Page 15 of Taking Adalisa (Montgomery Syndicate #2)
MATTHIAS
“ T hat went better than expected,” I sit in my chair and relax.
Rogan wasn’t there to disrupt anything, and everything went according to plan. Smooth and flawless.
“We are getting better at it.” Ethan lowers to the seat beside me. “Let’s just hope we can keep it that way.”
I chuckle. “You know this next step isn’t going to be easy.”
It never is and it never will be. These girls are absolutely petrified, and having big men around them doesn’t help, but they will understand eventually. Most of them come around fairly quickly since we have some older girls who have stayed to help with the transition.
Ethan groans. “Don’t remind me. It’s been a couple of days, and I have yet to hear anything from Jason.”
“I’ve already texted him to come up and give us a report. I figured you would want to hear from him,” I tell him.
He smiles. “You know me too well.”
“You insult me by thinking that I don’t.”
We fall into silence for a few moments before Ren and Jason walk into the room.
“Have the girls given you any trouble?” Ethan inquires.
I look at Jason, studying his face to see if he is going to tell us the truth. Ethan trusts him and has known him for years, but this is unlike Jason to wait several days to give a report about the girls. This time is critical, which he knows.
“Just the usual couple of girls who haven’t been in long. They’ll soon figure out they don’t need to act out,” he replies.
“And you couldn’t have come to me with that information yesterday?” Ethan asks.
“Yeah, Jason. Tell him why you couldn’t have come yesterday or the day before,” Ren chuckles.
I look between the two. What has been going on? Why is Ren laughing and pushing Jason to the wolf?
Jason glares at Ren before turning to Ethan. “I got carried away.”
I whistle. Oh, that is not going to fly with Ethan. Ethan likes to know everything that is going on with his operations. He likes to be in the know and be in control of everything.
“Doing what exactly?” Ethan asks.
Jason’s cheeks go red. “With one of the women who came in the shipment.”
My eyebrows lift as I look at him. He has taken an interest in one of them women?
“How?”
“She knew my sister, and we hit it off. We talked about my sister,” Jason says quietly.
“That’s not the only thing you talked about,” Ren chimes in.
“You were there?” Ethan asks.
“Not the whole time, but toward the end, I was. Our boy has found somebody he is interested in. The girl is interested in him. Pretty, too. If she doesn’t go for him, I might go for her,” Ren teases.
“Don’t fucking talk about her like that! She’s a human being! Show her some respect! Over my dead body are you getting with her!” Jason roars.
Ethan whistles and shakes his head. Jason is definitely more interested in this girl than he is letting on. By that reaction, he is really interested in her.
“See, he likes her.” Ren shrugs and laughs.
“Have you put her in a different room to the others?” Ethan asks.
Silence fills the room as we all think about what happened years ago. Poor Bellamy.
“Not yet. I haven’t asked her whether she would like that,” Jason replies.
“I know I can’t stop you, and I’m not going to. But just be careful. We don’t know how long she has been trafficked. Just be careful,” Ethan tells him.
I hope Jason knows what he is doing. I don’t want him to go through the same thing Bellamy did all those years ago. He hasn’t been the same since, and I don’t think he’s ever going to be okay.
“I know. You don’t have to preach to me. I was there when Bellamy found her body.” Jason waves his hand in the air. “I’m going to check in with her daily because I don’t want that to happen.”
I hope it doesn’t for his sake. We don’t need him retreating into himself.
I still can’t stop thinking about Jason finding his girl. We don’t know how long she was trafficked for and how much mental damage has been done.
For Jason’s sake, I hope she wants to live badly enough.
My phone buzzes, pulling me from my thoughts. I groan and pull it out of my pocket.
“Why is the facility calling me?” I mumble to myself.
“ The facility?” Ethan asks, his eyebrows pulling together. “We don’t have anyone in there right now.”
We use a facility to get information out of people every once in a while. It’s easy, and all our equipment is there. We haven’t used it in a while, but we still make monthly donations, so they don’t talk, and so we have access to it at any point.
“This better be good,” I growl into the phone when I pick it up.
“Go teach them a lesson. The owner is getting to be a prick and demanding more money to keep his mouth shut,” Ethan tells me. “If he is, make it known that we can and will kill him at any point and take over. We’re doing him a favor by paying him when we don’t need to.”
I grunt. Ain’t that the truth. I was skeptical in the beginning when Ethan wanted to pay him instead of just killing him and taking over. The owner isn’t innocent, and we would be doing New York City a service by taking him out.
“Is this Matthias?” a female voice asks.
“You know it is. Now what the fuck do you want?” I growl once again, my patience wearing thin.
“We have a woman in a room here,” she starts off. “She is blonde and fairly tall.”
“What’s her name?” I ask. “I don’t know any woman who is there. We didn’t send anyone.”
“Y-you didn’t?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I am supposed to be leaving soon to get to Adalisa. I have a whole night planned with her, and this phone call is ruining it.
It seems like every single time I want to leave to be with Adalisa, something comes up. It’s like the universe knows how badly I want her and is making it harder for me to actually get her.
Adalisa is mine.
I will do everything in my power to get her one way or the other. No one is going to keep me from her.
“Do they want more money?” Ethan asks, leaning back in his chair.
I shake my head and pull the phone away from my ear. “No, they have a girl there. Blonde, tall.”
Why are they calling me about some girl?
Every person we send there, we personally deliver.
No one walks in that we are going to hurt, and we very rarely obtain information from girls.
Not unless they are a criminal who has done something grave.
But even then, most of them will talk before we even touch them.
“Isn’t your girl blonde and tall?” Ethan looks at me.
I narrow my eyes on him. “Yes, but she wouldn’t be there. She has no reason to be there.”
“She did tell Margery to visit if she was still having hallucinations,” Ethan says. “Though they weren’t hallucinations, but your girl doesn’t know that, does she?”
Turning away from Ethan, I pull the phone back to my ear. “What is her name?”
“She was wearing a silver bracelet. The one you told us to watch out for,” the girl says.
It can’t be Adalisa. Ethan and I have given several people silver bracelets. It could be anyone.
“What is her fucking name?” I growl. “I won’t ask again.”
Silence fills the room as I wait for her to answer. How do they not know the girl’s name? Why don’t they know her name?
Because we told everyone with those bracelets to get them somewhere safe and ask questions later. They are just doing their jobs, but when it comes to Adalisa, they need to do a better job.
“Adalisa,” the girl finally whispers, and the blood drains from my face.
No fucking way.
“Shit. Keep her there and don’t you dare fucking touch her. I will be there to collect her soon,” I growl into the phone before hanging up.
What is Adalisa doing there? Why did she think it was okay to go into a facility like that and get caught?
“So, I’m taking it your girl is there?” Ethan chuckles. “You are going to have your hands full with that one.”
“No joke,” I mumble. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Adalisa is mine, handful or not. And I wouldn’t trade her for the world. She is precious.
“Are you going to go get her?” Ethan asks. “Or are you going to let her sit in for a while?”
It briefly crossed my mind to let her wait for a couple of hours so she would learn her lesson, but the sooner I get to her, the sooner I get to be near her. “If you need anything, find someone else before asking me,” I say as I rush out the door.