January Whitehall
One hour earlier
I would rather be at Velvet House than here. The thought echoes through my mind as I sit in Mr. Parker’s limo for what seems like eternity. I keep sneaking glances out of the tinted windows as we drive, but it’s pointless. I don’t recognize where we are. In my darkest moments at Velvet House, when I was caged in the basement, or being tormented by Doc or Adriano, I wondered if I would rather be Mr. Parker’s wife. But now I’m in the same space as my ex-fiancé, I want to dissolve like sugar in hot coffee.
The thread holding my body and soul together feels thin. Thinner than it ever felt at Velvet House. Eli, Doc, Bobby and Adriano are dangerous men who could do anything to hurt me. Mr. Parker is a dangerous man who will do anything to hurt me. He just needs a reason and I’ve given him plenty.
Mr. Parker sits across from me, on his phone. He’s watching YouTube, his big puckery lips rubbing together. They look like two pink slugs. I rub the stinging cut on my own lower lip. I thought after Mr. Parker hit me he’d keep yelling and screaming, but he’s ignoring me. Biding his time.
In fact, the only person who seems vaguely interested in me is one of Mr. Parker’s bodyguards, a huge blond guy with a split eyebrow. The other bodyguards stare ahead, blank faced, but he keeps glancing over. I wish I was wearing more than a tiny dress, a ruby necklace and heels. I wish I was wearing a bra.
Dry prickles roll down my back and across my arms, lifting the fine hairs. I can’t give in to panic. I try to focus on things I can see inside the limo. The wooden minibar, the grainy pattern on the leather seats. I need to keep my head together. If I think about Zia Teresa lying dead in the hospital or the gunshots in the hallway where Adriano was, I’ll scream.
It’s my fault Zia was killed, just like it’s my fault Adriano was shot. I seduced him into taking me to the hospital. I did what Eli Morelli forbade and escaped. If Adriano is still alive and he’s told the Velvet House men what I’ve done…
But of course Adriano is alive. He has to be. He’s a minotaur. He’s going to follow me around forever, watching me dance. Just like Doc is going to insult me and Bobby is going to lift his eyebrows and ask if I’m okay and Eli Morelli is going to wear beautiful suits and oh my God, why did I think I could escape? Why did I think I could make anything better? I should have stayed trapped in my wing at Velvet House where the only person suffering was me.
The limo stops. I look outside and see a large manor house.
“Baskerville, go get Emilia,” Mr. Parker says.
The leery blond guy opens the door. I glance at Mr. Parker, expecting an explanation, but he drops his gaze to his phone.
A few minutes later a girl climbs into the limo. Her floaty red hair and wide blue eyes remind me of the little mermaid. She doesn’t look happy to be here. She looks terrified.
“Hi,” I say instinctively as she sits beside me. “I’m January—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Mr. Parker says as the blond guy gets back into the limo. “January, this is my girlfriend. Emilia, this is my fiancé, January Whitehall.”
Emilia draws back like I’m going to hit her, but all I can do is stare. Girlfriend? So, the whole time Mr. Parker and I were engaged, he had someone? Or did he meet her after I was taken?
“Emilia’s been mine for almost two years,” Mr. Parker says as though reading my thoughts. “Haven’t you, my little cum-dumpster?”
Emilia nods super slowly, like she’s drunk or maybe high.
I feel Mr. Parker watching and I try to rearrange my face into something calm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emilia.”
Mr. Parker cackles. “What a good little whore you are. Say hello back, Emilia.”
Emilia slouches, so her red hair covers her eyes. “H-hi January.”
The shake in her voice sends goose bumps down my arms. What’s happened to make her act this way?
Mr. Parker leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You know what? I want a better hello. You girls kiss.”
I blanch. “What?”
Mr. Parker pulls a gun from his coat and all the air seems to leave the limo. He points the dark circle at me. “Kiss each other. On the mouth. Now.”
Emilia’s cold hands close around my cheeks, turning me toward her and then she kisses me. Her lips are very small. Mr. Parker hoots and the bodyguards stare. Not all of them. Out of the corner of my eye I see the blond looking away, and feel a surge of affection for him. Although he might not be polite. He could just be homophobic.
Emilia and I separate and Mr. Parker claps, his round face red with excitement. “Again. Tongue this time.”
Before I can think, Emilia is pressing her small wet tongue into my mouth. She’s more obedient than I am. Or maybe she’s learnt better than to disobey.
There are louder whoops and cheers.
“Touch her, Emilia,” Mr. Parker says. “Grab her tits.”
