“What the fuck do we do now?” I hear someone ask as I start forward.
I make the choice for them, reaching out to trail my bloody hand down the arm of a pale, frightened girl wearing an outfit similar to the one I wore in my video. She flinches, cringing back.
“You’re free,” I tell her—all of them. “You’re free.”
“Not so fast.”
I turn around just as the devil approaches. He takes his time, his gaze flicking from woman to woman, and I’m not stupid enough not to understand that he’s tallying up their worth. Hundreds? Thousands? What will Lucifer find more lucrative? His promise to me or the profit even a handful of these women could net him?
I’m not sure what he decides when he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a wad of money, which he slaps against my palm.
“We found this inside one of the hideouts.”
I nod, my throat thick, and the devil says nothing as I turn to the nearest woman and press a handful of bills into her trembling hands.
“Take it,” I tell her, raising my voice so that they all can hear me. “Take it and run.”
“Spread out,” Lucifer adds, coming to stand beside me—my fallen angel lording over the souls he’s just saved. “No more than three at a time. Go anywhere—just get out of the city. Run. Hide. None of us will come looking for you. But...” He dangles the word like a juicy piece of bait held over starving dogs newly freed from a life in a cage. “If you want to get back at the bastards that did this to you, then memorize this number. Once you’re safe—andonlythen—call it. A man named Van Hallen will answer it. Tell him Dante Vialle told him to take fucking notes, and then you spill whatever you remember.”
If anyone answers him, they do so quietly, in murmurs and suppressed whimpers. They’re still asleep, I think. Still locked in the throes of the nightmares their lives have become. I doubt that they fully start to wake up until I shove the first girl toward the mouth of the alley where, up ahead, two men are making sure the coast is clear. She staggers, her eyes uncertain while her body pitches sideways. My hand on her arm stops her from falling, but Dante’s voice is what finally snaps her awake.
“You all have five minutes,” he says. “If you want your freedom, then I suggest you fucking take it.”
Just like that, the girl runs, her hair flying out behind her. Then it’s a mad dash to shove countless dollars into pale, trembling, grabbing hands before each woman follows suit, obeying the devil’s instructions to the letter.
Their faces blur, fearful, young, sometimes with battered features. It’s only when one of them presses her cool hand against mine that familiarity freezes me in place. Her blue eyes are more haunted than when I saw them last, caked in mascara that runs inrivulets down her cheeks. Matted, blond hair hangs limp and lifeless down her shoulders, attempting to shield more of her skin than the skimpy, black dress she’s wearing does.
Olga says nothing when I press the cash into her palm. Or when I throw one arm around her shoulders in the semblance of something that could have been a hug in a different life. She merely nods when I draw back, and for a second, we are bonded by our scars left by Vincent Stacatto. When I tell her to run, she does so without question, disappearing through the alley like smoke. I only have a few bills left, which I divide evenly between the final few women, and they disappear as well.
I watch them go until the moment Lucifer’s hand descends over my shoulder to steer me around to face him.
“We need to go,” he says, and I can only nod.
Part of Vinny’s empire has just been set on fire, and only God knows what might come out of the ashes.
We reachMack’s compound in silence—a strange show of victory for a returning army. Anger licks at the air as the comrades of the dead man toy with what matters to them more: revenge or their lives? They hold off on making a decision until after Lucifer drags me out of the van, at least.
“Mack’s inside,” someone says, jerking their chin toward the building that houses the bar.
Lucifer doesn’t respond, but I sense the tension coiling in his body as he starts forward and pulls me along. Arno falls into step behind us, and the rest of the men trail in our wake while Dante takes the lead, entering the bar first.
“Well done, Kitty,” Mack drawls from a stool at the bar counter.
At least forty men pack the room full, watching as the devilhauls me inside. Arno takes up a position near the door, his hands at his sides, open and ready.
“Your plan worked out,” Mack admits, though his tone falls flat. He isn’t pleased. Not really.
Forty newly freed women are running loose around the city now—each worth at least a grand. Mack doesn’t like having his pretty bones snatched away. He snarls in anger even as he counts the money stacked on the counter before him.
“Nabbing the drugs wasn’t as easy as you made it seem,” he adds, “but we managed to make a dent. Everyone’s happy.” He forces a smile that seems like a gruesome mockery of the real thing. “Oralmosteveryone.” His eyes home in on Arno. “A man named Kayden, to be exact, isn’t very happy, now is he, Arnold? A man who is...was...myfriend.”
Arno doesn’t flinch beneath the hostility directed his way. In fact...I think he feeds off it. With a wicked grin, he draws himself up to his full height, but there’s nothing but ice in his tone when he speaks. “The bastard crossed a line.”
“I don’t really give a shit,” Mack says, his lips still stuck in that impression of a smile. “He could have pinned the little bitch down and forced her to suck him off in the middle of traffic. Unless...you have a problem with that?” His eyes are on Arno, but the question is directed solely at the man tethering me to his side. “Don’t tell me that you have a hard-on for Stacatto’s whore...”
“It doesn’t really fucking matter why,” Arno growls, stepping forward. His eyes gleam, and for the first time, I see the family resemblance between Lucifer and him. If Dante is a fallen angel, then Arno is the lost soul he met on his way down to Hell. “I told the fucker to stop. He didn’t, and he got what he deserved.”
Mack grunts out a chuckle. “A knife to the chest?”
