by SR Jones
He means it generically, as in our girl, all of us, but she’s not, is she? She isn’t any of ours, but if she had been this shit wouldn’t have happened to her. We brought her into our world. Bit by bit, through her friendship with Maya, Stella has been exposed to danger, but she doesn’t have the protection she needs. I’ll fix that when I get her back.
We reach the door and before I open it, I turn to our mysterious benefactor. “Seriously, things go wrong with the Nyx and you need a fast out, call. I’m not scared of those bikers, and we could have you out of the country fast.”
“Appreciate it, but if things go wrong, I’m likely a dead man.”
He doesn’t seem perturbed by the fact.
“Thank you,” Maya tells him, her words heartfelt.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” he replies, earning himself a growl from Damen.
Then he’s gone, and I’m left holding a piece of paper in hands that are decidedly shaky.
I need to get Stella back. I’m not used to this feeling. Needing something … someone this way. Do I need her? I want to be certain she’s safe, no matter anything else. So I’ll fetch her back here, where she will be. I might not be used to these feelings, but I am used to action.
Yeah, I’m going to get Stella.
Then I’m not letting her go, whether she likes it or not.
I’ve been held by these people in some God-awful cellar for hours. I’ve lost track of exactly how long, but it seems forever.
Finally, I hear footsteps, and although I’m terrified of what they might mean for me, I’m also relieved to have something happen to stop the crazy, insane thoughts running through my mind.
It’s dark in here, cold and damp. I heard scrabbling a while ago, so I’m sure there are rats down here too. I’m so damn scared. I’ve been hyperventilating so much my fingers are all tingly and numb, and my lips feel strange. Even if these people aren’t going to hurt me, if I don’t get out of this room my mind will simply fracture, I’m sure of it. No amount of therapy will put it back together again.
The door swings open with a rusty groan, and the sound makes me shiver in anticipation of the horrors to come my way. The big, ugly man fills the doorway. His frame almost blocks out the light. He’s that big. God, I thought Damen was huge, but this guy?
He grabs at my hair, eliciting a scream as pain tears at my scalp. My God, he’s going to pull it out by the roots.
“Take it easy with the merchandise. I can’t sell her if she’s got bald patches.” A new voice infiltrates the corridor.
The man speaks with a British accent. In fact, he sounds upper class to me. As if he went to Eton and then Oxford. The sort of Brit accent you hear on some of their TV shows still. Why would a guy like this be here?
I’m dragged out into the corridor, the grip on my hair lessening as the ugly man grabs my upper arm as well with his other hand.
I stare at the man the upper-class voice belongs to in shock.
He is beautiful. His face looks angelic, heightened by the blond hair that falls into his eyes. He isn’t an angel, however, but a man here to buy and, presumably, sell me.
“Let me have a good look at her,” he says, soft fingers tipping my face up to the light. He frowns a little. “She’s beautiful, I suppose, but nothing amazing.”
My heart flares with hope at his words. Does this mean he won’t buy me?
“Bullshit, she’s like a model.” Ugly man scowls at the Brit.
“Yes, but there are plenty of gangly, young women with good bone structure out there. She doesn’t have anything unique. I need a USP to sell her.”
USP—Unique Selling Point. This bastard is talking about me as if I’m a thing!
“She has got something unique.” Ugly man laughs and lets go of my hair to wipe sweat from his brow. “She’s a virgin. Only eighteen. Imagine how much money they might pay for her in some parts of the world? Not many girls her age are virgins.”
“How do you know?” Brit asks.
Ugly man’s scowl deepens. “She told us.”
The Brit barks out a bitter laugh. “Oh, for pity’s sake. You brought me all the way here to buy a virgin who might not even be one?”
The man’s scowl deepens. “She said it, wouldn’t lie, said it to Diana before she knew who or what we were.”
The Brit turns to me, and his blue eyes are as cold as the arctic ice. Unlike an iceberg, though, I sense no hidden depths. Nothing but icy avarice and disdain. “Are you a virgin? Don’t lie.”
