Page 165 of The Vigilante's Lover
We’re only an hour outside D.C. when Sam gets a buzz on the Blackphone.
“Who the hell is that?” I ask. “Who even knows you have that thing?”
Sam ignores me and answers the call. “Have you found her?”
Her who?
“Is it Mia?” I ask.
Sam shakes his head, straining to listen.
Must be they’ve tracked Jovana. Good. I’ll wring her scrawny neck myself. Then I realize what I’m thinking. I already strangled someone to death because of her.
I can still see the man’s face, turning red, then ashen gray. Killed him with my bare hands. No clean, easy Vigilante dart. The messiest, most up-close way to dispatch someone.
I’ve thought through that fateful night a million times. Jovana’s tears and rage, pointing out the man who abducted her and sold her into the sex slave operation. My blind rage and my hands on his neck, squeezing the life out of him.
Only now that I can put together Sutherland’s grand scheme does itall start to fit. Jovana was a plant from the beginning. I saw it at the time, that she was different from the other girls in the slave trader’s den. I just thought it meant she was plucky, a survivor.
Now I know I was intended to meet her. She was part of a plan.
I first saw Jovana six months before her betrayal. She seemed so young, so naive. She had nothing to do with the network. She was a civilian, at least that’s what our records said, reported as abducted from her college campus.
I was orchestrating a low-level sting on a sex club in my jurisdiction. Two new Phase Threes had uncovered a more elaborate business behind it. Girls were trained to be sold as extremely high-end slaves to wealthy men.
I had to keep the Phase Threes on the job, since they were my in to this secret bonus service. But the underground bunker where the trade was housed was uncharted by the Vigilantes, and we had no idea what they were getting into. I decided to handle this takedown myself to make sure it went like clockwork.
A dozen girls, from late teens through early twenties, wandered the front room of the sex club, accessible to anyone who knew of the place. They were dressed in outfits that varied from schoolgirl uniforms to leather harnesses that hid nothing.
They circled us, smiling, winking, kissing each other, vying for our attention.
We had to go in as customers, and we had to look the part. Wealthy, able to afford anything they had to offer.
I had no intention of busting the sex club for prostitution. This was not illegal to Vigilantes as long as the girls weren’t coerced. Now that we had seen how easy the top business was to infiltrate, the regular law enforcement could sort that out.
I wanted access to the girls sold as slaves in the bunkers below. They, we knew, were taken from their homes, often in other countries, and trained as slaves. Most were chemically restrained with heavynarcotics that got them addicted until the training took over.
They became entirely different people. Scarred. Remote. Unable or unwilling to think for themselves anymore. It was a grim business, and we were going to end it.
The two Phase Threes who had been using the club acted the part, looking over the girls, touching them, spanking them. As planned, I stayed aloof, holding back.
A slick, smiling bald-headed man in a gray suit approached them and they pointed to me as if they had no interest in what I wanted.
He came over and extended a hand. “Mr. Phillips,” he said, “I’m Fredrick. I received your preferences and account information. All is in order.”
However, he wasn’t quite ready to trust me, and the two Phase Threes, his regular customers, were extracted from the girls on their laps. We were all led to an elevator.
My senses were on keen alert. The background and profile that had been sent to the man were flawless. I was a wealthy businessman who owned a private island. A slightly dark past was added to the file, complaints of cruelty by a few women who were discredited. This all led me to appear to be the perfect customer, both able to afford their services and with the means to keep my life private by whatever means necessary.
Our goal was to find the head man, negotiate a price for his most prized woman, taking our time to learn the layout and extent of his scheme.
And then kill him and any of his guards and henchmen on the spot. An explosives team would then come in and blow the whole operation sky high. We already had the fake permits for a demolition and plans for a new construction, so it would seem perfectly legitimate to civilian government.
Neat, tidy, complete.
Our hardest challenge was to get the girls out alive. Regardless, the business practice would end. None of the financial trails we followed led us to believe this business was any bigger than what we saw here.
Not then, anyway.
