When The Sun Goes Down - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Nine

"Anything for the scoop, huh?" He chuckled again and it sent shivered up my spine.

"You're in the mafia aren't you?" I wished again I had a pen and paper now.

"We don't like to use labels. But I am the mafia, tesoro."

(sweetheart)

This threw me off. I was flustered but forced another question out. I couldn't believe he was actually just sitting in front of me totally open to my questions like this. "Okay. So...tell me, why do the girls want to be here?" 

"Because they were in trouble. Nearly all have been acquired by a friend. Those who are not a purchase, they have an outstanding debt, an abusive boyfriend, maybe they've become a prostitute and don't know how to get out. They know someone who has the connections to get to me."

"Acquire? Purchase?"

"Human trafficking Katherine."

My eyes widened, he didn't seem the least bit phased or uncomfortable.

"I don't traffic women. Not my line of duty. But I have a friend heavy in it, I bring the girls my way and offer them an out. Work for me and have no rent, no expenses, more freedom than they were granted above, and at the end I will pay them."

"Freedom?" I scoffed. "I would not use the word freedom and...well, this, whatever I want to even label this in the same sentence!"

"Are you familiar with the trafficking industry Katherine?"

"I'm a reporter, my dad is a cop, you tell me."

"Then you should be aware of the living conditions. Women living in a small place with some dozens of others, not receiving proper nutrients, not permitted hygiene privlegdes, not getting medical treatment under any circumstances, along with the obvious darker side to things. Yes, they are granted more freedom here than with the violent and abusive men who have snatched them off the streets and intend to sell them to the highest bidder."

"Uh, point made." I muttered. "What happens when they don't want to work for you?"

"This is usually figured out before I purchase, if they are uninterested, I move on."

"You move on? You just leave them there? With those men?"

He raised an eye brow at my outburst and I quieted. "As I was saying, I move on. Should I make the purchase and they then decide they are uninterested. Well like I said, my girls are free to go at any point but I don't interfere with what happens to them after they go. Maybe they fall back into the same patterns, reconnect with their abusive boyfriend, lose them selves in drugs again. At the point they leave us, we leave them. To an extent of course. They do still owe us their silence."

We fell into a silence for a few minutes as I ran all this through my head. I couldn't decide if he was great, or twisted. "You said...you pay them?"

"We'll sit down, have a discussion, agree on payment and length."

"Tell me more about that."

"It's pretty simple actually." He hesitated for a moment, thinking. "Your roommate, she agreed to three years and forty-thousand. Now, I know what you're thinking, that's not even a minimum wage job." He said holding a hand up to stop me before I could interject. "But they have no bills down here, no rent, no utilities, nothing. Their food, their clothes, everything is provided to them at no cost."

"But once they leave here, won't they just go back to their old problems?"

"In theory they could." He shrugged. "We do everything we can for my girls." He said sounding firm about this matter, whereas before he seemed carefree. "I grant them the decision, where do they want to go? I'll take them anywhere in the United States and we'll help them get back on their feet as best we can. Allow them to stay with one of our men in the area until they get their own place."