I think for the nano-second his eyes scan my face. It’s amazing how many thoughts can pass through a brain in such a short time. Mine go like this: They say never allow yourself to be moved to a secondary location, but in my case being moved might be the best thing. If I tell the truth, he’ll leave me here. These people won’t get money from me, and they’ll most likely kill me, but not before two of the ugliest men I’ve seen in a long time defile me.
I nod, too scared of what will happen if I don’t play along.
“Good. Now. Do you know how to please a man?”
I have an idea what he means, and the question has heat crawling up my throat. He watches the flush taking place, and his beautiful mouth turns up into a smile that makes my skin crawl. It’s like the smile of a puppet, utterly devoid of warmth. Nothing more than him moving certain muscles a certain way. As if his skin is dead, and he’s dead too, and everything he does is a mere act to fit in with the living all around him. He’s honestly the most dread-inspiring person I’ve ever seen.
“Oh, you are going to be fun.” He turns to the ugly man. “I’ll give you fifty thousand for her.”
He believed me. It seems that despite not being a virgin, my social anxiety and propensity to blush might have helped save me from certain degradation here with the ugly brothers and their hideous mother … grandmother? I’m not sure what their relationship to one another is.
“You’re fucking joking,” the man splutters. He’s outraged. I would be too, if I could overcome the fear enough to feel anything. “She’s worth a million at least.”
“Not really. I can, maybe, tops, get a few hundred thousand for her resale. Thing is, the places where they like adult virgins, they tend to also like them blonde. In the West, most of the men who want virgins want them young. Too young.” He shrugs as if such things, such horrors, are of no concern to him at all. “Someone of her age? I think her market will be more the Middle East, but they’ll not like her coloring as much there.”
“Color her hair,” ugly man says.
The Brit gives a soft laugh. Soft, but creepy, and it skitters over my skin making it crawl. “Oh, do be serious. She’ll look dreadful with blonde hair. She’s also going to be dangerous. She’s from a good home; her parents will be looking for her. She’ll be on the news. I won’t have as long with her as I’d like as I will have to sell on her fast. They don’t bring as much money resale, but you’d be better off sticking to the sad, used girls you normally get me. The lost little immigrants you find, they are a safe bet. Okay? Not Greek girls. Less heat. Leave the high-end stuff to people who know the market.” He sighs. “Okay, last offer. One hundred thousand. That’s very good money for you and your family. The sort of money you don’t make in a year. For what? A few hours’ work? Take it or leave it.”
“We will take it.” The voice coming from the darkened hallway makes me jump. It’s the old witch. I hate her. I hate her so much it provides the one counterpoint to the fear. She’s the bitch who did this to me. These men are vile, but she’s the worst because she’s a woman too, and she knows exactly what sort of suffering I’m in for.
I’ve never wished harm on a person before. Not even when I’m premenstrual and livid at the state of the world have I wished another human being dead. Maya used to make me laugh with her hot temper, and the way she’d curse people up and down for the smallest transgression, like stopping dead in front of her in the city when we were shopping. She hated that. Me? I used to shrug and walk around
them, taking her with me. I’ve drifted through life too preoccupied with my own internal fears to really let myself get exorcised about other people, but this woman … this dreadful woman, she’s ignited something in me.
I wish her dead. With every fiber of my being, I stand in that corridor, cold and miserable, and I pray to God that if he exists, he brings down biblical vengeance on this vicious creature.
“Good.” The man gestures to the stairs and gives Diana his puppet smile. “Shall you and I go and conclude things? You can get my new toy ready to leave in five minutes,” he orders ugly fellow.
The Brit and the witch go upstairs, and ugly boy turns to me with his flat shark eyes and grins. “He’s going to break you in, bitch.”
No, he won’t because I’ll kill myself first. I’m determined about this. No way will I allow myself to be made into a sex slave for some kinky Brit and his friends, or sold to the Middle East.
