Page 134 of Stand: Part One

“Just wait till later,” I whispered back.

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it.”

The rest of the event was spent biting the inside of my cheek until the only thing I could taste was champagne and blood. Every word spoken by each speaker held me captive in my seat—the stories of survivors, the success of the charity, the impact it had made funding rescue operations against human traffickers across the country.

Lawyers, doctors, judges, police officers, social workers, and even federal agents all offered their insight into the vast industry of human trafficking.

I learned a lot more that night than I ever thought I would about the subject. One of the saddest things was learning that most trafficking situations were run by the people who knew their victims. Parents exploiting their own children, boyfriends manipulating their girlfriends with false love that eventually turned to violence.

Young, impressionable runaways; girls with debilitating insecurities; the impoverished, hopeless drug addicts; and the woefully naive—all things traffickers used against them to coax their victims into a false sense of trust until they were trapped.

Aside from the parents selling their kids, the lover boy method was probably one of the most heinous forms of entrapment. Pretending to be the loving, doting boyfriend in an effort to get your victim to fall for you, then manipulating them into sleeping with other men for money.

It was a dwindling practice since it seemed to be less effective, but the alternative was always blackmail or violence. Imagine the sorrow of betrayal when you realized the person you loved, who you thought loved you back, who you trusted, was just using your body the entire time. And now it was too late to get out.

As awful as Darren’s industry practice was, I was glad to know it accounted for not even a full .001 percent of human trafficking. The kinds of auctions he held were either damn near incomparable, or they flew so far under the radar that they were practically fiction.

No wonder his auctions were so profitable. His competition barely existed, at least in the United States. Or maybe it was because he made sure to snuff out anyone who thought to compete against him. I wouldn’t put it past him.

Even with all the horrific stories of the survivors, their fight for freedom was inspiring, and it almost brought me hope—until the moment reality kissed me on the cheek and reminded me that even with all their work, Darren was still here, thriving in spite of it all. And I fucking hated him for it.

Dinner was difficult to sit through, the food turning sour in my stomach as I fought through each bite. Our table companions eyed my half-eaten plates, practically praising me for my “small stomach” and birdlike eating habit. Pacifying them was easy, but I knew Darren could see right through me.

The longer the night went on, the crueler it felt. So many survivors talked of freedom, the moment they were able to live their lives as humans instead of slaves. It was like dangling a carrot in front of me that I could never reach. They had escaped and survived, and I was still just presently surviving.

My fists bunched under the table, but I swore to myself my time would come. It would come just as theirs had. But when my time did finally come, it would bring the reckoning Darren’s world unquestionably deserved.

The last speaker of the night was a young woman, most likely in her late twenties. She was a frail-looking thing—very pale with dark brown hair. Yet her voice was strong, steady, and assured. But as she spoke, the contents of her story became familiar, and it shook me to my core.

The memory of waking up in a dog kennel with no clothes and no idea how she got there. Being unknowingly auctioned off and then finding herself in the back seat of a van, bound for who the hell knew until she suddenly woke up in Mexico.

She had spent the next three years of her life down there until her captors mistakenly believed she had died from a drug overdose. She’d been left for dead in a fucking dumpster.

I couldn’t stop my body from shaking, the tremors so strong I looked like I was shivering. Darren seized the opportunity to wrap his hands around my bare shoulders, the warmth of his skin soothing the tremors, but it did nothing for the knots in my stomach.

And just when I thought I couldn’t handle another second, her eyes suddenly caught mine and then shifted two inches over. Her face quickly went white, her words stopping mid-sentence as she stared at the man beside me.

My heart froze.

She fucking recognized him.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, watching her recognize her trafficker in the middle of a speech, in front of dozens of people, during a human trafficking charity gala.

Her silence went on for several awkward seconds until words finally stumbled out of her mouth in an attempt to regain her composure. But there would be no recovery. She finished quickly, apologized, then rushed off the stage, disappearing behind the curtain.

My eyes immediately caught the predatory determination that hardened Darren’s face. A single nod to Scott off in the distance was enough to put the man into action, igniting a whole new set of fears in my core.

“No,” I whispered pleadingly, placing my hand on his arm, hoping to gain his attention. But a single warning glare from him was all it took for me to reluctantly remove my offending hand, but still I tried. “Please.”

Taking my arm in his hand, Darren gripped it tightly, causing me to wince as he leaned into my ear. “Behave,” he warned, kissing me quickly on the cheek, but his voice was so deadly serious, it made me sick with terror.

What was he going to do?

“Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our evening. We once again want to thank you…”

My mind couldn’t focus anymore, too busy doing backflips on how to prevent Darren from going after this poor woman, but I never even got the chance to try. He was gone before I knew it, completely disappearing like the shadow he was. I stood from my seat, my eyes hunting every square inch of the room for him like I might have some hope of stopping him.

And then Clive and Owen came for me.