Chapter 27
What did he just say? I couldn’t have heard him right. Alyssa sat up, practically purring with happiness and desire at his words. My eyes were burning with tears, but I held them back.
There had to be a trick.
He didn’t know anything about who I had a grudge against or what my revenge would entail.
In some ways, I didn’t even know what revenge would look like right now.
“What did you say?”
“I told you before I planned to make everyone responsible for hurting you pay in blood.” Matt shook his head, “I won’t be able to do that without information from you, so I need you to trust me enough to tell me enough to make that happen.”
I closed my hands around the envelope as he stood.
“Think on it… For now, I’ll get Cindy to take you to the archives.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be shutting the club down. I can’t start investigating with customers all over the place.”
My jaw dropped open in shock as he went to the door and called for Cindy. He couldn’t be planning to shut the club down for more than a few hours to handle the changeover. Club Heaven made a lot of money just like Larry’s, I was sure of it.
“Yes, Mr. Wallber?” Cindy asked softly. I turned to look at her as she entered the room. She looked nervous, looking up at Matt.
“Is Cindy your actual name?” Matt asked.
That was a strange question. What difference did it make to him?
Her eyes widened, “N-No, Mr. Wallber.”
“What is your actual name then?”
She grimaced, “I-It’s Grace, sir.”
“Grace, do you know where the club’s archives are?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take Renda there. Whatever she wants to look into, let her, and show her around to wherever she wants to go in the club.”
“O-Of course, Mr. Wallber.”
He turned and left us alone Cindy looked at me and I looked at her, wide-eyed and a little shocked. I stood and walked to her, trying to make sense of Matt’s behavior.
Alyssa seemed pleased, but I couldn’t exactly rejoice. There had to be some motive behind all of this.
What the hell did points mean? We weren’t in some relationship.
The envelope holding my new identification felt heavy as I tucked it into my pocket.
“You… wanted to go to the archives, Miss Renda?” Grace asked tentatively.
I nodded and followed her down the hall. The archives were held in a large storeroom. There was a row of file cabinets along the wall. I went to those first, looking for the files from three years ago.
“If you’re looking for files from three years ago, they’re in the boxes over there.”
I frowned and turned to where she was pointing. There was a stack of cardboard boxes that were half-hidden behind a row of racks that held dusty old vases and other random items.
“Why would they be in here?”
“Well… three years ago the club only had a few sources for new girls…” Her eyes fell to the ground. “All of the purchases from certain sellers are there.”
It sounded like they kept all the illegally trafficked girls here. I pushed the rack aside and grimaced. There was more than one stack of boxes. Each box seemed filled with files.
Grace remained quiet as I started opening the boxes, searching for the records from three years ago. The top box’s most recent record was from just a few weeks ago.
My stomach turned as I moved the boxes aside. It took a while, but finally, I found the box that held the right records.
Per the records, we were sold to Midnight in February. The attack on Fluorite had been in late July the year prior. At least I was right that I had spent six months in Dan’s hell.
The other women who were sold with me, including Zoe, were all listed with fake names. There was no record of who sold us or where they’d come from, but there was the amount of the purchase at the top of the record.
I scoffed at the total paid. Who knew we were so cheap? I always thought that trafficking werewolves were more profitable than trafficking humans. I suppose the state we’d been in when we arrived had lowered our worth.
I sighed. I didn’t remember being transported. I remembered being blindfolded and a sharp prick then I woke up in Club Heaven. I was unconscious the whole trick. We could have been in transit for a few days or a few hours. I looked through some of the other records hoping to find something, but all the ones I checked held no information on the sellers. There was just a list of obviously fake names and the purchase amount. The only thing I could glean was that the folders were coded in some way, but I couldn’t figure out the codes stamped on the folders.
Was that normal for traffickers or just something Club Heaven did? I would have to check the other files in the actual file cabinets to know for sure.
I took a few other files, hoping that I could maybe figure out the code with enough time. Grace led me back towards the office. Matt hadn’t returned, so I took the chance to look through everything that was in the room. There were a few scratch pieces of paper with notes on the desk along with random office supplies. The file cabinets in the room were all filled with more recent records that didn’t have the same codes on the folders.
It seemed that only the illegal records were coded that way.
The computer was off, but I found the password in the desk and turned it on.
I glanced at Grace who stood next to the door and stopped before logging in to the computer. There was something she’d said earlier that had been niggling me in the back of my mind.
She’d known I was looking for the files from three years ago.
How had she known that and what else did she know?
“Grace… right?”
She nodded.
“Is… that your real name?”
She stared at me. Her eyes gave away nothing, and I nodded. She had probably just given Matt another name the same way I had. I wondered if it was as close to her real name as Renda was to Glenda. Maybe I could learn more about how to carry out my revenge plot from her.
We could be allies at least if she had been sold to the club as well.
“Do you remember me?”
She nodded, “I was here when you were bought.”
Hope swelled in my chest. That meant she’d known Trinity too!
“Lock the door.”
Her eyes widened, but she did as I asked. I gestured for her to take a seat across the desk.
“How long have you been here? Are you a werewolf?”
Her lips twitched and she nodded, “I am… It’s been about five years, I guess.”
Five years was a long time. I didn’t remember her from the serving floor. She was a pretty woman. She looked just a little older than me.
“Why… have I never seen you?” I asked, suspicious of her story.
Her lips twitched, “Felix… always said I looked like his dead niece.”
The name was familiar and I sighed as I remembered that Felix was the man who sold Club Heaven to Matt.
She let out a bitter laugh, “Funny how he just escaped and left me behind after all these years. I guess I was still just a thing he bought.”
I stifled a wince at the thought. Felix bought her and treated her well all these years before up and leaving her. I doubted that he paid as much for her as Matt had paid for me, but did that make a difference? She’d been with him for five years as some sort of substitute for his lost niece.
I turned away from the thought, “He never gave you to a client?”
“Only the best at first, people he knew personally. After a while, he decided I was too smart to be just a whore and I was of better use to him off the floor.” She lowered her head, “I-I… I’m glad that you’re doing better. You look much healthier.”
She seemed miserable and nervous, wringing her hands as I looked at her.
“Do you have an ID or something you could use to get one?”
She shook her head, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
Well, we had that in common.
“What do you know about Trinity?”
Her eyes turned glossy as she shuddered.
“Felix… sold her to a new client I’d never seen before.” My heart lurched. “He was excited and didn’t even ask my thoughts on it, so I know it was a lot of money.”
“What about that sales contract? Where would that be?”
“In the safe with all the contact information for the sellers and purchasers.”
If I could get into that safe, I could figure out the code and who sold me, Trinity, and the others to Felix.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Renda, it’s me.”
