“You have what we need?”
What a stupid question. “Would I be here if I didn’t?”
Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the folded sheet of paper and passed it into the greedy hands of detective Fawn. Side-by-side they studiously examined their prize while my focus returned to what really mattered.
“It’s over.” Elijah pressed his forehead to mine, his relief almost as intense as my own. “You’re safe now. I’m taking you home and we’ll—”
“Nothing’s over yet.” Fawn’s words sliced through me like a razor blade.
Elijah tensed and his hand slid into mine, gripping tightly as though he intended to hang onto me at all costs. “She got you the evidence. What the hell do you mean—?”
“She has to go back.” Fawn said it matter-of-factly. As though that simple statement hadn’t just thrown me into cardiac arrest.
“Go . . . b-back?” I was barely capable of forming the words, much less comprehending them. “Back . . . where?”
Tanner’s eyes flicked up from the paper with a look that blatantly called me an idiot. “To Damien.”
“You son of a—” My hand tightened around Elijah’s. Whether it was an attempt to hold onto him or hold him back, I wasn’t sure. “You can’t make her—”
“Do you want all of this to be for nothing?” Fawn settled her hand on her dainty waist and stared right at me. “Getting a warrant takes time. Not long, but what do you think would happen if Damien notices you’re gone?”
“He’d be angry.” And that was putting it lightly. Feather-touch lightly.
“He’s not a fool. His first reaction will be to cover his tracks. All that evidence we’re looking for. The girls. They’ll all just disappear. We may never find them. Is that what you want?”
“No.” Of course that wasn’t what I wanted. I’d risked my life to save those girls. “I—”
Elijah’s grip drew me across the cracked plastic seat until my side pressed up against his. “And what happens to Rylie if she goes back? Where’s your damn judge now? Why isn’t he here with you, ready to sign your warrant?”
“Finding a judge willing to put their name on a search warrant for Damien Cross wasn’t easy. The man has connections.” Deep lines carved shadows into Tanner’s cheeks when he scowled. “Judge Philmore is willing to do it, but not here. He has a full docket this morning. We have to wait until he’s available to look over the evidence for himself. All things considered, it’s not asking too much.”
“What about Rylie?” Elijah demanded. “How much is too much to ask of her?”
“Rylie will be fine.” Tanner brushed off his concern as though it meant nothing. And, I suppose, to him it did. “She won’t be there long. A few hours max.”
A few hours? I’d already invested weeks of time. A few hours didn’t seem so bad. “Damien shouldn’t even be home by then. If I can get back before Rosita notices I’m gone, all I’ll have to do is sit in a room for a few hours.”
Elijah wasn’t so easily convinced. He glared at Fawn and Tanner and I got the impression that the table was the only thing keeping them apart. “What if she’s already noticed? What if she called Damien and he’s on his way there right now? What is Rylie supposed to—?”
“Act. It’s what your good at, isn’t it, Rylie?” The cold disdain in Fawn’s voice chilled me to the bone. “Sell him a story. Make sure he gets his money’s worth.”
I knew in that moment that Elijah was the only one on my side, but it didn’t change the fact that the detectives were right. I hadn’t gone through all of this to turn away now. To watch everything fall apart in the final hours and lose those girls anyway.
“Rosita sticks to a strict schedule.” I twisted to face Elijah, not really giving a damn what the detectives thought. They were getting what they wanted. That was all they cared about. “She won’t go back into my room until lunchtime. If I can be back there in . . .” I glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter, “. . . forty-five minutes, she’ll never know I was gone.”
A coldness crept into Elijah’s eyes as though he were preparing to freeze me out. Maybe he was angry with me. Maybe he’d finally had enough. Maybe it was his way of protecting himself. I didn’t know, but I wormed my arms around him and drew him to me. I was running out of time, but I needed him like I needed oxygen.
“If you let me go just this one more time, I swear I’ll come back to you. Just one more time and I’m yours.”
