Page 15 of Secret (Chicago Underground 6)
The next morning, a different king was hunting on his lands. The king’s men found the girl and brought her back to the castle, setting the orphan to help in the kitchen. There she toiled each night and day, miserable and lonely, her beauty obscured by the dirt of her work.
One evening, she washed herself and joined the festivities in her old fine dress. The king was much taken with her, but at the end of the night, she disappeared back into the kitchens. She cooked the king’s soup during the day and danced with him at night.
One night he slipped a ring on her finger, but again she disappeared. The next day he demanded to meet the new cook who made the wonderful soup, and then he saw the ring on her finger. He washed the soot from her cheeks, and she was beautiful again, so he married her.
“You’re mine again,” Henri said. “We can put this whole thing behind us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I mumbled, though I spoke to a ghost.
“So you’ll understand,” he said. “This is for your own good. You are nothing without men and our desire to use you. You have nothing without me. Do you understand?”
In the story, the king had valued the princess without knowing her beauty. At the end of the story, the two parts of her were merged. At the end of the story, she finally made her escape.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said. “You think your detective will save you.”
There were those damn instincts again, right on the money.
“He and I have a lot in common,” Henri continued. “We both appreciate a beautiful thing. We both understand the darker impulses, sometimes to curb them, other times to unleash them.”
Luke wasn’t like that. He had a dark past, but only out of necessity. He was a protector, not an aggressor…wasn’t he? The lines had blurred for me, lumping all men together in one bloodthirsty heap.
“Oh yes. He knows…greed, lust, revenge. The last one especially.”
“You’re wrong.” Luke didn’t want material things. He didn’t want revenge either. All he wanted was to protect women like me, to find his sister. Good intentions, honest ones.
“What does he want, then?” Henri mocked. “If he’s so concerned about your safety, then why are you in the car with me?”
A mistake. He had been overpowered, outnumbered. Any number of excuses could explain it, without him having been hurt or having betrayed me. Please let one of them be true.
“Ah, yes. You see it now. I gave him the one thing he couldn’t resist. The answer to all his searching. I gave him the truth about his sister. No, more than that. I gave him proof. As you and I talk, your Detective Cameron is on his way to Chicago with a tape of his sister. And me. It was rather brutal. Of course the statute of limitations has run out for rape. But he hopes to make a case for murder, considering she is presumed dead and I am shown hurting her. He isn’t going to win. But you can understand the temptation.”
“I’ve spent twelve years of my life fighting for the law to take him down.”
Yes, Luke would do anything to nail Henri. It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t have to kill him. It was a question of principle. This was the system he had lived and breathed for the past decade. If it failed him, then all his work was for nothing. But to leave me here?
“It was a simple trade,” said Henri. “You for the tape. If it is any consolation, he struggled with the decision. It pained him to leave you here; I could see that.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, but at least I didn’t have to see Henri and the gloating on his face.
He stroked my hair back. “Shh, calm yourself. I won’t kill you. Nothing will happen to you here that hasn’t happened before.”
Chapter Eight
The best thing about being a hooker is the job security. In a good year, men had plenty of spending money. To a wealthy man, a prostitute might be a smart financial move—certainly cheaper than a high-maintenance girlfriend who rarely puts out. But even in a down economy, the stress and scattered families kept prostitutes in demand. Men would use any excuse to fulfill their biological urges.
In other words, they were always, always down to fuck.
The worst thing about being a hooker was also the job security…as in, the locks on my door and the guards I could see from my window. In the years I had worked for Henri, I had always lived in my own place and kept it sacrosanct, never bringing clients home, always traveling to out-call appointments in swanky hotels.
Then I had quit. When that didn’t work, I went rogue, taking Ella with me. And finally, I’d teamed up with men who broke into his little fortress and generally wreaked havoc. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t trust me anymore—thus the need for security.
They had brought me here after the night at the Barracks, to a crumbling apartment building in south Chicago. The men who escorted me were firm but not brutal. Never mess up the goods—unless on orders. So I was Henri’s girl again. He wouldn’t let me go this time.
Hell, he never really had.
One week of sitting in this room, waiting for Henri to bestow his sentence on me. Would I live or die? Though my odds looked significantly worse after last night. They had sent a client in.
I had threatened to bite off his dick if he touched me.
