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Tony lay in bed the next morning, staring at the woman who held his heart as she rested in his arms. Her long, blonde hair spread across the pillow as her hand rested under her cheek. When she dressed for work, she looked every inch the professional woman that she was. But asleep? She looked like a china doll with porcelain skin and rosy cheeks.

He smiled at her sleepwear, his large t-shirt hanging off one shoulder. She had abandoned the flannel pajamas and stole his t-shirts now to sleep in. Nothin’ sexier, he thought, as he leaned over to kiss her shoulder. She made a small moan but stayed asleep. She was exhausted last night. After a long meeting in his conference room, the group had finally created a plan.

He knew that the wheels of justice could turn slowly, but Sherrie had had a hard time being patient. Matt and Shane, with Betina’s art pad and BJ’s enlargements, were going to report to their chief and see if they could get search warrants for the grocery, the laundry, and the club. They were also going to see if they could get one for Hernando’s house. They wanted him, but only because he was just one more cog in the wheel. If they could get him to roll over on the men above him, it would help shut down at least a part of the organized human trafficking in Richmond.

Sherrie had wanted them to go immediately last night. Becoming frustrated, the only way she gave in was when Shane finally told her that going in now meant that nothing would hold up in court and Hernando would get away and hide his evidence. Pursing her lips, she had remained quiet, but Tony knew it had been hard. Hell, it’d been hard for all of them.

Not knowing where the club was had them at a distinct disadvantage. They had no idea if it was already established or not yet opened. Lily and BJ were working around the clock to try to find out more. Jobe and Gabe were working with some of the new employees on surveillance to keep track of where Hernando was going at all times.

Sherrie stirred and her eyes fluttered open. Crystal blue ones met his and he leaned in for a kiss.

“Hey, you,” she said sleepily.

“Hey back,” he replied.

“You let me sleep late,” she accused, glancing at the clock.

“You needed it, baby. I don’t figure Mr. Marks is going to fire you for being late for the first time ever.”

Sherrie sat up in bed suddenly, and said, “I forgot to tell you. He’s retiring in a month and moving away.”

Tony sat up, propped himself against the headboard and pulled her back against him. “Retiring?”

“Yes,” she lamented. “I like Simon well enough and Mr. Marks said that my job was secure, but…he’s been kind of a father to me for the past year.” She twisted around to look at him. “Not only that, he’s selling the mountain cottage. I wanted to be able to go there again with you.”

Tony tucked her into his side again, brushing her hair from her face. “I’m sorry, babe. We’ll find another cabin to visit sometime. I promise.”

She nodded against his chest, but knew that nothing would ever hold the memories of the Marks’ cabin. Sighing, she looked over at the clock. “I’ve got to get ready for work. I may be late, but I’ve been working so much overtime, I don’t think they’ll mind.”

“I’m going to be at the office today, Sherrie, waiting to see what comes from Matt and Shane. I need you to be safe and promise me to stay out of trouble.”

She saw the fear once again in his eyes and never wanted it to be there again. “I promise. I’m going to the office and seeing what I can do to help Mr. Marks’ retirement transition go smoothly for Simon and the office. Believe me, I’ll be busy.” She started to get out of the bed, but then turned back. “Tony?” she said tentatively. “Will you let me know what’s happening? I’m really scared for Betina.”

“Absolutely, baby. I promise.”

* * *

Betina woke, only able to open her swollen eye to a slit and she could feel her lip just as puffy. She tried to sit but found nausea forced her to lay back down. Memories of the previous evening filled her mind.

The house was empty when she got home after work. Her mother must still be at work, but Betina did not mind. In fact, alone time was welcome. She could read, listen to music, or draw. Anything to pretend for just a little while that she was not the recruiter that sent other girls to their bondage.

She spent so much time self-loathing, that the few minutes of respite were the only time she did not want to either run away again or kill herself. But neither would help the girls; the clues she had slipped to Sherrie would have to work. Please let them work.

Hearing the door open, she hoped it was her mother, but it was Hernando’s angry presence that filled her doorway. Stalking into her room, he backhanded her before she could react. Falling back on the bed, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt and backhanded her again. This time her head snapped to the side and she saw stars before her vision became so blurry she saw nothing.

Screaming, she tried to scramble away from him, but he was too strong.

“You stupid bitch. I have given you everything. All you had to do to keep living here with your mom was recruit for me. But no, you had to run off and get the police and court services involved. Now you got that Mullins bitch snooping around. What did you tell her?” he screamed.

