Thin Lies (Donati Bloodlines #1) (15 page)

Hugging
her middle, Emma stepped up to a bouncer guarding the door. She stood on the
front steps of a club that she would never be caught dead inside. This kind of
club was not the sort that her father or uncle would approve of.

A
sign flashed overhead, showcasing a girl grinding mostly naked against a pole.

Emma
remembered her conversation with Poppy earlier in the day, and what her friend
had said about the strip joint.

Mika
will be in the back. Let the guy inside know your name is Emma, and that you’re
there to see Mika. Make sure you mention that you’re a friend of a friend, and
bring up my name to Mika when you see him.

Poppy
had also mentioned that Emma would know who Mika was on sight, and again
repeated her worries that this might not be safe.

Emma
didn’t have a choice.

She
was out of options.

Another
night in the motel would cost her eighty dollars. She’d already paid for last
night, and because she needed a place to leave her bags, she booked the room
for another night. With food, plus the burner phone that Emma picked up after
she grabbed breakfast, her cash was dwindling fast.

She
wondered if her parents knew yet that she had skipped out. Or even Affonso.

Emma
couldn’t go back now.

She
had to see this through.

“You
gonna stand there all day looking up at the fuckin’ sky like it’s gonna fall in
on you or what?” the bouncer asked, crossing his meaty arms and snapping the
gum in his mouth. “Show me your ID or get the fuck off the step.”

Emma
blinked, stunned at the man’s crudeness. “I’m here to see Mika.”

“Is
that so? What for?”

“A
friend of a friend sent me. Business, you know.”

Emma
didn’t have a fucking clue what business that was exactly, but apparently
that’s what she was supposed to say.

The
bouncer snapped his gum again. His bald head and thick neck, mixed in with his
barrel-shaped chest and trunk-like limbs, certainly made Emma want to take a
step back from the man. Nothing about him screamed “nice” or “safe.”

She
supposed he was good for his job.

“What
friend?” the guy asked.

“That’s
not for you to know, it’s for me to tell Mika,” Emma said quickly.

The
bouncer chuckled. “Good one, little girl.”

Little
girl?

Emma
bristled, but managed to keep quiet.

“You
look familiar,” the man stated, checking her out from the shoes she wore to the
jacket she was hugging. “Like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

How
many socialite magazines did the guy read? That was the only place she might
have graced this man’s presence before. 

She
didn’t say a thing.

“Mika,
you said?”

“Yes,”
Emma replied.

“I’ll
give you a warnin’ before you go on in there lookin’ for Mika,” the bouncer
said.

Emma
glanced up, meeting the man’s gaze. “What’s that?”

“Don’t
go in there lookin’ for him at all. Mika don’t mix business with pretty, clean
things like you.”

“Clean
things?”

The
bouncer reached out and snagged Emma’s arm in his palm before she could react.
He yanked the sleeve of her jacket up to her elbow and waved a finger over her
unblemished skin.

“You’ve
got no track marks in your arm and your teeth are good. You don’t use, which
means you don’t need the kind of business Mika’s got working in there for the
girls needin’ a fix. Do you get what I’m sayin’, girl?”

No
.

Emma
was beginning to feel like she was far more sheltered in her life than she had
previously thought. She had clearly stepped out of her element in a big way.
This was not her side of the tracks, and the chill running up her spine
reminded her of that fact as she stared down at her unmarked skin.

She
didn’t use drugs, but sometimes she had fun. She liked to frequent clubs, and
her family had long since been considered one of the elite families in Nevada
because of their wealth and status. She had seen people pop pills with their
glasses of morning wine and hadn’t blinked a lash.

What
this bouncer was suggesting, however, made her skin crawl.

“I
don’t have much of a choice,” Emma said honestly.

The
bouncer smiled grimly, let go of her arm, and then opened the door to a dark
hallway. “Well then, I guess all I can say is good luck. And don’t you say I
didn’t warn you.”

Emma
quickly fixed the arm of her coat as she stepped inside the business.

“Keep
going straight until you see the girls on the pole,” the bouncer said from
behind her. “You’ll know Mika when you see him.”

Just
like Poppy had told her.

“Thank
you,” Emma replied.

The
bouncer laughed dryly. “Don’t thank me, girl.”

Emma
continued down the hall, ignoring the creepy vibe settling deep in her stomach.
The closer she came to the end of the corridor, the more music and lights she
could see. She barely reached the end before a stage was practically right at
the outside of the door and a girl’s ass was upside down, in the smallest
G-string, and pointed in Emma’s direction.

“Holy
shit,” Emma muttered.

