Dark Hope (29 page)

I opened my mouth to protest, but Michael’s glare stopped me cold. He was raging, and Tung had successfully diverted his attention to me.

“You have a point,” he said quietly. “Maybe it’s time you went with the other girls.” He turned back to the table. “Take care of her, will you?” he said to no one in particular.

Chen looked to Tung, who nodded quickly and shouted something in Chinese to one of the serving girls, who quickly descended upon me and shooed me out of my chair. She dragged me behind her, insistently.

I looked back toward Michael, but he was ignoring me, his attention turned back to the game, absentmindedly flipping a purple chip in his hand. He’d gone to all this trouble to bring me down here in order to keep me safe, and now he was letting them take me in the back room: What was he planning?

“You must come with me now,” the girl whispered in halting English. “Come, now.”

I let her lead me back toward the curtains, and she whisked me through one of the artfully hidden panel doors into a maze of
corridors. Silently she guided me down a short hallway, opening a nondescript door that could have been a doorway to a room in any hotel. Except for the fact that it had bolts and locks on the outside.

“Go on and wait here,” she urged, pushing me through the door. I turned to ask her where she was going only to find the door slammed in my face, the sound of locks and bolts turning loud in my ears.

I turned around to confront a crowd of women—no,
girls—
staring at me. They were huddled together on the carpet and on the scant furnishings, dressed in everything from sweatpants to skimpy lingerie. They didn’t speak, their big brown eyes looking at me as if I were an alien descended from a spaceship.

From beyond an open doorway, I heard a clatter of what sounded like pots and pans banging in a kitchen. Someone began shouting in Chinese. The shouting became louder until an older woman, dressed severely in a pantsuit, rounded the corner brandishing a pan. The crowd of girls turned as if one to stare at her, and then they turned back to me. One girl with a big, moon-shaped face licked her lips nervously.

I had the distinct feeling they were expecting something to happen. Maybe even wanting it.

The older woman began rapidly speaking at me in Chinese until she realized I had no idea what she was saying. She abruptly switched to English.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, still balancing the pan in her hand.

“They sent me in here to wait. From the poker game.” I shifted nervously, unsteady on my feet, and felt my fingers snake up to my Mark.

Her eyes narrowed. “Trouble, hmm? Don’t cause any here. Sit down and stay away from my girls.” She skewered me with her
stare until I edged my way around the room and slithered down the wall to sit on the floor.

With that, she barked something in Chinese, and one of the girls hung her head and obediently followed her back into the kitchen.

The rest of the group shifted to fill in the empty space she had once occupied and turned again to stare at me. I looked them over carefully. A few of them had fresh scabs and bruises here and there. One had a black eye. They carefully avoided looking at me directly, taking every opportunity to stare at the ground or blindly look at their hands. Some of them clutched one another as if clinging to a lifeboat, but mostly they just sat, passively waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

The clatter in the kitchen resumed and I plucked up my courage to talk to the girls.

“Do any of you speak English?”

A few picked up their heads to look at me then, but no one spoke.

“English? Anyone?”

I waited for what seemed like an eternity. Eyeing the open kitchen door, I slid across the carpet, clutching at the hem of my dress as I inched closer to the huddle of girls.

“Are you being kept captive here? Please tell me. I can help you,” I half-whispered, worried I might be overheard.

Nothing. I searched their faces, and they looked away as if ashamed.

“Please talk to me. I want to help.”

The girl in front of me, pigtails in her hair, reached out and squeezed my hand. She put her finger to her lips and made a shushing sound to quiet me.

They’re too scared to talk to you
, Henri piped up.
As they should be. This is a waste of time. The sooner you get out of here, the better
.

Ignoring him, I decided to take a different tack.

“Has anyone here seen a girl named Maria? Or one named Jimena?”

A slow murmur went through the group as I scanned their faces. Excitement shot through me at the thought that they recognized those names.

One girl lifted up her hand and pointed into the kitchen.

“In there? Maria is in there?”

