Free Smoke Signals by Catherine Gayle Page B

she leave?” Or was she dead? I didn’t want to give voice to that particular question.
    “No, not leave.” Tori didn’t pull away from me, but she went stiff as a board. “I don’t know where she is.”
    Didn’t leave but was gone? How did she not know where? I kept tracing circles on her head, hoping she would loosen up for me a bit. “You don’t know?”
    Silence. Painful, debilitating, seemingly interminable silence.
    But she didn’t run.
    “I don’t know,” she finally repeated, a tiny sound. “They took her.”
    “They took her?” I didn’t have a clue what else to say. “Who?” And why? The more she told me, the more questions I had.
    For the first time in far too long, she moved. She turned her head so she could look straight in my eyes, and she shook her head. “In Russia, sometimes they take people. They almost took me, but Papa saved me. They took Mama. And then…” She shrugged. “I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’s alive. Papa tried to find her, get her back, but no good. He sent me away. Tried to save me. Said go to America, be ballerina. Be safe from Tambovs. Said if I stay in Russia, they keep trying to take me. Ballerinas bring lots of money, sell for sex slave. Not safe for me.”
    She’d gone from not telling me a damn thing to filling me in on so much my head might explode. “Sex slave? You’re talking about the Russian Mafia? That’s who took your mother?”
    “Yes. Mafia. Tambovs took Mama. They wanted me, too. Papa said go to America, be safe.” She blinked back a few tears, never looking away. “There’s Tambov group in Montreal, in Toronto, but not in America.”
    Toronto. Exactly where I’d been planning to take her after Babs’s wedding so we could talk to Mom. There wasn’t a chance in hell I would take her there now if there was even a shred of truth to what she was saying. And to be honest, I believed her wholeheartedly. I hadn’t led such a sheltered existence that I could pretend things like human trafficking and sexual slavery didn’t exist.
    “And you don’t think they’ll come after you here?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “They found me. They will always find me. But didn’t come for me. Killed Papa. Sent pictures. If I ever go back...” She stopped there and shook her head again.
    It just kept getting worse. Not that I had a clue how that was even possible. She’d been through too damn much, and it pissed me off.
    “Then why the hell are you trying to sell yourself for money to go back?” I practically shouted. She flinched away from me, and I wished I’d kept my temper better in check. “Sorry,” I said. “But it was bad enough that you were going to sell yourself to me when you didn’t think you had any other options. You do now, though. You’re my wife. We’re going to deal with your green card, and you won’t ever have to go back to Russia.” Or to Toronto, or Montreal, or anywhere else that the fucking Russian Mafia had a presence. We could go to Tulsa, and I could arrange for Mom to come for a visit.
    “But, Razor…” Tori pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes in thought. “You’re good man.” She said that last part so adamantly it was as if she thought that was enough to explain everything. It didn’t explain a single thing.
    “Not that fucking good,” I groused. I was getting really sick and tired of her telling me just how good and nice and kind I was. Because I wasn’t any of those things. Not really. She didn’t need to go around thinking I was some goddamned knight in shining armor racing in to save the day. I just wanted to give her a fair shake, and I had the means to do it.
    “You are ,” she insisted. “And my life, it’s big mess. You don’t need—”
    “How about you let me worry about what I need, all right?” And what I needed right now? I needed to assure myself that Tori was going to be safe.
    Which meant she couldn’t go out there and try to sell herself.
    And it meant