by Zoey Parker
“I am sorry,” the woman continued, “that we needed to resort to such techniques to get you here. That is, of course, not our preference. There are those we hurt because we must, but you are a partner in so many ways. I may disagree with your methods of achieving your goals – or, more specifically, the timeliness of achieving those goals – but you are not my enemy.”
Milo braced his hands and slowly levered himself up to sitting. His head throbbed as he was moving, but the ache eased off a little as he settled down. “I’m glad to hear that, Silk Road.”
The woman raised an eyebrow, and her smile became a little more real and a little less pretty. Someone brought her a chair, and she settled down it. She didn’t cross her legs; she spread them and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She was a strong woman, clear muscle showing as she moved. Her hair was nearly back, shot through with strands of white, and twisted up into a bun that looked tight enough to keep hair out of her eyes when she fought. He was sure she fought. There was no way a woman like this didn’t fight. She was older, and her lined face demanded respect, but she was also incredibly beautiful. He liked the two together; they gave her a kind of wisdom he found himself enjoying.
“Water? You should eat.”
His stomach rumbled, and panic ran through him like a cold river. “Tess. Where is she?”
Silk Road gave him a long look. “What do you mean?”
“She was waiting in the car. About a mile from the warehouse. Fuck. Did your people get her too? Or did she run? I told her to leave if I didn’t come back within a few hours. I need to find her.” His heart was racing so hard it made his head pound even more, and he had to swallow against bile in his throat.
“Be calm,” Silk Road said, and for a minute, Milo thought that it would be alright. But then the woman added, “We found the car, and there was no one there. She must have left on foot.”
He shook his head hard. There was no way his Tess, his beautiful Tess, would walk out on a dirt road like that, not when she had the car right there. Her hips had been bad for two weeks, and her back was starting to ache from the weight of the baby. There was no way. She’d have driven off if she’d done anything.
“No, Silk Road – you have to believe me—”
“Ruta.”
“What?”
“My name is Ruta. If we are to be partners in this too, you may as well know my name. You have seen my face, after all, and I must trust that you will not tell the world that Silk Road is a woman; my enemies barely tolerate me as it is, behind a faceless mask. Without that protection, I doubt I would survive.” The woman’s grin spread just a little wider. “And if I do not survive, I won’t be able to help you find the woman.”
He leaped to a conclusion. “You took her.”
Ruta scoffed. “Of course I didn’t. Are you mad? I wouldn’t hurt another woman, certainly not one who was only doing her best to escape the monster she’d found herself chained to.” Milo felt himself puff up, but Ruta’s laugh pricked his ego and settle him down again. “Not you, though I’m disappointed she decided to trade one protector for another. There’s still a chance of getting her to give it up, I suppose. But to return to the point. No. I did not take the girl. If I had, she would be safe. I suspect I know who has her though.”
“Bastille was at the warehouse. Did he kill Toro?”
Ruta shook her head. “No. And I made a mistake in hiring that son of a bitch, and sometime when we are all less distracted, I will make a proper apology for that. I was angry – angry enough to send someone to keep you honest. Or so I thought. I did not understand that he had such a… fight to pick with you. It was why my men had orders to take care of him when they went in to keep you safe.”
“Why the crack to the head then?”
Ruta laughed again. “That was to remind you that you had a job to do, and you had not done it. To make sure you understood what needed to be done. What still needs to be done.”
And then the pieces fell into place. “Toro has her.”
Ruta nodded. “He does, I think. He somehow escaped the warehouse; perhaps he saw the girl on the way out. My sources had said he was fonder of her than some might initially expect. He had kept her for a rather long time, all things considered. Considering the things he had his hands in.”
“What did he have his hands in?”
Someone appeared with a bottle of water so cold that there was condensation on the sides, and a thermos of what smelled like a rich stew. Milo accepted the items and, after a nod from Ruta, dug in. He’d been in enough situations to know that when a meal presented itself, you took it. You relished it, because who knew when the next one would arrive? Especially when it sounded like there was going to be another fight coming up. You needed to be safe if you were going to save someone else.
It was interesting, the idea of riding in to rescue another person. So much of his world had focused on ending lives. It seemed good to be thinking about saving one. If he could. If Ruta knew where Tess was. If Ruta was willing to help him get Tess back. Clearly, Toro was smarter than anyone had expected. But Milo needed his girl. He needed his baby. If he had to walk through fire to get her – fine. Let the fire come.
“Slaves,” Ruta said, and Milo was startled so hard he almost dropped his stew. He’d expected almost any word except for that one. She eyed him for a moment, then continued. “Is there a better word for girls, kidnapped from their homes and villages, taken somewhere where they are chained to beds and kept drugged or made to be addicted so that they don’t dare to think of leaving? Where they are used and used until they are used up, and then discarded? And God forbid if one of them gets pregnant. The things that are done to them then?” Ruta shook her head, and Milo had an odd moment of conviction that the woman was speaking from experience. That chilled him all the way down.
