“My end’s secure. Twice in one week. Must be urgent, Hawk.” Jed McNeil’s husky voice came over the headphones suddenly. Hawk had been waiting for a few minutes as his call was redirected through several channels. “What’s all the noise in the background?”
“I’m supposed to be working out,” Hawk explained as he landed a blow to the made-up punching bag in his room. “I need to work up a sweat because Dilaver wants to do a slow jog around his compound later to see how his leg’s healing.”
“Good. Updated Madison about your plans with Ambrosia and he agreed it was a good risk. Checked up on Sun. He’s ninety percent. He’d be a good cover for Ambrosia and you.”
Madison was Admiral Madison, Hawk’s SEAL commander. It was good to know that his leader and McNeil were in direct contact. All this skulking around within organizations had made Hawk wary about third-party communications more than ever.
“What’s the missing ten percent?” He was curious about Bradford Sun, not just because of his special friendship with Amber, but he wanted to make sure the CIVPOL chief posed no danger to Amber and her friend.
“He has an interest in Llallana Noretski. Her credibility is at twenty-five percent.” All these numbers didn’t mean a thing to Hawk. He preferred concrete evidence, but GEM and COS operatives had been trained that way, memorizing codes and percentage factors to save time as well as preserve secrecy. At twenty-five percent, the file on Llallana Noretski would be thick with evidence of criminal background activity. Hawk had known about Brad’s interest, but this evidence about Lily was a new surprise. As if he read his mind, McNeil continued, “The CIA has had dealings with her before, so that upped her percentages. But we don’t know exactly what Sun’s and her relationship is, since they keep it tightly under wraps. We aren’t worried about her yet, but she’s an unknown factor.”
“So Llallana is with the CIA? Does Ambrosia know?” Hawk and Jed always used Amber’s code name.
“Negative to both. Noretski was picked up by the Agency before. The information we have pointed to perhaps an interrogation, so her experience with them might not have been a happy one. You’ll have to find out yourself.”
“Okay.”
“Ambrosia doesn’t appear to know much more. What we know of Llallana also comes partly from her when they first met. She’d checked her out then.”
“They’re best friends now,” Hawk told Jed as he dodged the swinging bag and turned to execute a flurry of punches.
“What does she think of you?”
“We get along.”
“What do you think of her?”
Hawk recalled her letting him carry Amber into her room. Their conversations this past week had been brief. She hadn’t questioned his sudden appearance in her and Amber’s plans; in fact, she had seemed subdued. “She has attitude,” Hawk said, stopping the punching bag with a taped hand, “and a lot of secrets.”
Amber had asked that his description of her and Lily’s side project be as minimal as possible. Jed, she’d said gravely, would use that information for his own ends. She’d added, with sarcasm, that it might pull down her percentage statistics with COS Command. Hawk hadn’t said anything, although he was privately amused at her direct hit.
“What’s new, then?”
Hawk put the punching bag in motion again. “Be ready for an upload of coordinates.”
“All of them?”
“Not sure, but enough info to map out where each drop point might be.”
“Good. Then we have to figure out which load has our target.”
Hawk started his routine again. “Ambrosia and I start our journey as soon as we have a map from your end.”
“Fax it to her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sleeping with Ambrosia?” Jed’s sudden question made Hawk pause in midstrike and the bag bumped into him. He reached out with both arms to hug it to a stop, as Jed continued in polite tones, “Got the air knocked out of you?”
“Is there a policy against that?” Hawk asked, nursing the shoulder that had borne the brunt of the hit.
“We have only one policy. Do your job.”
“I’ll get it done,” Hawk said.
“I expect no less from one of the admiral’s Standing and Ready SEALs. Call me again when Sun is ready for his vacation. I should have the map and key positions ready for you and Ambrosia. I’ll also give you the name of the contact who will pick up the merchandise once it’s in your hands.”
After Jed rang off, Hawk gave the punching bag a quick kick for revenge before putting away the headphone. He’d forgotten what good interrogators those commandos were. By invoking his STAR status, Jed McNeil was reminding him to keep his focus on his job, which was to stay as close to Dilaver as possible and not to a certain blonde with a sassy mouth.
