Ten Thousand Lies (21 page)

Finishing our drinks, we decided to call it a bust. I paid for the whiskeys, which were expensive enough to make up for the fact that we wouldn’t be sampling anything else, and we headed for the exit.

“Did you not find anything to suit your tastes?” asked the girl.

Ronen hooked his thumb in my direction. “He’s got a girlfriend, and he started to feel fucking guilty.”

The girl smiled at me. “We are very discreet. No one would find out.”

A heavy force knocked into my back. Catching myself before being hurled into Ronen, I spun around.

And I stared right into the broad face of the Knight of Mercy. Soulless deep-set black eyes stared back at mine, making my skin crawl.

“Is this fuckface too good for the likes of our women, Tonya?”
he asked in Russian.
“And why would you let in the filthy Jew? Everyone knows they’re only here to look.”

Tonya’s face drained white.

My revulsion turned to fury.

“The filthy Jew doesn’t have a problem sticking his dick in your women,”
I told Mikhail Dimitriov in perfect Russian, dialect courtesy of St. Petersburg.
“And none of them is my fucking girlfriend, so we’re leaving.”

The Knight of Mercy’s eyes went wide, glittering like little black beetles. “You Russian?” he asked in English.

“What’s it to you?”
I asked in Russian.

The man’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Do you know who I am?” he said in English again.

“Should I?”
I countered in Russian.

He sneered. “You’ve heard of Vasili, I’m sure.”

“There are many Vasilis,”
I stated in Russian.

He got up in my face, making me crane my neck to meet his gaze.
Shit, he’s a big motherfucker.
“
The
Vasili. All Russian know
the
Vasili.”

“I have not been in Russia for long time,” I told him in English, hoping I did the accent decent. “But, yes, I have heard of
the
Vasili.”

“Why have you been gone from your homeland for so long?”
he asked in Russian.

“Why does it matter?”

“You fucking answer a Vasili when one asks you a question,” he told me, his tone lethal.

“My father disowned me. I left,” I replied.

“Why would a father disown his son? You fucking the filthy Jew, is that it?”

“We’re business partners. Not faggots,” I snapped. “I wanted to tattoo. My father didn’t agree. He disowned me. End of.”

The Knight of Mercy stared down at me. Even though my heart was racing and I was close to puking, I glared back, holding my own.

“Jews make decent business partners. They’re good with money,” said The Knight.

“I have no complaints.”

“Why didn’t you want one of the ladies?”

“I already said, I have a woman. I prefer her pussy over others. He wanted something exotic, so I thought to bring him to a Russian place. He’s thinking more Asian. That’s it.”

The Knight of Mercy grunted and took a step back. “Asian women can be fun. Your Jew has good taste. You tattoo?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Fuck, I did
not
want this guy in our shop. “I can come to you.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No. I trust no Vasili.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I’m here for a few months. First session, you come to me, and then you trust me. You do a good job, and then I come to you. Deal?”

Clenching my jaw, I nodded.

“Monday, early. I’m at De L’Europe. At the front desk, ask for Lenny.”

Again, I nodded, and then I turned my back on him—to show him I trusted him enough for now. Shoving Ronen ahead of me, I pushed him out the door.

“What the fuck just happened?” he whispered once we started walking down the street.

“We’re either the luckiest fuckers or the deadest fuckers on the planet right now,” I replied.

The Locals’ headquarters wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded. When we’d first arrived in Amsterdam, I’d had visions of a massive building filled with James Bond–looking motherfuckers, laboratories, spy networks mapped out on glass screens all lit up with activity—that sort of shit.

Reality, as always, was much more…
real
.

I’d called our supervisor once we left Tiny Dancers, and she’d told us to come straight in. Located in a benign building on a corner street in De Jordaan, the front was a basic coffee shop—of course, run by the Locals, and staffed with recovering unfortunates. Rex was already there, waiting for us.

A secret panel door in the back of the kitchen, opened by a keypad hidden by a fucking tin canister mounted to the wall, granted access to the secret agency. The panel door opened automatically, so I supposed that was a little high-tech.

Once inside the headquarters, there was a lobby, and then past that were several cubicles where agents worked on computers. They were our tech intel.

As Ronen, Rex, and I walked into the lobby, two of the heads of the Amsterdam branch—Ursula Heste and Martin Waaler—met us.

“We’re set up in the west office,” said Ursula, briskly walking ahead of us. “We called in some of the techs and a few of your own men.”

“Good,” said Ronen.

Rex shot me a look. We hadn’t told him what was going on, only that Jones would show up to take his shift at Wurther’s and to meet us here.

The west office was a brown room, no windows, with an oval table and ten chairs. Potted plants sat in three of the corners, just to give some relief to the wood paneling on the walls. It would be easy to fall asleep in here; it was that boring of a space.

Belfry, Jakob, and Klaus were already seated. Ulrich, the man I’d once stabbed, was there, too. He’d gone tech once it was apparent the nerve damage to his arse wouldn’t let him return to active duty. Another tech, Felicia, joined us also.