“None of this is about drugs.”
Ruta shrugged. “I would have dealt with him eventually because he tried to take one of my suppliers. I will not tolerate that sort of interference; I can’t afford to do so. But finding out that he was buying kidnapped girls and selling them into his clubs? That moved him up the priority list. You are entirely correct about that.”
“And now he has Tess.”
“It would appear so.”
“Tell me you know where he is?”
Ruta grinned again, and there was such dark malice in it this time. Yes, he’d been right. This was a woman who would take on all the armies of hell if she thought it would further her cause. And she’d set her sights on the man who had stolen Milo’s girl, who was carrying his baby.
There was no way Toro would survive the encounter. It seemed that neither Milo nor Ruta had been able to handle the bastard on their own; he would not, Milo suspected, have a single chance of making it out alive when the two of them worked together.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Ruta was already on the move.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Waking up was hard, and she didn’t want to do it. Everything hurt, she wasn’t comfortable, everything just felt wrong. Head to toe, everything felt wrong. The hard lump in her stomach was pressing into her, and she wanted to move away from it. It hurt, and she didn’t want it to be in the way anymore. But moving meant waking up, and she wanted to do that even less.
Realization flooded in all at once. Who she was, where she’d been. The last few minutes of what had happened were fuzzy, strange, but someone had taken her. Someone had taken her, and she’d been scared for the baby.
Baby. There was no more process of waking up, she was just awake, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her body.
“Kick,” she whispered. “Kick, kick, kick kick kick, baby, please.”
There was a long, total silence that spilled into everything, her body, her mind, and her heart. And then she felt the flutter, the tiny shivering flutter of a tiny, moving baby. She relaxed, taking a deep breath. A kicking baby was an alive baby. Whoever had drugged her hadn’t—she refused to th
ink the word. Her baby was alive, and okay. She just needed to figure out where she was so she could figure out how to get out of this place. No one who grabbed her like that could possibly have her best interests in mind.
That was when she felt the weight of the shackle on her ankle. Breathing was hard, all over again.
Panic descended on her, pushing her out of her body and making her mind race. Part of her mind noticed how different it was; she’d woken up in Milo’s handcuffs, and he’d practically raped her, and that had been one of the most erotic experiences of her life. This was different. Everything about this was different. She hadn’t exactly consented to Milo stealing her like he had, but she’d at least known what was happening to her. Now? Now everything was wrong.
She heard the wet laugh she knew so well and looked up. Her body cringed away. It had been a long time since she’d had to pretend that she didn’t find Toro deeply repulsive. She’d even managed to convince herself that he wasn’t completely disgusting for a long time. She’d been under his thumb, and he’d treated her like property. He’d given her away without the least thought of what she wanted. There was part of that which appealed to her, it always had and it probably always would, but right now, looking at him, all she wanted was to get away.
“Welcome back, my pretty girl,” Toro said, and Tess wanted to squirm away.
Her head was fuzzy and aching, her tongue felt too thick, and her hands didn’t feel right. The panic had kept her upright and awake enough to make sure the baby was okay, but now the results of whatever he’d used to knock her out was penetrating her awareness. Her vision was blurry. She looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. The room looked like one of Toro’s safe houses; it had that sort of generic feel on the walls. This room, however, looked… like it had been made for her. Or at least, who she had been for him. The walls were still the bare sort of pale paint that every show house had, but the bed was soft, with a velvety comforter. The head of the bed was covered with a mound of pillows. The furniture was tacky and too much, but it was exactly what he would have done before, and she would have loved it. She would have cooed and said thank you and been so pleased with herself. Thought herself so lucky.
She knew what lucky was now. It wasn’t this.
“Toro, you don’t want to do this.”
He looked at her, his grin widening. “See that’s where I think you’re wrong, Tess. I think this is something I’ve wanted for a very long time.”
He was sitting in a big chair in the corner of the room, the wing back somehow making him look more menacing. Like a villain in a movie. All he needed was to steeple his fingers and cackle in an intimidating manner. He gestured at the goons that were standing by the door, and they turned and left in a strange sort of synchrony. She was confused by that – he’d always preferred an audience when he was berating her – but then he stood, and she felt a cold certainty wash over her. It had been years since he’d been able to get it up reliably, and he’d settled for whipping her ass or beating her tits black and blue. That had been fine with her, the pain had felt better than being poked ineffectively with his wimpy little prick, but now? Now, he was hard, and it didn’t matter that what he was packing wasn’t a size worth mentioning, but it was there. He was rubbing his palm over that lump like it was something, and he was eying her like he used to. Back when she’d thought of him as a protector, as someone who could make her safe.