Emilia’s tiny hands clutch me through my dress, squeezing my boobs like they’re cantaloupes. I inhale but nothing happens, I can’t drag air through my nose. It’s like being underwater, but I can’t panic. If I’m calm, I’ll be allowed to rise again.
Eventually Emilia pulls away and I stay limp, though I’m dying to wipe my wet lips.
“Very good,” Mr. Parker says. “Come here.”
“Me?” I ask, but Emilia is already moving carefully across the limousine. She doesn’t sit beside Mr. Parker, instead she drops to her knees. My stomach churns, sure of what’s going to happen next. Mr. Parker keeps his eyes on me as he unzips his fly. “You like watching?”
I don’t say anything. The blond bodyguard is still staring purposefully out the window. I try to copy his passive gaze. Emilia bends her head toward Mr. Parker’s lap and slurping sounds fill the limousine. My skin crawls as he jerks his head at me. “Look at me, January.”
I ignore him, focusing on the street blurring past the window.
“I said look at me,” he says and I hear him cock the gun.
Panic rushes down my back like pine needles and I turn and stare wordlessly at my ex-fiancé. Mr. Parker pushes his fingers through Emilia’s red hair. “Don’t be jealous.”
Bile forms at the back of my throat. Jealous? I was jealous when Eli told me I could never be his wife, when Doc talked about the beautiful dancers in his clubs. Watching this is the furthest I’ve ever been from jealous. I’m relieved it’s not me being forced to touch him. Relieved and angry. As I watch Mr. Parker violate Emilia, hatred rises up in me, burning like butter in a shallow pan. This horrible man. Why is he acting like this?
“You’re very calm,” Mr. Parker says, slinging an arm along the back of his chair. “Your little nanny’s dead, remember? Don’t you want to talk about it?”
I was crying beside Zia Teresa’s unconscious body in the hospital when two men burst into the hospital room and shoved me aside. One pressed his hand over my eyes but not before I saw the other wrap his fingers around Zia’s throat. The noises she made… the gurgling and the little gasps. Was she awake? Did she know what was happening as it happened? A million pinpricks force their way through my skin, and I wish Adriano had killed me. That his murderous hatred of me had been real and he had taken my life.
“Say something,” Mr. Parker demands. “Unless you want to help Emilia lick my cock?”
I part my dry lips. “Why… why did you kill my Zia?”
He laughs, delighted with the question. “I didn’t kill your stupid Zia. I ordered her dead.”
Tears sting my eyes. “But why?”
Mr. Parker puts a hand on the back of Emilia’s bobbing head. “I told my men to waste your nanny because she was always a cunt to me. Shooting me little looks out of the corners of her eyes whenever I was at your house. Serves her fucking right.”
Heat shimmers through me like the waves above concrete and my hatred burns to black, bitter ash.
“…and you wanted to bring that old bitch onto my staff,” Mr. Parker says. “You must have hinted at it a hundred times, thinking you were so fucking subtle. I was always going to kill her before that happened.”
My chest contracts. So, it is my fault. Because I loved Zia Teresa, I killed her. She’s dead because of me.
How dare you think that!
The accented voice is as clear as if Zia was talking in my ear. I jolt upright.
“What?” Mr. Parker asks.
“Nothing.” I close my eyes, hunting inside myself for the voice. I’m so sorry, Zia. I’m sorry you died because of me.
I was old and asleep, bella. Exactly how I wanted to die. And you do not have permission to insult me by blaming yourself. This mascalzone killed me. And not even with his own hands! He made someone else do it, like the lazy bastardo he is! The Zia in my mind draws a deep, rasping breath. Now, I know this is not a good place to be and I know you’re worried you killed that ugly man, but you need to forget about us and concentrate on saving yourself, understood?
But Zia—
No buts. You can spend forever apologizing, bella, once you’re away from this man. Now, go and focus on that.
I squeeze my eyes tightly. A visual hug. I’ll try, Zia. I love you.
I love you too. Concentrate.
I open my eyes to find Mr. Parker watching. “You really are a moron, aren’t you January?”
“I guess so,” I say, remembering how nice I thought he was. How I defended him to Eli and Bobby when they kidnapped me. No wonder they looked at me like I was crazy.
Mr. Parker snorts. “You’re dumber than Emilia, and that’s saying something.”
I watch the back of Emilia’s head dip as she sucks his penis. Does she feel as sick and helpless as I do?
Concentrate, bella.
I run my tongue over my lower lip, cleaning the cut. “Mr. Parker, are we going back to your house?”
