Page 82 of Hell to Pay

Ghost swore again. “You’re involved in this shit, aren’t you?”

“Define ‘involved,'” Nolan said.

Ghost sighed. “You ever tell anyone I told you this shit and I will literally hunt you down and cut off your balls.”

“You can try,” I said. “But we don’t plan on telling anyone.”

Ghost turned his beer glass in his hand. “Place is owned by some ancient old fuck. Rich. Richer than rich. He hosts some kind of fucked-up sex party twice a year.”

“Fucked-up how?” Nolan asked.

“Masks, group orgies, that kind of thing.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Masks?”

“It’s all on the DL,” Ghost said. “Like ‘tell anyone and the next day your housekeeper will find you floating in your bathtub with your wrists slit’ DL.”

“The masks are to shield the identities of the guests from each other?” Nolan asked.

“Probably,” Ghost said.

“Then how do you get in?” Nolan asked. “How do they know you’re allowed in?”

Ghost leaned forward and looked around, like he was afraid he was going to be overheard. “That’s the really fucked-up part, and I want to be clear that I don’t know if any of this is true. That’s why I haven’t gone to the police.”

That was bullshit too. Ghost was protecting his stack of cash, but whatever he needed to tell himself to sleep at night.

“Sure,” Nolan said, pacifying him. “We get it.”

“So rumor is, you get in with a girl, or a… a woman.”

“Just… any woman?” Nolan asked.

Ghost shook his head. “Nah, man. A woman with a number.”

My blood ran cold. “What kind of number?”

He touched the back of his neck. “A brand. On the back of her neck.”

53

LILAH

“No.We might as well stop this discussion now because the answer is no.” Rafe’s voice was unyielding, his expression a locked door.

“This is why we came,” I reminded him.

I was still in my black dress and perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair in the hotel suite’s living room. Jude and I had been walking the city hand in hand like lovers — which I guess we were if I didn’t want to start overthinking everything that had happened between us — when Nolan had texted that they were back at the suite with news.

And he hadn’t been kidding.

I couldn’t believe the information they’d gotten out of the source named Ghost. Although after everything they’d told me about their operation to rescue me in Greece, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Turns out, working all over the world with people who had unusual skill sets and a reputation for discretion was a real advantage when you needed information on a mysterious party where trafficked girls were brought for sale.

We couldn’t confirm the last part, but it made sense. Potential buyers arrived with girls (I refused to call them — us — “inventory”) who were then vetted and showcased for sale at some kind of fucked-up sex party.

Every rich billionaire nerd’s wet dream.

“We don’t know enough,” Rafe said.

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