by Pam Godwin
“If things were different, if I was different, I would’ve put you in the shower and never let you leave.”
Warmth spread through her limbs. “You sure you’re not gay?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I’m sure.” He cupped her face, his nostrils flaring with a deep breath. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
She imagined the moral corruption she would find—men who perceived women as nothing more than livestock to sell, fuck, and piss on—and the hairs on her neck lifted.
Tate pulled away and shot a longing look at the doorway.
“I’m not very good with goodbyes.” He scratched his neck, avoiding her gaze. “So…”
“Go on.” She shoved his shoulder, blinking through the achy burn in her eyes. “Get out of here.”
He didn’t look back as he escaped. The sound of his footfalls quickened down the hall and faded in the distance. When the front door slammed, the bang ricocheted through her chest, releasing a stream of silent tears.
She let them fall, promising herself they’d be her last until she saw him again. Then she dried her face and changed into his pungent black shirt.
For the next three hours, she made her farewell rounds through the sprawling, ranch-style Austin house. She shared a bedroom with Kate—one of the last slaves under Van’s reign—while the five guys took over the other four rooms. The attic was finished, but no one would sleep there.
They were millionaires, thanks to Van. They could buy seven estates, retire in luxury, and live anywhere. But they clung together in a modest suburban neighborhood not far from Liv and Josh, in a house they’d made their home.
Heaviness pressed against her breastbone as she recapped the plan with her roommates. No one cried. No one tried to talk her out of it. Their need for retribution darkened their eyes and strengthened her backbone.
When Van arrived, she followed him to his car, leaving her friends standing bravely stoic on the front porch.
Barefoot, wearing only a mid-thigh shirt and panties, and accompanied by Van’s menacing silhouette, she looked like a woman begging for someone to call the cops. Thank God, the street was empty and shrouded in darkness, but the evening heat weighed heavy, making the atmosphere feel stagnant and dead.
A hint of smoke tinged the air. She glanced around, tracking the scent until she spotted the red flare of a cigarette bobbing in an alcove beside the garage. Tate only smoked when he was irate, but she knew it was him, a brooding sentinel in the cover of night, always watching.
She gave him a chin lift, the motion jerking with the anxious rhythm of her heart.
Van stopped beside his ‘65 Mustang GT and opened the trunk. The hood of his sleeveless sweatshirt cast his face in shadows as he removed a coil of rope and a black scarf.
When he turned toward her, the moonlight caught the opening of his hoodie, revealing an expression cut straight from her nightmares. His eyes, like steel blades, flayed her skin in an icy chill and bled her pores with sweat.
“Are you numb with terror yet?” He cocked his head.
“Getting there.” She tightened her muscles, fighting against the violent tremors gripping her body.
“Good.” He grabbed her hair with unnecessary force and shoved her toward the shallow, coffin-like interior of the trunk. “You should be petrified.”
CAMILA WASN’T CLAUSTROPHOBIC, but after a forty-five-minute ride in the trunk of Van’s Mustang, the tiny space had morphed into a malignant presence. It pressed in from every direction, growing heavier, tighter, restricting her movements. No room. Too cramped. Can’t breathe. She needed air. She needed out!
But I put myself here. Inhale. I’m in control. Exhale.
Except she wasn’t. Blindfolded and pinned on her side, she’d already given up her freedom. And this was the easy part. If she couldn’t endure a trunk, she wouldn’t survive the rest.
I’m a slave again. She focused on breathing—in, out, repeat, repeat, repeat—while centering her mind on submitting and surviving.
Her eyelashes dragged against the scarf, and her wrists burned in the scratchy bindings at her back. Van had tied the rope so tight it cut off blood flow, turning her hands into unfeeling stumps.
But it was necessary. As necessary as the melodramatic show she would put on for her captors. She needed to appear crippled with fright, her mind so horribly wounded they would only see a quivering, harmless girl. They would carry their traumatized little Trojan Horse past their security, and there, ensconced in the heart of the operation, she would strike.
