Page 41 of Mayflower

“I’ve never asked for your help, Archer,” I say almost in a whisper. “But we need it now. I have to be quick.”

“Fuck… Tell me what you need, Raven. Where are you? Fuck. Fuck. Where are you?”

We step into the street of Venus’s main entrance, and the sight ahead halts us in our tracks.

“The Venus Den. We need?—”

Ali shoves a hand over my mouth, silencing me.

Two trucks are parked outside the club’s entrance. A thug with a raised gun stands guard as another one drags Candy out of the house.

“Contact Shepherd,” I whisper to Ali.

“Men at Candy’s. Men at Candy’s,” he murmurs in the radio.

Then suddenly, my blood goes cold. A thug in the truck bed swings his hand and slaps someone hard. “You with them, you fucking snitch?”

It’s a woman. And not just any woman. It’s the girl from Butcher’s house, the one I saved. She is sobbing, covering her head with her hands when the thug punches her.

More men come out of the house, dragging four more women out.

“Fuck,” I hiss. “They know I came from Candy’s. It’s not a routine check. They know I was here. Tell Shepherd.”

Ali presses the radio to his mouth. “Butcher’s men at Candy’s. Looks like six of them. They are rounding up the women.”

And then my heart falls, because four little girls scurry out of the house, tripping on themselves and holding on to each other. One of the thugs is behind them, poking the youngest girl in her back with a rifle barrel, hurrying her up. “Look what we got here!”

“Don’t you fucking touch them!” one of the women screams, but a thug grabs her by the hair, yanking her back.

My hand tightens around my gun.

“That’s it, we are going in,” I whisper.

Ali shifts his shoulders, tucking his gun away and drawing the AK in front of him, then picks up the radio. “They got the little girls. No matter the number of men, we are going in. Right now.”

14

MADDY

“Your phone was ringing,” Dad says as I return from the bathroom to the pool patio where we are having late dinner.

Dad is humble, only in his shorts, boat loafers, and a white button up, with a spoon in his hand as he eats haladnik, a cold beet soup, Dad’s summer favorite I made for him.

I spent two nights at his villa. Dad brought a cook with him—no surprise here. But he lets me make his meals. The astounding thing about Dad that I love the most is how humble he can be if he chooses. He owns a mansion in Sydney with a staff of thirty, but he can as easily stay in his former school friend’s house in the country and eat fried fatback and eggs for every meal and drink moonshine. Or he’s fine with camping out in Africa and grilling his own food. He can be anywhere, with anyone, kings or ex-cons, betting on two-million-dollar horses and driving a bulletproof Maybach with a five-car escort or fishing in Siberia or eating with his hands in Ethiopia or crashing on a blowup mattress at his childhood friend’s dacha. With one permanent detail—he does have a lot of guards by his side.

Spending two days with him was surreal. Still is. But I miss this—seeing him, talking, and not about money but about what we were up to in the past two years.

His pool patio is lit up by florescent decorative lights while the surrounding area is submerged into darkness. There are five guards around the house. His IT assistant, Ricardo, is with his team in one of the rooms. One of his right-hand men, Artiom, chills by the open double doors to the patio. I don’t recognize anyone in his team from the times before.

Dad kicks off his loafers and stays barefoot as he slurps the soup. There’s a shot of chilled vodka next to his plate, as well as fresh bread and green onion with salt. Dad can be humble when he wants to. That is when he has a moment to forget that he is working or doing business.

I take a seat at the table and watch him.

“Your phone,” he prompts as he picks up the shot and downs it, then dips the green onion in salt and stuffs it in his mouth.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Everyone has been calling me for the last two days. Kat, Callie, Kai, Guff, Bo, Ya-Ya. Because of Raven and what went down. But in the last two days, because of my dad. He is the top news at Ayana today. The President of the European Commission called to see if his daughter, who resides at Ayana, could get a ride with him back to the mainland in his military helicopter. After Dean Doukas’s helicopter was shot down, no one dares to use the airspace. Except my dad, of course.

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