“No.” A flash of lightning in his stormy eyes melted away the ice. “You’re yours. No one else’s ever again.”
I honestly couldn’t tell if those words broke my heart or healed it. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Princess.” A ghost of that cocky grin I loved so much. “You’re going to be the death of me. You know that, right?”
God, I hoped not.
Removing myself from his embrace felt an awful lot like someone shoving a fist through my chest and squeezing my heart.
I hovered beside the table as Tanner imparted a few last minute instructions. “Just stay in the apartment. It’s that simple. You’ll know when we have the warrant because we’ll be breaking down the door. I suggest you take cover when the shit hits the fan. Stay out of the way and you’ll be fine. The team knows we have an informant on the inside. They’ll extract you.”
The detectives said their goodbyes—which consisted of a couple nods—and left the shop ahead of me. I needed to do the same. The trip there had taken nearly half-an-hour. If I jogged, I could make it back faster, but I was still pressing my luck.
Before I could go, a warm hand snatched mine. “You take care of you, Ry. I don’t give a damn about Tanner or Fawn or Cross or any of their goddamn proof. All I care about is you walking out of there in one piece.”
I squeezed Elijah’s hand and felt his ragged breath on my skin. His free hand clenched the tabletop as though it were the only thing keeping him from following me up and out of that booth.
“You come back to me. I swear to God, Rylie, you better come back to me.”
I had to choke down the lump in my throat before the words would come. “I’ll always come back to you.”
And then I left him.
***
The lunch rush had crowded onto the sidewalks. People in suits and skirts and uniforms and work boots, all jostling for a breath of fresh air. A moment in the sun. A quick meal or maybe a drink before it was back to the grind. I pushed my way upstream, struggling through the crush of bodies, and ducked just in time to avoid being elbowed in the face by a man attempting to carry five cups at once.
I didn’t have time for this. Luckily, I knew this part of town like the back of my hand. The alley shortcut that ran between the cleaners and the florist wasn’t exactly scenic, but it would get me where I needed to go.
I dodged a woman in an orange vest, a man with a ketchup stain on his shirt, and rounded the corner. Two feet into the alley, I slammed to a stop, feeling like I’d run face-first into a brick wall.
Chapter Fifty-five
The snake tattoo worming its way from beneath his shirt collar, around his left ear, and across his bald head gave him away. Carmine. I didn’t know the man personally—he kinda freaked me out—but he was tight with Marissa. I saw him hook her up a few times while we were working. At the far end of the alley a man in a sports jacket pocketed the product Carmine had supplied him and melted into the crowd.
My head knew there were places I needed to be and that this was not one of them, but my head and feet didn’t appear to be on speaking terms. They remained stubbornly glued to the pavement as Carmine tucked a wad of cash away and headed toward me.
“You lookin’ for something, sweetheart?”
Was I?
“No. No, I . . .” Was completely full of shit.
It was bad enough that I lied to everyone else in my life, but since when had I started lying to myself? I knew damn well what I’d find in that alley and my being there had nothing to do
with the clock that was quickly ticking away while I stood around avoiding the truth.
“I can’t. I . . . don’t have any cash on me.” Problem solved. Whether I was looking for something or not, no self-respecting dealer stood around handing out free samples.
“No worries.” A gold tooth winked at me. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
My stomach turned over. Does he recognize me? Does he know what I am? What I do? Not again. I wouldn’t sell myself again. Not for the drugs. I couldn’t do that to Elijah. I couldn’t do it to myself.
“I won’t—”
“How about that ring?”
“What?”
“That ring you got there. My girl would like that. How about we work out a trade?”
I twisted the sapphire ring around my finger. A ‘gift’ from Damien—one of many—and I’d been wearing it for days to show my ‘appreciation’. There was no doubt that the stone was real. Or that I couldn’t have cared less about it. “W-what kind of trade?”
