The feeling of falling through space jerks me awake and I realize that I’m halfway out of the hotel chair. It takes me a second to remember why I’m trying to sleep in the damned thing in the first place, but then I remember Zoe. I look over at the bed and shoot up out of the chair when I see that it’s empty.

I cross over to the bathroom door and push it open. She isn’t in there either. I look around the room and see her duffel bag and clothes in a pile in the corner, so I hope that maybe I’m wrong somehow; that the most obvious thing in the world isn’t actually happening.

Then I see the heavy hotel room drapes moving back and forth, the way they would if there was someone behind them, and I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s just like her to play a joke on me at a time like this.  

"All right, Zoe, fun’s fun," I say as I pull the drapes back. But she’s not there. All that’s in front of me is the narrow space of open window that Zoe crawled through to get away. 

"Fuck!"  

I kick the stupid chair over and throw an empty can across the room, but stop before I do any major damage. Calling attention to myself here in any way is the last thing I need right now.  

I have no idea what I’m going to do. It was just dumb luck that I ran into Zoe yesterday on the street. I’d been looking for her for weeks and I’d almost given up on finding her. I was terrified that those men had found her and had taken her to some faraway place and I’d never see Zoe’s face or hear her laugh again.

In sheer desperation, I’d taken to driving around in bad neighborhoods just on the slim chance that I’d spot her. I don’t even know how I got so lucky.

But now my luck is over. She’s gone again.

If I don't find Zoe and get her out of the country immediately, I’m going to be dead and she’s going to wish she was.  

For some reason, my first thought is of Kyle and Graham, my ex-business partners. Ex because I stole every last cent out of all of the accounts to pay back the insane debt Zoe’s father owed the mobsters. They were demanding millions from him, with interest that was going up by gargantuan proportions every single day.

It still is.

When Griff died, his debt was immediately transferred to Zoe, although she didn’t know anything about it. I knew who these guys were. I’d been following Griff for months and was aware of the offer they’d made him. His debt would be paid in full if he handed his daughter over.

So when the accident happened, when Griff and his wife were found in their car at the bottom of a ravine, I figured it was them. The mobsters were coming to claim their part of the bargain.

Everything happened so fast. I arranged to meet with them to find out how much they say they’re owed, which I’m pretty sure they inflated the hell out of just because, hey, they’re mobsters. They can do whatever the hell they want.

Then I drained everything. Every cent in every account that Graham and Kyle and I had worked our asses off to make. I took it all.

And just as I was about to pay these fuckers millions of goddamned dollars to keep Zoe safe, she disappeared.

They claimed they hadn’t touched her, but I wasn’t giving them the money until I saw her with my own eyes.

Then I did. I saw Zoe online.

I’d gone back into the company server to make sure I’d erased any tracks of what I’d done with the money I saw some kind of bizarre reality show that Kyle and Graham had streaming off a website they put up. I had no idea what the hell it was or how they got it up and running so fast. But there it was, some event with half-naked girls dancing around and a bunch of monetized links. It was a total freak show.

And that’s where I saw Zoe. Dancing around a goddamned stripper pole, of course.

I knew that if those mobsters saw her, it would be all over for both of us. I would be dead and no one would ever see her again. There would be no second chance to give them the payment. There would only be Zoe living the rest of her life out as some sick fuck’s sex slave. Cause that’s what these guys do. That’s what they want her for.

Eventually I made an arrangement with my ex-partners. I gave them back half of the money I stole and they took Zoe out of the contest. Then I gave the damned mobsters half of what they now say they’re owed, which has practically quadrupled overnight. I mean, it just keeps piling up. I swear to God they’re adding on a thousand percent interest every single day at this point.

And of course they’re not happy with what I gave them. It’s not enough. They want Zoe, and I know they want me dead.

That’s why I have to get us the hell out of here. And my schitzed-out brain is grabbing at anything it can right now to find Zoe.

I text Kyle and he claims he hasn’t seen her. I’m yelling at him in all caps at first, but then when I calm down a bit, I realize that he’s one of the only people who can help me right now. And even though I haven’t wanted to involve anyone else in this bullshit up until this point, I know if I’m going to find Zoe, I really need his help. So I call him and hope to God I haven’t totally fucked myself already.

"What the hell do you want, Peterson?"  

I don’t really have time to explain to the guy I'd just stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from why I took the money. I just pray that he’ll give me a chance. “I really need a favor, Kyle.” 

“That's freaking hilarious!" Kyle says on the other end of the phone. "You're shitting me, right? Is someone gonna jump out from behind the couch and snap a pic of my confused face and turn it into an internet meme? Because that’s the only thing that makes sense right now. Why the hell would I do you a fucking favor?” 

“This isn't a joke. Look, I know you don't owe me anything—“ 

"Damn straight I don't owe you anything. You still owe us the other half of the money you stole from the company." 

“Well, technically a third of it was mine." 

“Uh, technically you can still go to prison for embezzlement, Professor Brainiac, but I’m not gonna dwell on a little piece of crucial information like that." 

“Please, Kyle, will you just hear me out?" 

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone and I pray he hasn’t hung up. "I'm listening." 