She
quickly side-stepped the stage and moved toward the bar where a few patrons of
the joint sat on dingy, red-covered stools. She pretended like their stares
didn’t bother her as she walked in front of them and moved past another stage.

Obviously
they weren’t used to seeing fully-clothed women in the place.

Taking
the floor in, Emma quickly found who she was looking for. Poppy and the bouncer
had been right. Mika was obvious. He sat in a roped off area with a bottle of
Patrón on the table, a game of cards in play with another man at the table, and
four more men dressed in black guarding the section.

Mika,
dressed in a black suit, looked completely out of place in the dive. His
well-dressed appearance and lit cigar spoke of wealth, but the strip joint was
seedy as fuck.

Hell,
even Emma could see that.

What
had she gotten herself mixed up in now?

Do
it or go back
,
her mind taunted.

Emma
took another step forward. Then she took another, and another. Finally, she was
close enough to Mika and his men that one of the bodyguards put an arm out to
stop her from going further.

“I’m
here to see Mika,” Emma told the man quietly.

Mika
didn’t even glance up from his card game. He didn’t say a word.

“You’re
here to see nobody,” the bodyguard told her.

Emma
didn’t budge. She directed her statement over the shoulder of the bulldog of a
man. “Poppy says hi, Mika.”

Mika
smiled slowly as his dark gaze lifted to look Emma over. “Emma, is it?”

“Emma,”
she confirmed.

“Come
have a drink, Emma.”

It
didn’t actually sound like an offer. In fact, it sounded like Mika wasn’t going
to give her a choice at all.

Emma
swallowed hard, feeling something terrible well in her gut. Instincts didn’t
lie, and something was telling her that she had made the wrong choice in coming
here. She didn’t know what it was, but as she looked around at the dazed girls
dancing on the stage, the men surrounding Mika, and the predatory smile Mika
leveled on her, Emma just …
knew
.

This
was bad.

“A
drink,” Mika repeated firmly.

The
bodyguard stepped aside.

Emma
felt a hand press on her lower back and push her forward.

Shit
.

“I
hear you need some help disappearing for a little while,” Mika said when Emma
was sat down in a chair at the table.

“Poppy
said you could help to get me out of state.”

Mika
chuckled. “Oh, I can help with that.”

Suddenly,
a clear glass with red liquid was put in front of Emma. She eyed it, wondering
what in the hell it was.

“Just
a Sourpuss and 7 Up mix,” Mika said. “Nothing to hurt you with. We’ll talk
first, and then I’ll let you know where we go from there.”

Emma
nodded. “Okay.”

“Drink,
girl.”

She
picked up the glass and took a sip. It was sour, but it wasn’t bad. Mika waved
at the glass as if to tell her to take another drink. Emma did, but she was
still trying to figure out a way to get the hell out of there without pissing
someone off or offending them.

Mika
and his guest resumed their card game without a word to Emma. She sipped on her
drink, still gauging the high-looking dancers and the patrons to the venue.

“What
does a girl like you need to disappear for, anyway?” Mika asked out of the
blue.

Emma
glanced up, but her vision swam. Her mouth felt dry, too.

“I
… I, uh,” Emma tried to say, fumbling for her words.

Her
arms were too heavy.

Mika
smiled. “Nathan?”

Nathan
?

Emma
felt a hand land on her shoulder, keeping her upright. She stared up, only to
find the bodyguard who had let her pass was standing over her, holding her
shoulder.

“You
should be careful who you trust,” Mika told her quietly. “Poppy, especially.
She’s sweet as sin, but the girl is black in her fucking soul. It’s why I love
her. Her daddy would be so proud, I’m sure. Good man he is, donating to the
poor and helping the women’s shelters. I bet he’d die to know his little girl
was helping to traffic skin like a pro. She’s a damn good fisher, though. I bet
you’ll fetch one hell of a price tomorrow, Emma. I don’t know who you are, but
if you want to disappear, there’s no better way than the underground auctions.
You wanted to disappear, after all.”

What
?

Oh,
God.

Poppy
had warned her.

But
she lied, too.

The
betrayal made Emma’s stomach twist.

Skin
…

Emma
had heard of those things before—auctions. She was pretty damn sure of what
Mika was talking about. Girls went missing, sold to whomever had the deepest
pockets, and were never heard from again.

She
thought it was rumors.

It
made her blood run cold.

“Take
a few deep breaths, or you’ll end up puking all over yourself when you’re out
of it,” Mika warned.

Before
Emma blacked out, she thought of one person who might be able to help her. The
one person she had tricked to get away, stolen his things, and probably pissed
him off.

Calisto
.

Calisto

Time
was running out.

