#queueen bee

“For now.”

“What is it?”

“If you and Sergei are brothers, and you don’t have the same last name, that must mean that one of them is fake. So which one is it? It’s his, right? Because he’s the criminal?” She leaned forward, fingers poised above her keyboard. ‘Sergei Zokas’ had a nice ring to it—much better than Victor Karpovich.

“They’re both fake.”

“What?” She frowned, looking up from the screen. “What do you mean? Why are they both fake?”

“We both decided that Kapylyushny would ruin us in America, so we both changed it.” Renard shrugged, pushing out from the table to stand up.

“Cap—ee—can you say that again?”

“No.” He walked over to the fridge and swung it open. “I never want to hear it again.”

“Why’d you move to America?”

“Fresh start.” He turned to her and raised the bottle of white wine. “Wine?”

“Yes, please. What was your family like?”

“Is this part of your investigation?”

“No, just curious.”

He set the full glass down in front of her a little harder than necessary, and her wine almost sloshed over the rim. “My mother was a seamstress, but she died giving birth to our younger brother.”

Belle choked on the sip of wine she’d just taken. “You have a younger brother?”

“Yes, Mikhail, and he is dead, too.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She bit her lip. “How long ago was it?”

“Ten years? Maybe fifteen, I am not sure.”

“How?”

Renard let out a growling sigh. “Okay, fine, I will tell you my life story, but I am only going to tell you once, and you can never ask me about it again, and you also cannot look at me like that, do you understand?” He pointed at her, and she pressed her lips together while she nodded. “Good. You better not take notes. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” She sat back in her chair so that her fingers were nowhere near the keyboard, and took a sip of her wine. “Go ahead.”

“So, my father was a criminal, and an asshole. He married my mother when she got pregnant with me, and then a little over two years later, they had Sergei, and then five years after that, they had Mikhail. My mother died, and my father had to raise us, and he was terrible. He was aggressive and usually drunk.

“Sergei and I never got along, unless it came to my father, and both of us hated Mikhail, because he was a shithead.”

“Renard, I feel like you’re leaving out—”

“I am telling the story, am I not?” He took a gulp of wine. “You should be happy you are even hearing it at all.”

“I’m very happy. What kind of criminal was your father?”

“Eh, he was a thief, and he sometimes worked for the mob. He always had a different job, too.  He used to take me and Sergei with him when he robbed places as lookouts. Since Sergei was younger, it was his job to stub his toe and cry if my father was about to get caught. He never wanted to do it, but I was older, so he had to—what face are you making right now, Belle?”

“Nothing! I’m not making a face!” She hurried to school her horrified gape into a more stoic expression, but all she could really do was cover her mouth with her hands.

“That is it, I am done. Story is over.” He started to stand up, draining his wine glass. Belle groped for him across the table.

“No, no, finish, please! I’m done making faces, I swear!”

He sat back down, watching her like he didn’t trust her at all, and she pressed her lips together.

“Fine. My father died when I was twenty—drank himself to death—and Mikhail died when he was eighteen, I believe. But he was always the crazy one. Grew up with no mother, raised by two idiots and their father, you know.” He shrugged. “He was drunk and drove a stolen car into a lake.”

“Oh my god.” Belle clapped a hand to her mouth. Renard ignored her.

“The only time Sergei and I ever really agreed on anything was when we decided to leave. We both knew we would die if we stayed in St. Petersburg, so we worked together to get our boat tickets. We actually worked together here for a year, in a shipping yard, but we got fired for fighting too much.”

“You came here on a boat?”

“Yes. It was, eh—” He rocked his hand back and forth, considering. “A bit illegal. A big fishing boat. He makes the voyage twice a year. We got our citizenship when we worked at the docks.”

“Where did you start making your fortune?”

“Selling guns.” He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, speculating the ceiling. “We knew all about guns from our days of crime in Russia, and we used to sell them on the black market. Then, I got my license and became legitimate. Once I could afford it, I took some business classes, and started trading on Wall Street. Then I bought my first casino.”

“And Sergei?”

“Most of his money was from drugs and prostitution—selling prostitutes, I mean, not being one. He was a loan shark, too. He did enough stock trading to make his fortune look legitimate, but I think this business is relatively new.”

“We started seeing women that fit the same profile about a year and a half ago,” she said, leaning forward to make some notes now that the personal part of Renard’s story was finished. “Either his business was small before, or that was when they started getting out.”

“Having a loyal employee like you probably helped get it started.”

Belle froze, fingers poised over the keyboard. “You think I helped?”