“Nothing. I told her nothing!” Betina cried, holding her face.

“Well, she’s been snooping around the laundry, I saw her follow you the other day. She looked upset, so I want to know what she knows.” He walked toward her, his hand raised again.

“Nothing, I swear,” she cried again.

Hernando stopped, his mind working. Looking at her split lip and seeing that her eye was already swelling, he knew that he had to get her out of the house. “Come with me,” he ordered. Before she could protest, he added, “Your mama will be here soon. If you don’t want me to hurt her then come with me and I’ll keep you somewhere overnight. I’ll tell her you are spending the night with a friend.”

Once again the threat against her mom was all it took and Betina stumbled out of the bed and followed him to his car. Her mind numb, she barely paid attention to where he was taking her. He pulled into an alley that was barely lit and they walked through a back door. Taking her up a back stairwell, he left her in a small room with a bed and a dresser. There was a small bathroom with just a toilet and sink through a door. No closet. No window. No escape.

He locked her in and as she sat, overwhelmed at her life, the tears began to flow.

And now it was the next day and she had lost all sense of time. Hernando had not come back. She was hungry, but at least could drink using her hand from the sink faucet. With no mirror, she could not even see what she looked like.

The lock on the door sounded and she turned to the bedroom. In walked a large man wearing a cowboy hat, jeans with a leather belt and huge buckle, as well as cowboy boots on his feet. Not understanding what he was doing there, she stood numbly for a moment. Is he here to rescue me?

That notion was quickly disbanded when he lunged for her, a leer on his face. “I paid extra for a virgin, but didn’t expect her face to be all smashed up. I aughtta get some of my money back.”

He grabbed her, pinning her arms as she began to scream and struggle to gain freedom. As large as he was he had no problem ripping her shirt as he pushed her back on the bed and threw his large frame down on top of her. Her shirt in rags, he began assaulting her as he tried to get his hands down her pants. Squirming, she was doing nothing but inflaming him even more as the large bulge in his jeans was indicating.

Her mind racing, she quieted, laying completely still. He looked down in surprise before grinning. “You can’t wait to get holda’ my cock, can you girlie? Well, ol’ Bobby’s gonna give it to you good.”

She tried not to move as he leered at her naked breasts just a few inches from his face. Seeing the fight go out of her, he stood and tossed his hat to the side. Unbuttoning his shirt, he quickly discarded it as well. Pulling his leather belt out of his jeans he snapped the leather, making a popping sound.

“We might use this later, little lady. Your little ass may just need tanning by my belt.” He tossed the belt on the bed beside her and her eyes latched onto the large, heavy metal buckle.

He bent over to remove his boots when she moved like lightning, kicking at his crotch when his pants were halfway down. He hit the floor, clutching his dick as she flew off of the bed. She had the belt in one hand and swung it down toward his head. The metal buckle cracked against his skull and he stilled. Heart pounding, she grabbed his shirt, throwing it over her torn one and then saw his cell phone lying on the floor. Scooping it up, she fled the room, running down the back stairs and out into the alley. She did not stop running until she finally collapsed in an unfamiliar neighborhood near the river.

She pulled out the cell phone and called the only person she knew she could trust.

* * *

Sherrie was almost finished with the work day and ready to head home. Tony had only texted her once to say that ‘things were progressing’. What the hell does that mean? she wondered, but did not want to ask too many questions.

Her phone buzzed and she slid it out of her purse as she was walking out of the building. Not recognizing the number, she almost let it go to voicemail, but then thought that maybe Tony was calling from a different phone.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Mullins?” came a timid, shaky voice.

“Betina? Is that you?” she asked, her blood turning cold. “Where are you?”

“He hurt me,” she cried. “The man…he…”

“Oh, Jesus,” Sherrie said. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I ran away from him. I…I was…locked up.”

“Can you get to somewhere safe? Can you call 911? Find a policeman,” Sherrie’s voice began to rise with fear.

“No, no police. He said he’d hurt mama.”

“Okay, baby, listen to me. I’m going to come get you, but you have to help me find you. Do you see a street sign or business?”

“Um, I’m peeking around a corner and I see 81 St SW on the street sign.”

“That’s good, Betina. Now are there any businesses or store signs around?”

“Across the street it has a closed up sign on the door, but above the door it says Club Edge.”

Club Edge. Oh my God. The name of the club where Sherrie and her sister used to work. Locked up now, it was in one of the seedier areas of town. “Keep hiding, honey. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

Jumping in her car, she called Tony. Quickly telling him what was happening, she knew what he was going to say and she was ready.