"No. Not over the phone. I need you to come to where I am." 

"Evan, I don't have time for this. I’ve got better things to do than get jerked around by you again.”

"Please. I really need your help. I don't have anywhere else to turn." 

I wait for what feels like an eternity while Kyle makes up his mind. "Okay, where?”

I tell him the hotel and room number and ask him to hurry.

“Okay, I’m leaving right now,” he says. “I’ll be there in a half hour." 

"Thank you. And Kyle, bring your gun with you." 

"What? What the hell for?" 

"I'll explain when you get here." 

"Dude, seriously? You're really in that much trouble?" 

"Yeah, I am. In fact, I wish I had about ten guns right now." 

* * *

"So what's going on? I’m guessing this has something to do with the money you stole from the company.” 

I’m sitting in the ratty goddamned chair with my head in my hands while Kyle stands in front of me. "Sit down," I say when I look up at him. "You're making me nervous." 

Kyle walks over to the unmade bed and sits down. "Okay, what's this about?" 

"So, you know Zoe, right?" 

"Um, you mean the girl you ordered us to take out of our show a few weeks ago? The one who you say is your goddaughter? Except you never mentioned a thing about a goddaughter in the fifteen years we've known each other. All throughout college and then six years in business together and you never told your partners about this alleged goddaughter? Yeah, I think I know who you're talking about." 

"Look, I never told you guys about her because she was part of my old life, from before I ever knew you guys. Griff and I grew up together, but that part of my life … I don’t know … it just didn’t mesh with my new life—college and the business and everything. I just didn’t think any of it was important. But none of that matters right now. What matters is she's in trouble. We both are." 

“No, what matters is I don't know if I can trust you at all anymore. I don’t know if I can believe a word that comes out of your mouth, Evan. After all these years, I find out you've been stealing from the company, our company. The one the three of us worked our asses off to start from the ground up. I don't think Graham is ever going to speak to you again, man. I don't know if you understand how betrayed he feels." 

"I know that. You think I don't know what I did to you guys? Jesus, it killed me to take that money, Kyle. You don’t understand. I didn't want to do it. I had to." 

Kyle’s face softens a little. “Keep talking." 

“So Griffin and I—“

“This is Zoe’s dad?”

“Yeah, Zoe’s dad. We grew up together. And as much as he pissed me off sometimes, I’ve always had a soft spot for him. As my life changed, I started spending less and less time with him, but then his daughter was born and he asked me to be her godfather, and I couldn’t say no.

“But after that, the more time I spent with him, the more I realized what a piece of shit he’d become. His wife was no prize either. They both ran around all over the place and left Zoe alone. I didn't realize it at first, but eventually I saw it clear as day. And it made my skin crawl. He’d gone from being a good-natured kid that got into trouble to someone I didn’t want to have anything to do with. And I couldn’t stand that Zoe was stuck there with the two of them.

“Griff always liked to gamble, but by this point it had turned into a major problem. We're talking hundreds of thousands lost in a night. And when you're playing games that big, you wind up playing with some pretty scary dudes.  

“So one night I get a call from Zoe. She's out walking around on the streets in the middle of the night because her dad left her in a car in a sketchy part of town. She doesn't have any money so she calls me to come get her. I take her back to her house and ask her what was going on, why her dad had taken her with him.

“She says she doesn’t know. Just that her dad told her to wait out in the car and that it wouldn't be very long. I don’t have a good feeling about it at all. When he gets back to the house, I ask him why he had her with him because I know he'd been at a poker game. That’s all he ever did at this point. And I also know that from a really young age, the two of them would leave Zoe all alone at night. Even for a whole weekend. So there was no reason for her to be waiting for him in a dark parking lot.”  

"What did he take her there for?" Kyle asks like he doesn’t actually want to know the answer. I can tell he’s catching on. He’s not stupid.  

"He was going to bid with her when he ran out of money."  

"Holy shit, man. No.”  

"Yeah, and after that night I swore I was going to get Zoe the hell out of there, but it's never as easy as you think it's gonna be. Nothing like that ever is. I had him followed and trailed him myself just about every night to see if I could get something solid on him. Something I could take to the cops and have him put away. But he wasn't actually doing anything illegal.”

"Jesus, Evan. How long has this been going on?" 

"Years." 

"Why didn't you ever tell us about any of it? We could have figured out some way to help you. You're like a brother to me—you and Graham—seriously, you're my family. How did it get so bad that your only option was stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from your best friends?” 

"Well, they both died; Zoe's mom and dad. It was a car crash … an accident, but I never bought that." 

"You think they were killed? On purpose?” "I'm pretty sure. Especially after I was visited by one of his big-time poker buddies." 

"Oh shit." 

"He informed me that Zoe’s father's debts had passed on to his successor. I told him that I was her guardian now, even though that wasn’t exactly the truth. But as far as I was concerned, it was. He told me that the debt would have to be paid one way or another. Either with cash or with Zoe." 

"Get the fuck out of here. They were really going to just take her?" 

