Page 84 of Isle of Seduction
“Are you talking about Addams?”
She shakes her head. “He’s just a supplier.”
“Who are you talking about?” I ask, coaxing her but keeping still, hands raised. Inside my head, the cogs are turning fast. That word, supplier, doesn’t fucking bode well.
“The devil,” she whispers.
“I don’t know what that means. Will you tell me your story?”
Suddenly, she drops the gun and crumples to the floor, exhaustion marring her soft features. She must be twenty at most. I take her gun and safely store it at the back of my dark jeans, before I help her up and walk her to her kitchen. She’s trembling so much, shivers racking her body that I set the kettle on the stove to get her a warm tea.
When she’s more settled, a cup of tea in her hand, she spills everything, and it’s worse than I thought.
Jennie started working for Addams a year ago, taking care of his two boys, who are five and nine years old. His wife was always absent and his gaze was always roving over her body, but she needed the money. One night, he invited her to join a private party with his friends while his wife stayed with the kids. The money he promised her was astronomical for a young woman weighted with student debt.
She went and served as a hostess for what anyone would call an orgy. Rich men drunk on power and booze, with girls and boys to attend their every need.
“Except the workers didn’t seem like they wanted to be there. And…” She hesitates, closing her eyes as if the memory is physically painful. “Some were beaten up pretty badly. I didn’t see much, but it gave me the creeps, and I never accepted another invitation.”
Unfortunately for Jennie, Addams took a liking to her and kept inviting her. She started to feel like someone was following her.
“It was like everywhere I went, there was a shadow. A nefarious one. And then one day, I was with the boys, ending my shift and Addams… he just knocked me down. I woke up in a weird warehouse with dozens of other people.”
Tears and sobs fill the silent space around us, and I wait patiently for her to continue when she feels strong enough.
Her tale freezes the air in my lungs but turns my blood to a boil. Rage seeps into my every pore and I hate that someone would do that to her, to anyone. Addams is going to die a very agonising death.
“When I was there, there was a man. He worked with The Devil but his eyes were haunted. He helped me and another boy and girl escape. I don’t know how, I just know that he gave us money, a car and papers and told us to leave and rebuild, but far away from each other.”
“Did you decide to have surgery to protect yourself?” I ask and she nods, touching her cheeks like she regrets every needle that has modified the shape of her face.
“Do you know his name? The man who helped you?”
“Igor. His name was Igor.”
Fuck.
So Igor is working against Misha while still being in his brother’s clutches. That could be very dangerous.
I leave Jennie and get back into my car, dialling my brother to ask him to pick Addams and set him up in the stables behind our property.
It goes to voicemail.
That has never happened. Not a single time since Nico got a phone at twelve years old. He is anal about answering the phone, especially if it’s from me or our mother.
I try again, the hackles rising at the back of my neck.
Voicemail again.
I try Giulia.
Voicemail.
Sounds around me echo like my head is in an aquarium tank. My vision has blurred and in the fog, all I see is her.
My point of no return registers.
Something’s wrong with my family.