“What are you looking for?”
That . . . was a very good question. For an addict my knowledge of drugs was woefully lacking. I took what I was given when I was given it, and that was it.
“Something easy.” No way could I shoot my own heroine. I didn’t know how and I was terrified of taking too much. “And strong.” I was guessing my tolerance levels at this point would scoff in the face of a little weed. “Something that can . . .”
The jitters got the best of me and I shifted from one foot to the next, my fists opening and closing uselessly at my sides, not really sure what I was trying to say.
“I think I got what you want.”
The baggie he handed me contained a few small, round pills. “What is it?”
“Dilaudid.”
I’d never heard of it. “How do I . . .?”
Being ever the professional, Carmine refrained from rolling his eyes at me. “What have you done before, baby girl?”
“Um . . .” Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, sweeping a chill between my shoulder blades. What could it hurt to tell him? “Heroin.”
“Well, shit. Crush it and snort it.” He propped one shoulder against the grimy wall like he had all the time in the world. Something I was severely lacking. “One bag for the ring, what do you say?”
I knew the price had to be outrageous, but I really didn’t care. I yanked the jewelry from my finger and handed it over without a second thought.
***
Brakes squealed and a man in a yellow cab shouted profanities at me as I rushed into traffic. I had to sprint the last two blocks to Damien’s to make up for my little detour. Stray hair clung to my sweat dampened face, but all of my warring thoughts centered on the tiny weight zipped up tight in my pocket.
This was reckless. More reckless than running across a busy city street. Now was not the time to lose focus. I’d need a clear head if something went wrong. Elijah would be so disappointed if he found out.
If something went wrong. If he found out. What if neither of those things happened? What if I could sail through what was arguably going to be the most stressful afternoon of my life in a happy haze?
I was doing all of this for some girls I’d never even met. To help Tanner and Fawn make their bust. To keep Elijah safe. What was so wrong with wanting to do something to make it a little easier for me?
Selfish. It was selfish. It was something Star would do. I didn’t want to be her anymore. I didn’t want to be selfish.
But who would it hurt? Alone in my room . . . no one would even have to know. And I knew what they said about ignorance. Bliss all around. Sounded like a pretty good deal to me.
My fingers were already fiddling with the zipper on my pocket as I stepped off the elevator into the foyer. The door to the penthouse remained shut. I pressed my ear to the smooth wood the way I used to as a child to determine if my father was on the phone or if it was clear for me to knock on his office door.
All clear.
I cracked the door and peered down the dark hallway, ears alert for any sign of where Rosita might be. It was nearly lunchtime, so my guess was the kitchen, though I didn’t hear anything. No running water. No clang of pots and pans. No footsteps. Nothing.
My heartbeat kicked up even though I told myself it was a good thing. Rosita was nowhere in sight and the door to my room was right there. Ten feet away. I could do this. It was almost too easy.
It wasn’t until I sprinted down the hall and shut the bedroom door soundlessly behind me, breathing a sigh of relief, that I remembered . . . I’d locked that door.
Chapter Fifty-six
“Welcome back.”
One of the more dangerous things that Damien possessed, which Rafe did not, was subtlety. Where Rafe rained down on you like nuclear fallout when he was pissed, it was infinitely more difficult to decode what Damien was thinking. So when I found him there, sitting on the couch in my room, I really had no idea what to expect.
“Enjoy your little . . . escape?”
“I . . .” I’d run through a bazillion excuses—one more ludicrous than the next—on my walk back. Just in case. In the end, I decided to stick as close to the truth as possible. “I’m sorry, Damien. Sir.” I felt his cold glare like a punch to the gut. “I just . . . I’m stuck in this room. All day. Every day. I couldn’t . . . I was losing my mind. I needed to go for a run. I used to run. I’m good at it.” Maybe not something I should have admitted to. “I just needed to burn off some energy. But I came back. You can trust me to—”
“Silence.”
