Blade

 

“What’s your name?” I asked the scared young girl sitting in my passenger seat.

 

“Anthea.” She flinched as she spoke, as if the sound of her own voice startled her. My heart ached to see her so skittish next to me. She had no idea I wasn’t like the other man, the one who called himself Titus Bard. Then again, I didn’t know if he was the only one who had hurt her.

 

“Anthea, it’s okay now. You’re safe,” I told her.

 

She nodded, but she didn’t relax.

 

I remembered the man who had “bought” her from the auction. Vlad and his inner circle had vetted him, and we had been given the alias Titus Bard to hide his identity because it was his first time. First timers were generally problematic, but at one point, all the biggest players in the game had been first timers, so I let it slide, especially when word came down from the top that he was cool.

 

“You better get over here,” he’d told me on the phone back at the clubhouse. I’d heard the nervousness in his voice, the novice shaking in his boots, just like he had been when he put down the money for the cute little blonde with blue eyes.

 

When I showed up at his luxury suite in the middle of downtown, Anthea was still naked on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. The covers all lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. Titus stood back from her the whole time we talked.

 

“What’s the problem?” I asked when I walked into the room.

 

Before he answered, Titus peered up and down the hallway through the open door. I felt the presence of my piece in the waist of my pants, as if my 9mm pistol suspected danger, as well. The girl on the bed hadn’t been tied down, and there weren’t any other signs of trouble for me, so I kept my hands free.

 

“I had to check to make sure no one followed you,” Titus said after he closed and secured the door.

 

I kept an eye on him, waiting for him to reach for some sort of weapon. “Trust me, if you see me, that usually means no one else is coming,” I told him. I hadn’t decided if I was trying to reassure him or warn him.

 

“Noted. I called you because she’s underage,” he said, nodding toward the girl sitting on the bed.

 

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How did you know to call me?” I asked. “They usually tell you to call them first. Then, they call me to handle it if it’s something like this,” I explained to him. He knew who they were – the organizers, the person who invited or approved him.

 

“I was given your number and told to call you myself.” The panic returned to his voice. He held his hands up defensively and stepped back from me, as if he expected me to follow my words with action.

 

I turned and narrowed my eyes at the girl. “How old are you?” I asked her.

 

“Seventeen,” she said, cowering on the bed.

 

“How did you find out?” I asked Titus.

 

“She told me after I got her on the bed and undressed her,” he told me.

 

Again, I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. From the looks of her, she’d been mistreated by someone. I suspected Titus.

 

“I didn’t touch her,” he said. “I mean, we didn’t— you know. We didn’t. I grabbed my phone as soon as she told me.”

 

It seemed to have taken a long time for them to get to that point. I didn’t know if I could believe Titus, but I did know that no matter what had happened, I needed to get the blonde off his bed and take her somewhere safe.

 

I felt there was some commentary to be made about his willingness to participate in a sex slave auction and his reluctance to touch an underage girl. Like it mattered at that point. There were men who didn’t care. We usually didn’t deal with them. There was a skewed set of morals among Vlad’s clients and I knew better than to say anything about it. My job was to fix problems.

 

“Can you get her some clothes?” I asked him.

 

“Yeah, sure.” He jumped into action, as if it had just occurred to him that she needed to get dressed.

 

“Hand them to me, first,” I told him. “I’ll give them to her, since she’s obviously afraid of you.”

 

Once she was dressed, I’d told her who I was and explained to her that I was taking her to safety. She had walked in front of me then hugging herself in one of Titus’s white undershirts and a pair of boxer shorts he’d given her. I took my coat off and put it across her shoulders so she’d be at least a little covered on our way to the car.

 

“So, do I get a refund?” Titus asked me before we made it out the door. He grabbed my arm and attempted to pull me back. The anxiety and panic were gone from his voice. His tone and his grip were both firm with anger.

 

“That’s not my job,” I told him.

 

“Then why the fuck did I call you?”

 

“Because she needs to be taken somewhere safe. We need to clean up her situation,” I said coolly, reaching behind my back with my free arm and arching my eyebrows.

 

“What, are you going to shoot me?” he asked, pulling his hands away from me and raising them like he’d been doing nothing.

 

“I will defend myself,” I told him. “Now, if you want to talk to someone about your money, you better call the same person who told you to call me. And after you let us walk out of here, you better hope I don’t come back for you.”

 

“Is that a threat? Are you threatening me? Don’t you know who I am?” he asked.

 

“Of course I don’t, Titus Bard. You’re too chickenshit to use your real name. And even if I did, tell me. Is this the face of a man who really gives a shit who you are?”

 

With that, I had closed the door and walked the underage girl down to the car in silence. I held the car door for her when we reached it. Then, I got in and turned on the heat for her.

