Chapter 19

"Where the hell am I?" All around me was darkness, and I could feel the closeness of my surroundings, so I knew this wasn't the apartment. That awful feeling was less potent, but my mouth tasted disgusting, and there was a sore ache in my lungs and stomach. Not to mention the pounding in my head.

I tried moving, but my whole body felt weighted down, though there was nothing hindering me. There were no bands around my limbs; it was just my body's natural response to whatever I had been injected with.

Then I remembered what I had done, and fear crippled me. If they ever learn what I had done my life will be over. I rolled over just in time to prevent myself from choking on my own vomit. There was a bucket waiting next to the bed for some reason, which was a good thing anyway.

There was no one in the room with me; at least, I didn't think so, but I still didn't know where I was or what was going on. Where the hell is that snake? That new worry had me tensing up until my stomach hurt even worse, and I had to breathe through my teeth to fight the sudden nausea.

"Is anyone there? Where am I?" A camera flash went off, almost blinding me. "Who's there? Why are you taking my picture?"

"Facial recognition. I'm using it to find out what else you have done and how many aliases you have."

"What? Why? Who are you?"

"What? I think you heard me the first time. Why? Because thanks to you, we'll be able to take down at least a third of the organization you work for stateside, and who we are is none of your concern."

Facial recognition? My palms started to sweat, and if I could, I would've run out of there. I can't be found out. I'll either spend the rest of my life in prison or be dead five minutes after it happened. "Please, let's talk about this. You're putting a target on my back. I gave you what you wanted."

How the hell did they know I was working for someone? How much do they know, and how did they find me? I needed to think and think fast because the longer I was gone from the apartment, the more danger I was in.

Where's my phone? Does it even matter? What exactly are they looking for? Which job am I being nabbed for? It can't be the thing with Mark Wilson; he was just a money mark. There's no way that anyone could know the real reason behind me being here.

Was someone else watching us? Or is it just this one job? No, he said they were using facial recognition to find my other crimes. Something isn't right. What had blown my cover? I had things in place to detect listening and recording devices in my apartment, so it couldn't have been done there. Where else have I spent any amount of time or said things that could give me away?

I spoke only through text when I was out of the apartment so no one, even if they were watching and listening, would've known about Jack and me. Had someone followed me here from my last job? Every story I ever heard about the things that are done to child traffickers in jail came to mind.

"Don't worry. You're not going to die, not yet, anyway. We're going to get as much information out of you as we can, and then we'll decide what to do with you. I'm only telling you this so you can relax and prepare for what's ahead and stop asking me stupid ass questions."

"I think you have the wrong person. I'm a Junior executive at…."

"You're Samantha Stone. Twenty-seven years old from Branford, Connecticut. You sold your first victim at sixteen. You wanted to fit in with the wealthier kids at the private school your parents scrimped and saved at to give you a better life, so you got in with a trafficking ring."

"No one would expect the bubbly blonde with the infectious laugh and fun personality to be a cold, heartless bitch who would betray her friends to make money."

"How did you…?"

"It's a shame that your parents are going to suffer because of your doings."

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"Expose you, of course. As soon as we find all the victims you sold."

"You can't do that; they'll kill me. You just said…"

"I didn't lie. I told you we'd keep you alive until we had all the information. While we were talking, I got the update. We know everything you've done in the last eleven years."

My life is over. I've got to get out of here. I can't let my parents know any of this; it would destroy them. They think I'm an international broker with an elite clientele that I had to sign an NDA to work for. That was the only way I knew of to keep them from asking about my career.

Of course, I couldn't tell them the truth. If that should happen, I would have no face left. The rich neighborhood I grew up in and where my parents still live will surely shun them, and I will definitely lose their love and support, which is all I ever wanted.

My bitch sister will gloat that she was right to hate me all these years. I can just hear her saying I told you so. I should've sold that bitch a long time ago, but she never trusted me enough to put herself in that situation.

It was partly her fault that I had turned out like this. We were twins, but we couldn't be any different. She got the brains, and I got the looks. My parents had always loved me more, and it showed, but what did that have to do with me?

She'd started distancing herself from me and them when we were about eleven or twelve, once it became clear that my preferences would always be more important than hers. I remember it was the last birthday we ever celebrated together since she refused. My parents always went with my ideas since hers were always stupid.

