Chapter 9: Witness to Depravity
The envelope from Hiroshi Tanaka felt like a lead brick in her clutch purse. Back in her sterile Miami crash-pad, Skyler had counted the cash twice, filmed a tearful, confessional OnlyFans update with the money fanned out on her bare thighs, and then slept for fourteen hours straight. When the schedule came through for her next flight, a red-eye from Vegas to New York, the client name—D-Money—meant nothing to her. Miranda, already dressed, gave her a long, appraising look across the dormitory room.
“Hip-hop royalty,” Miranda said, applying a slash of dark red lipstick.“Entourage. They’ll be coming off a show, high on adrenaline, maybe other things. Your job is to be a ghost.Pour, clean, disappear.Do not engage.Do not flirt. They are not the discreet, surgical type. Understood?”
Skyler nodded, the memory of gold spheres shifting inside her a phantom ache.“Ghost. Got it.”
The Nevada night was shockingly cold, a desert chill that cut through her uniform jacket as they waited on the tarmac. The jet was one of the company’s larger ones, a converted airliner with a lounge area and a separate bedroom suite in the rear. D-Money arrived in a blur of noise and movement: three massive SUVs disgorging a dozen people—hulking security guards, sleek managers, two other rappers Skyler vaguely recognized, and a gaggle of women in impossibly short dresses who laughed too loudly. And at the center, D-Money himself, a whip-thin man draped in diamond chains, his eyes hidden behind mirrored aviators despite the darkness.He bounded up the steps, his energy volcanic. “Let’s get this bird in the sky! We celebrating!” he shouted, his voice already hoarse.The cabin filled with the smells of weed, cheap perfume, and expensive liquor. Skyler and Miranda moved through the chaos, opening bottles, passing glasses. The women draped themselves over the men, hands wandering, laughter turning to low murmurs. It was chaotic, but it was a chaos Skyler understood—a party.Then the last member of the party ascended the steps. She was painfully beautiful, with alabaster skin and a cascade of silvery-blonde hair. She wore a simple black slip dress that clung to a delicate frame. Her eyes, a startling light blue, were wide and unfocused, pupils swallowing the iris. A man behind her, one of D-Money’s crew, had a firm grip on her elbow, practically carrying her up. She stumbled on the top step, her stiletto catching, and giggled softly, a sound without any joy.
“This is Anya,” the man grunted, steering her towards the main lounge.“Czech model. She’s ready to party.”
Anya didn’t look ready for anything. She looked wrecked. Her gaze drifted across the cabin, not landing on anyone, a vague smile plastered on her lips. One of the other girls rolled her eyes and muttered, “She’s fucking wasted already.”
D-Money looked Anya up and down, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “Yeah, she’s perfect.Get her comfy.”
The man deposited Anya on the largest leather sofa. She sank into the cushions, her head lolling to one side. D-Money sat beside her, immediately sliding a hand up her bare thigh, pushing the hem of her dress towards her hip. Anya blinked slowly, her smile never fading, but her body stiffened, a faint tremor going through her legs.
“Champagne for the lady,” D-Money ordered, not looking away from Anya.Skyler moved forward, bottle in hand.She poured a flute and offered it. Anya’s hand, when she reached for it, shook violently. She missed the stem, her fingers brushing Skyler’s.Her skin was cold and clammy.
“You’re so beautiful,” Anya slurred, her accent thick, her eyes looking through Skyler.
Before Skyler could step back, D-Money’s other friend, a beefy man with a scalp tattoo, crowded in. He put a heavy hand on Anya’s shoulder, pushing her back into the couch.“Let’s get this dress off, baby. Let us see what we paid for.”
Anya’s vague smile finally fractured.A line of confusion appeared between her eyebrows. “I… I think I want to sleep now,” she mumbled.
D-Money laughed, a sharp, barking sound. “Sleep later.” His hand, which had been on her thigh, cupped her between her legs, pressing hard against the thin fabric of her dress. Anya jerked, a weak sound escaping her lips.
“Pour,” Miranda’s voice cut through the noise, low and urgent in Skyler’s ear.Skyler realized she was frozen, the champagne bottle poised in mid-air. She turned, mechanically refilling glasses for the other girls who watched with bored, knowing eyes.
When she turned back, the scene had progressed. The man with the scalp tattoo had Anya’s dress rucked up around her waist.She wore no underwear. Her pale pubic mound was exposed, her legs falling open limply as the man roughly spread them wider. D-Money was unbuckling his own pants, his erection already freed, thick and angry-looking.