“Firstly, I don’t have a house, you dumb bitch. I have a fucking compound…”
He swears like an eight-year-old, so impressed with himself for knowing naughty words. I hate him.
“…secondly, we’re not going to my compound. We’re going to a private airstrip and flying to Vegas. Then we’re going to Thailand.”
“Thailand?”
“I have a house there and I think it’ll be more difficult for a certain gang of Italian slimeballs to find us in Southeast Asia, don’t you?”
I weave my fingers together and try to process what Mr. Parker is saying. My knuckles go white with pressure. “But how will we get to Thailand? I’d… I’d need a passport, wouldn’t I?”
“Sartell? Show the girl.”
One of the bodyguards digs around in a black bag, pulling out a familiar pink wallet. He tosses it into my lap. I unclench my fingers and flip it open. My face stares back at me from the photo window. This isn’t a fake, like the one Adriano was going to give me after I left the hospital. This is my real passport.
“Where…? How…?”
Mr. Parker giggles. “Your stepmother. She’s still more than happy for us to get married. And she should be. God knows I’ve given the bitch enough money.”
The news hits me like an asteroid. My stepmother betrayed me. Sold me again to this evil man. I feel a scream rising inside me.
Concentrate, bella.
I swallow the scream.
“Oh,” I say in my lightest, sweetest voice. “That makes sense. Mom always really liked you. So, we’re going to live together in Thailand?”
Mr. Parker looks annoyed by my reaction. “Yes, well, we’ll be going to Vegas first, then Thailand.”
“Why are we flying to Vegas? Is it a connecting flight?”
Mr. Parker whacks the top of Emilia’s head like he’s slapping his thigh with laughter. “We’re flying to Vegas to get married, you dippy cooze. Who knows, I might even get Elvis to do it.”
My insides turn to ice. “You can’t make me marry you.”
Mr. Parker squints as though I’ve suddenly become hard to see. “Are you fucking serious?”
“I won’t say the words. You can’t get married if both people don’t say the words.”
He presses the gun to Emilia’s head. “Say that again.”
Emilia and I scream, mine clear, hers all garbled.
I raise my hands. “Okay, I’m sorry! I’ll marry you. I’ll go to Thailand. I’ll do whatever you want!”
He flashes me a smile and tosses the gun onto the seat beside him. “Good. You know, I think with a little time you and Emilia could be best friends.”
“I-I’m sure we could be.”
Mr. Parker pushes Emilia’s head further into his lap, making her gag. “Actually, all three of us are going to get very close. Starting this evening.”
I press my knees together. Maybe the plane will crash and I won’t have to have sex with him.
We sit there for a while, Emilia going down on Mr. Parker as anonymous city streets rush past and the whole scene is so surreal I keep wanting to laugh. Then I want to scream until my throat tears open. I try to do what Zia asked and plan an escape but my mind keeps snagging on getting one of her cast iron frying pans and smashing Mr. Parker’s penis. Making it so that he can’t hurt anyone with it ever again.
“You remember the charity ball?” Mr. Parker asks. “The night you got all horny?”
That’s not the way I’d put it, but I do remember that night. Mr. Parker got around my bodyguards and drugged me with Orchard, an aphrodisiac Doc invented when he was a teenager. Mr. Parker took me to another room, but before he could touch me, my stepmom whisked me away. The drug didn’t work the way it was supposed to. Doc told me Mr. Parker’s batch was stolen and it had expired. It mostly just made me sick. Not the way I felt when I was given a fresh dose at Velvet House. But at Velvet House, all four of my captors were beautiful. They terrified me, but I never had to pretend to find them attractive and I can’t say the same for my thirty-eight-year-old, rubber-lipped ‘fiancé.’
“I remember the charity ball,” I say.
“I drugged you,” Mr. Parker says. “Gave you something I invented called O.”
My eyes widen. He’s saying he invented Orchard?
“You, um, made a drug?”
“Yup and I’ve got another couple doses. You and Emilia are both gonna get some in Vegas and then we’ll have some fun.” Mr. Parker grins. “But don’t worry, you’ll be the one to get my gravy. I want a son.”
I turn my face away, my stomach rolling. And then I see him. The blond guy. He’s looking right at me and pressing a finger into his open mouth. I frown. Is he making fun of me? Making fun of Emilia? Is he just a weirdo? He screws up his face and sticks out his tongue, and I realize he’s pretending to puke.
