Page 94 of Ruthless Vengeance
This baby is already loved.
Chapter Twenty-Four
MARCO
My forty-eight hours are up.
Cillian is going to call in his favor, and I’m going to have no choice but to agree.
I can’t decide whether I would have been better off not knowing about his involvement with sex slavery because every time I think of all those women who are being forced to give up their freedom in order to make Cillian money, I can barely contain my anger.
I have no idea how I’m going to be able to look him in the eye and keep my cool. But I’ll have to find a way because I can’t take him out yet. Not when Andre and I are yet to finalize our plan with the Costa brothers.
I meet with Cillian outside a rundown warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s already waiting for me, lounging against the hood of his overpriced black Range Rover like he owns the place.
A cigarette dangles between his fingers, and his thin lips are pulled up into a smirk as he watches me approach.
I have no doubt he’s reveling in the fact that he has the upper hand on me right now.
He pushes off the car. “Marco. Right on time.”
“Let’s get this over with.” I don’t want to waste time with small talk.
Cillian chuckles, flicking ash to the ground. “As pleasant as ever.” He saunters toward me with a smug look on his face.
It’s enough to make my hands curl into fists as I try to keep a lid on my rage.
“I needyeto do somethin’ for me.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “There’s a van arriving tomorrow morning, Early. It’ll be carrying a group of women smuggled in from Mexico. I needyeto collect them and deliver them to an address.” He exhales the smoke, before taking one last drag on his cigarette and tossing it on the ground.
I raise an eyebrow, pretending not to feel the bile rising in my throat as Cillian talks of trafficking these women as if they’re nothing more than cattle. “That’s it? You just want me to play the role of your delivery driver?”
Cillian grins, showing off a few gold teeth at the back of his mouth. “What,ye’reexpecting something more glamorous?”
I was expecting the fucking opposite.
“I like knowing exactly what I’m signing up for.” I shrug before stuffing my hands into my pockets.
“It’s not what I want from them.” His eyes glint. “It’s what I can use them to get.”
Money.
Power.
My gut twists at the look of delight in Cillian’s eyes as he talks of his plans.
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“It means they’ll be working off their debt. The price of passage into the promised land, so to speak. They’ll sell themselves until I say their debts are paid off.”
“What are we talking, a month?”
Cillian laughs, and the sound has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“Depends how good they are. Could take as little as a week but could also take years.”
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache.
These women think they’re being offered a new opportunity to build a new life, when in reality their freedom is being stripped from them.
