Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alex’s shoes echoed down the hallway as he and Lance made their way to the interrogation room. Lance was chattering fast like he usually did when he was nervous.
“I don’t like the way this is going,” Lance said. “Everything feels like it’s a Shakespearean tragedy … and don’t get me started on the white privilege I have to deal with guarding this ballet mafia. It’s like next-level Eastern European white privilege. Gives my complex a complex.”
Alex let out a tired sigh. “You can go home, you know. I can figure this out on my own.”
Lance widened his steps to keep up with Alex. “Oh, hell no, True Detective. Your ass is about one distressed damsel away from getting shot. I need to keep your head level.”
Alex threw him some side-eye as they continued down the long hallway.
Evelyn St. Clair was waiting, leaning against the wall, tapping her high stiletto rapidly on the baseboard.
“Gentleman,” she said. “I’m Ms. Laurent’s representation. I’ll be overseeing this meeting. Since Alex is head of security right now, Edward has insisted he sit in.” Evelyn turned up her nose at Lance. “Feel free to wait in the lounge down on the right.”
Lance puffed out his chest a little, but Alex held up a hand.
“Find out where Uly is,” he said. “Get him over here if you can, or at least let me know where the hell he is. Then call Kaminski and tell him to check up on Lily and her family.”
Keep him busy, Alex thought. If he’s busy, he won’t get antsy.
Lance looked Evelyn up and down hesitantly before nodding. “Fine.”
Somehow, they had to get a plan going and fast. Even if Isobelle had something useful to say, he wasn’t entirely sure it would point them in the right direction. He didn’t want to fail Edward—not when the man needed him most.
Lyn opened the door, and Alex peered in. Kyle, Edward, and Isobelle were sitting at a table. Isobelle was drumming the manicured fingernails of one hand on the metal top as she rested her chin in her other hand.
Alex stepped into the room and Lyn closed the door behind them. Isobelle straightened up and stared Alex down. He shifted uncomfortably under her glare.
He had only seen her once before in passing at the gala, and even then she appeared intimidating. Not in a dangerous way, just in the sense that she could figure out a person’s secrets by reading their expression. She reminded Alex of the Middle Eastern women he’d seen in the streets of Afghanistan who weren’t allowed to speak, yet knew everything about someone with just a glance.
Edward knew how to pick the most intense of dancers. He wondered exactly what he saw in Scarlet, who was a stark contrast to this woman. Maybe Edward knew it was time for a softer side of the ballet to emerge.
“Finally.” Isobelle smirked. “We can get this over with.”
“That’s not a very nice attitude for someone who needs to enter a plea bargain to keep her ass out of hot water,” Kyle said.
Isobelle rolled her eyes and sat back in the hard metal chair as Lyn sat down next to her. She lifted a recording device and pressed the red record button.
“Detective,” Lyn said. “It’s a very big step for my client to even agree to cooperate. Her personal safety is now a major risk. Balthazar Maxim is a direct threat, as is anyone on his employment roster.”
Kyle waved a hand. “I’m aware. And we’re taking the proper precautions to ensure her safety from here on out.” He gestured for Alex to sit down.
Lyn looked across the table to Alex. “She’s willing to give her statement. I’m willing to release any information she’s given me, and any information I’ve uncovered to help the case.”
“Since when is Isobelle your client?” Alex asked.
Edward blinked at him. “She always has been. She was my prima for almost ten years. Lyn handles all the dancers’ legal contracts.”
Edward barely made eye contact with Isobelle, and Alex guessed the wounds surrounding her termination were still raw. If this woman was indeed a part of any sabotage, Edward would take it more than personally.
“Yet, you acted like you knew nothing earlier in Ed’s office,” Alex pointed out.
“I didn’t,” Lyn insisted.
“I heard about Victoria and Lily,” Isobelle spoke up. “I couldn’t let this woman’s daughter fall victim to this. I came to her in confidence, she talked me into coming forward to you. You should thank her, because I was going to leave the country.”
“I would have had you extradited eventually,” Kyle said.
“Not before innocent women disappeared forever,” Isobelle shot back. “Face it. I’m doing you a favor, Detective.”
“Right.” Kyle peered at her. “In return for protection that you don’t deserve.”
Lyn raised an eyebrow. “You’ll want to gear up for some arrest warrants because we have a few criminals to hand you. If you’re done playing the adorable bad cop.”
Alex’s jaw was getting sore from clenching it so tight. His patience grew thin. He was here to get answers, not listen to bickering between a cop and a ballerina about her requests for not being killed by her scumbag fiancé. He let out a tired sigh, hoping to move the process along.
“Please tell me what’s going on, Isa,” Edward said. “The truth.”
Isobelle kept her straight posture, but her face softened as she glanced at Edward. She took a deep breath.
“I’ve been romantically involved with Balthazar Maxim for two years.” She placed her palm on the surface of the table. “It was, and I suppose still is, a good partnership. Good enough. I kept it secret since I was North Pointe’s prima. Edward wouldn’t have approved—which is clear when he let me go upon finding out.”
