by Brook Wilder
I hung up before either of us could say anything more.
“Oh, no. What the …”
I looked down at the dash and saw the flash of the fuel light. Then the oil light and the engine light joined in, and the car started to sputter. I pulled over. The engine cut out the second the car came to a halt. I flipped the ignition a few times, but nothing happened. The engine was dead.
“This cannot be happening!” I screamed, slamming the steering wheel with the heels of my hands. “Please, for the love of... I hate this!”
I took a deep breath to calm myself down. I knew that getting myself worked up wasn’t going to do anything but make the situation worse. I looked at the dash, pulled the key from the ignition and slid it back in, before trying the car again. Still nothing. I shook my head. I couldn’t work it out. It was like the car had completely shut down. But I’d just had it serviced before coming to Eden. It made no sense.
I grabbed my phone to call the insurance company. My knowledge of cars and engines was slim-to-none, so the only way I was getting out of there was by getting someone to come rescue me.
“Oh, I am going to be in so much trouble when I get to work,” I mumbled as I started to dial the number.
Beep, beep. The phone flashed. Low battery.
I screamed again. The phone was on ten percent. That had to be enough battery power. I didn’t have a charger in the car…
I laughed aloud. “And even if I did have a charger, I can’t start the car to make it work.”
I spent the next ten minutes trying to get hold of my insurance, but the signal was so crap that walking up and down the road did nothing to help it. Neither did crawling onto the roof of my car.
Beep, beep.
The phone went off again and flashed three-percent battery, dropping immediately to one-percent.
“No, no, no!” I squealed.
I quickly tried to dial the hospital’s number, but what little service I had wasn’t enough to push the call out before the phone went completely dead.
I could blame Pearl for this, I reflected. If she hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have been wasting my battery and I might have stood a slightly better chance of making a call. But, either way, the car still would’ve broken down, and in the worst service area possible.
I berated myself instead.
“Take a shortcut, you said. You’ll save time, you said.”
Right now wasn’t a time for laughing or making stupid meme jokes. But I knew that if I didn’t laugh, I’d start crying.
I popped the hood and looked at the engine, not knowing at all what to look for. I shook my head and snatched the car’s user manual from the glove compartment. I sat in the passenger seat for the next few minutes, flicking through the pages, hoping to find something to help me out. But there was nothing.
My phone! That would have helped me.
I threw the book out the door in a huff. It landed with a thump in the slightly dewy grass.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, and flew out the car to retrieve it and put it back in the glove compartment. Ruining the book would do no good, and I’d just have to replace it later.
‘Later’ would mean getting off this completely desolate road though.
I stared off in the direction I’d been heading, then back in the direction I’d come from. The sun was going down and night was settling in quicker than I would’ve liked.
I felt hopeless. Just when I really thought things were starting to look up for me, after having moved here and getting the job at Eden Memorial with so little effort… I honestly thought life was improving. I had the feeling that this was karma of some kind. It had to be because there…
A distant roar interrupted my thoughts. I walked out onto the road and looked around. Headlights were approaching, in the direction in which I’d been traveling. The roar of the engine grew louder. As it neared, I could see it was a motorbike. And then I saw my sexy neighbor sitting on the back of it.
I tried to hide my surprise, but couldn’t. My face lit up with relief. I smiled as the bike slowed and stopped in front of my car.
His name, I thought, I’m finally going to find out his name.
The thought excited me more than it should have. I quickly reminded myself that he was my neighbor, and he might be my only chance of getting off this road. Hopefully, it wouldn’t involve me getting on the back of that bike. Though the idea of riding behind my neighbor, with my cheek on his muscled back and my arms around his waist, wasn’t exactly unappealing.
“Car trouble?” he asked after kicking the bike stand down and turning the engine off.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it or why it stopped.”
“Let me have a look,” he said, turning to the open hood.
I stood back. He reached in and touched a few things, then climbed into the driver’s seat. He tried the engine. Nothing. He tried it again, then got out and came back around the car to speak to me.
“What happened?”
His gaze was intense. He stood so close in the darkness. His eyes held me like a pinned butterfly in a collection.
“When?” I asked vaguely, mesmerized by his presence.
“What happened when the car cut out?” he smirked.
“Oh, right, I get you,” I said, shaking my head. “Well, I was driving along and the car beeped. Then the fuel, oil and engine lights flashed, and the whole thing went dead.”
He nodded.
