Mine to Protect

by Sarah J. Brooks

  I drank it; I certainly wasn’t in a position to refuse something he asked me to do. Plus, I was dying of thirst, and the water did taste perfect as it went down. I had only initially refused out of principle, but I was thirsty, so very thirsty.

  He was a tall man who certainly asserted a sense of power. The way he carried himself, was with confidence and power. I could see why people looked up to him. In a different world, he would have made a great leader of some big corporation, but instead, he led criminals.

  “Thank you,” I said as he pulled the bottle away from my lips.

  It was at this point I finally made eye contact with him. I’m not sure what I had expected, perhaps an ugly snarly face with death in his eyes, or something equally as scary. Instead, he looked like a regular guy.

  My eyes looked over his face and took in the Italian features and tan skin. He was actually a very handsome man. His beard was well trimmed, and he wore a white button up short sleeve shirt. The material was lightweight and extremely soft when it had brushed up against my hand.

  “I’m sorry I had to bring you here sweet thing. But one of my men is lying to me, and I have no choice but to flush him out and kill him. Unless perhaps … you would like to help me by pointing him out?”

  I looked up at the man with wide eyes as I tried to contemplate the situation. How much did he know? What should I tell him? What should I lie about? The thoughts all rushed through my head at the same time. I had no idea what I should say or do.

  “I’m just a girl from Missouri,” I said as tears filled my eyes.

  He seemed amused at my fear. It was the first moment I truly felt like he would kill me without even a second thought. There was a disconnect in his eyes, and he looked overjoyed that he had caused me such a high level of fear.

  Just then, a large group of people made their way up some stairs at the other end of the large warehouse building. There had to have been at least one hundred people. Most of them were men, but I did see a few women in the bunch.

  I searched through the group to see if I could find Marcus. As they walked closer and closer, my eyes darted frantically among the crowd to find him. I didn’t know what I could do to warn him, but I probably wouldn’t have to. The second he saw me sitting in that chair, he would know exactly what was going on.

  “Hello everyone and thank you for coming to the show,” Rudy said with his arms in the air like a circus show entertainer.

  I looked at the faces of all the people, and I couldn’t find Marcus anywhere. All of the men had beards and looked like they hadn’t had a chance to shower in days. It was impossible to pick Marcus out from the crowd when everyone looked alike.

  “It has come to my attention that one of my dear friends in this room actually works for the government,” Rudy continued. “As you can imagine, I’m not happy about that.”

  The crowd of people started to look at one another and talk under their breaths. I noticed a man on the corner that looked familiar, but I didn’t instantly know who he was. My mind was still extremely foggy from the drugs, and my eyes were not quite focused.

  Zed!

  My heart sank, and my eyes fixated on him as I realized the man on the corner of the crowd was Zed. My eyes looked at him, and I saw him shake his head slightly in a NO motion. He looked different with a disheveled beard like Marcus had, and I wanted to yell out to him but knew I shouldn’t do it.

  I looked away.

  Surely if Rudy had seen me look at Zed the way I did, he would have known for sure that Zed was the mole. I continued to look through the crowd of people and try and find Marcus; if Zed was there, then Marcus surely had to be nearby.

  My eyes continued through the crowd, and I saw another man that I recognized, but it wasn’t Marcus. This man had been at the bed and breakfast the first day I arrived. He disappeared after that, but he certainly knew both Zed and Marcus. I remembered him sitting in the living room when I kissed Marcus after first arriving at the bed and breakfast.

  I looked away from him also.

  I continued to search the crowd. How many men were part of Rudy’s empire and actually worked for the government? Rudy certainly didn’t know he had so many moles, and I couldn’t be the person to break their cover.

  Rudy’s two main guys walked behind the crowd of people and pushed them forward as Rudy stood right in front of me. I could only see the people on the side of the crowd, but I had already identified two of them as being part of Marcus’s team. I continued to search the crowd for Marcus.

