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Arching a brow, I wanted more. “Where you traveling? Did he steal you off the street?” Every question held meaning. And every answer she gifted gave me more reason to keep her.

You can't keep her. You're giving her more than anyone else ever will right now.

It's all you can do for her, you know that.

“I was nine when he took me and eighteen when he brought me here.”

“Nine?” The number shot out on hard air as the shock must have been written all over my face. Flinching at the pitch in my voice, she seemed to shrink in size, folding up into herself.

There was so much pain in her eyes, far too much for one person. It seeped from her pores, spilling across the blanket. I could feel it in my chest, the power curling around my heart and crushing it like a ball of clay in your palm.

“You were just a child.”

“That was a long time ago, Salt. I'm not that little girl anymore. I refuse to be weak, he doesn't own me, even he knows that. That's why he holds onto me so tightly.”

“So did he take you here after all that shit went down back home? When Sylvan's place got raided?”

“Were you involved in that too?” she asked.

“No, I keep to my own, but I heard about it. Virgo only calls me when he needs something. That's how it's always been and that's how I want to keep it. The less I know, the better, and the less he knows about my end, the better. It keeps our arrangement clean. There's no trail to follow back to either one of us.”

“So, you kill people, but you don't see yourself as a monster? I can't understand that.” Raising an eyebrow, the light off the end table lamp caught her skin perfectly, giving her a sun kissed glow. “Even I think of myself as a monster from some of the thoughts I have, the things I would do if given the chance.”

Thinning my lips, I didn't give her an answer. I spent most of my life trying to look at my profession as a job and not a sin. I rationalized it as removing the filth from the earth. I didn't kill good people, I killed the wicked.

What's so wrong about that? I make the world a better place. . .

Fucking liar.

Even my own inner voice wasn't enough to keep this charade going anymore. My father had always been that voice of reason, he would twist reality and package it up so it looked good to me.

Since he'd passed, that package was becoming less and less appealing.

Clearing my throat, I climbed off the bed and grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge. Taking a long sip, I wiggled the bottle side to side. “Want some?”

Shaking her head yes, I walked over and handed it to her, sitting back down beside her. The weight of my body made the mattress squeak as I adjusted myself to get comfortable. The silence between us was heavy, her question deserved an answer, but I wasn't going to give one.

How do I give her an answer, when I'm having doubts myself?

Lifting the water to her lips, I watched her neck elongate as she tipped her head back, the lean muscles moving in a way that made my cock twitch as the water trickled down her throat.

“How did he do it?”

“Do what?” Twisting the cap in place, she set the bottle on the table at her side.

“How did he get you here? I mean, it's not like he could just buy you a ticket and fly you here. How did he do it?”

Glancing off, she let her eyes examine a picture on the wall of some beach off the coast. “He was pissed after all that shit happened, calling Sylvan a stupid fuck, who didn't know how to run shit. He said he wasn't going to be prosecuted here for something that was almost legal in his country. Virgo decided he could do it better, that he knew a way to keep selling women that wouldn't get him thrown in jail. So, he stuffed me into a trunk, put me on some container ship, and the rest is history.”

“Nothing he does is legal, you know that right?”

“Nothing you do is legal either.” Her eyes turned to slits as she snapped her head back in my direction. “Neither of you are fucking saints, you're both going to hell.”

“You think I don't know that?” My face was flat and emotionless as my chest constricted, trying not to get angry with her for comparing Virgo and myself again. She didn't need another man going off on her. Forcing that anger down into my gut, I tried to keep talking about her. “What about family? Do you have any back home?”

Berlin pushed herself up higher in the bed, letting out a long breath. “I really don't want to talk about this anymore. Can we change the subject?” Pulling the blanket up to cover her chest, she looked down the bed, staring at her feet as they wiggled back and forth. “Why don't you tell me how you ended up in this profession.”

“I was born into it, there's not much more to it than that.”