Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I couldn’t remember her name, but I knew her face. Instead of us going to private school like the children of other rich families we knew, our father sent us to public school because he wanted us to know real people and the real world. Neither of my parents cared about higher education or university. When Godric had said he wanted to be a veterinarian, neither of my parents was impressed by that aspiration.
I remembered her because she’d gone missing a couple years ago. Her face was plastered on posters all through the hallways at school. No one knew what happened to her, and after a few months with no leads, everyone forgot about it.
I’d never given it much thought because I didn’t know her personally.
Judging by the look in her eyes, she remembered me as well as I remembered her.
“Bastien.”
I turned at my father’s voice and broke eye contact with the girl from school. I crossed the room, my mind in a daze, and came to his side.
Godric continued to give me his ruthless stare.
He was three years older than me, but maybe he remembered her too?
My father showed me the other processing lines, the girls packing the different drugs and weighing them to be uniform before they were packaged and ready for distribution. It was more than cocaine. It was heroin too.
My father took me into a different warehouse, and this seemed to be the office space where numbers were calculated and shipping routes were designated, because it held tables with laptops. The rest of the warehouse was completely empty.
“Where do the girls go when they’re done?” I asked.
Godric stared at me.
“They’re never done.” My father grabbed a folder and pulled up a chair to one of the tables. “Sit.”
“They must sleep and eat, right?” I asked.
“That’s what the other warehouses are for, son.” He opened the folder and pulled out the papers. “Now, sit.”
I fell into the chair, the realization smacking me in the face. The girls never left. That meant the girl had been here since she’d disappeared…which was two years ago. That meant she had only been thirteen at the time.
Godric sat in the other chair, arms across his chest, continuing to give me that angry stare.
I understood my father was a drug kingpin, but producing and distributing drugs never sounded like that big of a deal to me. It seemed like a victimless crime, but now, I realized that wasn’t the case. Those women worked to process the drugs that we sold for millions and paid for our beautiful homes, cars, staff, and yachts. And then I felt like shit, absolute shit. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m about to explain it all to you, son.”
“The girls… Where do they come from?” I knew where one came from, but what about the rest?
My father gave an irritated sigh as he looked at me. “They aren’t important. They do their job, and they do it well.”
“One of those girls is my age.”
“She just looks young—”
“I know she’s my age because I went to school with her,” I said. “I remember the day she went missing.”
Godric shook his head. “I told you.”
My father gave him a vicious stare like he might slap him on the spot. It lingered for a long time before Godric finally looked away. My father looked at me again. “Bastien, it is what it is. Forget about it.”
“Forget about it?” Her parents were looking for her, and I knew where she was. Those other girls probably had families too, families that would never know what happened to their daughters or their sisters. “Why don’t we hire someone to do this—”
“Because you can’t hire someone to keep their mouth shut,” he snapped. “This is the only way.”
“So, they’re just stuck here until they die?” I asked in disbelief. “Working for the rest of their lives and sleeping in a warehouse like it’s a chicken coop?”
Godric gave a shake of his head but bit back the words he’d already spoken.
My father raised his hand in frustration. “Forget about the girls, alright?” He slid the papers toward me. “You need to learn how to run the business, who our distributors are, how to maintain order in a lawless profession. This is the business that puts food on the table for all four of us.” He flipped to the page that showed the monthly revenue after costs. It was a number bigger than any I’d ever seen. “The girls don’t matter.” He pressed his finger into the number. “This is what matters. And this is what you and your brother will split when I’m gone.”
In a different circumstance, I would have been impressed by that number like anyone else. But now it meant nothing to me, not when it was earned off the backs of underage girls who were too scared to fight or run. “I don’t want it.” I directed my gaze away from the page and looked at my father. “I want nothing to do with this.”