  I couldn’t find him. I desperately needed to see Marcus and feel that everything would be alright. I knew if I could just find him, I would be safe. Marcus would make sure I got out of this situation alright. He would kill this Rudy guy and rescue me; I was sure of it. Now I just had to find Marcus.

  “You see this beautiful young woman … she doesn’t want to die a painful death. Do you sweetheart?”

  Rudy stepped to the side and looked at me. I felt the hot stare of his gaze on my body. He stepped back toward me and placed his hand on my shoulder as he looked at the crowd of people who looked on. He squeezed my shoulder firmly, and I felt compelled to answer his question with my head.

  I shook my head and looked up at the man.

  “This sweet thing knows which one of you is the mole. You corrupted this sweet girl and brought her into this dirty world. Now her sweet little blond hair is going to be covered in your blood.”

  Rudy looked at the crowd and walked toward them. He moved one by one through the group and looked into each of their eyes. Some of the men looked back at Rudy and some of them quickly looked toward the ground. It was clear that all of them feared him, though.

  “If you confess, I will not kill the girl. But if I have to torture her to get you to confess, she will wish for death.”

  My hands started to shake, and more tears fell down my face. It took everything I had not to look at Zed or the other man I knew. I didn’t even want to search the crowd for Marcus anymore out of fear that I would make eye contact with him, and Rudy would know who he was.

  “So I will give you until the morning to come to me and confess. If you have not, I will start instilling horrible pain on this sweet girl right in front of you all until the mole confesses.”

  My thoughts raced as I imagined all the horrible things he had planned to hurt me in order to get the mole to confess. The problem was, Marcus wasn’t even in the room. Had I been brought to this warehouse to get one of the other two men to confess? I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I did know that I needed rescuing right at that moment.

  I felt a small sense of relief when he gave the time frame of the next morning. Surely, Marcus and his guys would be able to rescue me by that time. I didn’t know to what extent they had trained for situations like that, but surely they would be skilled to get me out. I felt a sense of confidence that they would get me out of the situation.

  My eyes scanned the crowd and locked on to Zed. He looked at me with such compassion as I cried; it was hard for me to look away. Zed was a sweet man, a kind soul, and I knew in my heart that he wasn’t going to let something bad happen to me.

  “Kyle, you seem to have quite the eye for the girl,” Rudy said as he walked over to Zed.

  “No sir,” Zed said.

  Kyle must have been the name Zed used while he was undercover. I made sure not to look at either of them as they had the conversation. Instead, I looked at the ground and hoped that Rudy wasn’t about to kill Zed.

  “Skinner, untie the girl and bring her here,” Rudy said to one of his two main guys who had moved behind me now.

  The Skinner guy got on his knees, untied the ropes around my ankles, and then stood up and untied the ones on my wrists. Then he looked at me.

  My heart fluttered, and I tried not to react.

  It was the first time I had been able to clearly see either of Rudy’s two main guys. It was Marcus!

  He only looked for a second and then roughly grabbed me and br
ought me over to Rudy. As rough as he had grabbed me, I thought for a second I had been mistaken that it was Marcus. I had just been drugged; perhaps I hadn’t seen him right? Maybe it was just a guy that looked a lot like Marcus, I thought.

  “Don’t look at me and don’t respond,” Marcus whispered in my ear as we walked over toward Rudy and Zed.

  Yep, it was Marcus for sure. I could tell by his voice. I felt better knowing he was there but still scared to death that I was in the situation. At any moment, Rudy could turn his gun on me, and it all could be over with.

  “Young lady, do you know this man?” Rudy asked me.

  I looked at Rudy and shook my head no. I tried not to look at Zed and instead looked toward the ground as the situation unfolded.

  “Kyle seems to like you at the very least. Perhaps I should let him have his way with you right here. To prove that he’s not the mole.”