He had to admit, he’d been going to Amber’s place too much. Even Dilaver was teasing him about it, commenting that Hawk had finally rediscovered his libido. Which brought the focus back on the main problem. He did enjoy spending time with Amber, but he was also avoiding going to the kafenas. It was good to get away from that for a while.
But Hawk could avoid it only for so long. To be close to Dilaver meant being with the Slav while he committed crimes that made his stomach turn. Thank God the big thug had the sense not to do hard drugs for recreation. Hawk had been trained on how to best avoid ending up an addict, if, in case, such a scenario cropped up, but it was tough for an inexperienced covert agent not to get into trouble when confronted with the unexpected invitation of joining the “fun.” Many had ended up addicts themselves and some had lost the fight to get clean.
Oh yeah, he was one lucky devil, standing there like an idiot and not lifting a finger when a young woman was being beaten. Or, even worse, sexually humiliated. It made Hawk ashamed of his own sex when he watched the depraved things the men made the girls do. The first time he’d accompanied Dilaver to one of his “training sessions,” it took every ounce of control he had not to pounce on and kill the scum who was doing the training.
He had the satisfaction of thinking that he had finally gotten rid of one of them that evening during the battle by the hillside. That man was one of Dilaver’s closest aides and had been particularly vicious when it came to breaking in the new girls. Hawk had mentally killed him dozens of times in the last few months. However, he hadn’t found much relief in the act; the images of the girls still haunted him.
Amber. Hawk smiled every time he thought of her. She made him forget, at least for a while, what he had seen. Either his abstinence had sharpened his senses or she made him feel like never before. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Every time they made love, he craved more. How was it that he could want a woman so badly? Even now he wanted her.
But he couldn’t. Not tonight. He had to get back to playing Dilaver’s new friend. A knock on the door interrupted his reverie.
Hawk pushed the punching bag into a swing again. “Come in,” he said as he started punishing it. He knew it would be Dilaver, meeting him to go jogging. Without stopping, he continued, “Ready to run?”
“Fuck, no. I can’t believe I’m going jogging.” Dilaver still walked with a slight limp and sometimes needed his walking stick after being on his feet too long. He kicked his leg out. “It’s taking me longer to heal.”
“Yeah, they say it’s the feet that go first, then the face,” Hawk quipped as he stopped the moving bag.
Dilaver chuckled. “You’re just saying that because you’re a pretty face,” he said. “If you had pretty legs like mine, you’d say it’s the face that goes first.”
Hawk started to untape his hands. “Well, let’s see how your pretty hairy legs keep up with mine today.”
Dilaver tapped his foot. “I bet they are just as pretty as Amber Hutchens’s, eh?”
Hawk pretended to give it some thought. “To be honest,” he said, “my attention isn’t focused on her legs much, but I know hers are a hell of a lot less hairy.”
Dilaver laughed. “You know what I like about you, Hawk? You aren’t afraid to make me laugh with the most absurd observations. I can’t imagine talking about my leg and comparing it to a woman’s with anyone else but you.”
That was because Hawk had set out to talk to Dilaver as he would to any of his SEAL teammates. It was drilled into him to be as natural he could be, as he would be with his own best friends. It was the last thing he wanted to do; by acting with the same familiarity, it felt almost like betraying his own friends. But he had succeeded, just as his GEM trainer in NOPAIN had said it would, in gaining a measure of friendship from the gunrunner. Nonphysical persuasion and innovative negotiation, a system most GEM operatives he’d met seemed to practice, both repelled and fascinated him with how good it was at manipulating human minds.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know whether to feel insulted or special now,” he drawled.
“Oh, special,” Dilaver said. “And especially special since I’ve been hearing about our CIVPOL chief having a public argument with your Amber this morning.”
“Is that right?” Hawk tossed the tape into a nearby pail.
“Seems like someone has informed our Mr. Sun that a certain American has been sharing Amber’s bed every night for a week.”
Hawk cocked an eyebrow. “Is that someone in your pay, perhaps?”
“But of course. Revenge is sweet. Mr. Sun has raided a couple of my sites and cost me quite a bit of income. This is just the beginning. One day...” Dilaver’s voice trailed off and he shrugged. “But not yet. Can’t keep ridding every one of them so quickly. I’ll wait awhile till that sanguine outlook of his wears off a bit.”