He hadn’t made her safe. He’d dragged her down, made it harder for her to be herself. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have protected her and helped her have more. Helped her make herself safe. Milo wanted her to get an education, be a good mother to her – their – baby, have her own house and her own money. He wanted more for her. He wanted to lift her up. And that didn’t mean their sex had to be less kinky and harsh and nasty. The better they knew each other, the filthier it got. And that was okay.
But it made this pale imitation of caring so much less acceptable. So much less something she was willing to settle for. She knew she deserved more than this now, and she wanted the more.
“Toro, come on,” she said, and she made herself smile. “You were always after me to lose weight, you couldn’t possibly want me now. Don’t do this.” She gestured at her belly, and when his grin grew wider, she nearly swore. She was scooting away from him, as far as the chain would let her go. It didn’t give her much play, and she felt the panic rising in her. Her head was throbbing from the drugs, and she wouldn’t put it past him to drug her again. She’d always considered herself flat-out lucky that Toro hadn’t gotten her addicted just to make sure she never tried to leave. Turned out that the lifestyle she’d led was enough to make her stick around. She wanted to be angry at herself for that – but maybe right now wasn’t quite the time.
“Turns out,” he said, “I don’t like fat women, but this? This seems to be different. Fucking a woman who belongs to someone else? Funny enough, that sounds pretty damn good.” He was pressing hard on his dick now, his teeth tight on his lower lip as his face reddened. How long had it been since he’d even bothered to fuck a girl himself?
“He’ll kill you,” she whispered, and she knew she was telling herself more than she was telling him. Promising herself. Telling herself that no matter what happened next, Milo was going to save her. Somehow. “He’ll murder you with his bare hands.”
Toro shrugged and laughed that thick laugh. “Keep begging. It makes it so much better.”
Her eyes were filling with tears, and all Tess could think was that she didn’t want this, this was nothing like what had happened with Milo, and she was terrified, so terrified, every part of her body on edge and begging for this to stop. She wanted to be quiet, watch him with cruel eyes and not care what happened to her, trusting in Milo’s vengeance, but that was impossible. The stream of words wouldn’t stop. She offered him anything – she’d go down on him, she’d suck him off until he came right in her face if he wanted, she’d let him fuck her ass, she’d give him money, she had money now, and she’d give him as much as he wanted – and when that didn’t work, she just pleaded. Begged him to leave her alone, not make her do this, not do this to her. He didn’t care. She could see that. He didn’t care at all.
He opened his pants, drew out his weeping dick, and she felt bile rising in her throat. He leaned over her, his body a looming threat. She kicked out, hoping to catch his thigh and get him to back off, but he dodged her easily. What he couldn’t dodge, however, was the chain attached to her ankle. It caught him in the dick, and he let out a high-pitched scream. The way he clutched at himself and fell to the side, she had to have knocked his testicles as well. She pushed herself away and drew her knees up to her chest; she couldn’t fight back the tears. She knew what would happen next, so she wasn’t surprised that, when he got himself together enough, he backhanded her, hard. She went over onto her side and curled up around her belly. He slapped her, kicked her ass, yanked her hair to haul her into a better position for him to slap her again. She took it, took every bit of it; she was curled up around her baby, and her baby would be safe, and she didn’t care about the rest.
When he was done, he spat on her. She was crying hard; he’d like that. He always did. She ached everywhere, and none of the pain had been the sort that felt good, the sort that sent her into a headspace of light bliss at the sensation. She just hurt. But she’d kept the baby safe. That was what mattered the most. She’d kept the baby safe.
Milo would come soon.
At some point, she slept.
She woke when the door to the room opened. She sat up, wincing at all the bruises that had formed overnight. There was a broad-shouldered figure in the doorway, backlit. She raised her hand to her eyes for a moment, scrubbing at her face.
“Milo?” she managed. Her head was clearer than before, but that wasn’t the same as feeling good or okay.
There was a dark, vicious laugh, and the sound of a belt. “No.” It was a voice she knew, but not well.
Toro
had rotated in new security around the same time the penthouse had been assaulted. That was probably why Milo had found a way in in the first place. She remembered this voice from the men she’d seen around at that point. But she didn’t know him, couldn’t have put a face to the blockhead who was striding towards her with none of the hesitation or teasing that Toro had used as he wandered towards her. This man moved through the darkness with total comfort. He already had his belt off, his zipper down, his cock in his hand. He was hard, stroking, and he had scissors glinting in his other hand. For a second, she was terrified he was going to stab her, but he just grabbed an ankle and yanked her over to the edge of the bed. She tried to kick again, but he pinned her legs between his and sliced the scissors up her clothes. He cut her free then shoved her legs wide. His hand dipped into her cunt, and he laughed.
“I always like it best when a girl is dry. Stupid slut. Don’t even know you want it yet.”
She shook her head hard. She tried to sit up, to hit him with her hands, but he shoved her back down with a glancing blow, and she didn’t have enough leverage to do anything about it.