The tires spun off the pavement and continued on bumpy ground, spitting gravel against the chassis. Larry McGregor’s GPS coordinates put the rendezvous at the edge of a cotton field. This must’ve been it, the final stretch of the drive. Her lungs seized with renewed panic.
Too soon, the car slowed, stopped, and the engine shut off. The sudden silence mired into her bones, shoving her deep into buried memories of the night she met Van. His hand over her mouth, the stabbing pain through her head, the blackout, the wooden box…
The trunk creaked open, and a blast of arid air filled her lungs, bringing with it a resinous perfume. A hint of camphor. The approach of cotton harvest.
She licked parched lips, tasting the dusty drought of summer as she eased up on an elbow, hands numb and restrained behind her. The blindfold stole her vision, and given the hour of night, there would be no light seeping in. But amid the chirrup of nocturnal creatures, she heard him, his rustling movements closing in. She braced for a ruthless hand to yank her out.
“If you get yourself killed,” Van whispered, shockingly close, his breath at her ear, “I’m going to hunt you in hell and blister your fucking ass. Hear me?”
“Noted.” She swallowed.
He pulled her from the trunk by her leg. Her back banged against the bumper, her hands and eyes useless as she tumbled downward and crashed against the solid dirt.
Pain jolted through her thighs, and pebbles dug into her knees. She dropped to her hip, but his hand caught her under the arm, wrenching her up and dragging her backward.
She stumbled, pivoting in an attempt to blindly walk forward. Without slowing his gait, he swung her around and shoved her in the right direction. Then his fingers found her arm again, jerking her against his side.
“They’re watching.” He kept his voice so low it was barely audible beneath his breath. “Two Range Rovers. Fifty paces ahead. They’re exiting now.”
The slam of a car door sounded in the distance, followed by several more in rapid succession. Footsteps approached. Many. But how many?
Her chest heaved. She tripped over a rut in the dirt, and her bare feet scraped against sharp rocks. She let out a whimper for effect, but also because she wanted to scream at him to take her back. She couldn’t do this.
Blood roared in her head, her breath catching, stacking, choking, her mind spinning. I can do this. I can do this.
Van didn’t let up, playing the part with his bruising grip and ground-covering strides. This was why she’d asked him. Tate would’ve carted her out of there at the first sign of her distress.
She staggered alongside him, dragging her feet and stopping, only to get hitched forward again. She wheezed and mewled in pathetic intermittent noises. She couldn’t have faked a full-body tremble, but it was there, attacking her with a force that chattered her teeth.
Oh God, what if she couldn’t do this? Why the fuck did she put herself here?
His thumb dug into her bicep. Then it tapped one, two…five times.
Five men.
Why so many? Mr. E’s operation ran for years with only two captors. Her blood pressure skyrocketed.
She wasn’t counting the steps, but it felt like a lot less than fifty when Van suddenly halted. He didn’t give her time to slow, using her momentum to thrust her to her knees.
Free from his grip, she lurched sideways, scooting awkwardly without her hands in a pretense to escape.
Van caught her neck with h
is sneaker and slammed her face against the brittle soil, holding her cheek to the earth with the weight of his foot.
“Whoa. Lower the guns,” he said, and the press of his shoe vanished. “Don’t worry about her face. It isn’t her best feature.”
Fucking cocksucker.
She shrank into a fetal position, cowering in the curl of her shoulders, and feigned a series of breathy sobs. What she really wanted to do was tug down the blindfold and take inventory of the men and their weapons.
“Which one of you Zorros is in charge?” Van asked.
Zorros. He was telling her they wore masks. Clever. She might see their faces eventually, but Van would walk away without their identities.
It’ll be okay. I have the GPS chip.
“Call me Jefe,” a man said from twenty-some-feet away, his voice soft and raspy. “She’s a virgin?”
He carried an accent, a tincture of south of the border, where Jefe meant Boss. But there were a lot of Hispanics in Texas. He could’ve been her neighbor, her gynecologist, or the guy who bagged her groceries.