“Sanguine?” Hawk wouldn’t use that description for Bradford Sun at all.
“He’s optimistic that he can clean this region up,” explained Dilaver with a humorless smile. “I find that extremely comical.”
“And you say I make absurd observations?” Hawk commented as they headed out.
“You don’t find it funny the man thinks that and yet has a girlfriend who sells his secrets to people like me?” Dilaver laughed nastily, glancing at Hawk craftily. “And today his sanguine outlook was just a little dimmer when he realized that she isn’t all sunshine. I heard he’s taking her off for a vacation to get her away from you, my friend. What are you going to do about it?”
So far, so good. Fed information was being passed on as planned. Hawk feigned surprise. “That’s news to me. When?”
“My sources say in a couple of weeks, but hell, the way you’re over there all the time, it might be sooner. I don’t think any man would let a woman like Amber go so easily.” Dilaver nodded at his guards as they passed them. The latter kept a distance, keeping an eye on their boss and the surroundings. “So you had better spend as much time with her as you can before she’s whisked off, my friend.”
“I’ll do that,” Hawk promised. Maybe he could spend tonight with Amber after going out with Dilaver. “Better warm up first or your pretty legs might cramp up.”
Even the guards behind them snickered at Hawk’s joke. But his mind was already on the day’s agenda. He had to ready the file to be uploaded. He wasn’t sure he could get away to go with Amber to that interview. He wanted to. Tonight, at the kafena, he had to see which of the girls could speak enough English for the interviewer. It would be tough; they all lived in fear. He would have to think of some way to persuade them without blowing his cover.
Amber poured tea for everyone in the room. There was an anxious excitement in the air as the three girls who had agreed to do the interview sat on the big sofa, eyeing the two newsmen with suspicion, cynicism, and hope. They were young, but they’d been through enough to know that promises didn’t mean anything. It was also decided that no doctor was needed to examine the victims until the girls had met the reporters and felt comfortable.
Amber and Lily had been very upfront about it. This interview was meant for them to tell the world what was going on, in their words. The reporters would try to sell the story to international cable news and other agencies. It would do some good—not for them, but maybe for those other girls who were still in the kafenas.
Of the girls they had in the safe houses, only three could speak enough English to give personal accounts, with a little help from Amber and Lily. They were also the few who were old enough to have something to say. The others were too young to give extensive interviews. Some of them weren’t comfortable with telling their stories to adult men. Amber had told the two men that she’d compiled a list of what these girls had told her, about what had been done to them after they were kidnapped.
Brad was standing by the fireplace. He had already briefed the reporters that under no circumstances were the identities of Amber and Lily to be revealed or their pictures taken. In fact, he’d introduced them as Anna and Ludmilla.
Amber watched Hawk question the two men as they set up the taping and photo devices. He was speaking in a low voice, but she heard enough of the conversation to know that he was asking for a direct copy of the interview as well as the reporters’ final copy.
“I want to compare what was said and what was written,” he told them. “And if I feel you’ve done a poor job, I’ll release my own copy of the interview as well as your direct copy.”
To her surprise, Hawk showed them a recorder the size of his palm. He hadn’t told her about this. Again, she was struck at how prepared he was for this sort of thing. She exchanged glances with Brad.
Lily was giving last-minute encouragement to the girls, each in her own language. They were all from different countries and Lily was the only one who understood the cultural horror of so many girls being traded like international souvenirs. Amber had sighed with relief that her friend and Brad had been very cordial with each other. Maybe they had come to some sort of understanding. She’d tried to talk to Lily about it, but her friend’s replies had been oddly cool.
Not that she’d spent that much time talking to Lily, Amber acknowledged wryly. She’d been kept very busy with Hawk showing up at her place at the oddest hours. Lily must have gotten the clue that she wasn’t alone too much because she’d practically been living somewhere else, only showing up during the day to help with plans and business.
All in all, it’d been a heck of a week. She glanced at Hawk again. He was very comfortable with her and her friends, participating in their plans and risking his own cover. Brad would tell her if he’d found anything unusual in Hawk’s background, so she wasn’t worried. But neither was she blind.
