I’M MET BY security at the docked boat. They must have been stationed here.
They don’t ask me who I am. They already know. A gate is open, and I walk from the platform onto the ship.
“Has anything been removed?” I ask the security who follows me in.
“No, we were told not to touch anything. That everything had to be left for you to see first.”
Good.
Another set of security is just at the entrance as I enter the ship.
“I want to see the security room.” That’s my first request.
“This way.”
I’m led down a wide hallway. The inside of the ship is luxurious. Nothing is out of place. The floor we walk down is clean. I duck my head as we enter a large security room. Seven stations circle the room, each one with several screens.
The security moves ahead of me.
“This one watches the resursy quarters.”
I sit down in the chair. “You know they are human?” I ask as I turn on the screens that have darkened.
“We must always refer to them as assets.”
I glance back at him over my shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“Sacha, sir.” He stands taller.
“Okay, Sacha. You know how to operate all this?”
He nods, and I get out of the chair.
Each camera blinks to life. Bedrooms, a large sitting room. Each room is empty.
“This stream is fed to one place.” Sacha gets up and taps at a large black box in the center of the room. “It all goes here. Backup is in the lower decks. Both of them were wiped.”
Someone did their homework.
“Take me to the girls’ rooms.”
I follow Sacha, and it’s a maze. You would have to either have a map or be familiar with the layout.
“I want a roster of everyone who worked here in the last six months. I don’t care if they scrubbed a toilet or steered the boat.”
Sacha nods. “That’s already in the process of being prepared for you.”
The room we enter is large, and it’s one I’ve seen on the cameras.
“Which one is Evie’s?” I’m looking at all the beds, waiting for Sacha to point her space out to me.
“We didn’t know their names. So I don’t know.”
I’m looking at Sacha now. “How long have you worked on the ship?”
“Three years.” His answer is swift.
“And you never saw which bed the girls got into.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever stood in this room. Only women were allowed.”
They really didn’t want anyone to defile these women. I move around the room, but there are no trinkets. Every girl seems to have the same space, the same items. There’s nothing to suggest any individual qualities.
I go through all the girls’ rooms but find nothing.
“One of the girls was sick. Do you know which one?” I ask.
“I can find out,” Sacha says as we re-enter the hall.
“Take me to the loading dock.”
Sacha’s face hardens at the mention of the loading dock, and I’m assuming I’m in for a treat.
I am.
Ten bodies are scattered around the space. Small pools of blood have gathered around their heads and shoulders from the large gaping wounds across their throats.
I scan over all the bodies. The slice is clean. Whoever did it was left-handed. The cut starts shorter on the left side and deepens into the right.
“No footage from this space?” I ask, already knowing it’s gone. But I still ask.
“None. Everything throughout the ship was wiped,” Sacha informs me from the door.
Each kill is the exact same. Someone who was fast and silent. Or maybe there were several of them.
I bend down and look for any more markings on the bodies, but the only wound is the slice across their throats. This security man’s face is covered in acne. I move to the next and notice a small red dot just along his jawline. It might be nothing, but as I continue to check, I see it on all men.
“When are they being sent for autopsies?”
Sacha’s laugh is quick and short as I look at him. “They aren’t. Their throats were slit.”
I rise and look around the floor. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I don’t find anything. “I want a full autopsy performed,” I say and glance at him.
He nods. “Okay.”
He doesn’t sound convinced, but I’m not here to convince him. I’m here to find out who did this, and from the looks of it, the security wasn’t at full capacity. The small red mark could be a tranquilizer. Maybe.
“What’s in the crates?” I ask, pointing at the large stack of them.
“Food,” Sacha answers.
I walk over to the first one and try to pry it open, but I can’t with my small penknife.
“Can you open one?”
Sacha gives me the same look he just gave me a moment ago when I suggested that the bodies needed to be autopsied. He goes to a small station and reappears with a crowbar. I stand back as he pries the crate open. Once it’s open, I lean in.
Sacha doesn’t say anything about the stacks of cocaine inside the crates, but as I glance at him, I can see the surprise in his eyes. I cut open the bag and taste it.
It’s cocaine, just like I thought.
“I’ll need the log for the loading dock for the last six months too.” I’m not sure if any of this is linked or if the men were told it was food so they wouldn’t go near it, but either way, I need to do a thorough check.
I stay another thirty minutes going through the ship, but nothing is out of the ordinary. Sacha promises to get all the paperwork back to my penthouse within a few days.
“Pavel is watching her,” Michail informs me the moment I step into the penthouse.
I remove my jacket and think of how best to approach her. She isn’t forthcoming with information about what happened, and I want the reason why that is.
I rest my suit jacket on the arm of the couch before I make my way down the hall. Pavel greets me at the open door, and I don’t pause but step into one of the guest bedrooms. There’s no sign of Evie.
The plants on either side of the archway into the bathroom have me tilting my head to try to see her. I pause as I step into the bathroom. She’s standing across from a large golden mirror, looking at herself. Her large breasts are perky. The pink nipples have my cock hardening against my trousers.
Breasts that have never been touched by a man. The longer I stare at them, the harder my cock grows.
My gaze trails down across creamy skin, a flat stomach, and all the way to the white beaded panties that cover her pussy. Light reflects off the beads, and she looks like a goddess.