Alex tilted his head at the ballerina. “Why would you think it was a good idea in the first place?”
Isobelle leaned toward him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Strong, but haven’t you defied rules for love? It doesn’t exactly discriminate.”
Alex swallowed his comeback as Edward’s chest rose quickly as he suppressed a laugh. Alex cast him a scathing glance.
“What?” Edward said. “She has a point.”
Alex nodded for Isobelle to get on with her story.
She leaned back. “Four months ago, Balthazar started pushing me to leave North Pointe. I knew it would eventually come to that, but I honestly loved my company—your company.” She nodded to Edward. “I wanted more time, so, when I refused, he got distant. I saw him less and less.”
She lifted her fingers up and looked at her nails. “I suspected he was cheating on me because I wouldn’t do as he asked. So, I followed him one night to a warehouse near the port. He met up with a man I thought looked familiar, but couldn’t place at the time. It was dark, and I kept my distance. Money was exchanged, and a truck showed up. At that point, I needed to know what was going on, so I got closer.”
Isobelle got a far-off look in her eyes. “What emerged from the truck…” She swallowed and cringed. “Women. Young women … frail, dirty, half-naked, and chained.”
She locked eyes with Alex. “I knew enough to understand what they were for. Of course I’ve heard whisperings about my fiancé not being the most honest of businessmen, but I never expected—”
Tears formed in her eyes, and her lower lip trembled. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Balthazar led them into the building, and that’s all I saw. When I tried to sneak back out, a couple of his men caught me. They took me to him. I had never been scared of Balthazar before, but in that moment, I was terrified. I thought he’d kill me, or worse… But he was more pleading than anything. He wanted me to understand. He explained that it was a supply and demand for rich men.” She scrunched her nose, like she smelled something foul. “He insisted that it was a stable business, good money, and it would provide a future that I wanted.”
Isobelle sighed. “I realized then I valued money and status way too much. I told him I wasn’t sure I could live off dirty money. He said I’d have to because now I was involved. If I tried to leave…” She made a slicing motion across her throat. “He said what happened to me would be out of his hands.”
Alex frowned at the woman as she wiped tears from her cheeks.
“So, I pretended it didn’t bother me,” she said. “I’m, in part, an actress. I acted like it was nothing. I went into survival mode. I started to learn more about the situation. He’d been taking a few young ballerinas fresh off the boat. They would audition for him and disappear shortly after. No one missed them. This seemed to placate his clients, but his buyer said he wanted a bigger score. I knew once I left North Pointe, they’d begin siphoning women there. I didn’t understand why, but I had the feeling it was also to drive Pointe into the ground. I wanted to warn Edward, I really did. I wanted—”
“Why didn’t you?” Edward asked. “You could’ve done the right thing from the start. Why did you keep quiet?”
“There were men watching me,” Isobelle said. “Dangerous men. All the time. I didn’t know the police could help—they couldn’t even prove Balthazar was moving anything illegal. I tried to listen when I could, learn what I could in hopes that I had an out when the time came, but I care about my pretty neck. I had to watch out for myself first.”
Alex sneered at her. “How noble of you.”
Lyn cleared her throat. “It’s not completely irrational. Dangerous criminals surrounded my client twenty-four hours a day. Two men stood guard outside of her bedroom at night—a bedroom she didn’t even share with her fiancé. She was ordered to take care of the women in transit. She was North Pointe’s prima ballerina, and had to placate her fiancé by giving it all up to babysit his slaves. She was becoming a business deal, just like the rest of the women. Have a little bit of sympathy.”
“Oh, screw you, lady,” Alex spat. “Because of her inability to pick up a phone and give out an anonymous tip, your own daughter is in the hands of that sex trafficker. How do you feel about that?”
Lyn eyes widened, but she remained tight-lipped.
Isobelle looked over at Lyn and sniffled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to become such a mess. I tried my best to warn people. I even showed up at Scarlet’s home after I realized…” She shook her head, looking back at her hands. “Scarlet is the big score,” she said slowly.
Edward clenched his fists. “Big score?”
“The buyer has had his eye on her,” she said. “But then she was promoted to prima suddenly, and such a disappearance wouldn’t go unnoticed like those little girls auditioning for Balthazar. So confusion was created as a smoke screen.”
Isobelle glanced back to Alex. “Hopefully the cops watching over her can do their job, because she’s very close to the man who wants her … who means to use her, and imprison her in his cages.”
“Who?” Alex asked. “Who else is behind it?” Somehow, Alex knew. It was the only logical explanation, even if it didn’t make much sense.
Isobelle gave him a curt laugh. “The buyer is right under your nose—working both companies and enjoying the power play he’s creating. I didn’t realize who the buyer was until I saw him at the gala last Friday, when he decided to tell me, and ever so subtly threaten me if I so much as looked at Scarlet wrong.”
Alex’s body tensed as he waited for the woman to utter the name.
Isobelle looked at Lyn again, and then back to Alex. “It’s Andrej Brevic.”