Page 94 of At Midnight

But an untraceable girl without a name,without anyone who would come looking for her?

Most of them wouldn’t live a year. Some wouldn’t survive the weekend. All of them would eventually be just another unidentified body or an unmarked grave.

That’s what had broken him last time: that children were being knowingly sold for sadistic abuse and murder. He’d been only a few years older than they were. He hadn’t even had to look into theireyes. The minute he’d understood what they were doing and what his father was complicit in, he’d started planning how to go to the police to save them.

To hell with people if they wanted to buy a fake designer watch or purse rather than shell out thousands for the real thing. They were getting what they paid for. Ditto with drugs. If people wanted drugs, he would hand them over. Take them. Giveup your money.

But selling children for murder should be everyone’s sharp, dark line, and Raphael had set himself on fire rather than cross it.

He said, “I assume I’ll have some sort of paperwork for them.”

“Of course. Each of them will come with two passports with different names on them. Most of their buyers live outside the Schengen area, so they’ll need passports and visas and such to takethem wherever they want to use them. We don’t want the same name entering and leaving the area. Too traceable.”

“So we’ll have the passports,” Raphael said, to confirm.

“Of course. Wouldn’t want them to get the idea of running off.”

Raphael twisted the corners of his mouth until they were curved up. “Good.”

Piotr Ilyin’s smile broadened. “I have seen your attempt at a loyalty pledge, but actionsspeak louder than words. That last shipment of girls fifteen years ago cost me millions that your family had to pay back. The good will of the clients was harder to recoup. I will not have a traitor in my ranks. We’ll have no more of this running off with the merchandise and disappearing, will we? If that were to happen again, bad things might happen to those two pretty blondes of yours.”

“Youdon’t have to spell it out,” Raphael said, letting a distasteful sneer thin his voice. “I was a child. Children do stupid things.”

“I don’t think you were ever a child, Raphael Mirabaud.”

“I guess we’ll see then, won’t we? Once this operation is complete, there will be no return to the other side of the line for me. I’ll be complicit. I’ll be just as guilty as anyone else in your organization.That’s as good as enthusiasm, isn’t it?”

“Certainly,” Piotr Ilyin said. “That’s how I started. Past complicity in criminal offenses is as good of a reason as any.”