Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
I test the ankle restraints next. Same result. These aren't coming off without tools or keys or a fucking miracle.
Think. There has to be something. Fuck. I can’t think, and the blood dripping down my face isn't helping. Concussion. Probably.
“Millie, I need you to focus.” I try again, keeping my voice steady. Calm. “Who did this? Who took us?”
“I don't know.” But her voice wavers. She's lying.
“Bullshit. You know something. So start talking.”
More silence.
I'm about to push harder when movement catches my eye. Across the basement, past Millie, one of the cell doors sits slightly ajar. Darkness beyond it. Complete and absolute.
Is someone in there?
Are they watching us?
The thought sends ice down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
“We're going to make it.” I say it as much for myself as for Millie. “We're going to get out of here. I'm going home to Olive. And you—” I force myself to look at her. Really look at her. My baby sister. Nineteen years old and already so broken by whatever's been chasing her. “You're going to tell me the truth about what's going on. And then we're going to fix it together. Like always.”
That makes her cry harder.
“I haven't been honest with you.” The words come out strangled. Desperate. “About any of it. About Prague. About why I left. About what I—”
She cuts herself off, pressing her lips together like she's physically trying to keep the words inside.
I stop struggling with the restraints, my full attention snapping to her.
“What do you mean?”
“The nunnery in Prague.” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper. “It's not what you think.”
“Okay.” I keep my tone level. Millie is like a cornered animal on the best of days. One slight raise in your voice and she’ll cave. “What is it?”
“It's owned by an organization called Triple Zero.” She swallows hard. “No one knows who they are. How many there are. Where they operate from. But they're—” Her voice cracks. “They're everywhere. They control everything.”
“Everything like what?”
“All of it.” The words rush out now. Like she's been holding them in for too long and they're finally breaking free. “Human trafficking. Drugs. Weapons. Every gross, underground deal you can think of. Every horror you've ever read about in the news. Every nightmare that keeps you up at night wondering how humans can be so evil.”
My mouth goes dry. “Millie—”
“They're an empire.” She's not crying anymore. Staring at me with hollow eyes. “Built on suffering. On taking people's worst impulses and monetizing them. And the nunnery—” Her voice breaks again. “The nunnery is one of their operations.”
I don't want to ask the next question. Don't want to know the answer. But I force it out anyway.
“What kind of operation?”
Millie's face crumples. “They sell the nuns.”
White noise rings out through my ears. What the fuck.
“They what?”
“To the highest bidder.” She's sobbing again now. “As virgins. That's why they take them so young. Train them. Keep them pure. And then when they're old enough—” She can't finish the sentence.
Horror crawls up my throat. “The orphanage.”
“Yes.”
“Is that—” I can barely form the words. “Is that the same one I was in? When I gave birth to Olive?”
The silence that follows answers everything.
“No.” The word rips out of me. “No. Tell me it's not the same one.”
“I didn't know.” Millie's voice rises to a wail. “I swear to God, Melissa, I didn't know. Not until months after you'd already left. Not until I started digging into what they were doing and found the records and saw your name and I—” She's hyperventilating now. “I didn't know. Please, you have to believe me. I would never—if I'd known what they were going to do to her—”
“What did they do to her?” The question comes out deadly quiet.
She shakes her head, sniffing. “Nothing. The babies really do get placed in homes. Good homes with one requirement, that they must be Catholic.” I squeeze my eyes closed. “I never understood why that was and still don’t, but Melissa, the babies that are born there aren’t in danger. It’s the sisters. They come from all over the world, either by their parents force or whatever.” She sniffs. “And when we hit eighteen, we’re sold.”
I know her words should ease my panic, but they don’t. “But you’re nineteen?”
She freezes, forcing all her secrets back into the dark corner. “I guess, I don’t know. I didn’t fit the bill.” That makes no fucking sense. I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve wanted to strangle my little sister, but this definitely makes top three.
“Millie.” My voice comes out steady, because I can kill her when we’re out of here and aren’t about to for real die. “How do we kill them?”
She stares at me as if I've lost my mind. “What?”
“These Triple Zero assholes. How do we kill them? All of them.”