“He knew he could trust you—and more importantly, he knew you trusted him. You would never believe it of him, and you would make sure no one else did, either.”

“I don’t want to talk about how stupid I was,” she said, turning back to the computer.

“Do not feel bad. My own fiancée managed to have an affair with my brother and plan my death at the same time, and I never noticed.”

“We were blinded by affection.”

“Something like that. Let me see the binder.”

Belle passed it over, studying her notes and the maps. There had to be a clue in the information they had. There was no way that Sergei had managed to fake everything so convincingly—Belle was confident enough in her own intelligence to think that he would have had to use something authentic for her to believe it. Sergei may have thought she was a love-struck idiot when it came to him, but he knew she was shrewd in other walks of life.

Renard slammed his fist on the table, and Belle almost knocked the laptop off in her surprise.

“What’s wrong? Are you—”

“I have a lead.” He bared his teeth like a wolf about to play with its food, and smacked his hand on the table again—with less force this time.

“You do?” She almost fell over in her haste to get out of her chair and over to him to look at the binder in his lap.

“Right here.” He pointed to the profile of a bald man in a suit walking on a sidewalk in front of a beauty parlor and convenience store. Renard was in the photo, too, but Belle could see where he was cut in now, where the shading wasn’t quite right. She needed to study photo-editing more.

“Okay. Who am I looking at?”

“Representative Cody Mills, from Albany.”

Belle wrinkled her nose. “Who?”

“A small-time politician, who, if he does not play his cards right, is about to have a big time scandal.”

----------

Their plan made Belle feel like they were about to walk right off a cliff—there was a lot of solid ground, but as soon as they hit a certain point, it was going to be gone, replaced with murky waters and sharp rocks.  Everything to the point where they would confront the representative was perfect, but after that, they would be floundering around again and praying that everything went how they wanted it to.

The next three days were spent with Belle forcing Renard to stay as immobile as possible so that his head would be healed as much as it could be. They went over the details as much as they could, but all it was doing by then was making them anxious, so Belle took to the spa. She got a facial, a manicure, another massage—and the masseuse remarked on the tension she’d managed to build up between massages while on vacation—and spent more of the owner’s money in the gift shop than she should have when they had limited space.

Their plan required her to look important, though, so the Givenchy dress she’d gotten wasn’t just an impulse purchase, and neither was the set of citrine drop earrings and matching necklace.

For their last meal on their last night, they each had lobster. Breakfast the next day would be all protein, and even Renard agreed.

“Goodbye, Four Seasons,” Belle whispered, clutching her suitcase handle and staring up at the building like a farewell montage in a film.

“Come on.” Renard put a hand on her back and pushed her toward the car. He was back in his suit—pressed and laundered by the hotel staff—and wearing a cologne that made Belle want to bury her nose in his neck and hide.

“You look nice,” she said, letting him guide her away.

“Yes.” He kept his hand between her shoulder blades, looking forward with his jaw set. “As do you.”

“Thank you.” She’d acquired a chestnut skirt suit as well as the dress, and she’d have liked it much better if she wasn’t a blonde now. Maybe she’d become a redhead soon.

When Renard tried to get in the driver’s seat, Belle stepped in front and glared up at him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, somehow getting taller to loom over her. She leaned back to accommodate his new height, but didn’t move.

“I’m getting in my seat.”

“What are you talking about? I am driving.”

“No, you definitely are not.” She crossed her arms. “I drove just fine before.”

“Yes, but I was injured then, and now I am not, so I will drive.”

“I’m driving.”

“Belle, I am the man here, and I—”

Belle raised an eyebrow, like she was daring him to finish that sentence, and he pressed his lips together.

“I’m driving,” she said.

“Okay.”

She let him choose the radio station, and he switched between classic rock and classical as they drove down the highway. When they were half an hour away, they pulled over to a rest area with a payphone, and Renard got out to make the phone call. He tried to stand so that Belle could hear as well, but when the representative picked up, his voice was too soft.

“Mills, it is Renard.”

Belle gave up, and just stood and watched. Renard looked to be in his element, leaning against a wall in his tailored suit, making a business call.

“Have lunch with me today.” Renard waited, ignoring the way Belle stood on her toes and chewed her lip. “It was not a request, Cody. You will want to clear your schedule and meet with me, I promise you—something like that—trust me, you will regret it if you do not come see me today—yes, it is a threat—good, I will see you in an hour at Marco’s. Alone.”

He hung up the phone, and turned to put Belle out of her misery with his wolf grin. “We are on. Let’s go.”