“She says she’s a virgin, but I didn’t check.” Van’s sneakers scuffed in place. “I didn’t want to go prodding around and break something.”
Vile amusement slithered through his voice, but no one laughed.
Dumbasses. A girl could be a virgin without an intact hymen. Lots of things could stretch or tear it. Horseback riding, water skiing, doing the splits, vibrators…
“Where’s the money, Jefe?” Van asked, all humor gone.
Gravel crunched beneath advancing footsteps. Something heavy landed beside her head, followed by the sound of a zipper.
“Pass along our gratitude to Señor McGregor,” Jefe said, maintaining his twenty-foot distance. “We look forward to more business from him.”
Sorry, ese. Larry McGregor’s doing business with the Chief of Hell.
Van lowered, his breaths near, and she curled tighter into a ball as if his proximity had conditioned her to do so.
“It’s not all here.” Van huffed. “This wasn’t the agreed price.”
What the fuck was he doing? He had no idea what was negotiated.
The man who had approached with the money treaded away, only to return a moment later. A second bag dropped on the ground.
“My mistake,” Jefe said. “Now take it and go.”
Well played, Van. Had he not questioned the payment, they would’ve known he was a fraud. Her eyes drifted closed behind the blindfold, but her relief was short-lived.
The bags lifted, and Van’s presence retreated. She clung to the sound of his diminishing footfalls, aching for him to turn around.
Don’t go.
What if there were too many guards and the operation was bigger than she’d estimated? What if this was all for nothing? Her surveillance had uncovered dozens of low-life scumbags like Larry McGregor. Men living normal lives—when they weren’t stealing young girls and selling them to…who?
She’d imagined an operation like Mr. E’s. Small and efficient with a network of Larrys on one end and buyers on the other. But five men had been sent to collect her. Five! How many were waiting at her destination? They could be gangsters, snuff filmographers, drug lords, chainsaw massacrers…
Van’s Mustang growled to life, and the tires skidded. Leaving.
She was alone. Outnumbered. She didn’t know what they looked like, what they were armed with, or who they worked for. And now they owned her. They could do whatever the hell they wanted to her.
Sweat pooled beneath her braless breasts as the rumble of Van’s car faded into silence. There was no turning back. It was done.
“He’s headed your way,” Jefe said.
Dread churned in her gut. Who was he talking to? Someone on the phone?
“No, let him pass,” Jefe said. “Just make sure he gets on the interstate. We’ll wait.”
Van was smart. He would know if someone followed him, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t try to come back for her.
Her stomach clenched. With her hands bound behind her and miserably numb, she couldn’t remove the blindfold. Only slightly less bothersome were the strands of hair stuck in her mouth. She tried to spit them out as she tracked the creaking of leather, the fall of heavy boots.
She’d expected a gang of uneducated hoodlums to fall upon her with grabby hands and verbal threats. But they remained silent. Disciplined. Like an army of professionals. Somehow, this was worse.
She dragged herself to her feet, teetering on shaky legs. “C-can someone…r-r-remove my blindfold?”
Well, that sounded effectively timid.
The air shifted in front of her face. She stopped breathing. Someone was there, close enough to touch a fingertip to her forehead.
She recoiled, but the hand stayed with her, trailing over the blindfold, down her cheek, and freeing the hair stuck to her lips. Her pulse raced, and the muscles in her neck strained against the pressure to hold still. She burned to slam her head forward and break his fucking nose.
Give him a weak little girl. Let him believe you’re not a threat.
“Please don’t t-touch me.” She bunched her shoulders to her ears and tucked her chin to her chest.
Brushing the strands from her cheek, his finger followed the line of her jaw, pressed beneath her chin, and forced her face skyward.
She didn’t have to pretend to be scared. The reminder that this man bought and sold humans was enough to get her throat working, her fear bobbing in her exposed neck.
The finger on her face disappeared, and metal clicked behind her. She jerked. Too late.