“You’re going to need a tow. You call your insurance?”
“I tried,” I shrugged, holding up my dead phone, “but I’ve no service and then my battery died before I could call anyone.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t even able to get through to work.”
He considered me for a moment in silence, as if contemplating something, then he pulled his own phone from his pocket.
“What’s your name?”
“Cassie,” I replied without missing a beat.
What’s your name? I wanted to ask, but couldn’t. His gaze held me silent and in place.
I waited for him to say something, hoping he’d introduce himself, but he didn’t. I gave him a small, shy smile.
“Nice to meet you, neighbor.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
I scrunched my brows, wondering what he meant by that, but didn’t get a chance to think any more about it
“A couple of my buddies have a tow truck,” he explained. “I can get the car towed back to your place if you like?”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Do you think I can borrow your phone to call my work? I need to tell them I’ll be late.”
He nodded. “Give me two minutes.”
“Okay!” I replied, happy and relieved. “Thanks, I really do appreciate this. I hope you’ll let me repay you somehow. I could buy you a beer. Or something else… you know… if you don’t drink beer…”
He chuckled, and I felt a blush rising to my cheeks.
I shook my head in embarrassment
“Such a silly stereotype – that all guys drink beer…”
“Give me two minutes, yeah?”
I nodded quickly. “Oh, sure, sorry.”
He walked away, going back to his bike, and I sat in the front seat of my car, scolding myself for acting like such a babbling idiot.
I waited for what felt more like ten rather than the two minutes he’d asked me for, before he finally put his phone away. I looked at him as he leaned against his bike and looked around. Just as I stood to go over, I heard a rumble of engines growing louder as they approached quickly. Three, maybe four, bikes and a black car hove into view.
Although the fantasy of riding behind my neighbor was still sharp in my mind, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to go on the back of a motorbike. I started to make my way towards Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome when the three bikes pulled up in front of me, blocking my path. I jumped back out in fright. How could they have moved so fast?
I looked up at my neighbor in time to see he wasn�
��t looking at me, but down at his phone. He pressed the screen a few times before sliding it into his pocket.
The three large bikers had kicked down their stands and climbed from their machines, and were making their way towards me.
“Excuse me,” I protested as I tried to move past them.
Fear set into my body, and I had the sinking feeling that something was wrong. I stood staring at the three guys as the car pulled up and the front doors opened. Each of the bikers looked larger and meaner than the next. My neighbor was the largest of them all, but he seemed to be the least intimidating.
This wasn’t good. They weren’t good. And there was no one here to help me out.
I looked at my neighbor once more, only to find him staring at me. I turned and started running. But I didn’t stand a chance. One of the bikers grabbed me around the waist and lifted me kicking and screaming off the ground. He carried me to the trunk of the black car and dropped me in. Rough hands secured my feet and hands with tape and a cover was pulled over my head. The boot slammed shut, and everything went black.
***
The words ‘humiliated’ and ‘abused’ weren’t enough to describe how I felt.
I was stripped and forced to put on clothing I would never even have looked at in a store.
The white bra and panties were luxurious and expensive. The gartered stockings came halfway up my thighs and the stiletto heels were at least four-inches high, silver, and covered in tiny diamantes that made them sparkle in even the dim light of the bare room they dressed me in.
After I had been dressed, made-up and hair-styled to what one of the men called a ‘suitable’ effect, I was dragged along a hall, through a door, and down a flight of stairs. I was roughly pushed through another door and into another dark room, then through a curtain into yet a further room that lay in pitch blackness.
Trying to remember all the twists and turns made my head spin, but I needed to find a way out of here.
“Do not move,” a voice whispered harshly.
Then I was left alone, standing in a room so dark I couldn’t even see my hands when I held them up in front of my face. I could hear nothing but my own breathing, until a voice crooned out over a loudspeaker.
“The next lot for sale is a young brunette. She is tiny, curvy, and petite, standing at just over 5-foot, with a gorgeous face and an amazing body.”
What?
“And, as you all know, the best is always saved until last.”
Huh?
A dim spotlight came on just above my head. It lit only the small space around me and nothing more. Silence reigned for maybe two minutes, possibly more. It was hard to tell anything right now.
“Bidding will start at $200.”
I looked around, trying to find out where the voice was coming from. More lights flashed on, bright and blinding. I blinked, willing my eyes to adjust to the sudden glare. When I could finally see, I saw him in the audience, front and center.