She didn’t move, just pointed again with emphasis.

I wasn’t thinking. All I knew was that if Maria was in there, I had to get her out of there, out of the clutches of the evil woman who was holding all of these girls hostage. I looked around the room, searching for anything that I could use as a weapon.

Nothing.

Suddenly, the sounds from the kitchen stopped, and everything became deathly quiet.

I stood up and tiptoed to the doorway, craning my neck around to see.

The kitchen was empty. A pot of water was bubbling away on the stove, steam rising up to make little wreaths above the pan.

Through the galley of the kitchen, I could see two doors, both closed. One was bolted again from the outside. I snuck over to it and looked: it was padlocked. I looked around the kitchen again, quickly, but could find no key. I knocked softly, careful not to draw attention, but no one answered.

Through the door I could hear the older woman screaming at someone. The sharp sound of a slap echoed through the thin door, followed by low whimpering.

The other door, though, was unlocked. I slipped in and found myself in another corridor that seemed to wind its way back toward the gambling salon. I walked a few paces, and then froze. I could
hear voices coming from the other end, where the card table was, echoing against the bare marble floor. I clung to the wall, trying to listen around the corner.

“Your niece—do you have others like her?” asked a man with a clipped British accent—Chen.

There was silence. Chen continued. “Would you like others? We can make some introductions, of course, but we will need to check your connections before we proceed any further.”

When I heard my father’s voice—or rather, Michael’s voice—responding, my heart stopped. “Ask around. You’ll find nothing. I run my own operations. Clean, with plenty of money. The Mexicans have gotten sloppy in Atlanta. They’re drawing too much attention from the Feds, and even the state legislature is grumbling about taking action. If you don’t partner with me now, your pipeline there will go down with them.”

“A dire threat, Mr. Carmichael,” the man responded, chuckling. “I don’t respond well to threats.”

I could picture Michael shrugging off Chen’s warning. “Not a threat. Just a statement of fact. You’ll find me a willing and generous partner, but not a patient one. You have forty-eight hours.”

Chen barked out a laugh. “Willing and generous and also bold. We will make our inquiries. If you check out, you may join us Sunday night.”

“Sunday night?”

“We hold a location away from the Strip, closer to our operations. We will be playing there for much higher stakes than are possible here. If you check out, Tung will contact you to make arrangements.”

I’d been listening so intently to their conversation that I’d forgotten to pay attention to what was going on behind me. Suddenly,
rough hands yanked my hair and neck as a torrent of machinegun-fire Chinese began echoing in the hall.

“Get off of me!” I screamed, flailing uselessly against my assailant.

The grip around my neck tightened, and I was whirled around and pushed up against the wall to face the older Chinese woman who’d been minding the girls. She raised her hand and struck me, never ceasing her tirade, never loosening the choke hold that was cutting off my precious oxygen. In the background, I could hear people running and shouting in the halls.

I watched her cold, angry eyes as she struck me again, a look of triumph stealing across her face as she slowly strangled me. I struggled, but I could feel the breath seeping out of me, and I started to feel dizzy. The screaming and crying all around me started to sound far away, and I felt myself falling to my knees. Slowly my vision started to fade in on itself, turning to black.

“Let her go. Now.”

It was my father’s voice, but not his voice. Michael. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman who was strangling me let me loose. I dropped to my knees, hard on the floor. I choked for air, wheezing and coughing as I crawled about, trying to get up.

A warm hand grabbed me roughly under the shoulder and jerked me up.

“I told you, no trouble.” He shook me, hard.

I looked up, still trying to catch my breath, and all I saw in Michael’s eyes was anger. He hadn’t let go of my arm, which burned where his fingers dug into me.

“You’ve embarrassed me in front of my new associates.”

Over his shoulder, I could see Chen and Tung, their faces masks as they watched Michael shame me. I was furious.

“I—”

“Enough!” he shouted, and my eyes flew wide open. He’d never spoken to me like that. Never.