“No, Tony I can’t let you go in. She won’t trust anyone but me. It sounds like she was assaulted and I’m not having her more traumatized. Can you meet me there?”

Coordinating, she drove as fast as she could to the familiar location. As she rounded the corner where her old workplace was, she looked across the street seeing the alley that Betina had called from. Scanning the area, she bit her lip wondering how long it would take Tony to get there. Just then a dark SUV came from the other direction and she could see Jobe as the driver.

Heaving a sigh of relief, she jumped from her car and ran, pointing to the alley. “Betina?” she cried out. “Oh, thank God,” she muttered as she saw the girl hiding behind a dumpster. Running to the frightened teen, she threw herself at her, wrapping her arms around Betina as protectively as Tony held her. Betina’s tears flowed freely before she started gasping, jerking from Sherrie’s arms.

Twisting her neck to see what was wrong, she saw Jobe cautiously coming behind her. “It’s okay, honey. He’s with me. He’s here to help us.”

Jobe came up quietly and said, “Sherrie, we need to get her to the hospital. Why don’t you let me drive?”

Betina was shaking her head violently from side to side, so Sherrie looked up at Jobe and pleaded, “I’ve got to be the one to take her.” Sherrie stood, pulling the girl up with her. They started out of the alley when Betina tripped over her feet. Jobe stepped up and carefully scooped the injured girl into his arms. Making soft, comforting noises, he carried her to Sherrie’s car and placed her in the passenger side.

“I’m following right behind,” he informed Sherrie as she quickly hopped into the driver’s seat.

“I’m taking her to Richmond General and will call her social worker so she can meet us there.”

Making the trip as quickly as possible, Sherrie was pleased to see not only the social worker, but also Tony as well as Matt with a female detective. Jobe carried Betina in and she was whisked back into the ER bays. The social worker and detectives went back with her, leaving the others in the waiting room.

“I wasn’t scared until I saw her and then, it hit me…this was real,” she said, looking up into his face. “Does that make sense?”

Nodding, he said, “Absolutely. Sometimes a mission doesn’t seem real until you are right into the thick of things.”

They did not have to wait long before Matt and the female detective came out. Matt gave a quick report to an anxious Sherrie. “She gave us a lot. Told about Hernando, how he got her to recruit for cheap labor for his store and the laundries. Then she admitted that he had coerced her into recruiting for the club. The underage girls he wanted her to get would be held in the upper rooms as essentially sex slaves. When he caught her talking to you, she defied him and he threatened her mom again and got her to the club. He had a customer that wanted a virgin and that was when she finally fought back and escaped.”

Tony took her weight as she leaned heavily against him. “Oh my God,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I, of all people, know the depravity of some, but…this just seems like a bad dream.”

The female detective spoke up and said, “It doesn’t appear that she was sexually assaulted, but only because she managed to get away.”

“What now?” Jobe asked.

“For Betina,” the detective said, “the social worker will stay and then they will put her in a protective, therapeutic foster home. Ms. Mullins, she said she’ll call you tomorrow.”

Matt spoke up, looking at Tony, “For us? We’ve got a raid to plan. We shouldn’t need you for the raid, but we’d love your intel in the planning.”

“Anything you need, you got,” Tony said.

“I’ll head home then?” Sherrie asked.

“Yeah, baby, that’d be good. Lock yourself in, take a bubble bath, have a glass of wine and relax. You deserve it,” he said with a kiss.

Looking into his eyes, she smiled. “That sounds amazing,” she admitted. Walking out together, she left in her car, seeing Tony standing by his SUV until he was out of sight.

With a quick prayer for Betina and the other girls trapped in that life, she headed home.

* * *

Tony and his crew were circled around the conference table looking over the information that Lily and BJ had been able to pull together. Matt and Shane were on a conference call with their police chief.

Lily said, “I’ve traced Hernando’s money beyond the grocery and laundry. It seems that he’s able to fly under the IRS radar by using workers that don’t get paid, so they never show up on any of his filings. That’s how he uses so many workers—he doesn’t pay them.”

“What do they work for if not to get paid?” Gabe asked. “Who’d want to work for free?”

“It looks like Quentin rents some low-rent apartments that were meant for a small family and he has about eight workers stay there. Hernando gives them enough food for one meal a day,” she added.

Shane agreed, “With this setup, Hernando gets loner kids, ones who are ready to hit the streets if they aren’t already on the streets and offers them a deal. They work for him and he and Quentin take care of them in their own way. Then Quentin launders his club money through the businesses that Hernando and others like him run.”