A slim ring of steel snapped around her forearm. More clicks, and the manacle cinched tighter. A handcuff.
He slid it down her arm, securing it above the rope on her wrists. Where was the second cuff?
Her answer came when he gripped her arm and the metal on his wrist clanked against hers. Her pulse thrashed in her ears.
What kind of man was she handcuffed to? Was he young or old? Covered in scars? Did he fuck his victims after he killed them?
“Let me go.” She raised her voice several octaves and pulled against the restraints. “I won’t tell anyone. I haven’t even seen your faces.”
She shook her body, hoping her freak-out was believable. Inside, she was frozen with terror, but showing her emotions didn’t come natural for her.
“I wouldn’t fight him, puta.” Jefe’s accent issued from farther away. “He bites.”
An image flashed through her mind of an oversized man with a boar’s face and dribbling tusks. And I’m handcuffed to him.
“Get away.” She blindly kicked his legs, snarling as she clawed at the hand on her arm. “I want to go home. Please don’t do this.”
In a flash, he shifted in front of her and wrapped an arm around her thighs. Her feet lost contact with the ground, and she was lifted up, up, and over his shoulder. She landed upside down, her face against the cotton on his back, and her wrists locked to one of his behind her.
No amount of bucking and kicking would dislodge the hand on her ass or the other one attached to her wrist. But she struggled anyway, which only worked her panties into her butt crack and hitched the t-shirt halfway up her back.
Blood rushed to her head, and hard-packed muscle flexed beneath her. Jesus fucking Christ, maybe he was an oversized boar-man.
He carried her a short distance, tossed her onto a long bench seat, and pulled her to sit upright. Leather stuck to her thighs, and rubber mats met her feet.
The boar sat beside her, his shackled arm tucked between her tailbone and the seat back.
“Let’s go,” Jefe said through the open door on the other side. Then he slid in next to her, his body pinning her against the boar.
Doors slammed shut, and the Range Rover shot forward, bumping along uneven ground.
With the t-shirt rucked around her waist, the cool air from the vent pebbled goose bumps across her thighs. She squeezed her knees together, hating how she couldn’t use
her arms—to pull down the shirt, to work the blood back into her hands, to stab her fingers in their eyes.
She’d chosen modest navy-blue panties because they resembled swimsuit bottoms. I’ve worn less at the beach. But it didn’t make her feel any less exposed.
“Where are you taking me?” She tightened her arms against her sides as pins and needles penetrated the numbness in her fingers.
There were at least three men in the car. The driver and the two on either side of her. Yet no one spoke. As unnerving as it was, it made sense. If she escaped or was sold, their anonymity would protect them.
“I can’t feel my hands.” She squirmed between them and amped up the spasmodic sound of her whimpering. “What do you want from me?”
Jefe gripped her neck and angled her face in his direction. “Shut up.”
She considered throwing a spastic fit until the bite of cold steel touched her cheek. A knife? She made a noise in the back of her throat and squeezed her eyes shut, letting her body go limp in the collar of his hand.
The dull edge slid across her cheekbone, gliding upward and slipping beneath the blindfold. With a flick of his wrist, he cut through the scarf and pulled it away.
Her heart pounded as she squinted through the darkness and found Jefe’s black eyes watching her from the narrow opening of a black ski mask.
There was nothing noteworthy about those eyes. Were they even black? Hard to tell in the shadows of the car’s interior.
He tightened his grip on her throat, stopping her from turning her head. The mask covered his hair, face, and throat. A glance downward revealed an average-sized physique in a nondescript t-shirt. He could’ve been anyone.
Beyond the heavily tinted windows, murky fields blurred beneath a starless sky. Which direction were they headed?
His gaze flicked over her shoulder and locked on the other man. Then he shoved her head between her knees.
What the fuck? Bent in half, she got a good view of her filthy feet. They looked so tiny and sad between the men’s rugged boots.
She turned her neck to get a glimpse of the boar, but the fall of her hair blocked her line of sight. Fuck.