He wheeled me around to face the men. “I apologize for her behavior.”

Chen nodded his assent and then cleared his throat. Tung took that as his cue.

“I think it is best that you and your niece leave now, Mr. Carmichael,” Tung said, his expression stony.

Michael’s jaw tensed. “Of course.” He pushed me ahead of him, back through the hallway and the kitchen toward the main door, not caring that I stumbled. I thought I understood what he was trying to do—I hoped I understood it, anyway—or else I would have stood my ground. But I knew I had to let him humiliate me in this way. I looked around the living room. If anything, the girls looked more terrified than when I’d come in.

“Go,” Michael said tersely from behind. Chen’s executive host was standing at the door. He looked away, refusing to meet my eyes, and I knew that he had seen everything. He wordlessly opened the door for me, and I limped through, feeling the heat from Michael’s body radiating behind me.

The door slammed behind us and Michael pushed roughly past me, grabbing my hand to drag me along.

“Michael,” I whispered furiously as he rushed me down the hallway.

“Not now.”

We made our way through the salon, which was eerily quiet. Wordlessly, we slipped into the elevator.

“Clean yourself up,” he said brusquely. I looked at my reflection. My hair had fallen out of its intricate style, and the strap of my dress was falling down my shoulder. Big red welts had formed
on my neck, welts that would be sure to turn to bruises. It wasn’t worth jeopardizing our plan to find Maria to stand up to him here. Silently, I pulled all my hair loose, doing my best to straighten it with my fingers, and I pushed up the strap.

We wound our way back through the casino, Michael stalking in brooding silence the entire way. He paced angrily as we waited for the valet to bring the car, and he practically threw me into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind me.

We pulled away from the curb in a squeal of burning rubber.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for his pretense of anger to fall away as we left the casino. But I waited in vain. His forehead was throbbing again, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped and regripped the steering wheel.

This isn’t an act
, Henri whispered to me urgently.
Be careful
.

I tucked my legs under me, trying to make myself as small as I could in the seat. Through my eyelashes, I watched his nostrils flare as he took deep breaths, as if he was trying to calm himself.

We rode in silence all the way back to the hotel. He pulled up to the curb and bounded out of the car, practically running over the valet as he stormed off. The valet gallantly helped me out.

“Rough night at the tables?” he asked, smiling knowingly.

I nodded quickly, embarrassed, hoping that he wouldn’t notice how disheveled I was.

When I found Michael back in our room, he had transformed out of my father’s guise. He’d dressed casually, in a T-shirt and jeans, and was holding my cell phone up to his ear. He ended his call with an emphatic push of the button and turned on me. His eyes were stormy, and he seemed to bite his words as he spoke to me.

“Your mother has been calling. We’re running out of time, Hope, and your stunt tonight didn’t help.”

All of the anger I’d been holding back while in public came into
my voice. “Stunt? What stunt? I was trying to find Maria, like we planned.”

His eyes flashed. “Hope, there was more going on in that room than you realize. I sent you back there to keep you safe, not to snoop around.”

“But those girls—”

“Those girls were exactly what we suspected,” he interrupted, beginning to pace again. His T-shirt clung to his back, highlighting every bit of tension in his shoulders. “We have to be very careful, Hope. These men are dangerous. They are powerful and used to having their every whim catered to. That octagonal room? Deliberately made for them that way because eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture. Those artifacts? Probably stolen from some museum and bought on the black market.

“The only reason I got into that game is because I happened to know that four at the table is unlucky to them. The fact that I knew anything about Chinese culture intrigued Chen enough to let me into the game.

“Losing that money to him? Deliberate. Because Chen and Tung are our traffickers, Hope. Chen’s the ringleader, and Tung is his goon. I need them to let their guard down with me, think they can manipulate me. And we need them to believe that I’m a trafficker, too. I can’t have them thinking you disobey me. I can’t have them thinking you aren’t afraid of me. I can’t have given them any reason to think I’m not the real deal.”

He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed and held his head in trembling hands.