Page 9 of Dirty Quinn
“Want to tell us why?” Alyssa asks.
No! Fuck.
“Because my father was one of the buyers in there.”
* * *
The girls and I meet back up at the bar. Entering through the back and quietly making our way up to the Darlings’ office before the employees I’ve got working the bar see us.
We each take our preferred seat at the round conference table I have in the middle of the room.
“Want to tell us what that was all about?” Al demands before sitting. She’s probably the only one I’ll allow to speak to me that way. Not because I’m afraid of her, but because I respect her. Not that I don’t respect my other girls, I do. But Alyssa is scary smart. She’s the only person I know who can make a person disappear virtually. As in all traces of their identity suddenly gone.
I can make a person disappear literally, but there will always be proof they were alive at some point. Alyssa can make it so that the only thing left is whatever paper or photographic proof their poor mother has at home in a box markedchildhood drawings. And that’s after she makes them disappear literally, just as efficiently as I do.
Like I said, scary smart.
“My father was bidding.” I sit heavily in my chair. Not caring if it makes me look tired or exasperated. I am. Both.
“Your father? As in Viktor Limonov?” Roxie asks.
I nod. Not sure what else to say, I don’t know myself what he was doing there or if he truly plans on buying and selling women. My father is not a nice man. He’s not a decent man. But even I thought he’d draw the line at human trafficking. Especially after what happened to Katya.
“You didn’t know he was here? In the US?” Al asks, grabbing a bottle of vodka from the side table along with four glasses and pouring us each a healthy shot before taking her seat across from me.
“No. Not that he keeps me apprised of his plans though. He could be in and out of the States a hundred times without telling me and I’d never know. Hell, he could be in and out of Santa Caranina a hundred times and I wouldn’t know.”
If my father had a superpower, it would be his ability to be everywhere at once. To know everything at once. He’s omniscient like a god in that respect. I grew up under his tutelage and I still don’t know how he does it.
I finish my vodka and hold my glass out for a refill.
“The likelihood that he’s buying or selling is slim because of Katya, right?” Al downs her shot and pours us both another.
I nod, letting the second shot slide down my throat slowly, relishing the burn as it makes its way through my system.
“So, really, we know nothing,” Roxie adds unnecessarily.
“What would you like us to do?” Jen asks. Of the girls who work with me, which in the last few weeks has dropped to just these three, she’s the quietest. The one you would least expect to be a killer. Al and I are similar in personality and stature—calculated, meticulous, tall, and thin. Whereas Roxie reminds me more of Quinn if I’m to compare her to someone I know, with her curvy figure, bubbly personality, and tendency to act before she thinks. But Jen is somewhere right in between. Always watching, rarely speaking, forever thinking, and constantly suspicious.
Jen’s story is brutal. All the girls have horrible pasts, but Jen’s is the worst. And she has the scars to prove it. Literally and figuratively.
I realize she’s still looking at me, brows raised, waiting for an answer to her question. Which I’d almost forgotten she’d asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say honestly. “If he’s involved, I won’t hesitate to take him out.”
“Or at least try to,” Al adds.
I nod and laugh, my tone sardonic. Because she’s right. Even though I’m not afraid of men like my father or Ronan Sinclair, I’m also not one hundred percent sure I could win in a war against them. One on one? I stand a decent chance. But a full-blown war? I just don’t have the resources they do.
“I’ll call him tomorrow and see if I can find out what he’s doing.” I pour myself a third glass of vodka, this one double the amount of Al’s usual pours, still not feeling the calming effects of the alcohol in my system.
“Can you girls just stay on alert and be ready for anything?”
“So, business as usual?” Roxie asks with a grin.
“Yes.” I raise my glass. The girls return the gesture and we cheer to what has become our unofficial mantra. “May we forget it enough to get over it, remember it enough so it doesn’t happen again, and not stop until we’ve made ourselves proud.”
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