Imperial

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“Miss Klein, do understand the severity of what we're dealing with here?”

Nodding, I let my eyes settle over the detective's. “I do.”

The detective had been trying to befriend me, acting like he was there for me, like he was on my side. He wasn't.

If he had any concern for me at all, he wouldn't ignore my questions. I didn't like it, and I didn't like him. He was so fake, I could smell it through his pine tree scented cologne and dull eyes.

His gray suit splayed open as he leaned over, revealing a burgundy dress shirt underneath. His hair reminded me of a stretched steel sponge. The silver curls were all looped together but tousled, like he had used a little too much gel and just threw his hands into his hair, spreading it without looking.

“And you're requesting to not give us a statement? I don't understand, why would you protect the man who kidnapped you?”

Shrugging my shoulder, I angled my chin into my chest. “He protected me, he kept me safe. Doesn't that mean anything?”

There were two detectives sitting across from me, giving each other a confused look. They couldn't understand. Both of them expected me to be so rattled and upset that I'd spew a story that would help cement their case against Machi.

But neither one considered what he did to set me free.

Bad men don't go out of their way to help their captive escape, evil men don't expose the callous nature of the world they lived in; especially if they wanted to keep it whole.

Machi took a risk and he led the police through an open door.

Why would he do that if he wasn't working against the men inside?

“Look, we don't want to put you through any more trauma. I know you've already been through enough.” The detective held his hand up, unsure of what to say or how to direct the interview. “But, Imperial, two men lost their lives, are you even thinking about that?”

The lead detective had given me his name and introduced me to his partner when they first walked in the room. But I couldn't remember who was who, and honestly, I didn't really care.

No one would tell me shit. Both men kept skirting around my questions, refusing to let me know if Machi had been hurt, or why they were treating him like the villain when all I could see was a hero.

“Don't I deserve answers as much as you do?” Scooting my chair closer to the table, I laid my hands down flat. “Those men were not innocent, there's no doubt in my mind about that. I've seen the men they catered to, I've seen women with bruises and scars. So am I thinking about it—yes, I am. But I'm not going to tell you I feel bad about what happened to them. And you know why?” Lifting my chin, I stared right at them. “Because Machi saved me from them.”

Rolling his eyes, the detective folded his hands over his notebook, clearing his throat. Forcing a smile, he spoke firm. “Miss Klein, this is serious, whether or not those men were bad isn't the issue. We know they were both pieces of shit, but that doesn't change what Machi did.” Perching his fingers up on the tips, he tapped the paper. “Murder is murder, and this. . . This was a cold-blooded execution.”

Biting my bottom lip, my eyes flared wide. “Maybe you need to stop looking at what he did and take a better look at what he prevented. He stopped the sale of innocent women to sick perverts. He did what you guys couldn't do. . .” Pausing, my fists balled up on the cold table top. “He saved lives, so what if he took a few in the process. Why is he considered the bad guy when he did something good?”

“That's not how it works. You don't get to decide on your own if someone should die. That's why we have a justice system.” Throwing himself back in the chair, he picked up his pen and started spinning it around. “If we all made decisions like that, the world would go to shit. Is that—”

Throwing my back into the chair, I held my hands out, stopping him from talking. “I want to talk to Officer Roberts.”

Cutting the air with his hand, he said, “No, we're here, so talk to us.”

Folding my arms over my chest, I tucked my fingers deep into my ribs. “Looks like we're done then.”

I wasn't going to tell them one more word until I got answers of my own.

If Machi trusted Bentley enough to ask him for help, then maybe he was the one I needed to talk to instead.

The two men exchanged a glance, both of them standing up at the same time. “Give us some time, we'll see what we can do.”

I sat in the room for what seemed like hours. It was strange to be in another place that kept time hidden from view. In this room I didn't have the luxury of noise from the outside world to hint at how much time had passed.

The silence was screwing with my head, making it jump from thought to thought. I was worried about Machi and whether he was all right, I was afraid that they were going to take the man I loved and lock him up forever.

I wasn't sure how I would handle it if it came to that. If the police couldn't see the good in what he did, if they chose to only see him as a murderer; what purpose would his life have?

He would lose everything if this world couldn't turn a blind eye to the nature of his actions.

Laying my head on the table, I closed my eyes and wished that I could just talk to Machi myself. I wanted to thank him for everything he had done, for keeping his promise and setting me free.

The door swung open slowly, poking his head inside, the detective pointed at me. “You have twenty minutes, after that, we want answers.”

Sitting tall, I braided my fingers together and nodded.

Bentley stepped past the man, taking the door and closing it behind him. “How you holding up?” he asked, taking the seat in front of me.

“I'm okay, I guess, considering everything.” Rocking my head back and forth, I looked around the room. “Are we being taped or recorded?”

“Nah, you're not the one under arrest, they want Machi.”

“Are you sure?”

Shaking his head yes, he placed his hands in his lap. “They said you wanted to talk to me, why?”

