Russian negotiations
Sophie pulled on the skin tight body suit and rolled her eyes. Really how anyone was supposed to fight in this thing was the real miracle of the Red Room. She would be picking leather out of her rear end for weeks. It was worth the discomfort to see the way Nate’s jaw dropped and even Hardison’s eyes popped when he saw her.
“Damn! I vote that Parker has to wear one of those all the time cus uh aerodynamics and stuff.” Sophie laughed a little at the hacker. Parker was going to make him pay for that one.
Principal Martin waited with baited breath for the representative to come through. Thank God for Adam West because she’s almost dismissed the message out of hand. I mean what the hell would KGB want with a girls school? Lucky for her, in the mans rather colorful past he and his father had paid for the services of a widow. He had warned her not to refuse. One doesn’t refuse the Red Room and live to talk about it. How the infamous Red Room had heard about their little operation she’d never know but she intended to make the most of it. If she got rid of her most troublesome student as well then, doubly good.
Sophie walk with a catlike grace Nate and Hardison following in her wake. Each heavily armed, at least in this con being armed was part of the cover. Eliot would have done better as hired muscle but Sophie was glad to have him and Parker in the school to watch for Darcy. She had to admit he had taken exceptional care of her .While the whole team was on the coms earlier it Darcy who had calmed Eliot walked him through his classes.
“Hello I’m Cheryl Martin the principal of this school. I heard through a mutual friend that you wanted to meet. I must say I’m at loss as to what I can do for you Ms. Uh..”
“You may call me Galina, it is not what you can do for me but what I can do for you. You see I’ve heard of your little school, at first we thought the Americans were trying to replicate our success and we couldn’t have that.” Sophie nodded toward Nate who fingers twitched on his gun. Sophie really was the best. She was starting to scare him. “I did some research imagine my surprise when I find instead of training soldiers, you are selling whores.”
“I’ll have you know this is a respectable Christian school!” Cheryl bristled with outrage. She didn’t train whores she wasn’t some madam out of the 1800’s. She just offloaded unwanted girls to interested parties. What happened to them after that wasn’t her problem.
Sophie flew across the desk hands going to Principal Martin’s throat squeezing ever so slightly. Nate and Hardison pulled their guns aiming for the other security guards in the room.
“CYKA CHOBA BPN MHE!” (Bitch lie to me again). The office door opened and everyone froze.
“No need to get rough, Cheryl’s sorry, aren’t you Cheryl? I told her you were the real deal but you see Cheryl’s always been a small picture person. I’ve worked with a widow before and I recognize their work. Noah West pleasure to meet you.”
Sophie let go of the woman’s throat not before squeezing just a bit for good measure. Her focus now entirely on the handsome blonde who just walked in. Noah West the man who had dared to touch her daughter. For a second Sophie imagined what it would be like to put a bullet in his head con be damned. He had touched her baby girl and he should pay. Judging by the vicious snarl Nate was sporting he would support her but Alec sweet Alec was shaking his head minutely.
“I do not like my time being wasted. I came to make you a lucrative offer and I am insulted. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you all and take what I please from this place.”
“You could but that wouldn’t accomplish your goals. You have girls, Russia has no shortage of orphans. No matter how well you train them, there’s one thing you can’t train into those girls. You can’t train contacts, family connections. Yes you can take a few girls but we, I know these girls better. I know who would be missed who wouldn’t. In can tell you who would break who would excel, so like as not you need us.” The man was smooth Nate had to admit that he knew how to reel them in. He was kind and calm all the while manipulating them exactly where he needed them. If they didn’t already know about him they might have been fooled. They did know him though and Noah West was going to pay for the rest of his life for every girl he touched. Every nightmare Darcy had, every time she flinched when a tall blonde man walked to close to her.
“Fine, I will refrain from killing you, for now. Know this if you cross me, I will make sure your death is slow and painful. Now tell me true what kind of training do these girls receive here?”
Cheryl Martin rubbed at her throat and thanked God that Noah West had arrived in time to keep the scary Russian bitch from killing her. She could make a sizable amount selling girls to the Russians but it was a risk. The question was did she involve Janet or not? If she got Janet Clearlake involved they would have more schools to pick from as ClearLake was becoming a leading school in California but that would also mean sharing the take. She’d already have to cut Noah in on the deal and that cut into her profits. That decided she smiled at the Russian. She would keep quiet for now.
“Follow me”
“Janet Clearlake founded the school and instituted the disciplinary policies. Girls are grouped into houses, if you look at the breast of every girl you will see a flower. Each flower represents a house. Iris is for the girls with families that have power and connections, buttercups for the orphans, Petunia’s for those girls with connections but families that don’t check on them and of course the yellow roses for the neutral girls theses we typically are easier on. The parents see pretty flowers but we can easily identify how we group the classes, which girls are acceptable losses.
Sophie who had looked ready to murder at the mention of the house system. She clenched her fist to keep from striking out. Darcy’s uniform sported a pretty little buttercup, her baby was considered an acceptable loss. One look at Sophie and Nate decided to intervene Sophie was to close to this one. Cheryl Martin was one word from being strangled by Sophie’s perfectly manicured nails.
“Tell me more about the staff. How do you ensure their silence. I can’t imagine they are ok with missing girls.” Nate asked in a heavily accented voice.
“We hire those with checkered pasts they keep their silence if they wish to keep their jobs. They can’t get employed anywhere else. Plus we let them indulge with a few of our buttercups.” Sophie lunged for Principal Martin. Hardison grabbed her arm shaking his head.
“Maybe you should show us some of the classes.” Nate gestured for Principal Martin to walk ahead of him. Keeping himself between Sophie and the soon to be dead woman. Not that he would consider her death a loss but they didn’t kill no matter how tempted it was the line they didn’t cross.
“You’ll love this” the principal gestured towards the gym where Parker had a group of girls army crawling through an obstacle course.
“Move it move it, come on if museum security is coming you need to get through those vents! Faster, faster now. The police are three minutes away and you have to make your escape.” Parker was blowing a whistle hustling the girls through her course. Nate had to hold in a sigh. Even Sophie looked amused at least until she saw a lock pick station that several girls were also trying their hand at.
“This is our new Physical Education instructor Emma Barker she comes highly recommended.” Principal Martin looked a little nervous.
“It seems the America whores are taught useful skills after all.”
“Yes, well uh we decided that it might be useful to give these girls some skills at least those that are not going to our friends in France. We wouldn’t want to give them the ability to escape after all.” Nate was relieved at least to see this was the class of iris’s but he knew Parker had taught the same to all her classes.
“You’ve seen what we got now we need to talk numbers. How many girls, how soon and more importantly how much?” Noah West stood forward smirking. Cheryl was an idiot and it was clear as day, that the Widow did not like her so it would be easy to make sure she had a little accident. Then Noah could swoop in, take over as principal and head of this little Russian operation. Then he would show his father that he wasn’t a screw up.
“How much do you get for your little whores, 20,000 a girl?” Galina asked her voice filled with disdain.
“Ten.” Cheryl answered quickly and Noah could have smacked her. How was he supposed to negotiate if she just gave information out Willy nilly. Even the older Russian scoffed.
“You sell those girls for 10,000 that’s it!” Hardison knew he was supposed to be the silent muscle but he was infuriated. That’s what those girls were worth to them. What Darcy was worth. He could skim that off bank accounts since he was sixteen.
Nate glared at him and he bowed his head in apology all the while silently promising that he was going to digitally fuck every single person associated with this school in addition to what Nate and Sophie had planned.