I steal a glance at Mr. Parker, but he’s occupied with his laughter and his blow job. I look back at the bodyguard who is now pressing a hand to his stomach and tilting his head downward. It’s like he’s telling me to pretend to throw up. I mirror his actions and he nods rapidly.
On one hand he could be trying to trick me. On the other, I don’t know how things could possibly get worse. I decide to take the risk. I bend over and stick out my tongue, coughing until my throat catches.
“What the fuck?” Mr. Parker says. “What are you doing?”
“Sir,” the blond says. “I think she’s gonna throw up.”
He has a southern accent and for some reason that makes me trust him more. I gag, letting my spit run out of my mouth and onto the limo floor.
“Sir, I think we should pull over,” the blond says. My heart jumps into my mouth. He is trying to help me.
“Just give her the ice bucket,” Mr. Parker says.
“Sir, that’s a pretty bad smell to be smellin’ all the way to the airstrip.”
I squint through my hair. Mr. Parker is sitting back, both hands on Emilia’s head. I cough and sputter but I’m no closer to actually throwing up. If I’d drunk more water or eaten I could make this look better but my stomach doesn’t seem to want to give anything up. I think of maggots crawling through bread, of soggy bathroom floors and cockroaches. Nothing works. Then I imagine being in bed with Mr. Parker and poor Emilia, or Mr. Parker forcing Emilia’s head into my lap, and then my stomach heaves. I gag and this time I bring bile into my mouth.
“Jesus!” Mr. Parker pulls Emilia off him. “Stop puking, you disgusting bitch.”
I see his penis. I wish I didn’t. It’s short and fat and bright red and I hate it as much as I hate him but I make myself stare at it until I gag again.
“There’s a truck stop ahead,” the blond says. “I’ll take her to the restroom.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Mr. Parker presses a button. “Carlo, pull into the next stop.”
My pulse goes haywire, and I’m so scared I’ll smile. I keep my head hanging toward the floor and moan.
“You’re gonna hold her hair, Baskerville,” Mr. Parker says. “And if she gets puke on herself, rinse her out in the toilet.”
“Yes, sir.”
I glance at the blond, but his face is calm. Neutral. My stomach clenches. What if I’m wrong about him? What if he just wants to get me alone so he can hurt me?
It’s something, bella, Zia says. You won’t be trapped in the car and any man is better than Mr. Parker.
The afternoon sun stings my eyes as Baskerville steers me into the truck stop. It’s a big, busy place and the sight of all the bustling families and grumpy truckers makes it even harder to believe I am where I am. Miles from Velvet House. Miles from my family. Forever away from Zia Teresa.
“Hurry up,” Baskerville says, dragging me past a cluster of moms. “Bathroom. Now.”
So, I was wrong about him. He really did just want to get me alone for some weird, non-rescuing reason.
The moms turn to stare and I pray one of them calls the police. I definitely look like I’m being sex trafficked. Then again, they might think the blond is my mean boyfriend. He has bright hazel eyes and he would be handsome if he didn’t work for the nastiest man in the world.
When we get to the restrooms, Baskerville puts his shoulder into the door marked ‘men’s.’
“Ew! I can’t go in there!”
“Yes, you can.”
He bundles me into a cubicle and pulls the door closed, separating us. “If you really need to puke, do it now. Or whatever else you need.”
I frown. That’s a weird thing to say. “What’s going on? Why did you bring me here?”
“Shh,” Baskerville says, as the bathroom door squeaks open.
This is my chance. I should shout out that I’m being kidnapped. But then Baskerville might attack whoever it is and I’d be responsible for another person getting hurt. I sit on the closed toilet lid and press my face into my hands. More than anything I want Adriano to be here with two guns and six knives. I want Eli and his cold professional stare and Bobby in full murderer mode. I want Doc to burst in with his butterfly knife and threaten to stab everyone. But mostly I want to be braver and smarter and stronger than I am. The kind of girl who can get herself out of hopeless situations.
“Everything okay in there, Kitten?”
I glare at the door. Stupid gross Baskerville being gross. “Leave me alone.”
“Afraid I can’t do that, honey. Time to go.”
I stand and flush the toilet for no reason and then unlock the door. So much for my big escape. I’m just going to have to scream in the gas station and hope someone—
“What the hell…?”
I’ve lost my mind. I’ve lost my mind, or I’ve been given drugs. I’m looking at Baskerville but… there’s two of him. It’s the same man twice. But the first Baskerville is in all black. The second is wearing a leather jacket and jeans.
“Hi, Kitten,” Leather Jacket Baskerville says. “How you feeling?”