My neighbor stared at me, looking relaxed, like he was out for a Sunday picnic and not at…
The next lot for sale…
My thoughts trailed off at the sudden realization I was for sale. I was being sold into some sort of sex slavery, and all because of him.
I wanted to cry. I tried hard to fight back the tears, but I soon couldn’t fight them any longer. What I imagined would be the first of many tears rolled down my cheek.
Chapter 2
Mason
One week. I’d spent an entire week watching her. I’d been unable to take my eyes off her from the moment she’d moved in.
I picked her because she’d come to Eden alone and had no one around her. No one to miss her or know she was missing. And, being as gorgeous and innocent as she was, this made the taking of her so much easier. And more fun.
It had been a stroke of good luck that her car broke down the way it did. It had been the perfectly opportune moment. It really couldn’t have been any more perfect, actually.
She was an excellent piece and would fetch a hefty price.
I stood in the room with the other bidders. It was busy this week, with a few more buyers than usual. I caught a familiar face looking at me.
Khloe.
I nodded to her as she walked over.
“Evening,” she greeted.
“Evening,” I replied.
Khloe ran a high-end brothel and was always on the lookout for fresh meat. I had a feeling that when she saw Cassie she’d vow to have her as one of her girls. We’d known each other for a long time, too many years to count, and she was one of the only women I didn’t completely hate. In any case, we both ran similar businesses, so it was both wise and useful to be on friendly terms.
“What do you know about the plan to consolidate the crime families?” she whispered in my ear.
I shook my head. I didn’t know much at all, and that was exactly what I told her.
“What’s your opinion on it though?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Don’t know, Khloe,” I replied. “See you later.”
I walked away before she could say or ask anything more, and made my way to the front to where Diesel sat. Diesel was an ex-Navy SEAL and my right-hand man. I pulled up the chair next to him and raised my brows, waiting for the smirk I knew was going to come.
“Wow!” Must be good if you’re taking a front row seat.”
I feigned cluelessness.
“What?” I scoffed.
“The auction tonight,” Diesel nodded to the stage. “There’s talk about it being good. Better quality than usual.”
“Explains why there's more faces here than usual,” I remarked.
“Yeah. And it explains why you have a front row seat,” Diesel laughed.
“Uh-huh?”
I ignored him. The need to buy a whore wasn’t strong in me at all, primarily because I was in the business of selling them.
“I think you could find the love of your life tonight,” Diesel joked.
I turned to give him a skeptical look.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Diesel shifted uncomfortably. “If the tail is as good as it’s rumored to be, anything is possible.”
“That might be true if I believed in love.”
“Don’t be like that! Give it a chance.”
“How could you possibly think I would ever fall in love after the all the women I’ve sold?”
Diesel shrugs, “It’s possible.”
“It isn’t,” I told him straight, “I’ll fuck them, but I won’t ever love them.”
Diesel was about to say something more when Ruiz, the Cartel’s leader, walked in. I didn’t have to nod or say anything for Diesel to follow the direction of my eyes.
“Shit,” Diesel muttered.
“Yep,” I replied, turning back to look at the stage.
The room hadn’t quite fallen silent, but you could have cut the tension in the air with a blunt knife and made it clean through. Ruiz walked in, flanked by the other heads of the crime families. It was a direct show of power to let everyone know that the consolidation plans were going through whether anyone wanted them to or not.
Ruiz Fernandez was heavyset and rough looking. But he was a decent head shorter than me, with a nose so crooked from having been broken so many times that plastic surgery probably couldn’t fix it. To say the rumors about him were true was a complete joke. He was much worse than the talk made him out to be. ‘Cruel and sadistic’ would have been putting it lightly. I’m no good guy, but I don’t torture victims until they’re taking their last breath and then still keep going some.
There weren’t the words to describe how sick he was.
The bidding started, and the quality was indeed the best it had been in roughly two months. Every girl out of the twenty-one being sold went for over $1000, with the highest bid – for one of the girls I’d bought in – coming in at $1300.
I was happy. But it was Cassie I was waiting for. She’d be dolled up to the nines and fetch a
very fucking generous price.
The best is always saved until last.
“The next lot for sale is a young 20-something-year-old brunette. She is tiny, curvy, and petite, standing at just over 5-foot, with a gorgeous face.”
Cassie. I knew it was her straight away.
“And, as you all know, the best is always saved until last.”