Hawk McMillan was a natural at taking charge, and he did it without ordering anyone about. There was just an air about him that made her feel very safe whenever she was around him. She couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Maybe it was the way he pointed out alternate ways to do things, giving sound reasons why a direct interview at the kafena would be even more effective as a news story. Or the way he was now handling the two reporters. Without making any verbal threat, he had subtly warned them that he would be paying attention to how they would spin the girls’ tales.
It dawned on her that he was always searching for weaknesses in any situation and fortifying them before they were exposed by the other side. He had a very indirect approach about it, as shown in the way he maneuvered himself into her secret venture. But it was remarkably effective, as in the way the two reporters in the room were answering all his questions quietly and respectfully, as if his approval were essential.
She wondered what Brad thought of that. He was watching all this too, and hadn’t said anything to undermine Hawk. She sensed that he was learning as much as she was about this operative sent in to infiltrate Dilaver’s nest to hunt down some kind of hidden weapon. To do that required a lot of skill. She knew from experience that nobody ever got too close to Dragan Dilaver. That Hawk had succeeded in this feat gave her an idea how really capable he was.
She approached them and refilled their teacups. “Let me know when you’re ready,” she told them, “so I can go talk to the girls first.”
“Five minutes,” the bespectacled reporter, Thomas, said.
“Do we use the girls’ real names, Anna?” Hawk asked, using her assumed ID.
“First names are fine. It doesn’t matter now that they’re free,” she replied.
Hawk nodded. “I was just thinking about the girls at the kafenas later. They’ll want to use different names.” He glanced at Thomas. “I don’t have to spell out what could happen to them if somehow their pimps find out they gave interviews.”
Thomas nodded soberly. “Understood. We’ll be very careful.”
Amber turned and walked to the sofa. She gave Lily a nod. “Five minutes.”
“Okay.” Lily was holding on to the girls’ hands. “We’re ready.”
Her friend had lines of tension around her mouth, making her look older. Amber knew she was probably thinking about her lost sister, the one who had gone missing. She joined them on the sofa, giving Kia, the girl next to her, a hug. “If you feel uncomfortable, let me know. I’ll stop the interview. If you don’t understand or need me to translate, just turn to either me or Ludmilla.” They had already briefed the girls about the fake names. “These men will get your stories out in some form of media, maybe even television.”
The other two girls, Michela and Judi Kay, listened intently, then nodded along with Kia. Amber signaled and Hawk brought the men over. Brad took a seat nearby. The introductions were brief and Thomas explained about the tape recording.
“Let’s start with telling where you came from and how you were kidnapped,” he said.
“I’m from Bucharest,” Michela began first in slow, accented English. “I was sixteen when some man approached me and told me he was looking for models to send to America. He said he would take photographs of me and put me in an album with other girls and if I was lucky, I would be picked for magazine covers. Of course I said yes, and he took pictures of me and everything was okay because he gave me money and said he would contact me again. A week later he called and told me to meet him at a café because he had good news. I was very excited. He showed me a contract that I signed and said that I was to bring my passport with me that night so I could fly to Los Angeles. He showed me the plane ticket, so I believed him. When I went to the meeting place, he put me in a car with two other girls. There were two men sitting in front. I noticed there was a plastic divider between the front and the back seats, but I didn’t think much about it because I was so excited. It didn’t take me long to realize we weren’t being taken to the airport. We couldn’t get out because the locks in our doors wouldn’t open.”
She paused to take a deep breath, a frown creasing her forehead. She looked inquiringly at Amber, chewing on her lower lip.
Amber nodded back to assure her that she was doing fine, hoping none of her own anger was showing on her face. She’d heard versions of this story many times before and each time it broke her heart. She also knew, from experience, that if she showed how truly upset and angry she was, some of the girls either became too emotional to speak or they shut down entirely. She wanted to help the girls stay as calm as possible for the interview.
She interjected an explanation to give Michela some time to gather her thoughts. “These men are called impresarios and they are paid about a thousand Euro dollars for each girl they photograph for the album. In turn, the girls are sold for twenty-five hundred Euro dollars to different dealers, depending on where they’re heading,” Amber said.
