Relinquished (14 page)

“I thought I’d come and hang out for a while, but I’m kinda bummed you haven’t worked during my shifts.” I leaned my forearms against the edge of the bar, letting her good mood invade me.

She dipped her chin and peeked up with an even cheerier smile. “Well, that’s changing. I finally gathered all my nerve and kicked that cheating bastard out last night. He and his whore won’t be back.”

Sam and Trudy were gone?

I nearly fell off my stool, I was so excited. “Are you serious?  That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.” And now I didn’t even have to think about looking for another job.

“Yeah, and the highlight to it all is that my uncle never put the bar in my name so Sam can’t have any part of it in the divorce. He can go fuck himself. Oh, and I had the security password changed. You’re able to walk out the back door, but not enter from there. You’ll need to start coming in through the front.”

“Works for me. I’m just glad you got rid of them.” I contemplated telling her about the money Sam took from me last night but didn’t want to rain on her happy parade. And I suddenly had an idea where I was going to spend the next two nights. I did, however, feel I owed her an apology. “I’m sorry I never told you what was going on.”

She placed her soft hand on mine, her eyes compassionate. “I already told you. I don’t blame you, Jules. If I’d been in your shoes, I probably wouldn’t have said anything either. Because of my teaching job, I haven’t made a big presence here. Your loyalty was to him, not me. I get it.”  I’d almost forgotten she worked as a preschool teacher during the day.

But she was wrong. My loyalty was to my paycheck. Not to that jackass who signed it.

My shoulders slumped, even though she said not to feel guilty. How many times had I kept my mouth shut, knowing something fucked up was going on?  Would I ever learn?  

Someday I’d have to find the courage to speak up.

Someday…

“You hungry?” she asked. “I’ll order some pizzas, on me.”

I was not about to turn a free meal down. “Sure. Isn’t John working the kitchen tonight?”

“Nope. I sent him home early to work on the menu. I hated all that deep fried, tasteless crap Sam insisted we served. I wanna try something new.”  She lifted her shoulder and smirked. “Something hip.”  Her hand swirled through the air. “Maybe even spruce up the place a bit.”

“Wow, that sounds great.”  

Her enthusiasm was contagious and was almost giving me hope for the future.

Almost.

I drove down Colorado Blvd, doing my best to obey the traffic laws, but I was fuming.  I couldn’t believe Jules fucking blew me off today.  Nobody blows me off. There was serious shit we needed to discuss.

I’d sat there for half an hour waiting for her after I’d fought Carr over my plans and Holden beat the crap out of me during our sparring match. My ego wanted to believe I let him do it, but I knew he had an advantage.  Not only was martial arts his specialty, but he had pent-up rage behind those moves today. I thought that would be a disadvantage, but damn was I wrong.

When I came to another fucking red light, I smacked the steering wheel and looked down at my cell for the time.  Today had been a long ass day, and it was already ten by the time I left the office.  I knew Jules wasn’t scheduled to work tonight, so I was sure to find her in that rancid motel by now.  Aside from the time she’d spent with Holden, she had no social life.

If she wasn’t going to come to me, then I would go to her. There was no way in hell she’d spend another night in that place, and even if I had to drag her out, she was going back to my house to stay.

I drove around the motel’s parking lot until I found a spot in the back.  Like most nights, the place was packed. Jumping out of my car, I slipped my cell into my front pocket and charged up the stairs two at a time.

The same sounds from last night echoed down the balcony. It didn’t hit me as odd until I realized they were also coming from Jules’ room.

No fucking way.

I banged on the door, but the loud screaming drowned out my pounding.  

Is she crying?

Those sounds sparked my fuse, and my balled up fist began to hammer on the door. “Open this fucking door before I kick it down!”

The side of my hand throbbed, but I didn’t give a damn. Arguing voices came from the other side of the door before a man yelled back, “Get the hell out of here! She’s busy for at least another half hour.”

Oh, hell no.

I saw red.  I slammed the bottom of my boot against the door several times, about to beat the damn thing down if they didn’t answer in the next five seconds.  Sure enough, the termite infested doorframe gave.

A very young looking girl skittered bare ass naked into the bathroom while a fat slob of a man, at least half a foot shorter than me, scrambled to pull his tighty whities up over his stubby little pecker. “Hey, asshole, you’re gonna have to pay for that.”

I had no interest in getting close to this shitbag, so I stayed by the doorway, attempting to calm the rage boiling inside me. “Where’s the other girl that was staying in this room?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Who, Jules?”

“Yes,” I hissed, furious that he even knew who she was.

“Fuck if I know. After I let her stay here for months, that stuck-up bitch only paid through last night. She split this morning and never said a word about coming back.”

His stench finally made its way to me, burning the inside of my nostrils.  
How the fuck could that girl in the bathroom let him near her?
She had to be doing it out of desperation.

I stalked past him and banged on the bathroom door. “Are you here willingly?”

A trembling voice came from the other side. “Y-yes.”

“Hey, fuck you, I’m not holding her here. She asked for it.”

I turned oh so slowly, clenching and unclenching my fists. This guy had some big balls talking to me like that.  Then again, anything resting against that little dick of his would seem huge.  

I yelled at the door, “How old are you?”

“Eight—eighteen.”

Son of a bitch.  No.

I grabbed my cell and sent a quick text to one of my contacts. “If your clothes are in there,” I yelled through the door again, “get dressed and come out, okay?” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the dickwad, daring him to say anything to me.  Anything at all.

