until you were too tired to fight anymore. Only then was he going to move you to London, to another house, where you would be forced into slavery once more.”

“Yes, but that is what I don’t understand,” Mallory insisted, her voice rife with frustration. “These people have plenty of money. They don’t to do this. I could understand it if they lived in poverty and were doing this for some sort of financial reward.”

“There is financial reward in what they do,” Callum replied sharply.

“How? Because they don’t have to pay their slave?”

“No, because the life of slavery they were going to sell you into was one which included prostitution.”

Mallory stopped dead in the middle of the street and stared at him. The world swept out from around her before it screeched to a halt and then whirled around her, as if taunting her with the sinister threat it contained. The only sound she could hear was the faint wheeze of her own breath and the heavy beats of her racing heart.

“Pr-pro-”

Callum nodded. There wasn’t much he could say. When he did find his voice again, he kept it low while he told her the rest of it.

“We found a network of backstreet criminals in London in a place called Rigley Row. They are – were – led by the Smidgley twins. The thugs in Rigley Row hid the kidnap victims in the backstreets in the darker side of London where they were introduced to a life of prostitution. It is all a kind of sinister game to Smidgley’s lot. They snatch decent and respectable women like you off the streets. This gang then put the women they kidnapped to work as unpaid slaves in vast estates were escape is impossible because you don’t have the means or strength to try to run for your life. When you are ill, starved, and unable to argue with them anymore, and realise that your life is theirs and that arguing with them for your freedom is futile, they know they can do what they like to you and there is nobody around who can object. All the people you have met thus far have been proper employees of Melrose. They have been paid well for their efforts in breaking your spirit but paid more for their silence. They would have done the job of making sure you know just how hopeless your life is. When you had lost the will to live, and gave up trying to escape, Melrose intended to move you to London whereupon you would have been handed to the Rigley Row mob. There, you would have been given drugs that make you lose what is left of your will. When you were well and truly hooked, you would have been sent to brothels and set to work.”

Mallory felt tears sting her eyes. She stared blankly at Callum but didn’t see him. While he had talked, Mallory had envisaged every step of Melrose’s plan in horrifying detail and realised then why Callum had been so insistent that they leave Melrose House last night.

It was only last night I left that place yet it already feels like a million years have passed by.

Callum stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands. He felt sickened at the thought of what might have happened to her had he not turned up when he had. Silently, he rested his forehead against hers, offering her his strength.

“They won’t get their hands on you,” he hissed vehemently.

“They were going to move me, weren’t they?”

Callum nodded. “Sir Hugo overheard someone say that Melrose was due to return to London. We can only assume that you were to go too so they could force you into the next stage of your ordeal.”

Mallory swallowed harshly. She knew that had she had something to eat she would have thrown it up by now. She felt so shaken, so deeply horrified, that she knew she would never forget this moment, this day and exact time, when she had been made to realise just how desperate her situation had been.

“Kill me,” she whispered suddenly.

Callum blinked at her. He found the idea so repulsive that he scowled deeply.

Mallory, oblivious to his misunderstanding, continued.

“If we ever get into a situation where we cannot fight our way out of trouble, and they are likely to take me, kill me.” Mallory stepped back and looked at him with pleading eyes. “I cannot live through that again.”

As far as Callum was concerned, they weren’t ever going to reach that situation.

“I have two bullets,” was all he said. “You know that.”

He just didn’t mention that he intended for one of them to be used on Melrose.

“You will be safe,” he added while Mallory swiped at the tears in her eyes.

When she didn’t look at him, Callum knew she didn’t believe him. It annoyed him because it hinted that despite everything, Mallory still didn’t completely trust him.