Calisto
glared at the digital clock on the dashboard, wishing he could make it fucking
disappear. He had thirty-six hours to find Emma, get her back to the penthouse,
and then put her on a plane to New York.

Thirty-six
hours was not enough time.

He
waited out a red light. How long was the damn thing going to stay red for? It
seemed like everything was taking too long, when Calisto needed it to go a hell
of a lot faster.

It
took the pawn shop almost eight hours the day before to unlock Emma’s iPhone
without losing crucial information on the device. Calisto shoved the money
across the counter when the guy said it was done, and ran out of the shop,
already looking through the last calls that had been made.

Poppy
Johansen.

Calisto
had recognized the name the very moment it popped up on Emma’s contacts. Poppy
came from a Nevada socialite family, and toted a father worth a couple of
hundred million, thanks to his casino bids. What the girl could do for Emma in
a situation like this, Calisto didn’t know.

He
intended on finding out.

After
trying to reach Poppy using Emma’s and then his own phone, Calisto had decided
to give up that route. Clearly, the girl wasn’t answering. Emma had probably
told her not to, which was a smart move.

For
now …  

But
time had run out.

For
him.

For
Poppy.

And
for Emma.

Calisto
had a little information on Poppy Johansen and he intended on using it. The
address to her nice little penthouse had been in the pack of research Calisto
collected on a few of Emma’s close friends. If the woman wouldn’t answer phone
calls or text messages, then he would go to her.

Directly.

The
ringing of his cell phone brought Calisto from his infuriated thoughts. He
grabbed the device and hit the speakerphone to answer

“Yeah,
Donati speaking,” he said.

“Cal,
I looked into that girl you asked about. Poppy Johansen, right?”

Calisto’s
irritation ebbed away slowly. “Great. Give me something to work with where
she’s concerned. I need her to talk.”

“It
might have helped me to get this done sooner if I knew what I was looking for,”
Norris said.

Norris
happened to have a mighty set of skills where computers, hacking, and tracing
was concerned. The guy mostly worked off the grid, and Calisto had only needed
the man’s help a couple of times in his life when he needed to locate someone.

Thankfully,
Norris didn’t work for Affonso.

Or
any Cosa Nostra.

“That’s
not important, just give me what you have right now. Her family is fucking nose
up, right? There’s got to be some kind of skeletons in their closet for me to
pick at when I see her. I don’t like strong-arming females into compliance.
Mental nonsense works far better.”

“Yeah,
yeah. Shut up for a second. This is bad shit, Cal. Poppy, I mean. The stuff I
found might not be the kind of thing you want to go wading into at all. Even
for your kind of business, this is pretty stomach churning crap.”

“You’re
not making any sense.”

“Where
are you?” Norris asked.

“Driving
at the moment.”

“Pull
over. This is important, Cal.”

Calisto
did as his old friend asked. It wasn’t often than Norris got serious enough to
demand anything from Calisto during a conversation.

Once
the car was parked alongside of the highway, Calisto said, “All right, let me
have whatever it is.”

“From
what I gathered, Poppy isn’t living off her father’s dime anymore. She hasn’t
been for a long while. In fact, the girl hasn’t been seen out with her family
in a public setting in almost a year. Seems a while back, there was an issue
with a man that Poppy had been running around with on the social scene.”

“What
kind of a problem?”

“What
do you think?” Norris asked back.

“Poppy’s
family is big-time, right? They probably didn’t approve of the guy.”

“Hit
the nail on the head, Cal. Here’s the thing—Mika Orlov is the guy. A little checking
on him told me that he came from an immigrant mother straight out of the slums
of Russia’s poorest. He grew up shit poor in the States, and his mother made
ends meet in such a way that gave her a rap sheet three feet long.”

“What
kind of charges?”

“Drugs.
Possession. Solicitation. Same old thing. Over and over, man.”

“How’s
a street kid like Mika get mixed up with a socialite like Poppy?” Calisto
asked.

“My
guess is they met on her turf, probably after he’d gotten off the streets by
making a living in the only way his mother ever taught him how to. This all
brings me back around to the father issue with Poppy again—he didn’t approve of
this Mika. He made no secret about it. Tabloids ran with it for a while,
guessing, speculating, and all that garbage.”

“Let
me guess, her father likely cut her off from the money and family side of
things?”

“Seems
like it,” Norris confirmed.

“So
what am I missing here?”

“Poppy
seemed like a dead end on her side of things, except she’s still been seen out
and about with this Mika character on occasion.”

“How
deep?” Calisto asked.

“Underground,
man. This is the part where you don’t want to get mixed up in.”

Calisto
didn’t have a choice.

“Try
me.”

“Seems
Mika moved on from his socialite drug dealing scene to the sale of skin.”

