Page 75 of Ricochet

Adelia agreed. “We know.”

“New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, the Carolinas, Florida?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Silvio?” Lenora’s brows arched until she took a drag. “Have anything to say?”

“Does my attorney think I should?” he quipped.

Lenora dropped the cigarette, stomping it out. “Silvio’sbringing them in on top of someone else’s merch.”

He didn’t disagree, and that was all the confirmation Adelia needed for the bile in her stomach to slosh. The container ships surrounding them seemed to close in. “In these container ships?”

She smirked at Silvio, challenging him again to disagree. “See another transport option?”

“Those shipments can take weeks.” Adelia gaped at him and thoughtabout the little she knew of overseas shipping routes, how they re-routed depending on the change in circumstances, and the environment of even a dockyard. “Even under the best circumstances, the shortest distances for the freighters—”

“You two have made your point. I don’t comment on what people move. I am only a booker.”

“Two, three weeks, easy.” Adelia’s fury grew as she eyed the rusted metalboxes and couldn’t imagine the conditions inside.

“You people move guns. Kiss my ass,” Silvio snapped.

Adelia wasn’t in the frame of mind to fight an argument about what was the better of two evils. “My people? But thosearepeople—women and girls—kidnapped from their homes and sold.”

“I’m a booker.” His eyes dulled again. “Shipping freight. I book container space.”

“You know who moves what.”Adelia could remember conversations over the years that she’d had with her network of old ladies when the women and girls that they’d purchased and rescued had been in bad shape, dehydrated and malnourished. There had been questions of exposure, but everyone had assumed it was before procurement. No one would’ve believed that shipping could take this long under these conditions. Or at least shewouldn’t. “Open the door.”

Silvio remained silent for the longest of prayers that Adelia had ever uttered before he turned and unlocked the padlocks, hauling the rusted door open.

Putrid scents overpowered them as cold, stale air leaked from the dark box.

Lenora whistled. “Quite a few souls going to hell over this one.”

Vomit. Urine. Feces. Decay.Adelia couldn’t separate the aromas but knewthey were all there. “Not everyone lives, do they?”

“I have no idea what happens with merchandise.”

She pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose, gagging as she stepped into the cold, metal death box. How could it be that much colder inside the container, she had no idea.

“You’re telling me.” She slowly paced the length of the cargo hold. Every step made her boots echo with a cold metallicrattle, and she clanked back to the edge, pulling her shirt away from her lips. “This was our container?”

He kicked the toe of his loafer against the edge of the container. “Mayhem’s had more than—”

“God, you bullshit a lot.” Adelia pulled her shirt up again.

He ran a hand over his slicked-back hair. “This transported Mayhem’s recent shipment.”

Waves of nausea stole the strength from her legs.Nothing about this container said anything about their smuggled assaults rifles. No scent of guns or the coffee beans coming from South America. She wasn’t looped in on the weapons purchases and had no idea where the shipment had originated. Russians, Irish, or Mexicans—it didn’t matter. “This smells like death.”

Lenora stepped inside the cargo container and backed against the metal wall. Adeliamoved next to her.

“This was a cage.” Lenora slapped her hands against the rusted walls. “A torture device.”

“How did they survive?”

Silvio grunted, motioning to the corners of the grooved metal walls. “It works.”

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