Five minutes later, I’m standing in the bleak kitchen of the shack these people live in. The Brit smiles at me, opens his jacket, and shows me a gun. “Play nice now, or you won’t like the consequences.”
I harden my jaw and stare at him. I’d rather him shoot me dead than make me his toy.
As if he reads my mind, he gives the cold smile again. “Don’t think it will be a quick or easy way out if you go against me. I won’t wound to kill, only to harm and cause great pain and disfigurement.”
I shiver and swallow and nod.
He opens the door and gestures for me to walk out of it. “Ladies first.”
Outside is a generic looking car, probably a rental. I walk to it on shaky legs. He opens the passenger door for me and gestures for me to get in. I do, but my mind is whirring. He has a gun, and I know where it is. I can use a gun.
The reason I can use a gun flashes into my mind. Alesso.
For a blinding moment, I miss him with an aching ferocity, but then I think of all Yannis told me. Something in his words when he talked about Alesso shooting that woman and Andrius having a kidnapped bride rang true. It means those men I had kind of looked up to are really as sick and dangerous as Yannis and this man.
“You’re thinking so hard I can hear it.” Brit man’s oily voice reaches me across the scented divide of the space between us. The cloying stink of the air freshener is making me want to retch.
“Let me make it easy for you. You will return to my home here in Greece with me. I will spend some time training you in certain … arts. I will not be having sex with you, so don’t worry about that. You will, however, learn to be submissive, yet flirtatious. Charming, yet demure. If you please me, I promise to do thorough research and sell you to a good man.”
I can’t stop the laugh bubbling out of my throat at his idiotic words. Good men don’t buy women.
“Oh, I see, you think you’re above me, don’t you?”
“I don’t buy and sell people,” I tell him.
He reaches over, making me flinch, but he only grabs the fabric of the dress I’m wearing.
“Silk?” he asks.
I don’t know where he’s going with this, but I nod.
“Do you know that to make this pretty silk you drape on your skin the poor worms are boiled alive? Horrible death. You could have gone with cotton, but then it’s most likely from somewhere that they still use slavery to produce it. Do you know some nations force their adult workforce to pick cotton, even doctors and teachers? They are forced into the fields to work fourteen-hour days picking cotton for a pittance. It means there aren’t enough doctors for part of the year. So you see, I’m not much worse than you.”
His logic is ridiculous. I didn’t know that about cotton or silkworms, so I’ll make sure to buy fair trade in the future, but to equate my poor clothing choices with his decision to buy and sell people is hilarious justification. I snort and he glances at me, an amused smile tipping up his perfect mouth.
“You don’t agree?”
“Hardly, it’s the most self-justifying silliness I’ve ever heard.”
Crack.
His slap is so sharp and fast it takes my breath away. My head whips to the side and glances off the glass of the window.
“You don’t get to have opinions. You listen to me, and you learn from me. You’re an innocent, naïve idiot. A child in a woman’s body.”
I want to argue that whilst I may be sheltered, I am not an idiot or naïve. But I daren’t speak. Tears sting my eyes, and my head throbs where it hit the glass.
“You are nothing but putty to be molded. Do. You. Understand?”
I nod meekly. It’s not an act. I do feel meek. He’s already breaking me down. Five minutes in his company and I’m scared of him. Is this how it works? Is this how they do it?
“You will learn from me. I’ll teach you how to prepare the perfect drink. You’ll learn to make a few cocktails, how to light a cigar for your man. How to fasten his tie in a way to make his eyes light up. You’ll learn to dance, to make polite, inconsequential small talk.”
He sounds more like he’s training me to be a bride. How ironic, I’m going to end up in the position Maya was. Forced into a marriage, except my parents won’t know where I am. No one will.