I stare in disbelief.
“Twins.” Leather Jacket points at his chest. “I’m Archie and this…” He jerks his thumb at the other Baskerville, “…Is Bill. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“I… How? Why?”
“Let’s just say we need you for something important.”
My numb brain stutters to life. More men who want my body. My virginity. I back into the toilet door.
Archie gives me a lazy grin. “Not like that, Kitten. Don’t get us wrong, we’d love to, but by all accounts, you’re spoken for.”
“You mean Mr. Parker?”
His smile fades. “I mean Elliot Morelli and his boys.”
My heart stops. “I…? Do you know them? Do you work for them?”
“Not yet.”
“But you’re taking me to them?”
“That’s the plan.”
I raise a hand and touch Eli’s ruby necklace. “But they’ll kill me. I got one of their men hurt. I escaped.”
“Too bad, Kitten. We’re taking you to Velvet House.”
My throat contracts. “Please—”
Bill groans. “We don’t have time for this, January. You wanna get back in that limo with Parker?”
I shake my head.
“Then shut up and we’ll get you out of here.” He turns to his twin. “Do what you’ve gotta do.”
Archie shakes out his shoulders like he’s about to dive into freezing water.
“Wait,” I say. “What is your plan?”
Bill smiles. “No time for that. See you soon, January. Tell your Velvet House boyfriend I rescued you.”
“I… which guy do you think is my boyfriend?”
“Ain’t you cute?” He pulls a checked handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to me. “Put this in your mouth. Don’t worry. It’s clean.”
I look at Archie, who nods.
Feeling silly, I put the handkerchief between my teeth and hold it there.
“Good girl,” Archie says, then he pulls out a gun and slams it into the back of his brother’s head.
I bite down the handkerchief as Bill falls to the ground, blood pouring from the back of his head.
“Come on,” Archie says. “We’ve gotta go.”
I spit out the handkerchief, my teeth furry with cotton and shock. “What the hell!?”
Archie shoves his gun away. “Parker isn’t gonna let Bill wander back to the limo without you, Kitten. We need to make this look legit. Now can you stay quiet?”
“I… Okay?”
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Archie pulls a baseball cap and a pair of aviators from his jacket. “Here, put these on.”
I think I’ll look more noticeable wearing heels, a hat and sunglasses, but I do what I’m told.
“Right,” Archie says, taking my hand. “Follow me. And smile. We’re a couple on a road trip, okay?”
I answer with a grin. The wide one I was going to wear for my first wedding dance.
Archie and I walk through the rest stop and if anyone notices that the blond man I was with is wearing different clothes, they don’t say it. Archie leads me to the back exit where there’s a smaller parking lot. Waiting for us is a beat-up brown Nissan. The kind of car my brother Harris would call a shitbox.
Archie unlocks the door and I climb in, the skin on the back of my neck itching. This can’t work. Mr. Parker is going to come after us and kill me and Archie. Kill Emilia. Kill Eli and Bobby and Doc and Adriano—if he isn’t already dead…
“Get down, Kitten,” Archie says, climbing into the driver’s seat. “There’s a chance the guys in the limo could see us when we pull out and I’ve got the same face as Bill.”
I put my head between my knees as Archie starts the engine.
“That’s it,” he says, reversing the car. “Stay there.”
“We’re going to get caught,” I mumble into my knees. “They’re gonna see you. Mr. Parker’s gonna get me.”
“No, he ain’t. We’re almost at the exit.”
The car rumbles beneath me, the wheels shifting against concrete. Is this how I die? In a shitbox car with an evil twin?
“Almost there,” Archie mutters. “Almost… made it.”
We turn and the car shoots forward.
“Hell fucking yeah, Kitten! We’re in the clear!”
I don’t lift my head. “How do you know they’re not coming for us?”
“Because if they’d seen, they’d already be shooting.”
I whimper into my legs.
It takes twenty minutes for Archie to convince me to sit up properly. When I do, he hands me a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a bottle of water. “Here. For shock.”
I chew through half the pack without tasting anything. My mind has a floaty, half-asleep feeling, like nothing is real. I could be in a car with a blond stranger, or I could be in my bedroom at Velvet House, or I could be dozing off in science period. Who knows?
“You feelin’ better?” Archie asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, squishing an orange Sour Patch between my fingers.
“That’s fair, but we’ve got about fifty miles between us and Zachery Parker. That seems like plenty of space to me.”
My tummy gives a happy wriggle. “What about Bill? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. He won’t make contact for another day or so.”