The restaurant he directed her to was a small, Italian place with outdoor seating and a lot of people in suits. They got there early, and Renard had the waiter seat them at a small table in a darkened corner, where the noise from the kitchen, the radio, and surrounding tables would cover up most of what they were saying. Belle had a notebook ready.

“Are we a couple here?” she asked, sipping at her water.

“No. There is no need.”

“How do you know him anyway?”

“We play poker together.”

She looked sideways at him, and the suggestion of a grin on his face told her that he was pleased to have surprised her. “Is it an underground poker game?”

“Yes. With the Russian mob.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be in the mob?”

“Playing poker with the mob is not being in the mob.”

“It’s a bit close for com—”

“He’s here.” He jerked his chin to the door, and Belle turned around to look.

Cody Mills was even more slight in person than he looked in the photos, with a suit that hung on him and thick glasses. He walked in like he was torn between owning his space and making himself invisible, so it was sort of a half-slink, half-stride, and it was only when his eyes landed on Belle that he straightened up.

“He is disgusting,” Renard murmured, leaning back in his chair. Belle turned back to the table in silent agreement, meeting the representative’s eyes with cool disinterest.

“Renard.” He sat, nodding his greeting. “And…?”

“Lacey,” Renard said, and Belle forced herself not to look surprised. They had not discussed using her fake name.

“Pleasure to meet you, Lacey.” He held his hand out, but she did not shake it. Who knew where it had been?

“By the way,” Renard said, signaling to the waiter, “you are paying.”

“I’m sorry?” Mills looked over at him, eyebrows drawn together. “You invited—”

“You do not get to negotiate.”

“What is this about, man? I don’t understand—”

“I am ready to order.”

Mills huffed, looking down at the menu. In the half an hour that they’d been there, Belle and Renard had already decided, so this gave her the opportunity to glare at the politician. He glanced up every few seconds, and eventually shifted his chair so that his body was only facing Renard.

The conversation before their food arrived was strained, and fizzled out every few sentences until they all lapsed into silence. Belle was sure that the surrounding tables could feel the tension emanating, and all she could do was hope that they wouldn’t hear anything when they got down to business.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about now?” Mills asked the second the waiter left.

“We have some photos of you,” Renard said.

“Lots of people have photos of me.” Mills shrugged, fork poised over his spaghetti. “What of it?”

“Photos of you leaving a brothel.”

“A brothel? Please, Renard, this is America. We don’t—”

“A brothel full of underage foreign girls who were kidnapped from their homes and forced into prostitution,” Belle said, and she couldn’t remember anyone ever cowering quite as much under the force of her glare.

“Coincidence,” Mills said. “I didn’t know such a place existed.”

“That is bullshit,” Renard said, pointing his fork at him. “And if you want us to get more pictures to prove it, we can.”

“There is nothing you can prove.”

“Do you want to test that theory?”

Mills looked between the two of them, and then set down his silverware. “All right. What do you want? Money? This is going to be a one-time thing, Renard. You will not hold this over my head for the rest of my life.”

“We would never do that, because we’re not terrible—” Belle started, cutting off when Renard laid a hand on her leg. She swallowed, looking down at her untouched lunch.

“We don’t want money,” he said, leaning forward.

“What do you want then? Connections? My political support?”

“Information.”

Mills looked between them again, and Belle was ready to lunge across the table at him. Instead, she reached for her purse and her notebook.

“What kind of information?”

“Everything you know about the brothel. Is there more than one? Who runs it? I want addresses, I want names, everything.”

“I don’t know,” Mills said, shrugging. “I just know how it works.”

“How does it work?”

Belle swallowed, keeping her eyes on her notebook. She could handle this. She knew plenty of horror stories, from women she’d spoken to and men she’d helped get caught, and she could handle this pasty politician telling her.

“You really want to know?” Mills asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, there was a woman, and she would set up the appointments. You go to her, tell her what you want, and she set it up. It’s a hundred for your basic package—”

“Basic package?”

“Yeah, a regular housebroken girl with no bruises.”

Belle’s throat clenched, and she pressed her pen into the paper so hard, it almost broke. How could anyone be so blasé about people like this?

“If she had bruises, it was seventy-five. If you gave her bruises, you pay a fifty dollar damage fee. It’s five hundred for a virgin.”

Belle choked, and the man looked over at her. Her whole face felt hot, and she wanted to vomit and cry and punch something at the same time.

“Is she all right?”  he asked Renard.

“You—you are disgusting,” she said, eyes brimming. “How can you just sit there and be so calm? I mean—housebroken? Scum like you are the reason that people like me have to have jobs like I do, and I can’t—”

“Lacey,” Renard said, squeezing her leg under the table.