  I tried not to respond, but my eyes darted at Zed, and something in the way I looked at him must have given Rudy some concern.

  “On your knees!” Rudy screamed as he put a handgun to Zed’s head.

  Zed instantly went to his knees. He responded like any of the other employees of Rudy would have done, by doing exactly as he was told. I looked up at Marcus, in the hopes that he would do something to stop the situation. But he didn’t even look at me; instead, he intently watched the situation between Rudy and Zed.

  “Do you know this girl?” Rudy asked Zed.

  “No sir, but she is fine as hell. That’s why I looked at her like that. I’m sorry sir. I’d love to take her right here and prove that I don’t know her.”

  Rudy looked at me. He took some extra time to look up and down my body. Our eyes made contact with each other, and then his gaze moved down to my breasts.

  “Mmmm, baby girl is fine,” Rudy said as his hands glided over my breasts. “Stand up then,” he yelled at Zed.

  Zed stood up and didn’t look at me. Only straight at Rudy, who had now moved down the line to some other guy in the group.

  “You want to fuck her?” Rudy said to the next guy.

  “Not my type. I like girls with some ass,” the guy joked.

  All the people laughed awkwardly. It was the best they could do with such a dangerous man. None of them were free to say much, and Rudy continued to move down the line of people and see if he could notice a reaction that would warn him that someone was the mole.

  What Rudy didn’t know was that he had at least three moles within his group. I didn’t know everyone that Marcus worked with, and it was highly possible there were even more men who had infiltrated this group.

  I thought back to what Marcus had said about his work and how long he had been on this case. He certainly must have been working with Rudy for many years for Rudy to trust him as one of his right-hand guys. I was a little in awe of how dedicated to his work that Marcus was.

  When I first met him as my shirtless neighbor, I felt like he was probably a meathead. My instinct was that he was one of those police officers who spent all their time working out and picking up women but not very much of their time taking their work seriously. I certainly had been wrong about Marcus.

  Chapter 25

  Rudy continued for what seemed like hours. He went from person to person throughout the crowd and asked them questions to try and find his mole. His determination was somewhat admirable, although I felt like there were a lot of shady characters in the room, and any number of them could be the mole. Although, I clearly knew who the real mole was.

  Marcus held onto me tightly and pushed me around behind Rudy just as he was commanded to. At one point, Rudy wanted me on my knees.

  “Get on your knees bitch,” Marcus yelled as his hand pressed my shoulder firmly and forced me to the ground.

  It surprised me, and I fell hard to the ground. Marcus certainly was very good at his job and appeared to be the man that Rudy thought he was. I knew he had to make it real. I knew the only way out of this for all of us was for him to push me around and be rude to me like he would for anyone else that this guy Rudy told him to.

  “No need to call the sweet thing names, Skinner,” Rudy said. “She deserves to be treated nicely. Until I have to torture her.”

  I looked at the ground as I kneeled, and Rudy asked another person something about knowing me. My body shook with fear, and I couldn’t hear Rudy talk anymore because my own heartbeat took over in my eardrums. I was scared, really scared, and my body started to shut down as the fear took over.

  But soon Marcus had yanked me up from the ground and had me standing again.

  My knees were weak, and I started to fall over. The fear that I had felt for the last couple hours was too much for me. I just couldn’t stand anymore. Marcus let go of me and let me fall to the floor.

  “Jesus, Skinner, you could have caught the sweet little thing,” Rudy said as he came to my side. “Are you alright?” he asked kindly for a man who planned to torture and kill me.

  I just stared at him. My body did not seem to be in my own control anymore, and the fear had made me unable to stand or even talk. I just looked at Rudy, and I couldn’t get my mouth to word anything as an answer to him.

  “Skinner, take the girl over there to that room and let her rest,” Rudy said as he pointed to an old office in the corner of the warehouse.

