Alarm bells begin to ring but I step towards her, eager to hear more about her. I want to know why someone so beautiful and obviously tough ended up where she is.
"Our mother was a junkie and practically lived on the street. She only came back here when she remembered she had to eat. My sister Jan was six years older than me and by fourteen she had to drop out of school to raise me." She slams the knife's blade down into the counter. "That was the beginning of the end."
"What happened?" I ask, completely entranced.
"She got a few jobs and I would stay with the neighbors while she was out. Things were good until my mother started coming back around. She would beg Jan for money and when that wasn't enough, she began to pimp her daughters. I was ten years old when I had my first client."
The bile rushes up my fucking throat and I swallow several times to keep it from spewing.
"My sister had it worse, she was attractive and clearly becoming a curvy woman. The men loved her and my mother was making a killing. This went on for a few years and once I hit fifteen, my sister promised we were leaving. She had found an apartment for us and we were leaving the next night."
Her face hardens and she pulls the knife out of the counter and walks up to me.
"She left for work that night and I never saw her again. I hit the streets at fifteen and spoke to people, took some self-defense classes, and took up knife throwing classes. I found out a few months later that the word on the street was that my mother sold her to a man, a businessman who liked to deal in the flesh of young children."
My mouth goes dry and my limbs begin to tingle, I know where this is going.
"I confronted my mother and she fucking confessed to it, said my sister got her one thousand dollars. She was proud of herself and before she could finish her praise, I stabbed my knife through her eye. Right there on that couch, then I destroyed the place, and left, never to look back. But now I have a problem, Zander." Her chest hits mine and she stands toe to toe with me. "You're poking your nose in my business and I can't have you fuck up my plans."
"Was it my father?" I ask her, my eyes never leaving her big blues.
"He ended up with her and I can only imagine she had the same fate as your mother because otherwise she'd have come back to me by now."
"You want to kill my father," I nod, "looks like our plans match."
Her eyes narrow and she brings the point of her knife to my throat. I know she could kill me easily but I'm trusting the information I can provide would deter her.
"You're the Reaper Incarnate. Explains the tattoo on your back." I swallow and my skin presses further into the blade. "We can help you."
"How?" She growls. "How the fuck can I trust the son of that monster?"
"Because I'm a monster, too. And he needs to die for what he's done to my mother."
"I saw Darius and Santos at the last exchange, if we have the same plans why are you helping him export?"
“It’s all a ruse so we can get more information and we always try to free as many as we can. Only problem is, I think he’s onto us and he’s the one that sent the Diablos last night. We needed another way in and I think you can help us with that.”
I brush the hair out of her face and stare at her big blue eyes.
“Will you help us?” I ask her.