“I keep an eye on the dark web for girls being sold into sex slavery,” he finally said. The words were soft, but rattled through me like he was yelling, shaking me to my core. “I hire a team once I’ve—or Jared—tracked them down and they extract the girl.”
The rush of adrenaline and fear seeped out of me, leaving me weak and empty, and I fell back into the chair in front of his desk. “So, this is something you do.”
He turned his head and met my stare. “It’s a thing I do.”
My mind tried to piece the puzzle together of how he retrieved me and what he told me about retrieving others and question after question piled on top of each other. “Do you always bring them back to your place?”
He huffed a laugh but didn’t smile. “No.”
“Then why did you with me? Why didn’t a team come and get me?”
“You were…different.” The words sounded dragged from him. “You were selling yourself. I went because you were alone. Because…” He looked to be fighting with what to say next. “You were just different.”
I nodded like I understood, but I wasn’t sure I did. “What do you do when you find them?”
“I set them up and get them into rehab if needed. Most are addicted to the drug they’d been fed depending on how long they’d been captured. My goal is to offer them a fresh start. If they have a family, we take them there and work with them to move on.”
“What’s Haven?”
“Haven is a foundation I began a few years back, but I always had goals to make it more. I wanted to create a place for these girls to go that will provide them everything they need in one place until they’re ready to go out in the world again. However, it’s not quite set up yet.”
I wished he would look at me. Instead, he stared down at his finger drawing figure eights atop his desk. I thought maybe if I could meet his eyes, I’d understand more.
“Why? Why do you do this?”
That got his attention. His hand stopped moving and he looked up from under his lashes. The green of his eyes darkened and pain flooded his expression knocking the wind from me. I’d seen Erik angry. I’d seen him laugh with friends. I’d seen him irritated. I’d seen him turned on. But I’d never seen him in pain. I sat back, collapsing deeper into the chair as fire burned the backs of my eyes. I didn’t even know what it was but watching the hurt inside him, I knew it’d be bad.
“My sisters were kidnapped when they were seventeen and on vacation in Florida.” My hand flew to my mouth, covering the gasp. “I hadn’t been able to go because of work.”
“Erik…” Part of me wanted to stop him. I knew it’d be bad, but I hadn’t been ready for how bad.
“It took me four months and seven days to find them.” The words came out like they were ripped from his body. He looked back down at his hand that was curling into a fist. “When I finally got to them, Sofia hadn’t made it.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks and my fingers trembled against my lips. “Erik. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” Sorry I pried. Sorry for his loss. Sorry for his pain. Sorry for it all. Hatred settled heavy on my chest. Why did I bring it up? Why did I push?
“Hanna took years to recover. Sofia was her twin and she’d watched her die.”
Erik cleared his throat and sat up straighter. I mirrored his actions and swiped at my tears. If he could pull himself together right now, then I could respect him enough to do the same. My pain wasn’t his responsibility. He had enough of his own.
“Alexandra.” I looked up to find his eyes blank, a wall blocking any hurt that had escaped. “It goes without saying that this doesn’t come up. Ever.”
“Of course.”
“And what I do doesn’t come up either. It’s not common knowledge and I made a splash when I first started rescuing women and coming after the people who ran the operations. I made enemies. It’s one of the main reasons I hire people to complete the rescue rather than going myself.”
“Of course,” I said again. What else could I say? I was done asking questions. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more answers. His fingers had resumed their figure eights and after I’d given my compliance he looked back down at the movement. He appeared to be closed off, but I watched the way he swallowed again and again. I watched the way his other hand clenched and unclenched. I could only imagine what he was mentally reliving.
I’d heard what he said, and what he didn’t. The way he talked about not being on vacation with them, the way he talked about taking so long to find them—he blamed himself. Maybe he did all of this as a penance for what he believed were his mistakes. As much as he pissed me off, I hated to watch another human being hurt. Especially one who had chosen me as someone to help.