She didn’t answer. She pressed her entire body against the window and started to shiver.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to get you back home, alright?”
She just stared at me.
I called Carter over the sound system.
“What?” Carter said when he picked up. “How’d it go?”
“Cynthia is gonna question Bones next time he comes in. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“I was hoping I’d get an invite on your yacht,” he teased.
I chuckled. “No way in hell, man.”
“Hey, we’ve taken trips together before.”
When we were picking up women left and right and fucking them all over the place. “There was a young girl in the lineup tonight. Even younger than Yasmine.”
“Sick fucks.”
“They were fighting over her like a piece of meat…so I bought her.”
“Seriously?” he snapped. “You’re joking, right?”
“No…she’s in the car with me.”
“I’m not splitting that shit with you. She’s not on the list.”
“I know…but I couldn’t let them have her.” She was way too young to die that way. She wasn’t a cheap purchase, and I would never get that money back, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night knowing I did nothing to help her. “So, I’m dropping her off at your place. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Uh, excuse me?” he snapped. “I’ve got company.”
“Pull your pants up and send her home. You’ve got work to do.”
He growled into the phone. “I just got rid of Yasmine.”
“Then you have room for one more.”
“Hey, you’re the one who bought her. This is your problem.”
“Shut up, Carter. I’m dropping her off.”
He sighed. “Fine. But you owe me for this.”
“Asshole, you owe me for a lot of shit too.” I hung up.
After I dropped her off, I headed back to Milan where Muse was waiting for me. It would take me an extra forty-five minutes just to get back.
I broke my promise. I’d been gone two hours.
I knew she didn’t contact me because she was too afraid to. Maybe she thought sending me a text would set my phone off and incriminate me somehow. So, I called her through the speakers in the car.
She picked up before the first ring ended. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Muse. I just left Verona, so it’ll be about forty-five minutes before I’m back.”
“You said it would be one hour.”
“I know… I’m sorry.” In my former life, I would tell her to get over it. But now, I actually felt like I owed her an explanation. I told her I would come back to her, and when I didn’t, I felt like I let her down.
“But you’re okay?” she whispered.
“Yes. Completely.”
“What happened?”
I drove through the countryside, wrapped up in darkness. Only the light from dashboard gave any illumination. “I’ll tell you when I get back.”
“No, you’re going to tell me now. You’ve got forty-five minutes.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the authority in her voice. She knew she had power over me. She just didn’t abuse it often. “I told you how my aunt died a while back.”
“Yes…”
“I told you some man named Bones killed her.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Last time I went to the Underground, there was a man named Bones there. Young, good-looking, arrogant… I knew he wasn’t the original Bones. He’s been dead for thirty years, and even if he weren’t, he’d been in his sixties by now. But there’s no way this guy’s name is a coincidence. It means something… I’m just not sure what it is.”
She breathed into the phone.
“So, I went to the Underground tonight and asked the waitress to do some digging for me. I paid her for the information, and she’ll call me once she has it. That’s all I wanted tonight, so once the auction was over, I was going to head back to the apartment. But there was this girl…” My hand tightened into a fist on the steering wheel. It was dark, so I couldn’t see my skin, but I knew my knuckles were turning white. “She was so young, Muse. I’m talking…maybe fourteen.”
“God…” She sighed into the phone.
“I was going to leave the second the auction was over, but then all the men started fighting over her… It was disgusting. So I bought her instead.”
“Conway…”
“I just dropped her off at Carter’s. Now I’m back on the road coming to you.”
“That was…” She never finished her sentence.
“She cost a lot, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight if I hadn’t done anything. None of those women deserve that fate, but this girl is still a kid. She had no idea what was going in. She wouldn’t even talk to me in the car. She was so scared.”
A quiet sniff escaped across the phone. “You did the right thing…”
In my life, there was no right or wrong. There was just instinct. And my instinct told me to get that girl out of there.