Trey

by Shandi Boyes

  I don’t know how long I stay crouched for. It isn’t long enough to dispel the rage tearing me in two, but long enough for Eight to think it’s safe to come in. He fetches up the nightgown Saige left outside my door, dumps it into the laundry basket in my bathroom, then commences straightening out my room.

  Although my first thought is to help him, something navigates me to my untouched bathroom instead. I remove the stained nightie from the laundry basket, raise it to my nose, and suck in a lung-filling breath for the first time in months.

  “Who is she?” I ask Eight after pulling down the grubby sleepwear from my face and storing it into the drawer he just righted. “Who is K?”

  Twenty-One

  Sales Docket Number 12574

  I thought being beaten so horrifically, my body resembled an abstract painting of mottled purples, blacks, and blues would be the most painful thing I’d experience while being a sex slave.

  It was silly of me to ever believe.

  Strangulation hurts so much more.

  The bulging of my eyes from his tight grip. The strain on the muscles in my neck when he wrings them to within an inch of recognition. The burn of my lungs as they scream for another breath.

  They want to live.

  They want to fight.

  I don’t want to do either of those things.

  I deserve to die.

  I broke like I promised I wouldn’t.

  I responded to his taunt.

  And I’d do it all again just to see my spit slide down Achim’s murderously red face.

  For hours on end, he made me watch all the horrible things they did to me. The beatings. The rapes. The humiliation. He played his sick videos on repeat while holding my face an inch from the screen.

  The dark comforted me, it kept me sane, then Achim switched tactics.

  You can’t scare a captive with scenes of captivity, but you can taunt her with how close she came to freedom. First, it was an orange and a heat lamp that resembled the warmth of a sunny Vegas day. Then, it was freshly picked wildflowers and a pork chop overcooked in too much fat.

  His last tactic was the worst of them all.

  It was his hand, on me, in an area he’d never touched me before.

  Whether with Achim or one of the many men I’ve been forced to ‘entertain,’ our exchanges were never about me. I was not to be pleased. I was to give pleasure.

  That’s why I couldn’t help but respond when Achim slid his hand into my panties. I should have taken solace in the fact he repulses me so much that if he had found my clit, my body didn’t notice it. There was no buzz of excitement, no euphoria on what might occur. There was nothing but an urgent need to spit in his face, which is precisely what I did when his eyes lifted to check if I were responding to his touch.

  His face went red with anger.

  I’d never seen him so mad.

  He was on me in an instant. He slapped me, hit me, then ripped at my hair. When that failed to startle me, he clamped his hands around my throat. With his face an inch from mine, he told me how much he hated me, how I was ungrateful and unappreciative, and that I’d never be free.

  That was a little over two minutes ago.

  My head is woozy now.

  My mouth and eyes are dry.

  I can hear the darkness calling me. It’s begging for me to let go, to fall into its safety. The only reason I’m holding on is because I know this tiptoe out of the dark will be my last.

  Achim Novak wants to kill me, and I’m ready to let him.

  Twenty-Two

  Trey

  Have you ever felt like you’re being lied to, but you have no clue why people you trust think lying is their only option? That’s the feeling that hit me the instant Eight and Mikhail left my room. They helped me get my room back in order, assured me I’m not going crazy, then exited like I didn’t ask them three times in a row who K really is.

  They answered me, they know better than to act ignorant around me, but they lied through their teeth the entire time. I know it, Eight and Mikhail know it, and so the fuck does K.

  A whore hoping to claw her nails into the back of a worthless crew leader wouldn’t stir enough interest out of me to make my cock twitch. I doubt I would have given her a second sideway glance, but just the mention of the letter ‘K’ sets off my pulse in my ears. It’s been thudding nonstop the past hour, growing in intensity the longer I stare at the drawer I shoved a grubby nightgown into.

  Needing answers, I rip open the drawer with enough force to fully remove it. Anger percolates through my veins when nothing but numerous pairs of boxer shorts reflect back at me.

