Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
After he knocked on the red door, it was pulled open by a woman in a skimpy white bikini and platform heels. Her expression remained bored as she stepped aside, allowing him entrance. A man sat behind a large desk, facing him. “Carlo?”
“That’s right. Have a seat,” Carlo said. The woman in the bikini plopped down on a couch on the wall to his right, and Ambrose took a seat in the chair Carlo had indicated in front of his desk. “How can I be of service?”
“I’m here because I have a specific appetite,” he said.
Carlo leaned back, looking unimpressed. “Don’t we all?” He sat forward, lacing his fingers. “We don’t supply kids here, only violence. If you want underage, there’s a kiddie stroll over on Polk Street.”
Kiddie stroll. He swallowed down the rage those two words caused to rise in his chest. “No, no kids.”
“Good. Our girls—and a few boys, if that’s your thing—are over eighteen and willing participants.”
He tilted his lips, hoping he’d managed what resembled a smile as he thought about how the word willing sure could be stretched to fit the needs of the person using it. “That’s all I’m looking for. However, I prefer things a little . . . dark.”
The man inclined his head. “You go too far, our business is done.”
“What’s too far?”
“Anything that complicates my life, or brings the authorities here, got it?”
Ambrose gave a single nod.
“We have a doctor willing to make house calls, but he can only repair so much, so don’t push it. If one of my girls ends up in the hospital, we’re done.”
“I understand.”
Carlo pushed a binder toward him. Ambrose eyed it and then used his index finger to open the cover, flipping through, anger sizzling through his veins as his eyes hit on one woman after another. Meat. These women were considered meat. Their vitals were listed next to their pictures, photographs of one sensual stare after another that looked so brittle he was surprised there weren’t cracks across their lips.
And under that was listed the activities they’d participate in and the cost for each one. Restraints, choking, flogging, biting, clamps . . . The next category was called Edgeplay and included extremely pricey choices such as electricity, fire, suspension, and knives.
He perused the remaining pages and then pushed it back toward Carlo. “One of your clients, a good friend of mine, mentioned a girl. Name of Cherish. I don’t see her in there, but she came highly recommended.”
Carlo looked at him suspiciously. “Cherish doesn’t work here anymore. She quit. Bitch decided she was too good for the place.” His lips stretched into a smile, showing a set of large capped teeth.
“Any way I can reach her?”
“You think I’m going to help you take your business outside my club? Go fuck yourself. You’re on your own.”
“If I—”
“Out. I don’t give second chances around here.”
Ambrose sighed, coming to his feet. He might have thought that the guy would attempt to rough him up just for the hell of it or for the fact that Ambrose had wasted his time. But the dude was about a hundred pounds overweight, and the only “sidekick” he had in his office was a petite bikini-clad woman.
This guy sat in a back office and profited off the sale of women’s bodies. But the police were past caring about prostitution, because most of the DAs didn’t prosecute anyway. Ambrose couldn’t help the women in that binder, and likely, most of them would say they didn’t need help anyway. The best he could do was his part to help those who wanted to be helped so that another generation of victims didn’t wind up in that binder, listed for sale.
What he had gleaned from behind that red door was that Cherish, at least, had decided she wanted something different than what those back rooms offered. Unfortunately, she’d run into something far, far worse.
Ambrose turned and left that seedy office, walking back out through the bar, where no one even looked up from their drink.
His next stop was to the address he’d located for Cherish Olsen. She lived in a building called the Tills Apartments and had a roommate named Brandy Lopez that went by the stage name Brandy Wine. Of course, there was no actual stage in her “professional” life, from what he could gather, unless you considered what went on at the corner of Geary Street a performance.
He rang the buzzer next to the name Brandy Lopez and waited. When thirty seconds had gone by with no response, he tried again to the same result, before going down the line and pushing one buzzer after another. The gate let out a loud buzz, and he grasped the handle and pulled it open, slipping inside before anyone came out of their apartment and questioned him. He jogged up to the third floor and knocked on the door to apartment 3A. No one answered his knock, but he swore he heard something from behind the door and pressed his ear against it. Was that . . . yes, it sounded like the muffled sound of a baby crying.