Whatever words I had left on the tip of my tongue died a quick death.
“Did you really think you could get out without me noticing? That the only precautions I took were Rosita and one deadbolt?”
The answer to that was obviously stupid, so I kept my mouth shut like I’d been told to.
“Cameras, Star. I know you noticed them. Did you really think I wouldn’t be watching? That an alert wouldn’t go off the moment my private elevator was activated? That I didn’t know the second you set foot outside of this apartment?” I searched his face for clues, but a bland mask remained in place. “You’re lucky you came back on your own. The men I sent to find you would not have been so . . . forgiving.”
Damien straightened as I inched closer to the sofa. “Please, sir.” The words slipped out on barely more than a breath of air. “Let me show you how sorry I am.”
Once a whore . . . But I needed to buy time. Prolong whatever physical violence he might have planned for me until I could be extracted. Time. I just needed some time.
Lowering myself slowly to my knees, my shaky hand reached for the zipper on his faded designer jeans. I can do this. I have to. It’s a matter of survival. I—
“Stop.” My wrist was snatched away from its target and twisted painfully up beside my head in a harsh grip. “Do you think me a fool?”
My gaze lifted to his for a half a breath before dropping back to his lap. Which is why I never saw his other hand move.
“Answer me.” A ringing slap knocked me sideways until I dangled from his grasp like a ragdoll.
“I . . . No, of course not. I—”
“Liar!” A foot to the chest sent me sprawling backward across the hard floor. “Does this look familiar?”
He reached into his pocket and what he drew out looked very much like the final nail in my coffin. I was dead already, my body just hadn’t realized it yet. My heart pounded out a frantic rhythm and my lungs sucked oxygen as though each breath could be their last.
Funny how such a small electronic device—something so commonplace as a cell phone—could cause such a severe reaction.
Chapter Fifty-seven
“You’re not very good at playing spy, Star. You didn’t even erase your text log.” His chin dipped and a brutal smile bared his perfect teeth. “Though I am impressed with how well you played the part. Guess it’s just who you are.”
Two men crowded into the room behind me
and tears sprang to my eyes, making it difficult to see the weapon strapped to one’s waist, though I seemed incapable of looking at anything else. What will they do to me? Kill me, certainly, but before that—
“Relax,” Damien crooned. “We’re not going to shoot you. We have something much more fitting in mind.”
Oh, God. My entire body heaved, but nothing came up. Except me. By my hair.
“Move.” A familiar man started dragging me toward the door and I struggled to place his face. Brian. The man who crashed Damien’s party. “We need to go. Now.”
“Wh-where? Where are we going?” I clutched at the hand tearing the hairs from my head as I twisted to seek out Damien.
He was following alongside us with the third man. The one with the gun. I gaped at Rafe’s henchman, the quiet one that looked like his face had been on the losing end of too many fights.
Damien’s long fingers dug into my cheeks. “I had plans for you, Star. Big plans. You would have lived like a queen, instead of some common whore, but you had to go and fuck all that up. You want to know what it really feels like to be someone’s prisoner, nothing more than a tool to be used and abused and disposed of? You’re going to find out. I’ve made arrangements. When the next shipment goes out, you’ll be along for the ride. And where you’re going . . . You haven’t even begun to understand the meaning of pain.”
A wave of dizziness hit me and I swayed to the side only to be brought up short by a rough yank to my scalp. I was speechless as we piled into the private elevator. I didn’t beg or plead. I couldn’t.
Just stay in the apartment. It’s that simple.
Nothing was simple anymore. I didn’t know where we were going, and worse, Tanner and Fawn didn’t know. How long would it take for them to realize I was missing? How long before they discovered the location where Damien was holding his girls? Too long. He knew the game was up. He’d undoubtedly already cleaned out his apartment of anything that could lead them to us. And we were clearly in a rush. Things were moving too fast. I was out of time.
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