that she wasn’t afraid of me. She didn’t say anything, just stared at me with wide eyes. I turned the key in the ignition, and my car roared to life , and I sped off towards my downtown apartment.
2
I knew I was in trouble. I knew I had no right to do what I had done, and I knew Mr. Black was going to be coming after me. I didn’t care. I welcomed it, in a way. My boss was involved in sex trafficking? It was too much. It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, and it wasn’t something I was going to put up with . I would have to run, or end it. As I pulled into my apartment’s parking garage, I swore to end it. I wasn’t going to run. I had saved one woman, the beautiful woman who sat beside me, who hadn’t taken her eyes off of me, who looked terrified. But what about the rest of the women there that night? The ones who had been sold before the Mediterranean beauty I bought? What about those who were sold after.
“We have to hurry,” I told the scared woman. “I want to make sure you’re safe, and then you can go. You can go home, I can help you, but you can’t yet. You’re going to have to stay with me for a bit.”
“You’re letting me go?” She asked. Her voice was low and soft; it sounded sweet like honey. I had looked to her before I climbed out of my car.
“Yes,” I said simply , and then I was out and rushing around to her side. I opened her door and helped her out.
“You saved me,” she said. And then she threw her arms around me. I let her, and slid my own arms around her, and took in her scent as she buried her face in my chest. She smelled wonderful, like peppermint. She looked up to me, placed her hand on my face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. They’ll be coming for me, and you. Both of us. We have to get safe, and then we’ll get you home. We have to get out of Brighton Beach,” I said.
Brighton Beach was the Russian equivalent of Chinatown. It was in New York, ocean on one side, city on the other. From my bedroom window, I had a view of the water. We rushed upstairs, and I took a minute to glance at it. Silver moonlight was reflecting on the slow rolling waves. A boat slid through the dark water, churning up white behind it.
My new bride of sorts stood by the door while I packed. I took my guns, took some clothes, and took the fifty grand I kept in cash hidden in a safe behind a painting hanging in my bedroom. We hurried down to my car. We had only been in the apartment for five or so minutes before we were peeling out of the parking lot.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman. She had an accent, and I was confident that I had been right about her being from Greece.
“Chloe,” the woman said softly .
“I’m Peter,” I said. We drove through the city, the night traffic not as bad as the day time traffic, but still forcing us to go much more slowly than I would have preferred. We were stopped at a red light when a dark sedan pulled up behind us. I kept my eyes on my rear view mirror. It was exactly like my own car, exactly like the ones Mr. Black gave all of his grunts. I realized that I was an idiot for driving my own car, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I watched the vehicle behind us, waiting for the door to open, waiting for Vlad or someone else to step out and open fire . The light turned green, and I pulled through the intersection. The car behind me turned, and I realized I had been holding my breath the whole time. I let it out in a gasp and glanced over to Chloe. She was looking at me, her legs pulled up, her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She didn’t say anything, but she smiled at me, and I was reminded why I was throwing my life away in the first place. There was something about that woman, something that made it all worth it.
We got out of the city and drove for two hours before we finally stopped at a small motel. It was situated along a lonely two-lane highway. The clock on the dash read one
Billy Ray Cyrus, Todd Gold