Reunion Under Fire. Geri Krotow

she’d worked with as she was to Josh as he sat in Grandma Ezzie’s feminine living room, his attention on Kit. Was it wrong to revel in the pure male beauty sitting right in front of her?

      Kit waved her hand at both of them, as if Annie and Josh were naive. “Trust me, I’ve made it this far with Vadim. And I’ll outlive him as long as he keeps drinking like he does. He’s never used a weapon on me, and only hits me when he’s drunk. He doesn’t remember in the morning and is ashamed for what he knows he must have done. He’s not a total monster.” Kit spoke with the wisdom of an old woman, yet she was only twenty-one or -two. Annie disagreed with her on the monster part, but kept silent.

      “Can you tell me a little more about what you meant, Kit? When you said Vadim’s involved in something you don’t like?” Josh’s tone was professional yet incredibly compassionate. Annie mentally stopped adding his sexy points up—he was off the charts.

      “I’m not exactly sure because he hides everything from me. But I’m almost positive he’s helping other women get tricked into coming here.” Kit looked first at Annie, then Josh. “He treats me like a little girl who can’t handle anything except getting her nails done and buying the latest designer purse. He only allowed me to go to SVCC because he thought I might be interested in learning English better.” Kit referred to Silver Valley Community College. “I can speak it well enough, from watching television, but I still need work on my writing.”

      “He lets you go to school?”

      “Oh, yes. I was bored and wanted to get a job, but he was dead set against it. No woman of ‘his’ ever needs to work.” She made air quotes around his and scrunched up her face in distaste. “When I told him I needed something to engage my mind, he understood. I had to time it between his blackouts, of course. I didn’t want to come home to him drowned in his own vomit.” Spoken with such ease, as if dealing with a blackout drunk was a normal part of life. For Kit, it was.

      “Are you still taking classes?” Annie had met so many domestic violence victims who had zero self-esteem left. Going to college would seem beyond them, even if they had the financial ability.

      “Yes. And I’ve taken whatever I wanted to take.” Underneath the layer of wariness Annie had witnessed earlier, Kit was incredibly strong and driven. A woman with a purpose. But Annie didn’t want that strength to become her downfall, either.

      “That’s brave.” Annie meant it.

      “I’ve finished all the classes for an associate’s degree in Criminal Justice. Vadim won’t allow me to go away to Penn State, but he agreed to allow me to take more classes. I needed his permission to pay for them, of course. Now I’m working on a second associate’s degree, in computers.” She shrugged. “I want to be able to help other women who were brought here against their will. One day I’d love to work in law enforcement myself.” She said the last shyly, her eyes downcast. “But as far as Vadim’s concerned, I took the classes for him, to be able to help him with his business. I never, ever told him my hopes to escape and start my own business.”

      Annie’s insides plummeted with her hope. “Wait—you’ve helped your husband in his work for ROC—Russian Organized Crime?”

      Kit’s eyes widened. “No, no, I will never help him in what he’s doing. He’s not asked me to yet, but I’ve let him think I will. That I don’t have a problem with what he does. Of course, I don’t let on how much I know, and I tell him I’ll help him with his pawnshop. He thinks I’m book smart but life stupid. Sometimes the only way to survive is to go along with the flow, as you say.”

      “What exactly do you think your husband is involved with, Kit? Besides the pawnshop?” Josh spoke up, and Annie knew that he already had his suspicions of Valensky, but needed Kit to share what she knew. She tried not to hold her breath, as the entire crux of what Josh hoped to accomplish here rested on this moment.

      “He’s been working with his criminal colleagues and bringing in shipments of women to the Silver Valley and Harrisburg area. Women from all over Eastern Europe and Asia, young women. They are told they’ll work in a home as a nanny and be able to go to school. But they...they never do. They have to work in a strip bar, or as escorts. Some get sent out to be married, like I was.”

      “Escorts, as in prostitutes?” Josh needed Kit to give him the truth, but Annie hated that Kit had to feel all of these emotions again. Because she had no doubt that Kit had been one of these women six years ago when she’d come over.

      Kit nodded. “Yes. But not on the streets, not like you see on television. This is in private men’s clubs, where the girls are never seen in public, only by the customers. He had a good friend, a criminal contact he worked with exclusively. But he’s disappeared, and now I’m not sure who Vadim’s working with.”

      Annie’s jaw started to ache, and she realized she’d been clenching her teeth. It was one thing to be exposed to the sickest parts of human nature in a huge metropolis like New York, but to be faced with such ugliness injected into Silver Valley was sad. Her hometown, the place she went to in her mind whenever life on the city streets proved too much, had been infected with the same vile human behavior.

      “Did you know the name of Vadim’s contact?”

      “Yes. It was Yuri Vasin. I saw in the paper that he died in that crash a couple of months ago.” As Kit spoke, Annie watched Josh’s expression. It remained neutral, but when he looked at her, she recognized the gleam of determination. Josh had just confirmed that Kit’s account matched the police records. Annie gave him a quick nod before he turned back to Kit.

      How was it possible to be thinking about saving Kit and her overwhelming emotions regarding Josh at the same time?

      “I’m going to need you to give me an official statement about what you know of your husband’s actions, Kit. Who he talks to, where he works on a regular basis.”

      Josh’s voice only increased her confusion. How could she feel so comfortable with him when she hadn’t seen him in over ten years? She’d worked with NYPD colleagues for years and still didn’t enjoy the immediate sense of trust she did with Josh.

      Dare she trust Josh as she had no other? If she wanted to be an asset to SVPD as they faced down ROC, she’d have to.