 

I kept watch out of the corner of my eye. Even after I’d given her my jacket and assured Anthea of her safety after she told me her name, she still sat towards the door with her arms around her waist, hugging herself.

 

“Do you need something to eat?” I asked her.

 

She looked at me with confusion in her eyes.

 

“Look, we can stop and get you a cheeseburger or something. It’s no problem,” I told her. “I already told you you’re safe with me. I’m here to take you home.”

 

“That would be nice. I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” she said.

 

“I figured as much.” Once we stopped and grabbed her a cheeseburger and a drink, I waited for her to eat before I said anything else.

 

“Thank you,” she said as she tossed her trash into the bag at her feet. She’d inhaled her food. She took a long sip of her drink.

 

“Don’t sweat it, kid. So, how’d you get mixed up in the auction?”

 

“I just want to go home. I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

 

“I can find out from you, or I can call my boss and find out. They have records on who turned you in. I know the process. And I know the person who turned you in lied about your age. They wouldn’t have put you on that auction block. They would have turned you away,” I explained.

 

“It was my brother. He owed someone some money, and they told him they’d forgive his debt if he turned me over to the auction.” She spoke in a slow, shaky voice, as if she still expected me to turn violent.

 

“Who was this who blackmailed your brother into turning you in?” I asked her. If it had been Vlad, then I needed to call anyway to figure out what we needed to do with her.

 

“A guy named Axel Walker,” she said.

 

I knew Axel Walker. He worked for one of the rival gangs trying to work their way into the auction. My grip on the steering wheel tightened.

 

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Who is Axel to you? I know he’s my brother’s dealer, and my brother owes him a ton of money.”

 

“Do you have a safe place to go?” I asked her quickly.

 

“Um, sure. You can take me home,” she suggested.

 

“No, I mean somewhere away from your brother and Axel.”

 

“No, I live with my brother. Why, what’s wrong?”

 

“How many phone calls did you witness Titus making today?”

 

“Only the one to his contact and one to you,” she admitted. “Blade, what’s wrong?”

 

“Did he call the police?” I asked. It was the million-dollar question.

 

“Not that I saw, no. Why? Do we need to?” she asked, starting to panic.

 

“That motherfucker!” I slammed my hands against the wheel. Anthea jumped back in her seat. “You can’t go home,” I told her.

 

“What do you mean I can’t go home?”

 

“You’re not safe. You were entered into the auction to set us up. Once you were bought, Axel called the cops to tell them there was an underage girl there.” And he’d obviously sent them to the clubhouse because he didn’t know when or where the auction was.

 

“But couldn’t he have just shut the auction down using any of the girls?” she wondered.

 

“Yeah, he could have, but he didn’t know where the auction was held. Apparently, your brother didn’t bother to tell him that, probably to spare you. Anyway, Axel’s going to find out that the police didn’t find you. I’m sure your brother will find out you were taken from your buyer, and that news will make it back to Axel. When that happens, you will no longer be safe at home,” I explained.

 

“No, you gotta take me somewhere else. I don’t want to get caught up in some gang warfare shit.” I glanced at her and smirked. Since she ate, she’d really come out of her shell.

 

“Don’t worry. I know a place where you’ll be kept safe, and you won’t have to worry about anyone finding you there.”

 

“You’re not going to lock me in some basement, are you?” she asked.

 

“No. The MC I work for runs a few safehouses in town where we stash teens who need to get off the street or need to be protected from people.”

 

“Wait, you’re one of the good guys?” she asked, surprised. “Why do you work the auction, then?”

 

“Because who needs a good guy more than a girl sold as a sex slave to some pervert millionaire?”

 

“Good point, and thank you again.”

 

“Just stay out of trouble,” I told her.

 

We pulled up to the safehouse. It was an old Victorian-style home that had been renovated as a boarding house decades ago. The Marauders took it over when the previous owners lost the funding for the charity they ran.

 

“So, what happens now?” Anthea asked.

 

“Now we go in, and I tell them a little bit about your story. Basically, your junkie brother turned you over to a sex slave ring, and I was alerted when someone came across you. You can’t go back home, so they’ll take you in and help you get back on your feet. The MC runs our safehouses, so everyone you meet is affiliated with me. They will take care of you,” I assured her.

 

“You’re not going to tell them exactly what happened and who is responsible so they can call the cops?” she asked.

 

“No, I’m going to handle that part of it myself. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. But, if anything comes up, you tell them to call Blade, okay?”

 

“Right.”

 

We got out of the car and walked up to the old wooden door of the house. I took her inside and told the MC’s old ladies running the desk what had happened, give or take a few details. She handed me my jacket and let one of the ladies escort her down the hallway.

 

Back in my car, I knew I needed to talk to Maggie about her ex and what had happened. How had she wound up at the auction without any information? And how did we get the wrong information on another girl?

 

I was starting to think Axel was behind both of them.