Dignity's Worth

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Two

The next morning Alex woke up, and saw that his wife was still sleeping. He then put on his shirt and a pair of trousers. He wore his jacket and tucked his S&W inside it. He looked at the time. Eight o' clock. He had to be at the place by nine. So he opened the door to his bedroom to walk out.

"Alex?" he heard Emily say from behind.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

He smiled. And in another half a minute, he was gone.

Emily got up from her bed a few moments later. She freshened up and walked out to the balcony with a cup of tea in her hand. Then she sat on the chair and looked at the sun rising from behind the mountains in the front.

But it didn't feel all that mesmerising to her now. She used to enjoy watching sunrises and sunsets in the same balcony, the only difference was that when Alex would be holding her tightly in his arms, she enjoyed it a lot more than she did now.

She sighed. Her husband wasn't a bad man and she knew that. He was just trying to save some girls who'd been victims of an unfortunate series of events. And she understood that. The only thing she was sad about was that she'd been tricked into all of this. And naïve as she was, Emily knew one thing. Alex had never truly loved her. He'd been made to. He'd been forced.

Back in Barley Street, Newt and all of the guys were ready with their guns loaded and ready for some action. Alex arrived in a taxi about five minutes after nine, and after paying the driver, began searching for his men. Newt found him and signalled him to come closer.

"We're ready." said he, "You only need to give the word now."

"Is Paul here?" asked Alex.

"I don't know. His car isn't."

"Then we wait for him."

"Alex the longer we stay here the more suspicious it is going to look." said Newt.

"You don't understand," he replied, "there are girls without clothes in there. Believe me, I've seen them. They're not allowed as much as a fucking coat to cover themselves. I ain't gonna get them out of there naked. They need to leave with their clothes on. Paul said he was gonna arrange for that, maybe that is what's taking him so long. So we wait till he arrives alright?"

Newt sighed in reluctance.

"Alright." he said, "But if he doesn't show up in another half hour..."

"He will."

And so all of them just stood there, waiting for Paul's car to arrive. And it did so exactly at nine twenty five, just when everybody's patience had almost run out. And all of them were shocked on seeing the condition of that car. Not a single window was visible. All that could be seen was piles of clothes in every place. Except the driver's seat of course.

Paul got out of his vehicle and walked to them.

"What took you so long?" asked Newt.

"You ever loaded six hundred pieces of cloth in your car and tried to hide it from the cops Newtie?" he asked, to which the latter shook his head for a 'no'.

"How did you do it?" asked Alex.

"Well turns out no cop gets up early in Tokentown. So it was quite easy. But it was still really tricky to get past all the intersections without getting noticed. May have even jumped one or two signals."

"It's alright. Come on now, let's go. You got your gun?"

"Yeah."

All of them walked to the adjacent street and kept walking until they finally reached the building separating the street from the South Spot.