“So each destination has a different price?” Thomas asked incredulously.
“The girls are seen as goods and commodities,” Lily said in a low voice. “They’re taken to Bucharest, which is the headquarters for these operations. Then they’re marketed to different branches in Moldavia, Ukraine, and Russia as dancers. It’s a legitimate business in Bucharest, by the way, since the authorities there sanction the businesses.”
“Businesses?” David, the other reporter, prompted.
“The agencies are legitimate businesses in Bucharest,” Amber said. “The business license costs about twenty-five thousand Euro dollars or the equivalent in deutsche marks.”
“You’re saying that it’s a legitimate business in which men are sitting around making bids on women being sold as prostitutes,” Thomas said. He shook his head and took a gulp of tea from his cup. “How do you know this?”
“Because I’ve sat through such an auction,” Lily said. “It isn’t very different from the slavery sales held in the United States not that long ago, gentlemen.”
Amber glanced over at Lily. She’d never mentioned being at an auction before. Right now her friend was staring straight ahead. Amber could see the tension in her hand that was holding on to Michela. Looking up again, she caught Brad’s hard gaze on Lily.
“Tell me about yourself now, Judi Kay,” Thomas said gently.
“I’m from Chisinau, Moldavia,” Judi said. Her father was American and, although her vocabulary was limited, she spoke English well. “I was picked up with my two friends after we went to see a movie. The men said they would give us a ride home.” She shrugged. “They took us to Bucharest. I knew we were going to be sold off. My father had told us things like this happen. From Bucharest, they drove us to Turnu-Severin, then we all crossed the border to Serbia, to Belgrade. From there, other men brought us here to Velesta, Macedonia. There are many girls from Moldavia here, all of them kidnapped and sold like me.”
“Did you see your two friends again?”
She shook her head. “No, they weren’t sold quickly like me. I heard those who don’t get sold are taken to Turkey.”
“They’re taken through Hungary,” Lily told the reporters. “Hungarian passports are easy to get, about five hundred Euro dollars per fake one.”
“You appear to be very knowledgeable about these routes, Miss Ludmilla,” Thomas said.
“I make it my business to know about them. I prefer to get to the girls before they’re taken to the brothels and broken,” Lily said calmly.
“How do you transport them in and out of Macedonia?” David asked.
“As quietly as possible,” Lily replied, this time with a smile.
“Not telling, huh?”
Brad finally spoke up. “We’ve agreed not to go into Ludmilla’s and Anna’s activities because it could jeopardize what they do, David. Your story is going to be on the girls’ plight.”
“The ladies’ cause would make a great angle to the story,” David pointed out.
“No, their operation must be kept as quiet as possible or this interview won’t do us any good, gentlemen,” Brad said firmly. “Stick to our agreement.”
“Okay, okay,” David said, “but you have to agree that showing how these girls were saved would add an exciting element to the story.”
Amber sat up. “Exciting?” She recalled the girl being raped by a group of men in front of the kafena. Anger seized her insides. “Do you know how exciting it is for these girls to be used by ten or twelve men a day? That they’re chained to beds or fed drugs or even beaten if they don’t please their owners? I have several girls upstairs who can’t walk because of their injuries. Do you think their stories would be exciting enough for your article?”
Thomas held up a hand. “Bad word choice,” he conceded, shooting a warning glance at David. “We’ll do this right, Miss Anna.” He looked at the girls on the couch. “Tell us about the clients. Tell us the things done to you so we can report it in your words.”
Amber willed herself to relax. If this was tough on her, how much more difficult it must be for the girls to do this. Yet, she noted, it was she and Lily who were expressing anger and bitterness, not Michela or Judi Kay.
“Our clients are mostly NATO.”
Thomas’s head jerked sharply. “NATO? As in peacekeepers?”
The girls nodded. “Yes,” Lily answered for them, sarcasm evident in her flashing eyes. “They are the brothels’ main clientele.”
“A lot of them?” David asked.
“Seven out of ten,” Hawk replied from behind them. Like Brad, he’d been quietly playing observer. “I know this from being inside the kafenas.”
