Page 135 of The Anchor Holds

“If we left right now, we’d be too late,” Rowan added. It had taken me half an hour to walk to his place, another fifteen for Kip to arrive, another ten for me to relay all the information I knew about what Calliope was wound up in. Then twenty for them to make calls, do research on Jasper Hayes—the man didn’t exist, although both of them remembered the boy he had been with Calliope. Both of them were surprised as all hell that he was not only still in her life but ruining it. She kept a lot from her family. I didn’t tell them about the attack, the rape. That was hers to share.

While I was doing all of that, she’d been speeding to New York, either by doubling the speed limit in her sports car or by taking a jet. We didn’t know. She could’ve been there already.

“You can’t know that,” I ground out, arguing with Rowan even though I knew deep down he was speaking the truth.

“I can,” he protested. “Calliope is not one to drag anything out. Whatever she’s doing. It’s likely already done. We can’t help her. All we can do is trust that she’s capable of fighting for herself.”

I stared at both men. Brimming with fury. Worse because I knew they were right. I’d known it the second Calliope walked out the door. There was nothing I could do to help her. Nothing but wait and trust that her strength would keep her safe.

Twenty-Five

labour — Paris Paloma

CALLIOPE

My first meeting should’ve been my most terrifying.

Coming face-to-face with the head of a criminal organization who I’d effectively run away from after being witness to him murdering someone and him having me attacked, violated as a warning. Me using the time I’d been holed up in my apartment healing to uncover the breadth of his organization.

Human trafficking. Murder for hire. Truly horrible, unspeakable shit.

The evidence I had was technically enough to take to some kind of law enforcement establishment. But I hadn’t. Not because I’d be implicated. If I knew beyond a doubt that those truly responsible for those acts would be imprisoned, that I’d be able to bring the victims justice and stop what was going on, I would’ve incriminated myself in an instant. I was guilty, after all.

But I was aware that there would never be justice. Not for those at the top. Not for those who were guilty. Because they were smart., richer than small countries’ entire GDP. There were fucking international politicians involved. Congressmen, prime ministers, foreign diplomats. Their web of depravity was tangled with organizations that promised to secure law and order. It was a sad truth the general public wasn’t privy to. That there was no true justice nor punishment for those committing the most unspeakable crimes on our planet because they ran the planet.

At the start, I hadn’t understood the depth of it.

Ignorance was not an excuse. I was smart enough to have found all of that information at the beginning, to understand the kind of money I was handling, the kind of money I was making, to admit that the people I was dealing with were truly bad. I could’ve understood all of that from the start.

But I was greedy, selfish, caught up in the identity I’d forged for myself. I liked working in the shadows. So I let myself ignore it all. Until it piled up around my ears, and I couldn’t ignore it.

I’d uncovered the human trafficking first. The ages of the men and women involved. Thegirlsandboysinvolved. And I’d done what I convinced myself was noble. By calling in a lot of favors then depositing money in bank accounts in their names, untraceable, I’d ensured that the girls and boys were freed. I bought their freedom, but I could never rid them of their nightmares, their scars.

Then I’d covered my tracks. I’d shown Gregory the evidence of his embezzlement, thinking it would distract him enough so he wouldn’t notice me quietly leaving his employ. I hadn’t imagined he’d commit murder in front of me. Then I’d been rash with the resignation, still thinking I was strong enough to go up against such a powerful man.

But he’d proved to me I wasn’t, with the attack. I’d healed without the police, without calling for help, recognizing that Icouldn’t be rash. So I waited until there was no physical evidence of the attack, then I ran. To Jupiter. The plan had been to gather information, enough to buy my life, my freedom. I’d known that it was a big task, but I’d had plenty of hubris, thinking I was smarter than all those men.

But they’d been doing what they did for decades. They were a generational web of deception and crime, honed to a fine art. And there had been many decent, brave, guilty or scared people over the years who had tried to bring them down.

They never succeeded.

Even the few upstanding people in law enforcement organizations that tried hadn’t managed.

Hence it taking a lot longer than I’d expected it to. For a moment there, I didn’t think I’d be able to gather what I needed. Had doubted myself. Had succumbed to the possibility that I was going to have to surrender.

Then came Elliot.

Who reminded me who the fuck I was. And what I had to lose.

“Calliope.” Gregory’s greeting was warm, his lips curved in a pleasant smile.

I hadn’t seen him since the lunch after the murder, when he’d politely accepted my resignation then ordered me to be beaten and raped.

He was a monster. I wished I could shatter his bones one by one then feed them to him. But that was giving in to emotion. Smart… I had to be smart. Because I had to win. He thought that winning was having my fingers broken, my skin split open, my insides scarred by a brute with body odor. He didn’t understand that men had been doing that to us for centuries. Yet we fought. We endured.

“Gregory.” There was no warmth in my tone, no smile in place. Men got to smile with abandon. Women had to guardtheir smiles lest a man perceive it as interest, weakness or consent.

He was one of the most powerful men in the city, which was saying something. His legitimate businesses were run out of the top three floors of the high-rise we were in. There were armed guards at every entrance and exit. Cameras. Keycards were required for every room, especially the one we were in, Gregory’s office. The inner sanctum. He thought he was untouchable here. Because no one was stupid enough, brazen enough or powerful enough to strike him here.

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