Page 34 of Hard Game

“Why were you in danger?”

I stare out the window and wonder how best to tell her my past. I need her to see the real me without frightening her away, but the poor woman just found out her sister was murdered, just like she’d suspected. “I was a naive kid who wanted to make a few bucks on the side,” I begin, watching as she studies me intently. I already know she’s looking for signs of lies; maybe I look up to the left too often, maintain eye contact most of the time, that kind of thing. “We weren’t struggling financially, not as a family. But I wanted to make my own money.” I should’ve stayed in school. But of course, I knew best. Instead of following my dreams of being a tech guru, I skipped school with my friends, following them to the city’s seedy underbelly and doing odd jobs for shady folk. Soon, I stayed out every night, and my parents left me to it because they thought I was happy. Which I guess I was.

Until we met Alastor.

I grit my teeth and shuffle in my seat, staring into the swirls of darkness in my mug.

“Let me guess, you weren’t a paperboy,” Detective Diess says sarcastically.

“No,” I say with a grin. “I got involved with people I shouldn’t, and that’s where I met Alastor.”

I watch her brows knit as she leans forward, her interest officially piqued. “Alastor?”

I hate his name on her lips. I want to scrub them with bleach and tell her never to say it again.

“He’s the head of the trafficking ring in Lockwood.”

Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ but she soon blinks and waves at me to continue impatiently.

“He’s a sick bastard, Detective, and if you haven’t come across him, I would advise you to keep it that way.”

“What’s his surname?” Detective Diess asks, ignoring my warning.

I shake my head. “That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”

She purses her lips into a flat line of disapproval, but I don’t care. Maybe she can torture me for the surname, now that I would enjoy.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I check it, pleased to see the clean-up crew have done their job. My detective can go back to her apartment.

“Your apartment is ready for you. There will be no sign of anything that happened,” I tell her, and she nods.

“So what else can you tell me?” Detective Diess presses, crossing her arms across her chest.

“I can tell you that I was an errand boy for him,” I say quietly, forcing myself to watch her reaction. “That I helped him.”

Her eyes widen so much they look like they’re going to pop out of their sockets, but she says nothing. She doesn’t need to—I can see it in her eyes. The sadness, the disapproval. The disappointment. “You were a trafficker?” She hisses, recoiling from me like I knew she would.

“No,” I say firmly, eager to dispel that from her mind. “No fucking way. I wasn’t aware what kind of organization he was running.”

“Bullshit!”

“No, it’s not. I drove the vans, and the condition was I wore noise-canceling headphones. That was my job—to drive the vans and not ask any questions.”

Detective Diess studies me with a heaving chest, her eyes glittering with silent fury. “So what happened?” Her voice has thawed somewhat, and I clear my throat, glancing around us more out of habit than concern.

“I got curious. I followed them into one of the houses one night.” I bow my head and close my eyes, the memory slamming into me so hard I tilt sideways like I’m trying to hide from it.

“Maddox?” Her voice is softer now, but she hasn’t inched forward to comfort me. If anything, she’s pressed against the back of the booth like I repulse her.

“Sorry,” I say, frowning. “Let’s just say I saw what I’d been transporting. It wasn’t drugs like I’d thought. The bangs and movement from the backs of the vans hadn’t been my colleagues messing around. It was women and girls. Tied up and blindfolded, chained up and fucking abused.” My heart rate accelerates, and I clench and unclench my fists, trying to keep my breathing regular. Otherwise, I’d lose myself. Maybe I should call Tassa and have her help me explain to the one woman who seems to matter.

The woman is crying silent tears as she waits for me to continue.

“So, I wanted out.” I run my tongue along my teeth, buying time before I say any more. “And I wasn’t allowed to leave.”

“You expect me to believe you didn’t know women were in the back of those vans, Maddox, or whatever your fucking name is?”

I let her words slap me in the face, and I nod. “I do, yeah. I don’t have any reason to lie to you.”

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