Page 61 of Beautifully Savage Butterfly

I manage to get my feet moving on muscle memory alone, the entirety of my body in a numb state as I make my way around the warehouse. There’s a medium sized cargo ship pulling into the dock right on schedule.

“Just walk right up and act like you belong there. Remember, you’re a rich pedo, which means you’ve convinced yourself that you’re entitled to any damn thing you want.”

Elio’s advice last night while we lay in bed plays on a loop in my mind, so that’s exactly what I do. I walk right up to the ship, not stopping until the dude guarding the ramp pulls a gun on me. I hold my hands up and put on my best relaxed smile.

“Hi, I’m hoping I have the right boat. Casimir sent me. He told me to ask for Nikandr.”

The man eyes me suspiciously, keeping his pistol pointed at me.

“Where is Casimir?” he asks in a thick Russian accent. Yup, we’ve got the right boat. Not that there are a whole hell of a lot of them pulling into dock in the middle of the night like this to begin with.

“He had personal business to take care of, so he delegated to me. I’ve got the money right here.” I nod towards my pocket, and he lowers his gun a fraction of an inch and grunts.

My pulse is a frantic drumbeat in my ears, every inch of my body hyperaware of exactly how fast I’m moving as I reach for the cash, and the bullet that’s bound to tear through me if he gets the slightest idea that I’m lying. I pull out the rolls of bills and hold them up so he can see. He grunts again and extends his open palm.

“Cas told me not to hand over the money until I see that the merchandise is all present and accounted for.”

He huffs, and finally tucks his gun away. “Come.” He jerks his head for me to follow him.

I scurry the rest of the way up the ramp. The nerves that had me twitching anxiously during the ride over have succumbed to the numbness. Following a Russian trafficker onto his ship feels like nothing more than a vivid dream. It’s easy to convince myself that the breeze blowing in off the water is just my bedside fan cooling my face while I sleep.

I only manage to take a few steps before he stops in his tracks and spins to face me again.

“Give me your weapons,” he barks, and my heart rate spikes again.

“I don’t—”

Before I can finish lying, he closes the space between us with two quick steps and gropes me roughly. It takes all of two seconds for him to find the pistol and pull it out. He scowls at me as he ejects the clip, tucking it into his pocket.

“More lies and I’ll shoot you,” he says, so casually that I almost laugh. I swallow down the manic feeling rising in my throat and give a jerky nod.

He tosses my unloaded pistol over the railing, into the water below, then pivots on his heel and keeps walking. Is there enough light for Elio and the others to get the lay of the land through the pinhole camera in my tie clip? I can’t do much other than hope at this point.

We pass two more men with guns patrolling the deck of the ship. They nod at the man I’m following and eye me suspiciously, but that’s the extent of it. And then I notice that the armed men aren’t the only ones here. A young-looking man who can’t be much older than twenty is mopping the deck. He looks up at me as we pass, and there’s unmistakable fear in his eyes before he hurries to focus on the task at hand. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner that there might be crew who run this ship who have nothing to do with trafficking kids. They might be prisoners of the Russian mob just as much as the kids we’re trying to rescue are.

My jaw ticks with the urge to pull my tie up near my mouth and whisper to Elio not to kill anyone innocent onboard, but obviously I can’t do that. Besides, even if I could, I know enough to realize that once shit goes down, there won’t be much time to stop and ask each and every person they run across whether they’re here willingly or not. I swallow hard and focus on what I’m here to do.

“Pretty tight operation you’re running here. Does it take a lot of men to move these shipments?” I ask casually, and the man looks over his shoulder at me.

“Why? Are you writing a book?”

“Uh… no,” I mutter, rubbing my hand along the back of my neck.

“Good. Then stop asking stupid questions.”

He stops at a door and raps quickly three times before turning the handle. He holds the door open and gestures for me to go inside. It’s a dimly lit storage room with no windows and just one door in and out. There are two dozen girls, just like Casimir promised, none over the age of thirteen if I had to guess, huddled together, filling the space. He nods to the single armed man inside, and they exchange quiet words in Russian for a moment before the other man cuts a sharp gaze in my direction.

“Here they are.” He tilts his head towards the kids. “Just like we agreed. Give me the money and take them.”

“Sure.” Bile rises in my throat as I look over the kids, dirty and dressed in tattered clothes, some of them with tear stains on their cheeks, all of them with haunted gazes. Not a single one of them utters a word, which is eerie all on its own. “Let me just give Casimir a call real quick first.”

Russian number two narrows his eyes, but grunts in acknowledgment. My hands don’t tremble as I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. Just like the moments before a fight, and the other night at Casimir’s place, a sense of focused calm washes over me. I changed Elio’s name in my phone to say Casimir, in case they look at my screen, which they both do. I hit the call button and bring it to my ear, not paying any attention to the sound of the ring in my ear, too focused on the body language of both Russians in the room with me, running through mental calculations so ingrained that they happen without much conscious thought at all.

Elio picks up after the fourth ring, just like we agreed. He answers in a deeper voice, closer to Casimir’s timbre. “You got the kids?”

“I’ve got them,” I answer, taking a subtle step to put myself between Russian number one and the exit.

“Good.” He’s silent for several seconds, but I can hear the sound of his breathing through the phone, and I swear I can hear all the shit he wishes he could say right now. You’ve got this, Boss. I love you. Take those fuckers out, then sit tight like we talked about, so I can wrap this up and you can take me home and fuck me stupid. A-fucking-men. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.

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