When we were sixteen, she got the opportunity to graduate early and I talked my parents into not letting her go. She got the rest of the family involved, using recordings she had made over the years of my parents and I bullying her, and they all ganged up on my parents and me until she was allowed to go.

That's the last time we were ever alone together. She'd missed every holiday for the next five years, though she went to see our grandparents and aunts and uncles, who were all still staunchly in her corner.

But it was while we were sixteen that everything started to happen. Once my sister left I came to realize that most of our friends were actually more hers than mine. It was as if friendships that I had built over time had just disappeared once she was gone.

I got to learn that most of them only tolerated me because of her and her personality. That's also when I learned that we were little more than charity cases in their eyes. It's true that though we came from a wealthy area, our school was in a district where the elite attended, and our neighborhood barely missed the zoning cutoff.

I had always known that we were not as wealthy as most of the kids there, but it had never been an issue before. They had no issues with paying for us, but once she was gone, they stopped paying for anything for me.

The summer vacations we used to tag along with some of them also came to an end, for me at least. But my sister still got to attend when she was home from college. Mom and Dad dared not say or do anything about it because the rest of the family would be up in arms, and trust me, they tried.

No matter how I cried and pleaded, there was no use. And to make things worse, the boy I was head over heels in love with started dating her when she came back that first fall.

That's when I really started drinking heavily and partying harder than ever before. It was that December when I first did what he mentioned. I'd met this guy at the club who was hot and older, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Pretty soon, we were hooking up all the time. I was missing days at school to be with him in his luxury apartment, and life was starting to look up. Then he asked about my friends, and the jealousy was too much. Why am I never enough for anyone?

I didn't let it show, though, especially when he convinced me that he wasn't interested in her that way. Then he asked if I wanted to make some good money, and all I could think of was that it was the holiday season and I would love nothing more than to go back to school the next semester with all high-end fashion. Think Hemes instead of Louis.

When he first told me his idea, I laughed because I thought it was a joke, but then he told me how much I could make, and it wasn't so bad after all. The girl will live a life of luxury after all which had to be better than the life she had now. This ‘friend' was someone I met at the mall, where I had found a part-time job for the season.

I also realized that he was telling me the truth when he said he wasn't interested in her in that way and that also helped me make up my mind since I was still a bit salty that he had asked me about her.

It had been easy, too. The stupid bitch believed me when I told her that I had won two tickets to Dubai and had no one else to go with me. She was so excited, knowing that she would never be able to win a trip like that.

She didn't question me because she knew where I came from, something I found of great use over the years. I dressed expensively and looked expensive thanks to Mom's bi-weekly salon visits, and I'd been taught diction and deportment at one of the finest finishing schools in the country.

That day, I waited until I saw her go to the gate with her ticket in hand and called her at the last minute, telling her to go ahead and board that I was right behind her and not to wait.

I had hyped up the trip so much, and she even had her own spending money, which I had given her, which was my only regret. But in order to make it look good as well as convince her to go ahead when she didn't see me on the plane I had no choice. I breathed easily when the plane took off with her on it. Whatever happened to her on the other end was up to her, not me.

It got easier and easier after that. I kept making so much money that I had to convince my parents that I was making it online, tutoring rich kids. I stashed most of my money away in my room while giving them barely a fraction to put in the joint bank account they had opened for me.

They were so proud of me. I had stopped thinking about my sister by then and my only interest was in how to make more money. That's when I learned that there was more money to be made for younger kids. It wasn't a hard jump. They weren't my responsibility. If their parents watched over them better they wouldn't fall into my hands.

I was averaging at least ten kids a year at twenty-thousand a pop, sometimes more, according to how young they were. But once I met the head guy, my looks were put to better use. I've toppled quite a few very wealthy men all over the world. Not to mention the politicians I had brought to heel who were now little more than puppets on a string for the boss and the ones above him.

Now, this man was saying that he knew about it all. That can't be. There's no way that the organization could be this lax. I've been flying under the radar since day one. A sudden thought hit me. My sister looks just like me. If I get out of this, she can take my place. There is no difference in DNA between twins, so….

The phone rang, and he answered, speaking softly. Then he said something that made my blood run cold. "Your sister hates you so much that she has completely changed her appearance. No one would mistake you two. So, whatever you were just thinking, forget it."