The full gravity of the situation was suddenly hitting him, and it was not a pretty picture. He couldn’t look at the girl without thinking about how saving her would ruin his life. For a split second, he reconsidered, but then his soul felt even blacker, and of course he couldn’t actually leave her in hell to save his own ass.
Maybe he could talk to her before the police did, beg her not to—
No, he couldn’t do that either. He wanted to, but he had done enough damage, and asking her to protect her attacker was something he couldn’t bring himself to do.
r /> All he could do at that point was hope for the best, even though he wasn’t sure what the best case scenario even was anymore. That Amanda would understand? That he might get a light sentencing since he had retrieved two missing girls and cooperated with the police? Antonio not wanting his balls in a vice?
None of the best case scenarios seemed like much to look forward to.
---
Max’s place was technically a pizza parlor, but he ran an illicit prostitution ring out of the back rooms. Up until that point, he’d used local women who “worked” there, but the women he had were getting old and tired, and he needed some younger girls to lure in the clientele.
The girls in question were loaded into a pewter colored Astro van with tinted windows and shuttled to Max’s place. Three of the girls were silent the whole time, per Lane’s barked orders—the one he was originally there to extract sobbing quietly, afraid of what was going to happen to her next. The one with the gray eyes didn’t cry, she merely stared straight ahead until she finally asked, “Where are you taking us?”
Nobody answered her, and when Ethan glanced at her she promptly put her head down.
They pulled up behind the back door to unload the girls. Ethan and Chuck were charged with taking the girls inside, while Tito stood guard outside the back door. Since there were four girls and two guys, Ethan wanted to make sure he had the two girls he needed to extract close by, so he took each girl by the wrist, leaving Chuck with the other two. The gray-eyed girl flinched when he grabbed her, while the other merely glanced at him, unfazed.
Now that it was getting down to go-time, he would typically feel sharper, more focused, but because of everything that happened, he was distracted, off his game, and that made him nervous. He wasn’t doing anyone any favors if he fucked up in the final lap.
After escorting the girls into the back room, Ethan volunteered to stay and keep an eye on them while Chuck went to verify that the girls were in their room.
It wasn’t much of a room. A tiny area with block walls, no window, a unit of beat up metal lockers in the back corner, an end table with a tall lamp beside it, and three cots squeezed in there corner to corner. Honestly he didn’t even know how they managed to cram it all in there. He also didn’t understand why three cots for four girls. The ground was cold cement, so it wasn’t exactly a good place for the girls to sleep.
Not that Max cared about their comfort, obviously.
He guessed it might have been a break room at one time, but even for a break room it was small.
Turning to glance at the girls, he saw that the gray-eyed one had seated herself on the cot farthest away from him. Lorena sat with a short-haired girl on one of the beds closest to him and the exit, while the girl who spoke no English sat on his other side.
Pointing to the gray-eyed girl and then the one who didn’t speak English, he told them to switch beds, first in English, then in Spanish. The gray-eyed girl didn’t move.
“I’m fine here,” she stated.
Sighing, he said, “I need you over here.”
“Why?”
“Just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
It was like arguing with his four-year-old.
“Just switch fucking cots,” he said impatiently, then he took a step outside the door to check in each direction.
When he turned around, the gray-eyed one still hadn’t moved, but the non-English-speaking girl was perched next to her on the bed, looking at him cautiously.
Ethan shook his head, but since he couldn’t risk blowing his cover, he didn’t repeat himself.
A couple minutes passed and then Chuck came down the hall and ducked into the room. “Having fun back here?”
“Loads,” Ethan said dryly.
“We’re ‘bout to get out of here so say your goodbyes. Hey, look on the bright side—at least you know where she is if you wanna pay her a visit.”
It was a stupid, insensitive joke, but Chuck was a stupid, insensitive guy so Ethan wasn’t surprised.