Page 42 of Sin of Love
20
CAPTIVITY - DAY 70
The afternoon ishazy and hot, dense with the kind of humidity that presses on your chest and squeezes sweat from your pores. I should be inside where it’s cool, but I couldn’t be in the house a second longer. Not after spending the last three hours with the seven young women, all of whom are in either denial, shock, or manic excitement about their new surroundings.
Paulo normally accompanies me as I walk the path inside the wall, but right as we stepped outside, Maggie appeared and offered to take his place. Already red-faced and dripping in the heat, he’d nodded and scuttled away.
Now I’m stuck with my enemy. Frenemy? I honestly don’t know what Maggie is anymore. Since the night she saw the welts on my back, we’ve coexisted on the principle, Don’t fuck with me and I won’t fuck with you, with a sprinkle of, You’re a bitch but thanks for not bitching to the boss about me.
The truce in itself is complicated; if we don’t hate each other, then we’re dangerously close to sympathizing with each other. Worse, we might be on our way to remembering we were once good friends—despite her insistence that it was an act on her part.
Thankfully for my remaining sanity, Maggie’s been away for the better part of two weeks and I haven’t had to deal with her. But my luck has run out—first the girls, and now this impromptu meeting that I already know won’t end well.
There’s something heavy weighing on her mind—otherwise she’d never willingly subject herself to this heat—but we’ve been walking for twenty minutes in silence. It wouldn’t usually bother me, but I really wanted to be alone. Or as alone as I can be here. Plus, I haven’t had my lunchtime tea and my eyeballs are starting to burn in their sockets.
I finally halt, laying a hand on a sun-warmed brick of the perimeter wall. There’s a vine curling nearby, bold green with little white flowers. I imagine picking all the leaves and petals and ripping the newly barren branches down. If I can’t climb the wall, they shouldn’t be able to, either.
Maggie stops beside me, her cheeks flushed and eyes averted. She blurts, “I showed Trent the postcard you sent me from Barcelona. Good thing I spent all those years copying your handwriting at work, huh? He’s doing great, by the way.”
The words hit my calloused heart and bounce off. Tilting my head back, I stare at the curls of razor wire high above us, silver points glinting in the sunlight. I imagine my body tangled in them, blood dripping, splattering over the wall and ground. A macabre painting.
I finally ask, “What’d you do, fake a parent’s death to explain your absence the last few months?”
She shrugs. “I never liked my fake mom, anyway.”
Our gazes meet and hold. I deadpan, “If I didn’t hate everything about you, I’d laugh.”
She rolls her eyes, I bite my cheek, and we almost have… a moment.
Then I remember the girls.
“I’m not surprised Julep wants you back at the job,” I say as I start walking again. “You certainly spent enough years in it. Is that what you did behind the scenes when you worked for me? Pimped girls to clients?”
“No.” She pauses. “But that’s going to change.”
My steps momentarily falter; I stop again, shading my eyes to see her face. “That’s the new angle, then? Makes sense. Lord knows the rich and famous have the money to pay for their fantasies. Especially the illegal ones.”
She nods grimly and looks away.
My eyes and bones burn; my patience snaps. “What do you want, Maggie? Why are you even talking to me?”
Another weighted pause. “Are you going to train those girls?”
I fire back, “What am I training them for, exactly?”
Her eyes widen, startled and confused. “For the resorts. Didn’t Julep tell you?”
I shake my head. “He didn’t. But I don’t understand, the cartel surely has—”
“Hookers, yes. Not… you know.” Her eyes find mine.
“Dolls,” I whisper. “Pretty little dolls.”
Maggie’s shoulders stiffen. “I don’t know why Julep hasn’t told you yet, but before you victimize or martyr them, they signed up for this. They’ll be done in three years and will have earned enough money to go to school, travel, whatever they want. Deirdre, if this works—if we can turn a profit fast—Julep will be back in good standing with his father. We’ll expand. Set up more operations. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. It’s business, not trafficking. They want to be here. We’re not hurting anybody. It’s not like it was back when you…”
Wisely, she doesn’t finish that sentence. Back when Nate and I were kidnapped, starved, tortured, brainwashed, and sold.
Maggie wants badly tobelieve what she’s saying, but she can’t mask the underlying guilt, the niggling doubts. They sit sour in the air between us. Binding us together in our shame.
