Page 18 of Link (Dragon Riders MC 1)
“Without even looking at it?”
“What was I supposed to do, Joanna!?”
“Read the contract, for starters.”
She rolled her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
I stood up and went to sit behind my desk. “What was the work the contract bound you to?”
Her entire body trembled again before she had the strength to answer me. Then, the one word I feared her saying fell from her lips.
“Escorting,” she said breathlessly.
Then, her eyes came to meet mine.
“But now he won’t let me out of the contract. It’s been a year, and that’s how contracts work, right? One year, then you have to re-sign them? But I can’t even look at the contract, Joanna! He won’t even let me see it! He says my signature is all he needed, and now I’m bound to him and this job. I don’t know what to do, Joanna. I don’t know how to get out of this. Please, you have to help me. I have money. I’ll willingly pay you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want your money.”
As I stared at my sister, I didn’t see the fully-grown woman with bruises on her face in front of me. I saw her with raven black pigtails and white bows tied around their braided bottoms. I saw that rainbow dress she always wore with her Batman cape, running around the backyard and proclaiming that princesses could save people, too. My lower lip quivered and I rolled it over my teeth. I looked away and blinked back my own tears, trying to stomach the sorrow that worked its way to quickly up the back of my throat.
My little sister.
A contracted escort.
“I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from you in a while,” I murmured.
Hope sniffled. “Look, I know I’m not the best at this whole life thing. I know I’m not you. I’m not as put together, or as smart, or as pretty—”
My eyes snapped back to hers. “Don’t you dare say that about yourself. You’ve always been beautiful. You’ve always been smart. You just choose the un-smart path.”
“So, this is my fault, then. That’s what you’re saying?”
“All I’m saying is that of course I’m going to help you. But I’m going to need all of the details you can give me. About everything. Including the names and faces of what these men look like that you’ve been around.”
“Clients or Skeleton and his guys?”
The fact that she had to differentiate pushed bile up my throat. Bile I had to quickly swallow down before I vomited in my own lap.
“All of them,” I said hotly.
I pulled out a recording device I kept in my desk for times like this when I was much too emotional about something to take notes myself. And after I pressed “record,” I let Hope’s mouth fly off in every which direction her mind could conjure. I took in as much as I could, but I couldn't stop focusing on her injuries. The more I studied her, the more I found. Like, the red marks around her throat. And the fact that she was missing one of her back molars.
It made me sick to my fucking stomach.
“—but their names are the Golden Jags, I think. Something like that.”
I blinked. “Their name?”
Hope nodded. “Yeah. Skeleton and those idiots ride in some motorcycle get together or something. They have leather jackets and everything. They call themselves the Golden Jags. Or Jets. But I think it’s Jags. Golden Jags.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all? Maybe where I can find them, to speak with them on your behalf?”
“You don’t want to do that, Joanna. These men are mean. They’re ruthless. For all you know, they’ll—”
I leaned forward. “I’m going to fight for you, Hope. Just like I always have. But that means you have to give me the tools I need to fight. Do you know where to find them?”
She shook her head slowly. “I mean, I can give you the location of where I think their clubhouse or get together place or whatever is now. But it’s changed so much over the years that it might be different come tomorrow.”
“Anything you can give me helps. Even past get together spots, if you remember them.”
While Hope rattled off at the mouth, I took mental notes of a few things. Especially regarding how I’d approach this. I wanted to open a legal case against these guys. Because if they were running an escort service, then that meant there were more women like my sister who had been duped into this. I wanted to help them, too. It was too late to place calls of this magnitude to the police department, but it wasn’t too late to search a few things on the internet.
“What are you doing?” Hope asked.
My fingers typed away. “Keep talking. I’m just looking up a few things you’re saying. That’s all.”