“Machi came to you for a reason, that makes me feel like I can trust you too. I need to know what's going on. Is he okay? Was he hurt?”

Thinning his lips, his eyes drifted around my face. “He was shot, but he's all right.”

“Shot? Shot where, by who?”

“We don't know yet how it all happened, he's still in surgery. Did he tell you anything?”

“No,” I said, exhaling hard. “He hinted at things, but he didn't tell me anything about what he was doing. He didn't belong there, Bentley, he wasn't one of them. Machi was good to me, he kept me safe.”

Swirling his finger over the ledge of the metal, Bentley nodded. “Yeah, he's a good guy, always has been. But these past few years he changed, he's different.”

“Why? I don't understand, I can't understand. Please, tell me something—anything.”

Resting his head in his hands, he gripped his cheeks. “Imperial, you really have no clue about what he was doing there?”

“No, and if someone doesn't tell me something soon, I'm going to go fucking insane.”

Breathing in slowly through his nose, his lips frowned. “Did Machi ever mention anything about a girl he used to know?”

I sat stone still, eyes reaching for more. I knew nothing. My head twisted stiffly on my shoulders as my brows arched curiously, pleading for him to keep talking.

“Alright,” he said, leaning closer to me. “Machi and I go back, like way back, I've known him since we were kids. I grew up a few houses over from him and his family. Good family too, his mom was super nice, she used to make these little cookies out of almond butter and chopped pecans, they were delicious—anyway,” he said, shaking his head and dismissing the small details. “Machi had a sister.”

Had a sister? His voice had fallen off, his mind racing with a memory of a girl. A girl that wasn't just any girl, she was Machi's family.

Blinking, I opened my ears wider, allowing him to fill my head with a side of Machi that he refused to share. He had never spoken about himself or where he had come from. There was no mention of family or friends.

I saw one man, the man he had become, the man he needed to be. But who he was, who he used to be in a past life, was foreign. I was ready to drink Bentley's words, allowing them to quench my thirst to learn about the man who had risked his life for mine.

“The two of them were close, you know the big brother, little sister relationship you'd see in a Lifetime movie. Well, long story short, his sister got herself into some trouble. She started using drugs, heavy shit too, I think she was using meth at the time. But Machi, he never gave up on her, he refused to. That guy would go to the end of the earth to help his sister. And that's what he did. The Lancaster Hills, where you had been kept, he was positive it had something to do with what happened to her. We found her about four years ago, beaten pretty bad, her body just left like trash in a dumpster downtown. Machi, he kinda took a turn after that.”

“What happened to her? Who killed her?”

“We did everything we could to try and solve the case, but there was nothing. Every lead was a dead end. So Machi went out on his own, he left us, dropping his badge and walking out without a second glance. He needed to find out who hurt his sister, and he wasn't giving up until he did.”

“Wait, wait, wait—” Fanning my hands over each other, my shoulders wriggled as a shiver ran up my spine. “Machi used to be a cop?”

“At one time, but it's been years.”

“And he was there trying to find out who killed his sister?”

“Yeah, he couldn't focus on anything else after that. It consumed him, Imperial, to the point that none of us even knew where he was anymore. Shit, I hadn't even talked to him the entire time until recently when he came to me for help.”

“I. . . I don't know what to say. I had no idea.”

Bobbing his head up and down, the corner of his lip twitched as his hands flopped down in front of him. “None of us did, we had no clue what he was doing. And trust me, if I had known, if I had any idea that this was what he he had gotten himself into, I would've done something. I would never have let him go it alone.”

“How did he know it was them? I mean, how was he able to find out that place did that to her?”

Holding out his hands, Bentley shrugged. “We don't know. Machi just insisted from the beginning that they're the ones who did it, but we never had anything to prove she was there. Unfortunately, she was in a rough spot, the drugs and all that shit; a lot of the time people like that get swept under the rug after awhile. It's not right, but it happens.”

“I want to see him.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Please, I need to talk to him myself.”

“Imperial, Machi is being charged with two counts of first degree murder. They're not going to let you see him.”

Anger was starting to fill my body, making my cheeks warm and my heart hammer inside my chest. “They killed his sister! How could you guys do this to him? Those men hurt women, you saw it! You saw the other girls on that stage! Fuck, they sold me to you! How can you justify charging a man who probably just saved thousands of women by ending it all?”

“We have no proof of anything, nothing to show his sister was even there. And right now, all we have is a handful of people who won't help us piece this all together.”

“What was her name?”

“Megan, Megan White.”

White?

Machi White— the white room, the safe word white—it makes sense.

That word had been everywhere he was. The first night he told me the white room was for girls he saw as special. But now I knew, he saw it as his room.

Machi White, M.W. . . Shit, the words.

The words on the bed were initialed by an M.W.

She had been there, she was in my room. I had something I could give them, something that was more than just hearsay or theory—I had her last thought.

“What if I can give you proof?”