  Concern my almost manic breakdown has me mistaking which drawer I hid it in, I yank open the three below it. Confirmation I’m being lied to smacks into me hard and fast. None of my drawers are housing an almost see-through nightgown. There’s not a single piece of female attire to be found in my room.

  When my attempt to gulp down the anger festering in my gut makes me angrier, I storm out of my room and march down the hall. I’m not surprised to find Eight and Mikhail at blows in the living area. Pretty much anytime I left the bathroom attached to my hospital room, I stumbled onto them brawling each other. Usually, Mikhail has Eight pinned to the wall. This time, it’s the other way around.

  If any of the thoughts in my head are true, Mikhail should be grateful it’s Eight clutching his neck. If it were me, he’d be dead by now.

  “Give it back.”

  “Give what back?” Mikhail asks, aware my question was for him. “As I said to Eight, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  While I close the distance between us, Eight snarls, “This wasn’t our agreement. We were told if he naturally progressed toward his memories, we weren’t to keep them from him.”

  “I’m not repressing his memories, August. I’m trying to stop him from being hurt.” Mikhail lowers his tone a notch, meaning I have to strain my ears to hear him when he whispers, “You weren’t there when we found him. You don’t know what he’s been through, so you have no fucking right to judge us on how we handle this situation.”

  “But I sure as fuck can,” I growl out in a gravelly tone.

  With Mikhail having no plausible comeback, he keeps quiet.

  “Let him go.”

  Eight glares at me as if I’m insane for a second before doing as instructed. Mikhail won’t run. Cowards run. He isn’t one of those.

  He is close to his death, though. So very, very close.

  As thunder cracks above my head, I step closer to Mikhail until I’m confident he’s aware fourteen weeks in a hospital bed, three skull fractures, and a busted-up leg won’t weaken the severity of his punishment if he lies to me again. “Give. It. Back.”

  “Trey—”

  “Give it to me!” My roar silences the room. It doesn’t give me the comfort it did in the hospital. It makes me unhinged.

  Like Nikolai did to Rory months ago, I pin Mikhail to the wall by his throat before attempting to throw my fist into his face. I say attempt as I’m frozen mid-strike, shocked about the video playing through my head.

  I killed Rory, and I did it for K.

  I’m certain of it.

  “The specialist said forcing memories onto you could do you more harm than good.” This comment isn’t from neither Mikhail nor Eight. It’s from Nikolai. “Should have known better. Those fuckers might have degrees, but they don’t know how our brains tick.” After locking his eyes with Mikhail to reveal his absolute fury, he returns them to me. The deadliness in them reveals Mikhail will pay heftily for his bend of the rules. “Leave us.” When Mikhail’s lips twitch, prepared to issue a defense, Nikolai shouts, “Ignore me again, and I’ll strip you of more than your ranking!” His words are nothing but menacing when he growls, “And I’ll start with your snitching tongue.”

  With his hands held out in front of himself, and his eyes wide with fear, Mikhail tosses a dirty nightgown into Eight’s chest before he makes his way to o
ne of the quads parked around Clarks. He’ll go blow off steam for a few minutes before coming back to apologize. He’d rather grovel like a punk-ass than lose his place on Nikolai’s team. Most of my brothers would choose death over exclusion.

  After waiting for Eight to hand over a frail material I clutch like it was my mother’s, Nikolai nudges his head to one of the many couches in the living area, requesting for me to join him there.

  As we pace toward the living area, low-ranked members of his crew and whores disappear in all directions. Nikolai didn’t specifically ask for privacy, but his facial expression is telling enough. Once we’re alone, he asks, “What do you remember?”

  “Nothing about a car accident,” I mutter under my breath, unable to take my eyes off the nightgown I’m wringing around my fingers like it’s capable of healing the stupid-ass lisp and limp I got from my injuries.

  It dawns on me just how far Mikhail’s deceit went when Nikolai’s brows stitch at my mumbled comment. “That’s the script they’re running?” When I jerk up my chin, his tightens. “We were advised to let you formulate your own response to your memory loss, not make up gimmicks.” He plops into the first single sofa before lifting his eyes to mine. They’re still icy and dangerous, they’re just not as dark as they once were. “What do you remember about K?”

