Not really. Not yet.
I didn’t want them to look at me differently, to see me as some kind of freak, some kind of charity case, but there were also other things, more important things to talk about.
“I’m good,” I said. “But I was doing some research earlier, on the thing that happened at Aventine and those men who were murdered at the top of the falls a few months ago?”
“That’s quite a topic change,” Nolan said.
“I know,” I said. “Sorry. I’ve just been thinking about it. It has to be connected right? The girls who were kidnapped before and the one I saw being taken behind the Dive?”
“Hard to say for sure,” Nolan said, “but it would be one hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t.”
“So what are you doing?” I asked.
Jude lifted an eyebrow. “About?”
“About the girls.” Why were they being so cavalier about it all? “About the website, Imperium Fratrum. You said you were looking into it. How are you looking into it?”
Jude leaned back in the hot tub and my eyes strayed to the water dripping down his inked chest. “We have contacts in all kinds of places, boss.”
“Contacts? You mean clients.” I was still getting my head around the fact that some of the things the Bastards did for a living were, let’s just say, less than legal.
And that could only mean their clients were shady too.
“Some of them are clients,” Jude said.
“You don’t…” My stomach turned as I thought of another possibility. “You don’t do work intrafficking?”
They looked like they’d been slapped.
“Fuck no.” Nolan frowned. “Is that what you think of us?”
“I don’t…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. This is all really confusing.”
And by “this” I didn’t just mean the missing girls and the weird website and what had happened behind the Dive. I’d justfucked two guys at once, two of the guys who’d ruined my life in high school.
I needed a minute.
Nolan’s expression softened. “We’ve done a couple rescues.”
“Trafficking rescues?”
He nodded. “We take work like that for free. Our contacts are on the other side of the equation — people and organizations working to shut down trafficking rings — but we’ve put the word out anyway.”
I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know…”
“We’re just trying to protect you,” Jude said. “The less you know about our work, the better.”
“So these contacts, they haven’t told you anything yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Nolan said, “but they’re pretty far-flung, and our contacts have to be careful. It takes a while for word to move in those circles.”
I held on to the edge of the hot tub and let my legs float out in front of me. “What if there were answers closer to home?”
“Closer to home?” Jude’s eyes were glued to my tits, which had risen up out of the water.
I hesitated, second-guessing whether I really wanted to go there, then decided to forge ahead. “Do you know Daisy Hammond and those guys who killed Piers Cantwell?”
43