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“How have you been, Berlynn?” Ross asks me, his usual upbeat smile missing, a broken shell of what it used to be—full of confidence when it came to me.
“I’ve been okay, Mr. Davenport,” I answer. Tears form in my eyes when his crinkle in the corners, both of us feeling uncomfortable from the distance that’s been placed between us and our once close bond. “How have you been? How’s Mrs. Davenport and Addison?”
“Notice that my welfare wasn’t asked about,” Aris states, delaying our conversation, looking none too pleased at not being mentioned.
He’s always been able to push my buttons. Nobody makes me grit my teeth the way he does. Anger penetrates me, making me want to snap at him. Instead, I take a moment to breathe and calm myself, not wanting him to know how much his presence bothers me. “Because I’ve never had to worry about you, Aris,” I excuse. “You always strive no matter the conditions or circumstances you find yourself in.”
“Still would’ve been nice to know you’ve worried,” he mutters under his breath.
Not wanting to have this conversation in front of Ross, DeMarius, and Jase, I switch topics and once again demand, “Tell me about these missing people, Aris.”
He hangs his head, not wanting to talk about this, but he knows there’s no distracting me when I sink my teeth into something as important as this is. “All we have is their last known surveillance photos. We can show that these women left establishments with your parents leading them away, and after that, nobody has ever seen them again,” he reports. “We have suspicions, and with the type of people your folks have associated themselves with, we can only make guesses on what happened to them.”
Burying my head in my hands, I try to decompress and wrap my emotions up in a warm, confined blanket before letting this crisis get the best of me. Because in my opinion, thisisa crisis, these ladies’ lives may be at stake. My parents are money hungry bastards, they don’t care about anything outside of lining their bank accounts regardless of if that means another human’s life may be on the line. “Let me recap here. My parents have been visually seen leaving places with women who have gone missing, no traces of them have been noted afterward. Has there been any activity on their bank accounts or credit cards once they vanished?” The reason I ask this is because if these women had any money to their names, and if Marcus, as well as Lucinda were involved in their disappearances as suspected, they’d be depleted down to the last cent.
“These ladies were down on their luck at the time they went missing,” Ross states, his tone soothing. “They had no traceable accounts.”
“What are you thinking they’re doing with them then? We all know that unless they have something worth stealing that’s of any monetary value, they wouldn’t bother with them. Especially if there’s no ransom involved,” I speculate, reminding them of the duplicity that is the senior McKinnys.
Aris shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking a bit green at the gills. “The sort of people that Marcus has surrounded himself with are… how do I put this? Unsavory. Dirty.”
“Pimps, son. I’m going to be frank with you here, Berlynn. These individuals are known for snatching women off the streets that won’t be missed, drugging them, making them dependent on them, and tossing them out to the wolves,” Ross says, ripping the bandaid off.
“No,” I whine. “Please say you’re joking.” My stomach sinks when I see the forlorn looks on their faces. They aren’t kidding, they’re one-hundred percent serious and it makes me want to puke.
“I wish we were,” Aris tells me, reaching over to grab my hand in support but thinking twice about it and yanking it back. I want that. The comfort he used to give me, the way a simple touch from him could make all the bad stuff go away. “They’re under investigation, there’s a task force that’s been formed to try and take this ring down. We weren’t aware of that at the time that we started doing our own research into what your parents were up to so we could be prepared in case they got ballsy. We were trying to find something noteworthy, drastic enough that we could use against them that’d have them backpedaling if they attempted to come at you and Berkley.”
“Imagine our surprise that the same day we got notes from our investigator, we had an agent at our door demanding answers as to why we were doing some digging into the McKinnys and their activities,” Ross adds.
The more they talk and expose about my parents’ barbaric proclivities, the more ill I feel. My hand immediately goes to my abdomen, cupping it, hoping that I can hold the contents insideif I apply enough pressure. “I knew they were evil, but I had no clue as to how far they’d fallen.”
“They’re desperate. To be honest, that scares me more than anything,” Ross confesses.
“Are Berkley and I in danger?” I ask, turning my head so I can see them both. Fear, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before races through me when I see the devastation and anxiety pouring from them in waves, slamming into me. They can’t seem to mask what they’re feeling from me, which tells me how dire this situation is. “Dammit.”
The rest of our meeting was information overload. My brain was overstimulated and all I wanted to do was get home so I could check on Berkley. I was numb when I left work, Aris and Ross tried to speak to me as I walked to my car like a zombie. The problem was, I had nothing left inside of me and didn’t want to do anything more than to sit in front of the television for the rest of the evening with Berk and drink an entire bottle of Merlot.
I wasn’t out of it enough not to realize that they’d followed me home. Whether or not that was to ensure that I didn’t drive off course or make sure I made it home safely—is undetermined. I didn’t bother to go to them and ask. I was dead on my feet. My emotions were and still are raw.
Fortunately for me, today is an off day, meaning, it’s the day of the week designed for our athletes to spend with their family and recuperate from the draining practices they’ve endured.
Our sport isn’t for the faint at heart—it’s demanding and they aren’t the only ones who need time to decompress from the stress. As coaches, we’re under as much pressure as they are. We have to be the best of the best. We have to ensure that our teams are healthy both physically and emotionally.
Stretching my arms above my head to work the kinks out, I yawn. My sleep was restless, dreams of women abducted, forced to live lives of servitude plagued me. People aren’t meant to be owned, forced to live in circumstances that weren’t of their own choosing.
It’s deplorable.
Demeaning.
Disgraceful.
Women of all cultures fought for what should’ve been our god given rights.
We were provided them after years of protests and standing up for ourselves, demanding equal rights, and yet, even after all of those civic battles were won, they can be stripped from us by the unlawful—those with vile intentions.
I don’t know how, but somehow, someway, I have to help bring these people home.
CHAPTER