“Hold her,” D-Money said casually.Two other men from the crew, grinning, moved in. One pinned Anya’s slender wrists above her head on the armrest. The other wrapped a hand around her throat, not squeezing, just holding her in place. Her head was trapped, facing the ceiling, those wide, drugged eyes seeing nothing.
“No, please…” Anya whimpered, the words thick and slow.D-Money didn’t enter her with any care. He lined himself up against her dry slit and shoved inward. Anya’s body arched off the couch, a choked scream ripping from her throat, more shock than protest.It was a brutal, violent penetration. Skyler could see the grimace of pain on Anya’s face, the way her unfeeling limbs finally tensed in a reflex of agony.
“Fuck yeah,” D-Money grunted, starting to piston his hips, his chains jangling with the rhythm. “Tight little European cunt.”
Skyler’s blood turned to ice. She stood there, the bottle heavy in her hand, her feet rooted to the carpet. Miranda moved past her, collecting empty glasses, her face a perfect, impassive mask.Be a ghost, she had said.
The sound was all wrong. Not the sounds of sex Skyler knew—the wet slap, the moans—but the raw, ragged gasps of a body being used, the harsh grunts of men, the creak of leather under shifting weight. The man holding Anya’s throat leaned down and covered her mouth with his, silencing her weak, choking cries.It was over quickly. D-Money pulled out with a wet pop, his cock glistening. He didn’t bother to wipe himself off before tucking it back into his pants. “Your turn,” he said, slapping the scalp-tattooed man on the back.The trade-off was seamless. The man holding Anya’s wrists took his place between her legs. Anya was crying now, tears cutting tracks through her makeup, her protests reduced to husky, broken sobs. “Prosím… prosím přestaň…”
The men just laughed. “Talk English, bitch.”
The third man took his turn, then a fourth.Skyler poured champagne. The flute trembled against the rim of the glass, a high, crystalline ping lost in the noise. She made eye contact with one of the other women, a brunette who took the glass with a faint, resigned shrug, as if to say, What can you do?The brutality was systematic. When one man fucked her, the others would grope her small breasts, pinch her nipples, slap her thighs. They kissed her with a possessive violence that was about domination, not desire.Anya stopped fighting. She went limp again, her sobs diminishing to quiet, hitching breaths, her eyes open and empty, fixed on some point in the cabin’s ceiling.
As the last of the entourage finished, one of the security guards, a mountain of a man, grabbed Skyler’s wrist as she reached for an empty bottle.His grip was like iron. He pulled her close, the smell of sweat and weed rolling off him. His mouth was at her ear, his voice a low, gravelly threat that cut through the ambient laughter.“You see nothing, flight attendant,” he breathed.“You serve drinks. You clean up.You forget her face. You open your mouth about this, even to your little friend there,” he jerked his head towards Miranda, “and we will find you. We will show you what happens to pretty little blabbermouths. You’ll end up like her, but worse.You’ll be begging for someone to pour you a drink. Understand?”
Skyler’s throat closed.She managed a tiny, stiff nod. He released her wrist, leaving a bracelet of throbbing pain.Hours bled by.The party wound down. The other women and most of the crew fell into a drugged, boozy sleep. Anya lay on the ruined sofa, curled fetally, the black slip dress torn at the shoulder.She wasn’t moving. A thin trickle of blood smeared the inside of her pale thigh.
The captain announced their initial descent into New York.D-Money, looking freshly energized, stood up and stretched. He glanced at Anya’s motionless form with disinterest, then fished a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket.He walked over to where Skyler stood, rigid, by the galley.
He didn’t look at her face.He simply let the roll of cash fall from his hand. It hit the toe of her pump with a soft, heavy thud and bounced onto the carpet at her feet.“For your service,” he said, his voice devoid of anything resembling gratitude. It was a payment for silence, for complicity. Then he turned and shook his friends awake, ready to disembark, the night’s entertainment already forgotten.
As the jet taxied to a private hangar, Skyler looked from the cash on the floor to Anya’s still body, then to Miranda, who was already preparing the cabin for the next clients. Miranda met her gaze, her green eyes holding no comfort, only a stark, unvarnished truth: this was the job. This was the design of the vessel. And Skyler, holding a fresh trash bag for the empty bottles, was now irrevocably part of its machinery.The envelope from Tanaka had felt like payment. This wad of cash felt like dirt.She bent, her spine screaming in protest, and picked it up. It was warm from his pocket. She stuffed it into her jacket, the papery scent of the bills mixing with the lingering stench of sex and despair.