David expelled a long breath. “Wow.”
Lily cocked her head. “Surely you don’t think a uniform or a title would stop a man from going to a whorehouse? They’re the ones with money and a lot of time on their hands.”
“And NATO officers are from all over, as you know, so you want to add this is an international problem,” Brad added. “By the time my department goes off to raid these kafenas, they’re mostly empty because the pimps have been warned in advance.”
Thomas nodded again. “We’ll have to be extra careful when we go to a kafena.” He stood up. “I don’t know how to say it without being blunt, but a firsthand account of the business will make the story even more marketable. Michela’s and Judi Kay’s stories are very touching, but even if I took photos of them here in this room, it won’t quite bring across the horror of what happened to them.”
“You want pictures of battered women then? Bruises and welts from beatings?” Amber asked. She wanted to shake these two men and yell at them, but part of her understood they needed the tactile experience to make their story different from a World Health Organization report. The latter had been reporting on these activities for a few years now, but no one had really paid any attention. Reports were just that—reports. The emotional pain suffered by these women, the horrific surroundings of their imprisonment, the groups of rowdy men crowding around a naked woman—these things weren’t conveyed through the cold, hard facts and numbers.
“Why don’t you get Tatiana to show them her injuries?” Hawk suddenly said.
Lily breathed in sharply. “No!”
“Why not?”
“Tatiana hasn’t spoken a word since she was brought here,” Amber said, shaking her head at Hawk. “She’s not...exactly friendly to men.”
“What happened to her?” David asked.
“She was very, very unlucky,” Judi Kay said. “She fought back and Papa was in a bad mood. He stripped her and made her his personal slave and kept beating her if she didn’t do what he wanted. One time I saw him give her to a dozen men, who raped her on the pool table. And after that she had to crawl on the floor all night naked because she screamed once.”
Judi Kay shuddered, closing her eyes. Thomas swallowed hard, taking off his glasses to wipe them.
“Is Papa the pimp?” David asked.
“Yes, and his favorite is called Mama. She reports to him. Our Mama was only fourteen years old, but the bitch already knew how to suck up and get favors. That way she gets her own room and cell phone and she gets to eat three meals a day.”
David muttered an expletive. “Where the hell is this place? I want to burn it down.”
“Tetovo,” Judi Kay supplied the name. “Please do it. Kill them all. Help us.”
“Come with me to the kitchen.”
Amber started to hear Hawk’s whisper in her ear. When had he come up behind her? She glanced up. “Why?” she mouthed quietly.
Hawk nodded in the direction of the kitchen again and made his way there. Amber hesitated. She really didn’t want to miss any part of the interview, but Lily and Brad could supply any information the reporters might need. She patted Michela’s hand and whispered in her ear before getting off the sofa. The girl nodded. Amber felt Brad’s gaze following her as she left the room.
Hawk was waiting for her, a grim look on his face. “What is it?” she asked.
“Take me to Tatiana.”
She studied him for a moment. “You don’t even know her. She wouldn’t want to see you anyway. Don’t tell me you’re going to convince her to show those two men her injuries.” She shook her head. “Hawk, she’s in really bad shape.”
“Take me to her, Amber. I want to ask her one question. If she doesn’t answer me, then I’ll just leave.”
Lily would never agree. She was very protective of Tatiana. “Hawk, I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Please, Amber. This could change everything for the girl.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
Crossing her arms, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re being too secretive. Why can’t you tell me now? How do I know what you’re going to ask won’t upset her even more?”
“You don’t. But if I can convince her to talk to those guys out there, even for five or ten minutes, and show them her condition, it would really prepare them for what they’re getting into when they head for the kafena. Their eyes aren’t open, Amber. You know what I mean.”
Amber sighed. She did know what Hawk meant. The two men out there were still in reporting mode. They needed a nudge to get them to tell the story the way Amber and Lily wanted them to. A kick in the ass, actually, she corrected. And Tatiana...Tatiana could be the one person to do that.
“Okay,” she said, “but if you’re wrong, I’ll let Lily beat you up.”
Hawk’s lips quirked. “Aren’t you going to protect me?”