I bite my tongue, but my unspoken words hang in the air between us. I hope Mr. Parker doesn’t go crazy and hurt him.
Archie coughs. “Anyway, now you’re talking again, you should know I’m still taking you to Morelli.”
Cold trickles down my body like icy water. I can see Eli in my mind, his handsome face contorted with rage as he orders me into the basement cage to suffer for the pain I caused. For my disobedience.
I imagine Adriano’s mouth twisting in hatred as he realizes I seduced him against his will, helping Doc to throw me into the cage, laughing as Doc’s barbed insults tear at me. The two of them would make sure I pay for what I did a thousand times over and Bobby, my gentle protector will let them. He will never again look at me like the precious thing he believed me to be.
I will truly be Velvet House’s prisoner.
And yet…
I would rather be at Velvet House than with Mr. Parker.
The thought is as true now as it was when it was a fantasy. They will hurt me, they will do everything they can to break me, but I will survive it. And no one else will be harmed because of me. I close my eyes, forcing my tears to run fresh paths down my cheeks.
“Okay,” I tell Archie. “Take me to Velvet House.”
“Right…” he shifts a little in his seat. “You wouldn’t… I mean, you don’t know where it is, do you?”
I gape at him. “You don’t know how to get to Velvet House?”
Archie scowls. “I just… I got a general idea, but I’ve never actually… I mean, the address ain’t on Google maps, is it?”
My heart contracts as I wonder if I can lie to Archie. Get him to take me to an airport or a train station and run away. But where would I go? I don’t have any money or my passport and if I managed to get home my stepmom would just hand me over to Mr. Parker again.
“Kitten?” Archie presses. “Help a white knight out here?”
I push my fingers into my ponytail and pull out the St. Christopher medallion I’ve been hiding in my hair. The one Zia Teresa gave me on my ruined wedding day. “I don’t know Velvet House’s address,” I say honestly. “I’m not great with directions.
Archie makes a grumpy sound. “You don’t have any idea where it is?”
“Albany,” I say promptly.
“That’s a big place, sweetness. Any specifics? Anything you’d recognize if you saw it again?”
I was unconscious when I was first brought to Velvet House and when Adriano and I left to go to the hospital, my brain was full of Zia Teresa. And I’m not lying, my sense of direction is terrible. I got lost in my own neighborhood all the time. “Um, I don’t know. There were a lot of trees around…”
“Fuck it. We’re going to Dreams.”
For a second I have no idea what he’s talking about and I think of pillows and unicorns and soul music. Then it clicks. “You’re taking me to a strip club?”
“Gentleman’s lounge,” Archie corrects. “I can make contact with Domenico Valente there. Or at least someone he knows.”
Fear spikes through me. Domenico Valente. Doc.
Yesterday, I’d have said that Adriano was the scariest of the four Velvet House men, but in his bed, I saw the truth. He is huge and tormented and possibly broken, but he has a tenderness for me that could have killed both of us. That’s why he let me go to the hospital. Why he called for me to run as Mr. Parker’s men strangled my Zia.
If he survived—of course he survived—he might go easy on me.
Doc won’t.
He hates Mr. Parker with every bone in his body and used that hatred against me like a weapon. He spat in my face, stripped me naked and barely consented to give me the small freedoms Bobby and Eli allowed me. Once I’m back in his grasp, any shred of dignity I have will be torn away.
Doc will hurt me. Spank me, use my body in every and any way he wants. I will be drugged with Orchard and forced to comply with his every wish, possibly to dance in his clubs and sleep with his customers. Certainly, to endure his insults and dress in skimpy clothes and act however he wants me to.
And even as my skin crawls I can feel a twisted sense of longing. Doc is evil, but he also has cornflower blue eyes and a perfectly tattooed body and when he tosses his blond head back and laughs he’s beautiful.
I can’t go back.
“Please, I beg Archie. “Take me somewhere else, anywhere else. I’ll give you money. I’ll… I’ll call my uncles and have them pay you or—”
Archie’s friendly face goes hard and for the first time I see how he’s worked for Mr. Parker, how he’s dangerous too. “Don’t push me, Kitten,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you, but one way or another, you’re going back to Morelli. Alright?”
I shrink back in my seat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be.” Archie pulls out his phone and taps the screen. “It’s a couple of hours away, you hungry? Need to pee?”
I shake my head, my fingers tightening around my St. Christopher. Archie puts on Johnny Cash and as my mind fumbles along to ‘Ring of Fire’ I wonder if I’ll die of panic before we ever get to Dreams.