  “That she smells like the rain…” An unexpected grin tugs on my lips when I mutter, “… and pig shit?”

  Nikolai isn’t as surprised by my comment as me. “Jim said you were under. Didn’t believe him until now.” After gesturing for me to sit across from him, he hands me a single print out. It’s a photograph of a slender blonde with big blue eyes and ruddy lips. It’s hard to tell from this image, but she looks around sixteen.

  “Anything?”

  I shake my head, disappointed. Other than my pulse thumping in my ears, her face doesn’t register as familiar. Don’t get me wrong, her perfect nose, plump lips, and gorgeous face make my cock twitch. Its spasms are just barely felt over my skyrocketing blood pressure.

  “What about him?” Nikolai places a second image onto the first one. Although he’s older than I remember, I immediately know who he is.

  “What does Achim Novak have to do with any of this?”

  My eyes snap to Nikolai’s when he says, “He’s her owner.”

  “He owns K?” When Nikolai nods, I scoff. “That can’t be right. He’s married to India—”

  “Who looks remarkably similar to K when she’s not dirtied up by the sex-trafficking industry?” Nikolai interrupts.

  The picture he hands me this time around sends blood rushing to all regions of my body. My cock, my heart, my ears, they all get slammed by an overzealous pulse, not the least bit turned off by the grubby-faced blonde with bird nest knots in her matted hair.

  As my nostrils flare like I can smell K’s scent off her image, I stray my eyes to the open side door of Clarks. It’s dark out, however, all I’m seeing is a mess of saturated blonde hair clinging to the face of a blue-eyed woman. She’s just as beautiful, if not more, than the woman in the first photograph Nikolai handed me, and she doesn’t have an ounce of makeup on.

  After a few minutes of silent deliberations, I blubber out, “I took her to Jim’s.”

  Because I’m not asking a question, I don’t look at Nikolai to get confirmation. I’m too busy staring at the rain, confused as to why the sight of it has me the hardest I’ve ever been. My cock is pressed against the zipper in my jeans, standing to attention like it refused to do only an hour ago.

  It tells me everything I need to know, and exactly what I must do. “I want her back.”

  In the corner of my eye, I spot Nikolai shaking his head. “That isn’t possible—”

  “I don’t care what’s possible. I want her back!”

  Nikolai works his jaw side to side, frustrated by my roar, but the stupid lisp my words arrive with halves his annoyance. He’s looking at me more in pity than anger, and I fucking hate it. “She’s the reason you were attacked, Trey. She’s the reason you almost died.”

  Even having no real memories of K, I shake my head. I let a woman play me for a fool once, so there’s no fucking chance in hell I would have allowed it to occur a second time. If I let K in, I must have trusted her. Furthermore, if Nikolai truly believes she’s to blame for what happened to me, she’d be dead by now. Woman or not, he wouldn’t have let anyone get away with entering his turf to fuck with his crew for no reason.

  When I say that to Nikolai, silence transcends, proving I hit the nail on the head.

  “Don’t you want the man responsible for hogtying Justine and forcing her to watch me being tortured be brought to the courts?”

  Nikolai’s brows furrow as tightly as mine. “You remember what happened that night?”

  As I slide my hand over the ridges in my skull, my chin dips. The memories slowly trickling in my head are hazy but filled with enough anger to know even if K is partly responsible for what happened to me, nothing will stop me seeking justice on Achim. “Alexei was doing the torturing, but he wasn’t the only man in the room.”

  When my eyes drop to the stack of photographs, Nikolai says, “Are you sure, Trey? Justine and Eight only saw Alexei. Could your past be fucking with you?”

  I immediately shake my head, doubling the throb of my brain. “We were in a shower stall in the bathroom.” I lick my lips to give my brain a couple of seconds to work through the drudge coating it. “K overdosed?”

  Unsure if that part of my memory is true, I peer at Nikolai for confirmation. Even though he nods, I know he’s holding back. He wants me to sort through the shit like he made me do three years ago, aware when your trust is low, you don’t believe anyone but yourself.