The panties don’t cover her ass; it’s just a string that’s sucked up between perfect round cheeks I’d love to spank. Her long legs are perfect—a nightgown pools around her feet.
My gaze travels right back up to her face. I take my time since she doesn’t know I’m looking. Then her gaze clashes with mine. Her eyes grow round, but she doesn’t move. I take a step deeper into the room.
Her gaze darts down to my trousers, where my hard-on bulges; I don’t try to hide it. Color pours into her creamy cheeks like molten lava.
I take another step, and her nipples harden. She’s turned on, too.
“You shouldn’t be looking at me.” She holds her head high as she speaks. Her accent has me clenching my jaw. Everything about Evie just wants me to fuck her. Would I pay a million bucks to have her? It doesn’t seem such an outrageous price now that I’m standing in front of her. Her beauty is almost otherworldly.
“Why not?” I ask and purposely let my eyes roam across her flesh.
She doesn’t move or reach for her dressing gown. She doesn’t try to cover up her body.
“Only my future husband is allowed to look at me.”
I stop at her tone. “You don’t like the idea of that?”
She flinches like I called her out on something, then bends to gather up her robe. Her long black hair falls away from her shoulders, revealing a scar.
“I thought you had to be flawless.”
My words have her snapping up straight. She drags the dressing gown over her flesh and cuts me off from looking at her any longer. But now that I know what lies under her clothes, I can’t erase that from my mind. I don’t want to.
“We do.” She pulls her long hair out of the back of the dressing gown before fastening it.
“It doesn’t look like a birthmark.” I walk right up to Evie, and she doesn’t so much as blink. She also doesn’t stop me as I drag down the dressing gown just enough so I can examine the scar on her shoulder. My thumb brushes across the puckered flesh, and her sharp inhale has me looking up at her.
“This is a burn mark.”
Her steady gaze never falters. “It is.”
I run my thumb across it again, and her inhale of breath isn’t as sharp, but I still hear it.
“It’s from when I first arrived.” Her accent is getting thicker, telling me she’s upset.
I want to ask where she arrived from, but I don’t interrupt her.
“I wasn’t compliant.” Her lip tugs up, giving me a flash of perfect white teeth. This close, I’d expect to see a blemish on her skin, but she reminds me of a china doll. Flawless except for the one mark. I run my thumb across it one more time before stepping back.
She pulls the dressing gown back up. “It was a lesson I learned the hard way.”
I can still see the defiance in her gaze. The same she displayed toward me. But now that I’m really looking, I think it’s more toward this situation and not just me.
The idea of someone branding or burning her makes my gut tighten.
“This is why I haven’t been selected.” She raises her chin again—a defense mechanism. “You’re flawless in every other way. It’s hard to think one small piece of flesh would do damage.”
“You don’t know the men we’re being sold to. They don’t like any flaws. Hard skin, even bad skin, would turn them off. A burn…” She tightens the belt of her dressing gown.
“It’s odd that they would mark you, then. Devalue you.”
Her gaze snaps up to me. “Well, they did.” Her words are harsh, and I feel there’s so much more to this story than she’s telling me, but I drop it. I step closer to her until we’re shoulder to shoulder. She turns her head to face me, her heightened breath fanning across my face.
“You’re beautiful, Evie.”
Her cheeks flame again.
“But something about you doesn’t quite fit right. It’s like the equation is off-kilter.”
She presses her lips together like she can keep all her words deep inside her.
I grin at her. “I like a challenge. I’ll get my truth.” I step away from her and let my words sink in. Being around her, especially after seeing her naked, is hard.
Too hard.
Michail is in the kitchen area.
“What did she do while I was gone?” I don’t like the idea of any of them seeing her naked.
“She wanted to be taken to a guest room. So I took her, and Pavel guarded the door.”
I open a bottle of sparkling water and fill a glass.
“She wanted a look around, so we allowed it. Pavel was with her.”
I take out two painkillers and wash them down with water. “At all times?” I ask. It’s a standard question, but when Michail pauses, I turn to him.
He swallows. “No. There would have been a brief time she was alone. Forty seconds to a minute.”
A lot can happen in that time frame. I’m not fucking happy. I leave the kitchen area and walk back to Pavel. The green light on his headpiece blinks. Michail sent him a warning.
“What took you away from your one duty?” I ask.
“Michail needed me.” Pavel looks nervous, and I don’t want to squeeze the truth out of him. “There was a naked woman in the other building.”
“You left the only witness we have to help us solve this case so you could look at pussy?”
“It was a minute.” Pavel’s voice lowers.
He’s been with me for years. I step away, and when he tries to defend his stupidity, I raise a hand.
I walk away from Pavel and don’t even look at Michail. I hear a low curse. Yeah, they know they have fucked up. The study door is slightly open. I push it open fully, and the phone and laptop on the desk have me ready to step back out and hurt Pavel.
I pick up the receiver and redial the last number. It gives me an automatic no longer in service message.
She tried to ring someone.
I leave the study. “She tried to ring someone,” I tell Pavel.
He pales. “It was a minute.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight.”
Pavel is quick to move.
“Michail,” I call.
He appears. “Guard the door until I find out who she called.”
“Boss—”
I cut off his words before I end up cutting off his fucking head for his incompetence.