“Gentlemen, have a seat,” said Martin.

We did.

“Now,” said Ursula, “tell us what happened.”

Ronen and I explained everything, and with the help of everyone in the room, we set up a plan of action. It seemed as though perhaps it wasn’t the fucking fiasco we’d initially thought it could be.

My intuition to go ahead and play a Russian was pretty fucking ingenious. Being invited into the Knight of Mercy’s hotel room was a stroke of luck because I could drop sensors around the room, which would allow info to be transmitted for when it was safe for our guys to sneak in and bug the place. I’d also wear a camera and microphone in some capacity; no doubt, I’d be searched once I got there.

With the prospect of Mikhail Dimitriov coming into the shop, we could set up some serious surveillance without him even suspecting. Cameras could be explained as security measures if Mikhail asked. It was agreed that anything of import in the Inkwell be moved out within the hour, making sure our meeting here would be brief.

“What about Jaime?” asked Rex.

My heart lurched painfully. I had been wondering the same fucking thing. Having her at the shop helped give it credibility, yet her life could be in jeopardy just by being associated with us.

“Jaime Hallowell should be apprised of the danger but told nothing more. She knows the drill,” said Martin. “And it would be best if she learned from Ellen.”

We had to stay one step ahead of them, and assuming they’d discover whom we were was the way we needed to operate.

“This has turned out better than we could have hoped,” said Ursula, her voice hushed. “We might just be able to shut the Russians down for a good while with this, if we play our cards right.”

That was the thing. No matter how many we took out, no matter how many operations we fucking took down, the slave trade was so fucking enormous that there was no way to shut it down completely. There were always more evil fucks ready and willing to step up and exploit their fellow humans.

Ronen and I exchanged a look. He nodded, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. We were in this for life, for the lives of so many who couldn’t break free themselves. In an unending fight for human rights, we were willing to sacrifice our own lives to try to save them.

I knew Ronen saw Sarai when he thought of the cause.

Rex was certainly thinking of the few hours of hell he’d endured.

Normally, I’d think about my mother, of all the people who had been bought, trained by torture until broken, and then sold by my sadistic father. Instead, my thoughts went straight to a young woman with China blue eyes, and I knew I’d die a thousand times over if she ever had to suffer like the victims we rescued.

Ricki

The next morning, the electric door chime sounded as Jaime walked into the shop, a little worse for wear. I’d heard that she, Xanthe, and Deo had gone out for a good time, and she was obviously paying the consequences.

Red-rimmed puffy eyes greeted me, and she gave me a slight pout. I laughed.

“Shut it,” she grumbled.

“What the hell did you guys do last night?”

“A whole lotta alcohol,” she replied as she slogged into the piercing room.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out some cash, peeling off a few bills. Wrapping them in a note, I handed it to her when she came behind the counter next to me.

“You look like you could use some coffee,” I told her.

“I can buy my own coffee.”

“Yeah, but I’m sending you out to buy me coffee and maybe some breakfast. You need some fresh air to clear your head, so you can read that,” I told her, looking pointedly at the slip of paper.

She went to open it.

“Not here!” I barked.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I’d like a triple espresso with a shit-ton of sugar,” I told her. “And a pastry. Had a bloody long night last night. Can you do that for me?”

That earned me a glare. “I think I liked you better when you pretended I didn’t exist.”

“Bullshite.”

Jaime’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Triple espresso, shit-ton of sugar. Does Ronen want anything?”

“Fuck Ronen. But get, like, a box of pastries.”

“Are you high?”

In fact, I
was
slightly stoned. In the wee hours of the morning, Ronen and I had gone to Ellen’s and given her the rundown. Our own people had tailed us to make sure we weren’t being followed by the Russians—turned out, we hadn’t been—and I had taken a few hits off Ellen’s joint. Ronen had passed the fuck out on her couch, which was where he was at this very moment, and I had headed to the shop, meeting Ulrich and Felicia for surveillance setup.

“Maybe a little.”

“I like you high,” she stated.

“I like you any way you are, Dollface,” I replied.

Those brilliant China blues shot straight into my eyes, and her jaw dropped. I couldn’t help but grin.

She gasped. “Holy shit. Are you
flirting
with me?”

“If I was…would you flirt back?”

“Oh my God,
this
is the guy I spent years talking to on the phone! What the hell, man?”

Heaving a sigh, I dropped my eyes to her feet. “Jaime, I freaked, okay? Can’t say it’s me finest moment, but there it is.”

She rolled her eyes and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”

A few minutes later, Ulrich and Felicia finished their surveillance setup and slipped out the fire exit in the back. My heart was still thundering from finding the bollocks to chat up Jaime, and I’d hardly acknowledged their good-byes.

Jaime’s response had me feeling slightly dejected though. I guessed I’d been hoping for a little more reciprocation, but maybe that would come with time. I’d only just started outwardly thawing toward her. She had no idea I’d been on fire for her from the moment I set eyes on her. Maybe if I kept it up…she’d want me again, just as bad as I wanted her.