Page 7 of Lethal Torture

My hand fallsfrom the books on the shelf, the past sliding away.

Oleg told the truth, at least about the second part. I never have seen Sophie again.

But he was also wrong.

I never forgot her. Not for a single moment.

And I’ve never, ever stopped looking for her.

TetyaAna was no fool. She bequeathed her loft apartment in Covent Garden to a cat charity, which sent Oleg into an uncontrollable fit of rage that left me with marks from his whip that are still visible today. She left no inheritance for my father to steal. Or rather, she left nothing he could find.

I was sixteen when her lawyers came to me in secret. Tetya Ana had left Sophie and me a modest fortune in diamonds, the only legacy from her family’s flight out of revolutionary Russia, with strict instructions that we, and not our fathers, receive them.

I overthrew my father six months later and used the diamonds as collateral to start Pigalle, my first gambling and burlesque club. I’d lived through enough hell by then to know that good luck was extremely unlikely to strike twice. That club has since expanded into London’s three most elite members-only venues: Pigalle Soho, for men; Pigalle Mayfair, for women;and the Quartier, the club that lies behind the elegant Pigalle brand, to which membership is the city’s most coveted prize.

The Quartier is whispered about in wood-paneled rooms, discussed in hushed voices in some of England’s most prestigious stately homes, and has been the subject of more than one article by eager reporters convinced they’ve stumbled upon the next great conspiracy.

The articles are quickly shut down, of course, and the journalists quietly shown the error of their ways.

Despite lavish bribes, questions in Parliament, and the media’s best efforts, nobody will ever talk about the abandoned theater that lies behind Pigalle Soho’s gaming rooms.

Nobody is stupid enough to throw away power when they are at the hub of it.

Those who are already members of the Quartier have too much to lose.

Everyone else wants membership too much to jeopardize any chance they might have of getting it.

Information.

It’s the eternal currency in the world of the rich, famous, and powerful. A world where everyone has a secret, nobody is safe, and anyone can betray you at a moment’s notice.

It’s my world.

I created clubs where the rich can play their games in privacy. Now their secrets belong to me, along with the power to grant favors where I choose.

That power makes me the person to whom others whisper.

Whispers they all know I pay well for.

About places and parties that might otherwise never be spoken of, for example, where men can indulge their darkest, unspeakable desires. About the shadowy men who supply the girls and boys forced to service those desires.

Men like Georgiy Ivanov.

I founded Sophie’s House with half of Tetya Ana’s diamonds, not only to help the victims of those men, but to hunt them, too. It was the only way I knew to give Sophie her share of our inheritance.

On the surface, it’s a charitable foundation that offers refuge to the victims of sex trafficking.

Beneath the philanthropic cover, it’s far more lethal.

Sophie’s House doesn’t wait for victims to come through its doors. I’m proactive about rescuing people, and I have a team of female operatives who don’t mind joining me in getting blood on their hands to do it.

Every contact I build in the Quartier, every member of my clubs, is cultivated with one aim:to gain access to the people and information I need to disrupt the trafficking of women.

I know the chances of ever finding Sophie at all, let alone alive, are next to zero.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up trying. Every time we open a shipping container, intercept a boat, or break down a door, part of me hopes I’ll find her.

If I don’t wind up dead first.