Damn Nick, he never should have touched her to begin with. She hadn’t even been in the facility for twenty-four hours before Nick put his sick and twisted paws on her. He’s never done that shit before. I’ve also never seen him display the need to dominate someone like that on their first day, let alone torment them before I even had a chance to get their Blyss regulated.
The broken, vacant expression on her face after Nick left had twisted my gut with emotions I hadn’t felt in years, not since the beginning of all this, when I hadn’t been quite so immune to the goings-on of the facility. I had to remind myself to stay detached and unemotional like I’ve trained myself to do, because I’d been seconds away from losing it and snapping Nick’s fucking neck. What the hell was he thinking? Maybe that’s just it—he wasn’t thinking, because none of the women before her seemed to affect Nick, not the way this young woman did.
In addition to talking to him about that, I’d had to answer questions on the fly for her that I knew nothing about. Then, out of the blue, she’d asked about the St. Andrew’s Cross. She’d had no clue what it’s used for, nor what erotic play means. I sure as shit wasn’t going to sit there and tell her Nick is into all that sadistic shit after I had just calmed her down. She’s intelligent and mature for someone her age, but at the same time, she screams innocence and naiveté. So I’m sure as shit getting my questions answered, if for no other reason than to be able to answer hers to make her training process less detrimental.
My job here is a love-hate relationship, and I do it because it’s a means to an end for me. In this profession of female trafficking, there is a constant battle against authorities, and it will be fought until the end of time. Where one sex-trafficking operation gets taken down, another six spring up in its place. This operation I’m involved in, however, is no child’s play; we’re untouchable.
The drugs we use—even though they are still experimental—really do most of the hard work for me, which makes my participation bearable. Granted, every female who has been brought into the facility before her had experienced the same wide range of emotions Julianna had. I can usually ease them into their new lifestyle without a hitch. The trick is to give the drugs a few days to reach their total effectiveness. By the third or fourth day, their minds are ready to be introduced to a new way of thinking--a new way of life--but shit, Nick couldn’t even wait for that.
Nick insists we call the drugs the women receive a medicine, instead of calling it what it really is—an illegal drug, a substance which our genius scientist, Jared, helped create. He’d been working on finding the most perfect-yet-safe illicit drug to use on women as an aphrodisiac…only more. The product of all the research, reformulations, and experimentation had finally resulted in what is now called Blyss.
I round the corner to Nick’s office and start removing my leather jacket. It feels warm in here, or maybe it’s my rising anger as I think about who Julianna is. The fact Nick does business with her father just adds to the pile of complexities here. Hell, the man has definitely gone insane! He must have a fucking death wish. Messing with Lance Oakley can only lead to heaps of shit rolling downhill, and then rolling onto me. I shake my head in frustration at the thought.
Stepping into Nick’s office, I toss my jacket on the chair by the door. He’s here early today—good. “Taking your personal recruits a bit young these days, Nick?” I ask curtly.
He looks up from his computer. “Good morning to you, too, Travis.” He grabs the coffee cup off his desk and takes a sip. “But to answer your question, no. I’m simply taking what’s mine.” His eyebrows rise in authority. “She’ll be twenty-one in less than a week. She’s hardly a child.”
“What the hell, Nick? She’s engaged to somebody else.”
He waves his hand around in the air, dismissing the statement. “She only thinks she’s in love…child’s play, really.” He leans back in his chair, giving me his full attention. “No matter. He’s young enough; he’ll recover and get on with his life.”
“So you thought it was okay to just rip them apart? I don’t see that going down without a fight.”
Nick runs his fingers through his hair and sighs heavily. “Let’s just say he’s had a little incentive to get on with his own life, okay? If he truly loves her, he will.”
I feel the muscles in my jaw clench as I try to formulate my next question. He still doesn’t know I recognized her when she was brought in, so if he doesn’t come clean with me and tell me she’s Julianna Oakley, it will mean something is off - he’s withholding something from me.