Page 103 of Reckless Seduction
“Because we chose to be here.”
I look back at the women who are at my back, bewildered. “Why would you choose to be a whore?”
“Whore is a word used by weak men to make themselves feel powerful,” another girl spits. “We chose to be here to honor your mother as she honored us.”
“Did you know her?” I whisper. We are coming to the end of the hall, and none of us knows what is beyond it.
“I did not,” she admits sadly. “She was murdered before I was born. But my mother did. She was part of your mother’s motorcycle club. They called themselves the Vixens. My mother was one of only three women to survive the massacre. Yourfather kept them hidden and safe until they recovered. Then he helped them start over.”
“What do you know about my father?” I ask. “Why did he never come for me? He knew I was alive but…”
The woman smiles softly at me. “Everything he has done has been to keep you safe,” she assures me. “He tried so hard to get you back, but there was one fault in all his plans. He never suspected his wife of being a traitor.”
“Lina,” I breathe. “He married that bitch?”
The woman lets out a small chuckle.
“Your mother never trusted her,” she says. “So neither did we. We continued in secret. We have kept your mother’s legacy alive, the legacy of the Vixens, in the hope that one day you would get to witness what she built. For you.”
Gunshots startle me from asking more questions. The women who stand behind me don’t seem bothered, but I can hear the screams of the other girls. The ones who didn’t choose to be here.
Screams of pain seep through the locked door. More gunshots. Someone is yelling orders.
“What’s going on?”
Yelena looks back at me, a smile on her face.
“Time for you to go home, little vixen. There are some people here who have worked very hard to rescue you.”
“Who?”
FORTY-TWO
“We need to breach soon.”
Seamus fidgets with his gun, a sign that he is anxious. We all are. None of us knows how this is going to play out, but we do know one thing. We’ll get Bailey back or die trying.
“How is it that you have people on the inside?” my father asks Eriksen as he straps on his Kevlar.
“Not me,” the large Nordic man booms. “Vixens.”
“I thought they all died the night of the massacre.”
“There were a few who survived. They were barely alive when we got to them,” he admits with a shrug. “It took nearly two years for them to fully recover and be able to leave my compound safely.”
“And now they what? Go undercover as whores to take down trafficking rings?” I ask.
The bearded man nods. “Well, not them. They could never pass as workers. Not with their injuries,” he points out. “Most are the children of the original Vixens or women Elizabeth and her people saved. After her death, they wanted to honor her. They’ve slowly been dismantling the underground brothels for all these years.”
“How long have they been undercover here?”
Eriksen scrunches his nose. “Too long.”
“Did you know?” Seamus asks from beside me. “About Lina and Sarah?”
He shakes his head sadly. “I’d known that Lina was up to something. She’d always been a social climber, even in the club. She was always clinging to me. Making snide comments about Elizabeth. I should have suspected something back then. Elizabeth had voiced her concerns about her, but… well… she was a club favorite. I can’t believe I was so blind.”
“They had it planned all along,” my father tells him. “Crowe put everything into motion a long time ago. From the looks of it, he spent a pretty penny to make sure no one recognized Lina as Marilina.”
