“Nothing bad will happen if you don’t start anything,” the man said as he opened the door to the club. “You two go sit there. You come with me,” he said to PJ.
PJ just stood still and didn’t move. She took a moment and looked around the club so I could see the set up and how many men were in there. I saw a couple guys by the front door and a couple sitting in the audience. There was a good-sized camera setup with lighting that I assumed was to take pictures and videos of the girls when they were on the stage. I didn’t see Stephano, though.
“Come with me,” the doorman said as he grabbed PJ by the hand and pulled her into the back room.
It was pretty obvious that the man had dealt with plenty of girls who didn’t speak English before. He didn’t try to talk to her too much and he guided her by pulling on her hand instead of worrying if she understood what he was saying to her.
I had to wonder just how many women had come through those doors before PJ. There had probably been hundreds of women bought and sold at that club. It made me sick to think about all those young girls being purchased by guys and what those men were going to do with them. Even when this job was done, there would always be scum of the earth that didn’t treat women right.
PJ did a great job of looking around so I could get a perspective of everything that was around. She certainly did know what she was doing. Every time I got a hint of worry that she would do something wrong, I remembered that she was highly trained for situations like this. Well, maybe not specifically our situation, but she could think quickly on her feet and I was confident she was going to help us get Ana out of there.
“Boss, here’s the girl. There’s a kid in the audience who wants you to buy her. I heard she came over from Russia and the kid says she’s too much work for him.”
Victor must have actually talked to the doorman guy and not actually to Stephano when he set up the appointment for us to come to the club. It was clear that Stephano didn’t know a thing about us showing up, but he didn’t seem to care much.
“She looks like shit, did the kid not feed her? What’s her name? She doesn’t look like she speaks English, at all. Does she?”
“No, boss. Her name is Ilsa.”
“Roxy!” Stephano screamed.
My blood went cold as I stared at the screen. It couldn’t be my Roxanne. He couldn’t be screaming for her. I couldn’t blink as I looked at the monitor and waited to see who came into focus. What the hell was going on? Why would Roxanne be there with Stephano? My blood pressure increased as I became more and more enraged when I saw that it was, in fact, my Roxanne who Stephano had called.
“Roxy, clean this damn girl up and get her a sandwich; she looks like she hasn’t eaten in a week. Make her look good for the camera and tell her what to do on stage. Her name is Ilsa.”
“Yes, I’ll make her look beautiful,” Roxanne said as she looked at PJ.
I felt like Roxanne was looking right into my eyes as I stared at her. My mind raced to try and figure out why she was there. I could see she had a busted up lip, but she didn’t seem to be there against her will. My stomach churned with the thought that she had willingly gone there to help Stephano. I had to hold out hope that she was only there because she wanted to help get Ana out.
PJ grunted like she was in pain and then looked down at her arm, where I saw Roxanne holding onto her tightly and pulling her into the other room. When they got to the room, there were two men standing by the exit door and at least a dozen girls getting dressed in the room.
The women were in various stages of undress as they did their hair and makeup and put on sexy outfits that they were going to dance in. As PJ looked around the room, I found Ana in the corner as she got ready. She actually looked much better than I had expected. But that could have been because she had her hair and makeup done.
It was distracting to watch the monitor and see random women walking around without their clothes on. I had to say my job was probably much more fun than Nate and Chase’s jobs were. While they sat in the lobby of the dance club, I got to watch all the naked girls get ready to dance.
“Ana, this is Ilsa. I need this table so I can get her ready,” Roxanne said.
It felt like it was on purpose. Like Roxanne was making sure that PJ knew who Ana was. I didn’t think that Roxanne knew we had monitoring there with PJ, but I didn’t know for sure. PJ could have told her when the girls were all together. But no matter what, I felt like Roxanne wasn’t trying to trick us. In that moment, my blood pressure started to return to normal, and I believed that she had just gone to Stephano so she could help with Ana.
“Why are you here?” PJ asked as Roxanne started to clean off her face roughly.
“Don’t talk. You’re supposed to not speak English. They will notice if you talk to me. Just get on the stage and dance and look pretty.”
PJ did stop talking, but I wish she hadn’t. I also wanted to know why Roxanne was there and what exactly she thought she could do from inside that PJ wasn’t going to be able to. But my answer came very quickly when one of the men handed Roxanne a bottle of pills.
“They all need to take at least one. The older girls can have more than one if they want,” the man said to Roxanne.
“Stay here and get ready. Don’t swallow this,” Roxanne whispered to PJ as she handed her a pill and a cup of water.
It was at that moment that I knew for sure that Roxanne was there to try and help. I hated that I had questioned her reason for being there at first. But at that moment, I knew she was trying to prove that she was useful and could help. It was a good thing she was there, too. Having someone who was helping Stephano was the best we could have hoped for. Instead of one of the men handling the girls, it was Roxanne.
PJ watched as Roxanne went around and handed pills to all of the girls, but she skipped Ana. It was the saddest thing ever when Ana then came up to Roxanne and asked for her pill. I wasn’t sure what exactly the pills were, but they were obviously addictive if the girls were asking for them when they didn’t get one. I suspected that was why the other girls had said Ana looked drugged up when they had seen her before.
Mentally, I made a note that Ana might have to deal with some pretty bad withdrawals once we got her out of there. I didn’t know exactly what she was taking, but anything that she took on a regular basis was going to require withdrawing from. Drugs that zoned the women out would make them easier for Stephano to handle. The girls probably just did what he asked and didn’t ask any questions.
The girls who spoke English would be too drugged up to talk. Stephano had set up the perfect situation for him. The girls were going to be high all the time and that made them much less work for him and much easier to handle.
“Let’s go, girls. You need to be ready in five minutes,” Roxanne said as she held out her hands to show all five fingers. “You need to go on stage and dance,” Roxanne said to PJ as she moved seductively to show her what she needed to do.