Page 28 of His Reluctant Savior

“Why record this?” he asked. “Why risk it?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe he wanted a video to watch again. Or perhaps he didn’t know he was being recorded.”

“Wouldn’t the security detail make sure to sweep the room?”

“If it was the Secret Service, then yes. But the Speaker doesn’t get a team of service members. Then again, it could very well be someone on his detail who knows.”

“So, he has to hire them?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Security is hit or miss, depending on their quality and professionalism. They could’ve missed it.”

Someone knocked on the door and came inside. He looked like a bodyguard, gripping the girl’s arm tightly. The girl's face winced, and her large, dark brown eyes were wide and terrified.

“What about this young girl in the video? Who is she?” he asked.

“All I have is her escort name, Ruby Tuesday. She was part of the escort service that night, but she’s a minor and clearly trafficked. Escort is a nice way of putting it because we know they’re not that. They probably trafficked her from the border, with promises of money and freedom in the United States, if only she does a little work for them.”

Sid sighed. “If she came up from Central America with no family or connections, it would be easy to make promises to her and could easily isolate her. Girls like her have no power.”

According to the details I’d gathered on the dark web, Ruby was a slight sixteen-year-old girl, but she looked twelve. Rush clearly liked them young. She was wearing a red, see-through lingerie nightgown that hid nothing. Her skin was tawny, and her nearly black hair was sleek and long.

My stomach roiled, knowing what was about to happen.

The Speaker stood, walked over to the girl, and gripped her chin, forcing her to look up at him. She was well under a foot shorter than him. He exuded power over her through intimidation. He wanted her to cower before him. It was purely a power play and a show of dominance. Sex was an afterthought to men like this.

Rush looked at the guard and nodded. The man left the Speaker and Ruby alone when she started to cry and speak in rushed Spanish.

That angered him, and he backhanded her.

She dropped to the ground, but he roughly lifted her, ripped her clothes off, and shoved her to the bed face down.

After telling her not to move, he removed his clothes and shoved her face into the pillow with two hands as he raped her, the bedroom filled with grunts and slurs directed at her.

No, this wasn’t about sex or to scratch an itch. What he did was about punishment for being who she was.

My mind kept screaming and trying to gasp for air for her as she thrashed, clawing at the covers, trying to sit up so she could take a gasp of oxygen. Rush was out of his mind withhis head tossed back, not paying attention to her desperate attempts at staying alive.

I closed my eyes the second I knew her body would still. She’d make one last futile attempt before she would stop moving forever.

I rarely dealt with this sort of crime. It was usually white-collar crimes, not rape and murder, although there was some rape done by politicians, along with spousal abuse. Usually, it was prostitution, bribes, and such.

When Rush finished, he rolled the girl’s limp body over to find her staring wide-eyed at nothingness. His hands went directly to his head, gripping his hair as he slowly backed away.

“No, no, no… Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted over and over.

I rubbed my eyes, my contacts feeling dry despite the moistness trying to gather there.

Sid hit pause. “Wow, what a colossal prick. How could he possibly not know he was hurting and killing her? It was obvious she was struggling to breathe.”

“Drunk? Drugs? Un-fucking-caring? Who knows?! He’s only panicking because he’s worried about getting caught, not out of any sense of remorse.”

“If I were hired to take him out, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“Can you?” I blurted before I could take it back.

Sid narrowed his denim eyes at me. “You don’t have enough funds in your moral bank account, Boy Scout.”

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