“—believe that you have so little decency, that you don’t even consider these women human beings. They’re just dogs to you, and sometimes they don’t even get that status. You pay damage fees! How can you put a price on—”

“Lacey, I need to talk to you. Outside,” Renard said, raising his voice. Before Belle could protest, he had his chair pushed out and was pulling her out of hers, leading her away amidst stares.

“It’s not fair,” she said when they were out, folding her arms like a petulant child and ignoring the tears spilling over. “He shouldn’t get to go free just because he can help us. He doesn’t deserve to get the easy end of the deal.”

“I know.” He took hold of her shoulders. “But you have to calm down, Belle, or—”

“Why can’t we just tell the news about his scandal? They’ll blow it up, and then the FBI will be onto Sergei, and they’ll find him and we don’t have to.”

“We cannot do that.”

“Why not? If we take this route, then everyone who deserves retribution gets it. How can you listen to that man with such a straight face? He doesn’t deserve our mercy, Renard, and we don’t owe anything to him, even if he tells us—”

“I have to listen to him, Belle, because he is the key to everything we need. We are already close to getting what we want.”

“No, we’re not! He said he doesn’t know anything, Renard, he just knew how it worked, and—”

“Belle—Belle, shh—look at me, Belle, look at me.” He cupped her cheeks in his palms, forcing her chin up. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and for what seemed like forever, he just held her face and waited—but then, he swiped a thumb across one of her tears, and she looked at him without meaning to.

“What?” she asked.

“He knows.”

“What?”

“He knows everything.” He wiped off another tear, and she sniffled.

“How do you know?”

“Look, we cannot tip anyone off about this scandal, because as soon as it gets to the news, Sergei will go to his backup plan, and he will be even more difficult to catch. I promise you that Mills will get what he deserves, even if it is not immediate. He knows more than he is telling us, and I am going to find out what it is, I swear it.”

The pressure of his hands and the force of his conviction calmed her, and she brought a hand up to rest on the crook of his elbow. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. I can do this. Everything will be fine.”

“Yes. Everything will be.” Renard bent down and pressed hips lips to her forehead, then released her cheeks and started back for the restaurant.

Belle, brows drawn together, hurried after him. “Did you just kiss me on the head?”

Renard froze, pivoting slowly on the balls of his feet to look at her. His eyes darted around, and his brow was drawn. “No,” he said after a few seconds, pivoting back. “Of course not.”

“Renard, you can’t say ‘no,’ I was right here when it—”

“Come on, do not waste time. We have to go back.” He pushed the door open, barely waiting for Belle to scurry after him before letting go.

She could still feel the sticky imprint of his lips as they sat down, and she longed to touch her skin where the edge of his kiss would be, but they had an asshole to interrogate, and she was not about to compromise the situation again.

----------

Back on the highway, Belle couldn’t decide whether or not she was excited or disgusted. On one hand, they had two pages full of names, addresses, and pieces of information that Mills thought might come in handy—but on the other, they now knew how depraved the whole business was.

“Do we have somewhere to go?” Renard asked, squinting at a map of New Jersey to try and find some of the addresses there.

“Yes. We’re heading to Allentown.”

“Allentown?” He looked over, eyebrows drawn. “What for?”

“I have a place where we can stay and plan our next move, now that we know what we’re doing.”

“And what are we doing?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to plan that.”

Renard shook his head. “I wish we could know that we had the upper hand, instead of just hoping. It would make all of this driving much less stressful.”

“I think we have the upper hand as long as we stay hidden, and make sure to keep our contacts quiet. Sending Spencer to your casino was a good move, and so was making sure that Mills knew we would go to the news as soon as he told anyone about our meeting.”

“I suppose you are right. When did you get so happy?”

“When I decided that karma was going to slap him in the face soon.”

Renard frowned, shifting to look at her. “You’re not going to help it along, are you?”

“Nope. Don’t need to.” She smiled out at the traffic. “When we save all those girls, some of them are going to need a lot of help, but others are going to be angry, and they’re going to remember the men who abused them, and they’re going to do foolish things like smash their cars in with baseball bats.”

“I think you went crazy in there.”

“I think you should take a nap.”

He sunk down a little in his seat, eyeing her sideways. “If I do, you will still be taking us to Allentown, yes? You are not going to take a crazy revenge detour?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Renard. Go to sleep.”

He didn’t sleep, and Belle supposed she didn’t blame him. Even if he had napped, she would still have driven to the same upper class suburban neighborhood with houses that had BMWs and Mercedes in their driveways.