I didn’t move an inch, still sizing that asshole up as I heard the door click open.  Looking down into this young girl’s distraught eyes was like looking at Jules’ last night. “Why are you in here with this guy?” I pointed toward the vile fuck that was now putting the rest of his clothes on, shrugging like he didn’t care about what I had to say.

She closed her eyes, filled with shame, I imagined. “My mom and her boyfriend kicked me out.  I didn’t have anywhere else to go.  He offered me a room and said all I had to do was…” I stopped her there by lifting her chin until her tear filled eyes were looking at me. I didn’t need to hear anything more, and for this fucker’s sake, he better not have done the same thing to Jules.  I don’t know how I missed this guy while I’d been watching her.

“I can take you someplace safe. Away from this. You’re too young to be in this place.” I opened my hand in front of her, hoping she would accept my invitation because there was no way I was leaving her here.

With relief in her eyes, she took my hand and picked up her belongings on our way out the door.

“Hey, asshole, I said you have to pay for that door.”

Moving the girl behind me, I squared my shoulders and looked down at the fucknugget. “I have a better idea—why don’t you call the cops, and we can each share our versions of what went down here tonight.” I gave him a sarcastic smirk. “Oh, but I should probably tell you I do surveillance for them, and this motel has been under their microscope for a few months now.” That wasn’t technically a lie. I’d reported plenty of the crimes going on here over the last several months, but the department wasn’t the driving force of my surveillance.  

Still, it did the trick. His jaw dropped as his clammy skin turned white. “No. That’s okay.  I’ll take care of it.”

“That’s what I thought.”

I spun around and ushered the girl down the stairs and through the parking lot when little man yelled over the railing, “Hey, if you run into Jules, tell her I threw all her shit out already, so she doesn’t have to bother coming back for it. I wasted too much time dealing with that ungrateful bitch.” He snorted then hawked a ball of spit onto the floor next to him.

That motherfucker was lucky I was busy trying to help someone. I soothed myself by remembering I’d be back to deal with him another time. He could count on that.

Refocusing, I guided her toward the street.  My father’s security business had secretly fought human trafficking completely off the grid for as long as I could remember, and even though this girl was not taken against her will, in a sense, she was just like the women that had been. She felt like she had no choice and gave her freedom away just for a place to sleep.  Plenty of girls just like her were part of the program Dad had put in place, as well as countless domestic violence victims.

As was normal procedure, I didn’t take her to my car.  She wasn’t going to do anything, but I played things with my head, not my emotions, and totally by the book.  This was for my protection, not hers.

“Let’s wait right here.” I pointed to a wall in front of the motel.  “A taxi’s on its way to take you to a place
where you can get help. You’re free to leave whenever you like, but I promise it’s a second chance for you.” I pointed back to the motel. “That is no way to live.”

“I don’t understand.  Who are you?” She held her small bag in front of her sheepishly, her hair sticking up in all directions from rolling around in bed with that pig.

I took a few steps away, distancing myself from her. My indifferent tone may have sounded a bit cold, but it was necessary. “Someone who knows people who won’t stand by and watch young girls being taken advantage of by revolting men like that one back there.”

When I was old enough to understand my father’s passion for saving girls like her, it quickly became mine as well. Dad had established many institutions around the country, but the one here in town was the original facility.  It was the whole reason Holden and I set up camp here with our gym. 

Our services remained anonymous since we housed and rehabilitated victims of human trafficking that chose to stay with us instead of taking their chances with officials that were controlled by some of the same men that had snatched them up in the first place. Everything we did on the surface was legitimate, but as far as the law was concerned, we were a nonprofit organization that only worked with domestic abuse victims.

That was how we funded the centers as well. We’d been able to skate by without the government storming in and pretending like they were there to help, just to put a bunch of unnecessary regulations into play that didn’t do anyone any good.

After making several mistakes that still haunted my father, we avoided dealing with immigration until the girls were ready to stand on their own two feet.  Even now as I quietly stood on the sidewalk with this lost, little girl, my chest tightened thinking about what happened to the first handful of women he and his team rescued. There was no way for Dad to know that they would be deported immediately just to be thrown into labor camps in their own countries. Several were also executed over the years.

We’ll never make that mistake again.

I peeked down the street, looking for the taxi then glanced at my phone to make sure I hadn’t gotten a text. The silence was uncomfortable, but I wasn’t about to step outside one of our most important rules. This girl couldn’t think I was her hero. From the get go, she needed professional counseling to help her through this, not to fixate on some guy stepping in to her rescue.

Separating himself from anyone in need was nearly impossible for my brother to do, so Dad insisted that Holden didn’t need to know nor be involved with the rescue part of our foundation. He was only aware of the fact that we took in these women and the occasional young man when they sought our help.

Although Holden always had good intentions, Dad knew that he would want to jump in and try to save their day, so he was assigned two roles. The first was to structure the self-defense lessons, direct the instructors on how to best meet the girls’ needs and keep track of their progress. The second was to scout out new locations for us to establish facilities near our gyms since that was a key part of their rehabilitation.

They learned how to defend themselves and become confident that they were physically fit enough to protect themselves once they moved out and started their lives.

Everyone else at the gym assumed I was sleeping with most of the women I gave free monthly passes to because I set it up to appear that way.  I owned the fucking company. Why the hell not use it to disguise what was really going on? And yeah, I did give women I slept with passes, too. It helped make things look legit.