  A few more minutes pass in silence before clarity breaks through the fog. “Eight only counted four pills.” I feel my pupils dilate when another revelation hits me. “I was tasered…” My jaw tightens so much I’m afraid it will crack when I growl out, “… by Achim.” After dragging my hand down my face, I lock my eyes with Nikolai. “How do you not know any of this? This place is wired to the hilt with surveillance.”

  “Our cameras were infiltrated seconds after I headed to P’s.” He peers at me beneath lowered lashes. “I assumed that was you. You often say only fools record themselves doing something incriminating.”

  Our cameras are wired to the same network as the one protecting P’s, so his reply has credit. I would have cut the feed if I were given the chance. I was too busy nursing a throbbing jaw before coercing a fighter off the ledge of a skyscraper.

  “Your girl smacked me in the face.”

  Nikolai’s smirk is more smug than sorrow-filled. “She told me. You kinda deserved it.” With a jerk of his chin, he demands Nero to our side of the compound. I fell so far down the rabbit hole in my head, I hadn’t realized a handful of Nikolai’s highly-ranked soldiers had joined us. “Show him the printout I gave you.”

  This isn’t a paper version. Nero is all about electronics.

  “What does it say?” I ask after taking in a two-worded text in a foreign language.

  “I have Ana,” Nikolai and Nero say at the same time.

  Before I can ask who Ana is, Nero skims past a report of texts, calls, and internet usage for a date three and a half months ago—the same date of my ‘supposed’ accident—before he stops on an image of a woman who looks oddly similar to K. Her only downfall is her attractive face doesn’t make my pulse thud in my ears.

  “She’s also owned by Achim,” Nikolai advises, his tone somewhat annoyed. He was all about the whores before he fell dick first in love, but even then, he never forced a woman to sleep with him. Just like me, his kink isn’t sex slaves. “He loaned them to Vladimir. Larks say that’s why he returned to collect them when I killed Vladimir.”

  I jackknife back, shocked.

  Nikolai killed Vladimir?

  When I spot the truth in Nikolai’s humored gaze, I slump low in my chair. I thought only drugs could fuck
with my head this much.

  Who knew a tire wrench could cause so much damage?

  After working through the truckload of information I’ve been bombarded with, I ask, “Did Achim take any of the other women?” I’m hopeful we’ll have a reason to respond. If Achim doesn’t own the women under his command, he doesn’t get to keep them. Point blank. That’s how things in this industry work.

  My hopes get crushed when Nikolai shakes his head. “But…” He leaves me hanging on a knife’s edge for so long, sweat beads my temples. “He technically doesn’t own K anymore. I do.”

  What. The. Fuck?

  Hearing my silent question, Nikolai shoves a dirty piece of paper under my nose. I swear I’ve seen it before even with it being an industry I’ve never dabbled in. It’s a sales receipt for a woman named Kristina Svoboda. Nikolai paid one point two million dollars for her a little under four months ago.

  “When did you say you and Justine hooked up again?” Now is not the time for jokes. I’m just hoping a little bit of playfulness will stop me from pinching my gun against Nikolai’s temple. He’s my brother, my best friend, but the violence roaring through me right now is so temperamental, not even he is safe if this document is legitimate.

  The gun stuffed down the back of my jeans grows less heavy when Nikolai mutters, “I don’t pay for whores. Never have. Never will. But…” He lifts his eyes to mine. They’re the same dangerous pair I’m used to seeing. “I could pretend I have if required.”

  “You’d do that for me?” If I need any more clues on how fucked-up your brain gets when it’s smashed in with a tire wrench, I don’t now. Nikolai took me in when I was nothing but a homeless-looking rat with a wish to die. He’s already proved how far he’ll go for the men in his crew. It’s why he’s so well respected, and the very reason I have no intention to leave his crew any time within the next decade.

  Not needing to clarify my shock, Nikolai stands to his feet. “Give me the night with my woman, then we’ll head out by dawn.” He shifts on his feet to face Roman. “Find out where they’re holding the sale. I want to go in heavy but quiet.”