Jesus
H. Christ.

Calisto’s
chest tightened with anxiety, but he refused to let it show in his voice when
he said, “How did he come about joining that?”

“Seems
he’s got some ties to a Bratva organization in Russia that transports girls
back and forth across the country. That could be how his dealing worked, too,
honestly. It’s hard to find info on Bratva organizations because they’re so
fucking secretive and down-low about everything, especially when they’re headed
in another country.”

“His
mother came from Russia,” Calisto noted.

“He
was born in the States a few months after her arrival. She would have been
barely pregnant when she immigrated, but he was conceived over there.”

“His
father could have been in the organization.”

“Likely.
Old school Bratva men are known to shun their children, usually the boys, until
they become a certain age. Then they come out of the woodwork, promising to
bring them into the folds.”

“That
might have seemed like a dream to a kid like Mika who struggled his whole
life,” Calisto said quietly.

“This
is all speculation, man. Keep that in mind.”

“But
the skin trade isn’t speculation.”

“No,
he’s definitely got his hand in that. I checked in with a contact of mine on
the official side of things—”

Calisto
made a noise under his breath, disgusted. “Fuck, you know I don’t like when you
do that.”

“I
wanted to get this info right for you the first time.”

“Fine.
What did your guy say?”

“They’ve
got a taskforce trying to pin down the ring of men running part of the skin
trade in Vegas. All they can say is there’s some kind of auction thing, from
what they understand, that goes on every few months. It’s not the only thing
Mika has his hand in.”

“What
else?”

“He
also fishes in females that would be easy to victimize. The ones no one would
notice missing. You know the stories of people who hook up with prostitutes by
way of craigslist or whatever?”

“Yeah,”
Calisto said. “What about it?”

“Well,
it’s like that. He grabs a girl, pumps her full of drugs, keeps her needing the
fix, and makes her work in hotels. According to my guy, these girls never stay
in one place for very long. They’re known to take them from state to state
weekly to keep on the move and out of the eyes of officials. It’s one of the
reasons why they’re difficult to catch and why set organizations like the
Sorrentos don’t make a fuss because they’re not really fucking with their
business.”

Calisto’s
stomach churned.

This
was bad.

His
best hope was that Emma hadn’t gotten herself somehow mixed up in this crew of
people, but that was highly unlikely, given her last calls had been to Poppy.
Emma needed help, and she went to someone she thought she could trust for it.

“There’s
something else,” Norris said.

“What
is it?”

“Those
auctions—they’re not for the hotel girls. They’re for the kind of girls that a
man might want to use again and again. Clean, sober, pretty, healthy girls. My
guy said men are known to fly in from all over the world for a chance at these
auctions, and then they fly out with a slave who now has no name, no past, and
no definable future.”

Oh,
God.

Calisto
let out a slow breath. “And?”

He
could hear the unfinished words. There had to be more Norris wasn’t saying.

“My
guy believes there’s an auction happening soon. They believe them to happen in
the early hours of the morning at an unknown location. Vegas is the perfect
place for one because people fly in and out from all over the world all the
fucking time. Calisto, I don’t know what’s going on with you right now, but
this is dangerous shit and you have to be careful, man.”

“Did
your guy say anything about Mika having a hand in the auctions, or just the
hotel girls?” Calisto asked, ignoring Norris’s final warning.

Norris
sighed. “He doesn’t believe him to be directly involved with the auctions. But
he said from what they do know, if Mika could get his hands on a good enough
girl to sell to someone higher in his organization who does have a hand in the
auctions, it would be yet another in for him. Mika is clearly an upstart—they
like to keep going up.”

“What
about someone like a
principessa della mafia
?” Calisto asked softly.

Norris
was silent for a long time.

“Jesus.”

“Is
that a yes?”

“Yeah,
that’s a yes, Cal. She would be priceless, just based on her last name alone.”

Calisto
swallowed the lump in his throat. He checked the time again, noting the lost
minutes since he’d answered Norris’s call. “Do you have an address for this
Mika?”

“No.
Seems he’s all over the place, but he favors a few businesses in particular.”

“What
about Poppy? Is her address the same one I have in my documents?”

“No
on that, too. Her old penthouse was sold by her father six months ago. She
moved into a smaller apartment.”

“I
want the address, now,” Calisto said.

“Sure,
let me bring it up again.”

He
would start there.

With
Poppy
.

May
God save her fucking soul when Calisto came knocking.

“One
more thing,” Norris said.

“Shoot.”

“If
you do somehow manage to get in on the auctions, make sure to bring money, Cal.
A lot of it.”

Calisto
was suddenly grateful that Vegas didn’t run on everyone else’s time.