Page 37 of My Sweetest Obsession

“Do you want to sit?” I gestured toward the couch, hoping to ease the tension between us.

“Um, no that’s okay,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I just wanted to check in on how things are going with… you know.” She tucked a loose strand of silver hair behind her ear, her expression growing somber.

“Nothing new,” I admitted, my voice flat. “But we’re not giving up.” My heart ached with the weight of the truth, the uncertainty hanging in the air like a storm cloud.

She nodded, and tears welled in her eyes. “I think I’m ready to talk now,” she whispered, brushing away the tears that had begun to fall.

I gestured toward the couch again. “Please, sit down.”

She sat and paused before she spoke. “I had just called an Uber to get home after my shift.”

“Where was your guard?” I asked.

Guards were assigned to all the girls who worked for me. The guards were meant to escort the girls to and from their vehicles. If they didn’t have a car, they would be driven by one of the guards. There was no reason she shouldn’t have had one with her that night.

“I didn’t wait for him. There was an argument between the customers and clients…it was chaotic. I didn’t want to bother the guard, so I called an Uber.”

“But it wasn’t an Uber driver, was it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she whimpered. “I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. I didn’t pay attention to anything that might have been out of the ordinary.”

When I had questioned the guards, their story matched the one she was telling me now.

“It was a man…he had a hat and sunglasses so I couldn’t get a good look at who he was,” she explained, her lips quivering. “But when I noticed he wasn’t taking me home, I panicked and tried to jump out of the car.”

She took a deep breath. “He knocked me out when I attacked him.”

There was a brief pause before she spoke again.

“When I came to, I was in a cage with some other girls.” Tabi started to cry, rubbing her hands up and down her jean coveredthighs. “Th-they forced us to remove our clothes. Then they took pictures of us. I didn’t know what was happening until I saw the screen where I saw men bidding on them.” She shut her eyes as if the memory was too hard for her to relive.

“When I saw my name on the screen, I knew I was going to be sold.”

“Tabi,” I gently probed, “did Mayor Walsh provide any clues about Gigi’s whereabouts or…?”

She shook her head, her eyes filled with anguish. “No. After the bidding was over, they chained us up and made us form into a line while they pulled us toward the container. That’s when I saw Winter…I mean Gigi.”

“What did they do to her, Tabi?” I asked, my voice strained with restrained fury.

“She was in a cage, and they were…” She sucked in a breath.

“They were what, Tabi?”

She kept her gaze on me, and tears continued to fall like a relentless stream from a faucet. “They were burning her with an electric prod.”

I was going to murder him and anyone associated with him. But I kept my cool for Tabi’s sake.

“They gave us some kind of drug, but not before I saw Gigi. She fought to get to me, but the men tasered her.” She shuddered. “She was so strong.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to rein in the tide of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

When I opened them again, Tabi was looking at me, a watery smile breaking through her sorrow. “She wanted me to tell you something.”

My shoulders tensed involuntarily, bracing for the harsh truth of how my angel truly felt about me. I had given her plenty of reasons to hate me.

“She told me not to give up, that you would find me and bring me back to my son,” Tabi said softly.

A heavy breath escaped my lips, the tension in my body easing slightly as relief washed over me, knowing that my angel had trusted me to save her friend. Now, all I could do was hope that Gigi held that same faith in me—that she believed I would come for her, no matter what.