“And Hernando doesn’t have to follow any child welfare laws as to hours per day or week worked,” Matt said.

“A modern-day Fagan,” Tony said. “They do his dirty work and he takes care of them in the most minimalistic way possible.”

“Hernando’s laundries have expanded to twenty-four-hour service and have multiple hotel contracts. He’s rolling in the money and doesn’t have to pay most of his employees. He’s now moving into supplying girls for Quentin’s clubs.”

“Quentin runs the club legitimately with legal aged girls to serve and dance, but gets some underage girls to be in the upstairs rooms,” Matt said.

“And with the underground tunnels, they can get the younger girls in the back rooms without anyone noticing from the streets.”

“No way Quentin’s a one-man show,” Tony stated.

Matt spoke up, “Hell, he’s only one man in a whole industry, but we haven’t identified his immediate boss yet. We just know Hernando works for him, but no idea, as of yet, who Quentin reports to.”

“We’re getting search warrants right now to hit the grocery, laundry, and the club simultaneously. Best we can tell this is a huge operation and the DA was willing to let the investigation continue on its course so we could get the higher-ups but, now that we have Betina’s statement, we’ve got to hit them hard and fast.”

“Surprise is essential,” the Chief said, and then signed off as Tony’s group wished them luck.

Jobe looked around the table, “This one feels weird, Captain. We just provided some information that the police didn’t have and yet we’re not going after the bad guys.”

Gabe nodded, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“How do you all think I feel every time you go out after all I’ve done is give intel?” Lily piped up.

“We did our job and we did it well. This time it’s up to the police to go after their mission,” Tony said.

Tony looked at his watch, seeing that it was just after noon. He walked out of the main conference room and toward his office as he called Sherrie. It went to voice mail but then he grinned... maybe she took my advice and is having that bubble bath.

* * *

Jogging up the club stairs, Hernando relished seeing Betina used, knowing that she’d be perfect for servicing men now. Seeing the door open, he assumed the client had left, but hoped that Betina had not escaped. Stunned, he looked down seeing the man barely lifting himself off of the floor with his pants around his ankles and Betina nowhere to be found. “You dumb fuck!” he screamed at the man trying to pull his pants up. “You let her get away.”

“Me, a dumb fuck? I paid for a scared virgin and you promised me that! Instead, I got my balls shoved up to my throat! Someone’s gonna pay,” the man growled, looking down on Hernando.

“She shows up with the police and no one’s gonna get paid, asshole. You can’t even subdue and fuck a kid?” Hernando’s panic was rising. Where could she have gone? Would she have gone to the police? No, then she would have to admit her part in recruiting.

Looking around wildly, his mind furiously worked to think of where she would be.

“Fuck!” the man bit out. “The thieving bitch took my cell phone.”

Hernando’s heart sank. With a cell phone, she could have called someone to pick her—Ms. Mullins. Goddammit! That’s exactly who she would have called.

Turning, he bolted out of the room and ran down the stairs with the yells of the dissatisfied client ringing in his ears.

Driving home quickly, he ran into the house, heading back to Betina’s room. Marcella walked out of the kitchen. “What are you looking for?” she asked as he rummaged through papers on Betina’s desk.

“Quiet, woman. That bitch daughter of yours is going to get me in trouble and if she does, your meal ticket is gone.”

“Betina? What has she done?” Marcella asked, her curiosity overriding the angry vibes pouring off of Hernando. She pulled his arm from the desk, “Tell me what you are doing!”

He whirled, backhanding her across the face. “I told you to be quiet. I offered her a chance to make money for helping me and she’s trying to get me arrested.”

Her face stinging, Marcella stood dumbly looking at the man in front of her. The one she hoped would marry her. And now, he appeared ready to kill her daughter.

Seeing Betina’s backpack sitting next to the desk, he dumped the contents on the bed, watching as papers fell out in disarray. Shuffling through them, he saw one with Court Services at the top. It had Sherrie Mullin’s name and phone number on the form. Pulling out his cell phone, he quickly input her information and easily pulled up Sherrie’s address.

Smiling at his ingenuity, he turned once again, this time to see Marcella standing in the doorway blocking his path.

“I don’t know what you want with Betina, but I won’t let you hurt her,” she said, her voice shaking with anger and fear.

He charged her, knocking her out of the way. She fell back, hitting her head against the doorframe. Slumping to the floor, tears streamed from her face as she saw him run out of the house. What have I done?