"Yeah. I started asking around. I knew some of the guys from the old neighborhood. The ones we used to play a friendly game of poker with. One guy told me he would never go to the big games that Griff would attend. He said getting mixed up with those guys was deadly. Playing even one game with them was like signing your own death warrant. They didn't mess around and when they wanted something, they took it. Those were his exact words." 

"Why didn't you say something … anything to us about this?” 

"I didn't want to involve you guys. These men … they're not just killers, Kyle. They do really dark shit. That friend of my dad's gave me the name of another guy. Someone who’d been involved with these people before. I met him at a truck stop way the hell out in the desert near Slabtown. He wouldn't even come within L.A. city limits. He said those men train and sell sex slaves. They're part of the mafia, which I pretty much figured, but they're on the outside of it somehow. What they do is lend money to high-level families, or guys with an expensive habit like Griff, and that’s the way they recoup their loans. By selling off their daughters. It’s some kind of sex slave racket.

“Apparently they’re all over the place, in pretty much every country and every business imaginable. He said you never actually know if a person you're talking to is part of this whole ring. They’re everywhere.” 

“Holy shit.”

"Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t actually happening to me right now. I didn’t think this sort of thing was real. So they either want Zoe to keep for themselves, or they want to sell her off so some rich mafia sleazball so they can make their money back and he can use her as his goddamned slave for the rest of her life." 

"No way, Evan. That’s insane.” Kyle’s face is completely drained of all color now. “Whatever you need, you got it. I’ll help you in any way I can."  

"Thanks, Kyle. What I need right now is to find her. She took off a few hours ago. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, she was gone."  

"Why?"  

"I don't know. She said she wanted to go see some guy named Max." 

“Doesn’t she know what kind of danger she’s in?”

I look down at my hands. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I feel like an ass. But at the same time, I know how much the truth would hurt her. “I haven’t told her.”

“What? You’re kidding? Why the hell not?”

“I just haven’t.”

“Okay,” Kyle says, like he’s talking to a crazy person, which he pretty much is at this point. “So do you have any idea who this Max guy is?"  

"No. I haven't been around Zoe too much in the last month. She keeps disappearing on me. I was surprised as hell to see her on that reality show the two of you cooked up. What the hell was that, anyway?"  

Kyle laughs. "It was our only way to make back some of the money you stole, dude. Girls stripping on camera and horny guys online paying to watch. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. When you need money fast, sex is the thing that’s gonna bring it to you. Every single time. You know, she was doing really well. I was bummed you had her pulled. She seemed pretty pissed too."  

"Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to wait around to see if any of those goons saw her on there. Then right after you dropped her off, she disappeared again. She’s been texting me, but she wouldn't meet me anywhere. She said I was being mean to her."  

"Well, were you?"  

"Was I what?"  

"Being mean to her? I mean, she didn't look too thrilled to see you after you ruined her chances of winning a half a mil.”  

"What the hell difference does that make if I was mean to her? I'm trying to protect her. I'm trying to get her away from these lunatics!" 

"But does she know that?"  

I sit there staring at my hands for another minute before I answer. Kyle was right. If I’d actually said something to her about all this, then maybe she wouldn’t be running off after this Max guy right now. But I had no way of knowing that. I had no way of knowing anything when it came to Zoe. ”No,” I say. "I haven't told her anything."  

"Well, then she probably does think you're just being mean and overprotective. Why haven't you told her what kind of danger she's in? Dude, you’re freaking me out with how many secrets you’re keeping.“  

“I didn’t tell her because I didn't want her to know how big of a piece of shit her dad was. I mean, she doesn't deserve to know how little he valued her; that he would be willing to use her as a bet in a poker game or sell her over to these assholes to pay back his goddamned debt. She doesn’t deserve that.” 

"Yeah, I see what you're saying. So right now she's out gallivanting around town and has no idea that she could be kidnapped at any second and her life would be over?"  

"Nope."  

"And you have no idea who this Max guy is?"  

"Nope."  

"Have you checked her bag? Or her pockets?" Kyle says, grabbing Zoe's purse from where it was lying next to him on the bed. 

"Yeah, I already looked through there. I didn't find anything."  

"Whoa, wait a minute,” Kyle says as he pulls a piece of paper out of Zoe's wallet. "She's seeing Max Devereaux?”  

"Max Devereaux? I looked through her wallet; I didn't see the name Max!”  

“Well, it just says Dr. Devereaux on this piece of paper," Kyle says, reading off the paper in his hand. "But if this is who I'm thinking of, his name is Max. And if she's with him, she’s no better off than if those sleazy mobsters caught up with her."  

"What the hell? How do you know him?"  

"I had a few sessions with this guy a couple years ago.” Kyle looks up at me. “I’m telling you, man, he is no good."  

“Let’s see if I can find out where he lives.” I grab my laptop and start doing some searches.

“I doubt you’ll find this guy, Evan. He’s pretty secretive. And he’s got plenty of reasons to be.”

“Does this address look familiar?” I ask.

Kyle looks at what I brought up online. “Yeah, I remember he had a house out in the country somewhere, but how the hell did you do that?”

“I’m the computer guy, remember?” I slam the laptop shut and stand up. “Let's go."