“So where are we?” he asked, sitting up and frowning out the window.

“I have a friend here. I should warn—no, you know what, I’m not going to warn you, you’ll be fine.”

“What? What do you need to warn me about?” He sat up, glaring at her now. “Tell me.”

“Can you carry the bags? I’m going to park down the street just in case.”

“Tell me.”

She didn’t, and Renard sulked about it the entire walk down the street, and only stopped sulking when he saw the shiny blue Jaguar parked out front.

“Whose house is this?” he whispered as Belle knocked.

The door opened to reveal a young woman, taller than both of them and as bulky as Renard, wearing pajamas and a tank top. In one hand, she held the doorknob, and in the other, an open bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Hey, Belle. You bringing me a battered woman?” She looked Renard up and down, nose wrinkled.

“Hi. Sorry to just show up at your door, but we need a place to stay.”

“Sure thing. I see you went blonde for the summer.”  

“Yeah, something like that.” Belle waved a hand. “Also, this is Renard. Renard, this is Avery.”

Avery let go of the door to offer him her black-nailed hand, and he shook it, staring at her like he was trying to wilt her. “Your friend’s a little weird,” she said, stepping back to let them in. “But, here’s the deal. You can both stay, but he can’t have his own room.”

“Don’t you need to ask your parents for permission or something?” Renard asked, folding his arms. Belle elbowed him in the side.

Avery took a swig from her bottle. “This is my house. I inherited it when my grandfather died, and I live in it alone.”

“If you live in it alone, then why do I not get my own room?”

“Because I have some girls staying with me, and this is supposed to be a man-free zone. They need to know that they’re safe, and they’ll trust Belle to keep you in check. There’s two of them right now, and they’re only eighteen, so I’m not about to compromise their well-being just because you can’t be a gentleman and sleep on the floor.”

“We can share a room, that’s fine, and I won’t make him sleep on the floor,” Belle said before Renard could growl something else.

“Cool. You can take the master, then.”

“Why do you not have the master bedroom?” Renard asked, following as Avery led them to the stairs.

She paused, taking another swig of Jack, and turned around. “Why would I need the master bedroom? Do I look married?”

Renard blinked at Belle in confusion, but she just shrugged and followed Avery up the stairs. Even though she knew that they were bound to meet the girls staying with Avery, she tried not to think about how both of them were eighteen. She could cross that bridge when she came to it.

“Here.” Avery flung open a door, revealing a bedroom and connecting bath as big as their hotel suite.

“Thank you,” Renard said, pushing past both of them to set the suitcase and tote down.

Avery hung back, inching closer to Belle while she watched Renard study his surroundings. “So, what’s going on?” she asked, voice low.

“It’s a long story, and I can’t tell you all of it just in case, but we’re sort of on the run,” Belle said. Renard looked up at her, nodding his approval, and she just barely refrained from rolling her eyes.

“From your creepster boss?” Avery asked.

Belle looked down at her, eyebrows drawn together. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Avery was still watching Renard, and she took a small sip from the bottle in her hand. “Wild guess.” She turned to Belle, face softening a little as she looked her up and down. “Can you cook while you’re here?”

“What?”

“Come on. You know I can’t, and we’re getting tired of take-out.”

“Where’s your maid?”

“On leave for a month because her sister just had a baby and her husband left her alone with it.”

“Fine. Renard, I’m going to check out the fridge, okay?”

“I’m coming.” Renard, suit jacket and tie gone, loped out of the room, and Avery shook her head at him.

“Come on, boy, the kitchen is this way,” she said, whistling to him like a dog. Renard growled, but followed after them since he didn’t have much other choice.

A door opened to the side, and Avery ignored it, so Belle tried to as well—but none of them could ignore the muffled screams that came from the door. It slammed shut, two girls disappearing behind it, and all three of them exchanged looks.

“What was that about?” Avery asked, looking at Belle with narrowed eyes, but Belle was watching Renard—who looked like a deer caught in a gun barrel—with unfocused eyes.

“Avery, what happened to those girls?” she asked.

Avery shrugged. “Don’t know. I never ask. They don’t want to be asked. Besides, they don’t really speak much English.”

Belle pressed her lips together, because now was not the time to smile, but she couldn’t contain herself. “Renard, they think you’re Sergei.”

He frowned, rubbing his neck after he jerked to look at her. “What?”

“They think you’re Sergei, Renard!”

His eyes widened, and he stepped closer, pointing to himself. “I look like Sergei. I can pass for Sergei.”

“You can pass for Sergei!”

“What is going on?” Avery asked, folding her arms. “Can someone please tell me?”