Page 107 of Sweet Deception
Just as I told Darren in my goodbye note, I’ve got a promise to keep.
I told Maya, “Whatever it takes,”and I’ll keep that promise. I just hope I don’t wind up dead before I get the chance. I’ve hidden an assortment of weapons under my fit-and-flare metallic gown with the cascading ruffle. I brought pepper spray, a long-range Taser, a few trap-setting items, and covert bugging equipment. Infecting all the tech in this place with a virus would seriously slow things down.
But before I do anything, I need to find Lucy.
Seriously. Where is she?
The double doors to the Private Viewing Room open. But instead of another woman going in, a sharp-featured man in a tailored black suit emerges, narrowing his eyes at the lot of us. “Line up! Single file. Now.”
I fall in line near the back, my panic level ratcheting up.
The man in the suit approaches, beady-eyed and calculating, slinking down the line with military precision. Two armed guards flank him, hands on their weapons.
“Name,” he demands of each woman. “Registration number.”
My pulse quickens as he works his way to me.
This would be a perfect moment to conveniently slip away into a bathroom, but there are none. This room has no exit that’s not heavily guarded. No windows.
Nothing.
I did not think this through.
When the man reaches me, I give him a random name and number. Unfortunately for me, this is the kind of man who can smell horse shit from three states away. He squints like he can see straight through me.
He taps the screen in his hand, frowns, then taps again.
The guards over his shoulders shift, hands tightening on their weapons.
“Sir?” One of the guards steps forward.
“She’s not here,” the man with the tablet says with deadly focus. “No registration. No intake photos. No buyer preview data.”
He snatches my chin between his rough fingers, forcing me to meet his eyes.
He sneers. “In fact, she doesn’t exist at all.”
That’s when I notice someone floating toward us in my periphery.
Bozhe moy,it’s the master villainess herself.
Sophia Kovaleva. The woman who uses her mob connections to pass for a modeling agency director when she’s really a kidnapping, murdering, human-trafficking bitch.
She glides over, all bright eyes and bleached teeth, her stilettos clicking against marble. Her perfectly painted bloodred lips curve up into a cruel smile as she inspects my face.
“And what have we here?”
“A stray.” The tablet man jerks my chin left then right.
“How very interesting.” Sophia turns to the nearest guard.
“I came with Emily.” Someone in this place has to have that name, right? “She said this could be our big break.”
The once-over Kovaleva graces me with has me longing for an immediate shower. “Take her out back and handle it. Quietly.”
The two gun wielding guards wrap their meaty hands around my biceps and drag me toward a pair of doors thatdon’tlead to the viewing room floor.
I draw on the precision and poise earned from years of ballet training to slow my respiration and concentrate.
