Page 86 of Pushed

“And he was there trying to find out who killed his sister?”

“Yeah, he couldn't focus on anything else after that. It consumed him, Imperial, to the point that none of us even knew where he was anymore. Shit, I hadn't even talked to him the entire time until recently when he came to me for help.”

“I. . . I don't know what to say. I had no idea.”

Bobbing his head up and down, the corner of his lip twitched as his hands flopped down in front of him. “None of us did, we had no clue what he was doing. And trust me, if I had known, if I had any idea that this was what he he had gotten himself into, I would've done something. I would never have let him go it alone.”

“How did he know it was them? I mean, how was he able to find out that place did that to her?”

Holding out his hands, Bentley shrugged. “We don't know. Machi just insisted from the beginning that they're the ones who did it, but we never had anything to prove she was there. Unfortunately, she was in a rough spot, the drugs and all that shit; a lot of the time people like that get swept under the rug after awhile. It's not right, but it happens.”

“I want to see him.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Please, I need to talk to him myself.”

“Imperial, Machi is being charged with two counts of first degree murder. They're not going to let you see him.”

Anger was starting to fill my body, making my cheeks warm and my heart hammer inside my chest. “They killed his sister! How could you guys do this to him? Those men hurt women, you saw it! You saw the other girls on that stage! Fuck, they sold me to you! How can you justify charging a man who probably just saved thousands of women by ending it all?”

“We have no proof of anything, nothing to show his sister was even there. And right now, all we have is a handful of people who won't help us piece this all together.”

“What was her name?”

“Megan, Megan White.”

White?

Machi White— the white room, the safe word white—it makes sense.

That word had been everywhere he was. The first night he told me the white room was for girls he saw as special. But now I knew, he saw it as his room.

Machi White, M.W. . . Shit, the words.

The words on the bed were initialed by an M.W.

She had been there, she was in my room. I had something I could give them, something that was more than just hearsay or theory—I had her last thought.

“What if I can give you proof?”