Page 22 of Hidden Heir

“Yes. She just turned up with some guy and a kid.”

“And you let her in?”

“Of course I fucking did.”

“You better have someone checking her out,” Selina warns. “If you get assassinated because you were obsessing over pussy, I’ll kill you.”

“I got this, trust me,” I reply, chuckling. “But thanks for the concern.” My phone bleeps and a glance at the screen makes my chest tighten. “I gotta go.”

“See ya.”

Selina hangs up and I immediately connect to my father’s incoming call. “Sir?” Instinct makes me straighten in the chair, and I glance at the clock. It’s the middle of the night and I can’t fathom why he’s calling.

“Leontiy, you need to get to the distribution center,” he barks down the line. “The shipment from Canada arrived early and I need it verified.”

“Understood. I’ll leave right away.”

“Good,” my father barks. “And remember, this shipment will clear us for April, so make sure everything is pristine.”

“I will.”

Dawn breaksas I stride into the warehouse and meet one of our men in charge of carrying our product across the border. He greets me with a tired smile born from hours of driving on the road, then motions for me to follow him up a set of metal stairs to the catwalks above.

“Any trouble getting across?” I ask, taking the offered clipboard once we reach the top.

“Nah, smooth sailing,” he replies. “Like always.”

“Any losses on the road?”

“Nope, all in the same condition as when I left.”

“Any faults?”

“One, but we dealt with it at the border and it’s all sorted.”

“Alright.” I flip back and forth through the various sheets detailing everything about the shipment in code. It all looks good on paper so I wave my hand up. Whoever was keeping an eye out leaps into action, the sound of metal locks echoing around the warehouse. Down below on the warehouse floor, several containers are hauled open by men from the family, and the product stumbles out one after the other.

“One hundred and thirty-six women,” says the man next to me, “and eighty men.”

I barely glance at the naked shivering people who stumble out of the containers and are herded into small enclosures for further inspection. From up here, they look like ants milling about below. No one has any bite left in them—that was workedout long before they were shipped here—and we pride ourselves in making sure that obedience is locked in before they are sold.

“Which one was faulty?” I ask, scrawling my signature on the paper.

“That one.” He points down to one of the men huddling near a corner. He’s curled in on himself and looks smaller than the rest. “He was sick a lot before we crossed over.”

“Alright.” I hand the clipboard back and sigh, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Get them all tattooed and marked and get a doctor in for the faulty one. If it’ll cost us to fix him just get rid of him. The rest, if they pass inspection, will be paid for in full.”

“Understood. This makes us even for the lost container, correct?”

I fix him with a level stare and watch as he slowly edges away from me. “You mean the container from Europe that fell into the ocean during transit?” I ask quietly. Such a loss was a brutal blow to us six months ago, and it forced us to reevaluate how we transported people across international waters. But with this shipment the money we lost has been replaced, and trust is slowly being rebuilt.

“Yes,” I say eventually, and the man visibly relaxes. “But if it ever happens again, it’ll be you and your crew at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I know,” he nods sheepishly, clutching the clipboard to his chest.

My phone buzzing takes my attention, and I glance down to read a message from Rik. Brooke and her mystery man are awake.

“I have things to take care of,” I say, patting the man on the shoulder as I pass. “Make sure this lot has moved on by midday.”

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