“You will learn what clothes to wear that both reveal and cover at the same time. How to use your eyes to tease and tempt. You’ll learn how to suck your man’s cock like a pro. You will do all of this, and you’ll be a willing pupil, because if you’re not, I’ll sell you to the most depraved person I can find. But … as I said before, you be good for me, and I will find you a decent master.”
I don’t say anything. The wrong thing will earn me another slap, I’m sure of it. And really, what is there to say? I either get out of this, or my life is over.
He has a gun. And I know where it is.
Cole and Tolya are at my side as we climb up the steep scrub embankment by the shack where Diana Janiv and her piece of shit son, and even worse nephew, live.
Our weapons are drawn.
“Remember, we need the old woman alive to lead us to Stella. They will either have her somewhere on this property, or have already sold her, and we need to find her. Spare the old bitch, but put the two men down.”
They both nod at my order.
We reach the door, our bodies crouched low to the ground, and I’m surprised to hear laughter and music inside. It sounds like a damned party. God, what if they’ve decided to keep Stella for themselves and are already using her?
Surely Diana wouldn’t let them? From the very little last-minute reading I did on her, courtesy of Damen, before we came here to the hovel where she lives, I found out she’s a petty crook who runs her family with an iron fist, and is as greedy as they come. Surely, she wouldn’t let her useless son keep Stella when they could get money for her?
Perhaps they’ve got her locked away and are celebrating having such a cash cow in their grubby hands? It will most likely take them a while to organize someone to come take her, but I’m sure they’re on it already, which makes time of the essence.
I hold my hand up with three fingers and count them down. When the third finger goes down, Cole rushes the door, bursting through it, gun drawn.
Tolya and I follow mere seconds later.
The two men in the room start shouting and reach for shotguns on the table, but they’re slow. I see it all as if time has stopped.
The open bottles of village wine on the table. The food. The flushed features of Diana turning pale, and the men fumbling for their weapons.
I aim my gun at the biggest and fire twice into his chest and once into his head. Cole does the same to the other man. They both go down fast and hard.
Diana screams and brings her hands to her face. She starts chanting and babbling in what I think must be her native Ukrainian because it sure as shit isn’t Greek.
“Diana, calm down.” I go to her and take her wrists.
Cole is by my side immediately, pulling zip ties out of the pocket of his black cargo pants.
He
r wrists are securely bound, and I push her down into the chair. She starts rocking back and forth, and I need her to snap the fuck out of her pity party, because I don’t give a shit about her or her dead brethren, but I do need her to tell me where Stella is.
“Hey!” I get into her face. “You need to calm the fuck down, right now, or you’ll be in so much pain, you won’t know what hit you.”
She turns to me, her face a mask of hatred, and spits right in my face.
Revulsion crawls over me as I wipe her disgusting fluids from my skin.
Fucking bitch.
I go to the sink, splash cold water over my face, and wipe it with a towel on the side. I fill a cup with the icy water then take it over to Diana and throw it in her face.
She gasps, but it works. She stops her babbling, and I face her again.
“Listen to me.” I put as much authority in my voice as I can muster. She looks at me with the same hate, but the crazy is fading, and I can see she’s starting to come back online with her sanity.
“Your son is dead, your nephew is dead, but I know you have a daughter who isn’t part of this life, so you have something to live for. She has a son you adore.”
Her face pales. I doubt very few people know about her daughter. But Damen can find shit out about anyone, and he’d got the basic dirt on this pathetic lot within minutes.
“You can go and be with your daughter and live out your life. Or … I can kill you slowly, and then go after your daughter and your grandson. And I will, if you don’t help me.”
“How can I help you? I do not even know who you are? You come into my house and kill my family, and you ask for my help?” Her voice is getting hysterical again, so I grab her by the hair and pull her head up and back, sharp.
She gives a scream of pain, and I smile at her. “See, that focused you, didn’t it? I don’t like you, and I’d rather kill you, but I need your help, so we’ll make a deal. You tell me where the girl is, and you and your daughter live. You don’t, you both die.”
“What girl? Are you insane? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”