Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
At the start, I hadn’t understood the depth of it.
Ignorance was not an excuse. I was smart enough to have found all of that information at the beginning, to understand the kind of money I was handling, the kind of money I was making, to admit that the people I was dealing with were truly bad. I could’ve understood all of that from the start.
But I was greedy, selfish, caught up in the identity I’d forged for myself. I liked working in the shadows. So I let myself ignore it all. Until it piled up around my ears, and I couldn’t ignore it.
I’d uncovered the human trafficking first. The ages of the men and women involved. The girls and boys involved. And I’d done what I convinced myself was noble. By calling in a lot of favors then depositing money in bank accounts in their names, untraceable, I’d ensured that the girls and boys were freed. I bought their freedom, but I could never rid them of their nightmares, their scars.
Then I’d covered my tracks. I’d shown Gregory the evidence of his embezzlement, thinking it would distract him enough so he wouldn’t notice me quietly leaving his employ. I hadn’t imagined he’d commit murder in front of me. Then I’d been rash with the resignation, still thinking I was strong enough to go up against such a powerful man.
But he’d proved to me I wasn’t, with the attack. I’d healed without the police, without calling for help, recognizing that I couldn’t be rash. So I waited until there was no physical evidence of the attack, then I ran. To Jupiter. The plan had been to gather information, enough to buy my life, my freedom. I’d known that it was a big task, but I’d had plenty of hubris, thinking I was smarter than all those men.
But they’d been doing what they did for decades. They were a generational web of deception and crime, honed to a fine art. And there had been many decent, brave, guilty or scared people over the years who had tried to bring them down.
They never succeeded.
Even the few upstanding people in law enforcement organizations that tried hadn’t managed.
Hence it taking a lot longer than I’d expected it to. For a moment there, I didn’t think I’d be able to gather what I needed. Had doubted myself. Had succumbed to the possibility that I was going to have to surrender.
Then came Elliot.
Who reminded me who the fuck I was. And what I had to lose.
“Calliope.” Gregory’s greeting was warm, his lips curved in a pleasant smile.
I hadn’t seen him since the lunch after the murder, when he’d politely accepted my resignation then ordered me to be beaten and raped.
He was a monster. I wished I could shatter his bones one by one then feed them to him. But that was giving in to emotion. Smart… I had to be smart. Because I had to win. He thought that winning was having my fingers broken, my skin split open, my insides scarred by a brute with body odor. He didn’t understand that men had been doing that to us for centuries. Yet we fought. We endured.
“Gregory.” There was no warmth in my tone, no smile in place. Men got to smile with abandon. Women had to guard their smiles lest a man perceive it as interest, weakness or consent.
He was one of the most powerful men in the city, which was saying something. His legitimate businesses were run out of the top three floors of the high-rise we were in. There were armed guards at every entrance and exit. Cameras. Keycards were required for every room, especially the one we were in, Gregory’s office. The inner sanctum. He thought he was untouchable here. Because no one was stupid enough, brazen enough or powerful enough to strike him here.
“Sit.” He gestured to the velvet sofa. “Drink?” he offered, from where he was standing, pouring his own.
“Vodka,” I answered, sitting in the armchair across from the sofa, crossing my legs.
His eyes followed the journey of my exposed calves, down to my ankles and the open-toed, Hermès sandals I was wearing.
He had a foot thing. I wiggled my bright-red painted toes.
I was using every weapon in my arsenal. My life depended on it.
After a second of leering, Gregory quickly focused his attention back on the drinks. He was a sick fuck, that was true. But he was older, more practiced. He wasn’t overtly threatening or sleazy. His salt and pepper hair was groomed like his dark eyebrows, his smooth forehead hinting at the Botox he indulged in, the handsome, aged face pleasant to look at. He was always dressed casually, like he was on vacation in the Bahamas instead of running one of the most ruthless criminal organizations in the world.