Louis Delano looked at his unofficial girlfriend, and a surge of emotion hit him, straight in his groin.
Serena King, with her flaming red hair tied back in a high ponytail, never failed to make his senses quicken. He had run into her at a bar when he had visited the place along with a group of randy friends. They had been celebrating one of the men’s pre-wedding blues and were a drunk, riotous lot. Across the smoky bar, he had noticed the tall, lithe woman in her long biker boots and black jacket, flaming red hair hanging to her shoulders, drinking alone. Settled on a bar stool comfortably, she had been staring into her drink when one of the men with him had sauntered over to the bar and beamed at her.
Harry Wise was an idiot on the best of the days and when he was sloshed, he was just a pain.
“Care to join us, lady?” he had asked the woman who had turned to look up. Louis, watching from afar, had felt his breath leave his body in a whoosh. She had striking eyes, pale grey and a scar on her chin. Like someone had cut her face a long while ago. But she was beautiful and coldly annoyed.
The redhead had shaken her head brusquely, pushing herself off the stool, and preparing to leave.
But Harry, idiot that he was, had laid a hand on her arm and grinned,
“Hey…don’t leave yet…” he began, and the next thing that happened, took everyone by shock. Harry was tossed onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. The woman stood, feet apart, pulling on her jacket, for it was raining outside, her face blank.
Louis and his friends rushed to help Harry who lay, winded and panting.
The barman was making desperate signals to lay off as Louis’s friends turned to the woman.
Sensing something wrong, Louis stood up. The Delano charm never failed and he approached the woman.
“Sorry about that. My friend here was just…” he began.
Then the barman Sean, who knew him well, interrupted.
“Delano, meet my cousin Serena Kingston. She was in the army and she’s just got back. Joined the city police force.”
And Louis Delano was smitten.
Serena King was half Polish, he found out after they had begun to go out, surreptitiously, of course. For neither her bosses at the headquarters nor his own dominating father, would approve of their relationship. But he was suddenly, desperately in love with the fierce woman, strong and hard, but with a softness that she hid away carefully from the world. They met in motels, far away and spent torrid nights in each other’s arms.
But when their relationship had been discovered, she was suspended.
She had been thrown under the bus by the top brass who could not conceive of a Mafia Don’s scion being in bed with a top cop.
Serena had been hurt, disappointed and furious. But Jack Lord had been the one to point out that she could get a licence as a PI, a private investigator. Which was what she was now. Running her own boutique private investigation services, working for a few chosen elite customers.
And a damned good one, thought Liam O’Grady as he saw the information she had collected in a day, about Cahill’s operations.
They had been asked to meet at Louis Delano’s offices, in the city of Hollowford. O’Grady, functioning more on nervous energy, had driven over accompanied by his brother. Now they sat, facing Serena King and Louis Delano. Serena tapped on her tablet; her pale eyes focussed on the monitor in front of her as she spoke in a soft voice that belied her hard looks. She did not have on any make-up, her hair scraped back in a high ponytail she still looked amazing and O’Grady noticed the way Louis Delano could barely keep his eyes off her.
Tapping at something on the screen, she swivelled to look at the large screen which had been set up behind them.
“Cahill has been transporting women from Europe, regularly, sending them to the Middle East and South America, apart from other countries where the systems are lax.”
Serena raised her pale eyes, and fixed O’Grady with a hard look as she said,
“The newest consignment is being sent to the Middle East, by ship, tomorrow evening.”
O’Grady bristled.
Consignment?
The woman was talking about WOMEN, human beings, for Jaysus’ sake!
St Just laid a restraining hand on his thigh, warning him to remain seated.
Louis Delano was studying the screen, having got up, his shirt unbuttoned, big arms folded as he studied the screen intently.
“The route?” he queried.
She looked at him briefly and said, “It’s linked to the Albanians. They’re sending the women in ships hidden along with seafood.”
St Just made a sound in his throat, of shock and horror.
“What do we do?” snarled O’Grady, his hands fisting in impotent fury.
The woman raised a thin brow at him and said softly, with emphasis,
“WE do not do anything now, Mr O’Grady. We lie low and marshal our people, so that we get there in time to save the victims.”
Her face hardened as she went on,
“Some of them have been prostituted on board a large ship, which docked here recently. Many men from this town, with deep pockets, have been seen going in and out of the ship.”
As the meaning of what she was saying, dawned on the Irishman, he sat back, running his hand through his hair.
“Sweet Jaysus. Are you saying it’s…?
Serena Kingston was watching him unblinkingly.
“Yes, Mr O’Grady. There are girls and boys, women and children on that ship who are being used as sex slaves.”
St Just burst out,
“Why not …arrest them?”
She turned, her flame-red hair catching the light but it was Louis Delano who replied his eyes glued to the large screen which showed the docks, the wooded areas where Cahill had set up his little shelters and other details that Serena had added to the white board behind them.
“Because many of the clients are men who run the city.”
And then, as Serena went on a cool voice, rising to her feet, planting her hands flat on the table as she looked at him,
“We will need to call in the cops, Mr O’G. There are still some honest cops in the force and I shall be letting them know as soon as we are done here.”
The deadpan way she went on, mocking him without moving a muscle, made O’Grady seethe.
“No rushing in like a gunslinging cowboy and shooting randomly to save your mistress’ little sis.”
As O’Grady shot up, his face like thunder, she went on, her face inches from him,
“There are many lives involved. We have news that two little four-year-olds are to be shipped to the harem of a prince in the Middle East.”