  Marcus roughly grabbed me and practically dragged me over to the office. He didn’t gently try to support me, and he didn’t kindly put his hand on my back to guide me; instead, he grabbed my upper arm and walked swiftly to the room. When my legs gave out under me, he just pulled me up with his hand that was on my arm.

  “Ouch!” I let out as he pulled my arm.

  “Skinner,” Rudy said. “Try to be nice.”

  “Yes Sir,” Marcus said to Rudy.

  Marcus threw me into the room, and I fell against the old metal table that was in it. Marcus banged his hand hard against the metal desk, and it made a loud noise that echoed through the warehouse.

  “Skinner, that didn’t sound nice,” Rudy yelled from the other side of the warehouse.

  “Sorry, boss,” Marcus said.

  I just stayed there sitting on the floor up against the metal desk. I couldn’t move. My body was overcome with the fear and adrenaline of the situation, and I was just slightly relieved to be in a different room than Rudy.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marcus said. “It will be over soon, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Marcus walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.

  I let my head lay up against the desk, and I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I wanted to be in control of my body again. I just had to figure out a way to get control over the fear that pulsed through me. I needed to relax.

  Rudy and his group of workers stayed out in the main warehouse for another thirty minutes or so. Then I heard the crowd disperse and Rudy’s voice outside the door to the office I was in.

  “Can I trust you to watch over the girl and not kill her?” Rudy asked the man next to him.

  “I won’t kill her if she doesn’t try to escape,” Marcus said in response. “I don’t have to feed her, or anything like that, do I?”

  “That’s a good idea, actually; no, don’t feed her. She can drink water, and there’s a toilet over there, but that’s it. I’m going downstairs to talk with a few of these assholes and see if I can figure out who it might be. In the morning, I’ll bring a couple of them up, and you can help me give that sweet thing some pain and see if we can get a confession from someone.”

  “I’d love to help with the pain,” Marcus said. “Maybe even a quick poke if you know what I mean.” Marcus made a crude hip thrusting action.

  His voice sounded different, and he actually seemed like he enjoyed inflicting pain. I had chills as he said it. Marcus was very convincing as the right-hand man to Rudy; I could see why he was able to get so far in Rudy’s organization.

  “OK, but leave the girl alone tonight. No torture until morning, and no fu
cking her, understood?” Rudy said firmly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I sat there and anticipated Marcus coming through the door as I heard Rudy walk away. Any second Marcus would come in and help me escape. I looked at the door intently as I waited for him. My mind raced with thoughts of how Marcus and I could make our escape without being heard.

  We could climb out the window and make our way down a drain pipe, or maybe sneak quietly down the stairwell and make a run for it. I thought about every mob movie I had ever seen and how people escaped from their murderers. Surely, Marcus and I could make a swift escape.

  After a few minutes, it became apparent that Marcus did not intend to come into the office at all. I saw him pull a chair close to the office door, and he sat down. I didn’t want to yell at him or say anything for fear that there was someone else out there with him. The door was closed so I couldn’t see what was going on. For all I knew, there could have been other people still out in that room with him.

  As the night wore on, I could feel myself as I became extremely tired and finally grabbed a work coat that was on a nearby chair and used it to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. My body was exhausted from the fear and stress of the day. I felt my eyes as they got heavy, and I closed them in hopes that I could get some sleep.

  I took a couple deep breaths and said a little prayer that everything would work out alright in the morning. I didn’t want Marcus or any of his men to get shot, and I certainly didn’t want to be tortured by Marcus or anyone else on Rudy’s team of killers.

  I hoped that Marcus would find a way to save me, and we would both make it out of the situation unharmed.

  “Are you alright?” Marcus said in my ear quietly.

  I opened my eyes to find Marcus kneeled down next to me on the floor. I sat up quickly and looked at him. He held a finger to his lips in a motion to be quiet.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered. “Where is everyone?”

  “They are all downstairs.”

  “Can we get out of here?” I said, desperate to leave that warehouse and get to safety.