“I’m your guide, not your protector,” she told him, taking him by the hand. “Let’s go to Tatiana’s room.”
Tatiana was sitting by the window in her room, staring out, even though the panes were shuttered. Her crutches were leaning against the wall. She didn’t turn around when they entered.
“Tatiana? It’s me, Amber.” No answer. “I brought a friend. His name is Hawk.”
Tatiana turned around, her eyes in her thin face widening at the sight of a man in her room. Amber squeezed Hawk’s hand hard, trying to stop his advance.
“Tetovo,” Hawk said very, very quietly. Tatiana reacted with a jerk of her head. “Just nod your head, Tatiana. Was Papa’s name Sarunas?”
Tatiana fisted a hand to her misshapen mouth. Her eyes flashed with sudden emotion, then they became dull again. She nodded.
Hawk took a few careful steps toward the girl. Amber released her hold of him, closely watching Tatiana’s reaction to him. In the few months the girl had spent under their care, she had hardly shown any emotion, even when she was in pain and needed medication. There was always a far-off look in her eyes, as if her body were just a shell and she wasn’t really there. This was the first time Amber had seen Tatiana come to life. And over the name of the brothel Papa.
“He’s the one? This tall. A scar here. Two tattoos shaped like skulls on his back.” Tatiana nodded again. Hawk knelt down so that they were eye to eye. “Tatiana, I promise you. He can never hurt you again. I killed him not long ago.”
Amber watched as Tatiana leaned closer to Hawk. Her heart was in her mouth as she watched the girl struggle to speak, as if she had forgotten how to use her tongue. “Are...you...sure?” she managed to croak.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“With a knife during a battle.”
Tatiana reached out and grasped Hawk’s shoulder. Amber could see her nails digging into his shirt. “Long...fight?” she asked, and her voice was stronger, fiercer.
“Long. Long and dirty fight.”
“He suffered? He must suffer first.” The veins on her neck stood out. Her words came in a slow staccato through gritted teeth. “Tell me he died a long painful death.”
Hawk didn’t move a muscle as she continued holding on to him. “All knife wounds are painful, Tatiana,” he said softly. “He suffered, but not as much as I wish he had, now that I know what he did to you.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know everything.” Tatiana sat back in her chair.
“Tell your story to the reporters downstairs then. You know they are there. Show them the scars, Tatiana.”
Amber covered her mouth as Tatiana began to cry. Oh God, it was so heartbreaking to finally see the girl showing her grief, as big teardrops rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t know which she preferred—the unemotional girl or this sad creature sobbing in low moans.
“He made me feel...dirty. He made me lick his toilet bowl. He killed me inside,” Tatiana said, her words barely audible through the sobs. “I’m glad he’s dead. I wish I was there to watch him die.”
Hawk reached out and traced one finger down Tatiana’s wet cheeks. “There are others like him. You have to try to help the other girls by giving this interview. Michela, Judi Kay, and Kia are doing it for their friends who are still missing. Don’t you want to too?”
“I don’t have any friends!” Tatiana said.
“Amber and Lily,” Hawk reminded her gently.
Tatiana nodded, finally giving Amber a glance. “Yes. I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Amber said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Tatiana.”
“I’ll do it for your friend Hawk,” the girl said, suddenly coming to a decision. Her voice was still hoarse from crying, but she was more composed. “He did me a favor. I’ll return it now. Help me walk downstairs?”
“I’ll carry you,” Hawk offered.
“Careful of her ribs,” Amber said, when Tatiana nodded her permission. She watched him lift the young girl up with a gentleness she hadn’t seen in him. “Here’s a hankerchief, Tatiana. I’ll bring the crutches.”
She followed them, listening quietly as Tatiana started to tell Hawk the things the dead Sarunas had done to her during her captivity. She wasn’t waiting for any interview. Her story was pouring out of her as if Hawk had turned the tap on.
She moved ahead so she could open the door. Every eye in the room focused on Tatiana, who ignored them all even as she continued talking. The reporters never said a word as she went on. And on.
Every horrifying humiliation. Every bruise and how she got them. The scars on her cheeks. The one that cut across her mouth. Amber listened and wanted to kill all the Sarunas in the world.