“I’ll make sure everything runs smoothly while you’re gone,” I replied.
“The gates will be locked behind us, too.”
“Naturally.” I ducked my head in a nod.
I wanted them to leave so I could get on with what I needed to do. I’d never intended to kill Paul, but it seemed his death was going to buy me some much-needed time.
I sensed the gazes of some of the women on me, silent questions about what was happening in their eyes. I couldn’t tell them anything, of course. I needed to act as normal as possible.
“Go back in your rooms,” I shouted at them, “and stay there.”
My father nodded, seemingly approving of my display. He motioned to Bruno and Rufus to leave, to search the surrounding grounds for some sign to tell them what had happened to Paul. I knew they wouldn’t find anything. Paul was much closer to home.
I waited for them to pull the gates shut behind them, locking us all in. Not that it mattered to me.
Quickly, I turned from the courtyard and marched back through the house. Perhaps I should have felt worse about taking Paul’s life, but I knew what kind of man he was. He was no better than my father. I rid the world of another rodent, that was all.
I reached my room and quickly bent to pull everything out from beneath the bed.
I flicked through the folders of papers, my gaze flitting up and down each sheet. They were invoices, bank transfers. All important paperwork.
I stopped suddenly. Catalina’s name. A courier company.
The date was a couple of weeks before she’d been due to leave the compound. It seemed my father had sent something for her to have at Torres’s place with her. Had it been something personal, perhaps? Or just some clothes so she’d have had something familiar there for her when she arrived? The invoice only had that it was a package to be delivered, not the actual items. My stomach twisted strangely. I thought she’d been sent with nothing, but my father had planned ahead to make sure she had something of her own there. However badly he’d treated her by selling her to a man like Torres and sending her away, a small part of him had cared about her comfort.
Of course, I doubted Catalina would have been given whatever gifts he’d sent for her, not now that we’d betrayed both him and Torres. I didn’t think Catalina would have been rewarded with many comforts at all.
My heart beat hard, almost unable to believe I might have found what I was looking for. The address was several hours’ drive from here.
I stared at the address, committing it to memory, and then folded the piece of paper and tucked it into my pocket. Should I put the paperwork back in the safe? Now I had the address, I didn’t intend to stay here much longer.
I caught sight of the briefcase from the corner of my eye. What was inside it?
Rolling my thumb along the combination lock, I changed the numbers to the ones I’d previously tried that had given me access to the safe. None of them worked.
“Fuck it.”
I no longer cared about being subtle. Reaching into my bedside drawer, I fished around among all the old coins, pieces of paper, old chargers, and numerous other random items until I found what I was looking for—and old penknife I’d had since childhood. I set the case in my lap and set to work jimmying off the combination lock.
It took some time, but eventually the lock gave way and the case fell open. My mouth dropped. The inside of the case was lined with wrapped bundles of hundred-dollar bills.
My mind whirred, trying to figure out what to do next.
Gates banged open, and a shout came from the yard. Shit. I was out of time.
Hurriedly, I shoved everything back under the bed and hoped no one would come looking.
I had Catalina’s location, money, a gun, and access to a car. Everything was lining up. The one issue I had was my father seeing me leaving or noticing I was gone right away, and calling Torres to tell him I was on my way.
I needed to wait until nightfall, but even then, I doubted I’d be able to get through the gates without anyone noticing. What I really needed was a distraction—something that would keep all of them occupied while I made my escape. But until I figured out what that was going to be, I needed to act like everything was normal. Or as normal as things could be around here.
Running back through the house, hoping to look as though I’d been hanging out on the ground floor the whole time, I relaxed my shoulders and caught my breath, forcing myself to breathe normally.
“Any sign?” I called out to my father as I sauntered out from the house.
“Nope. Nothing. It’s like he’s just vanished in the middle of the night.”
I frowned. “Strange.” I looked to Rufus. “You sure you didn’t see anything last night?”
The other man shot me a scowl. “No. Sure you didn’t?”
I shrugged. “I was dead to the world all night.”
Silas shook his head. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do right now. I’ll put some feelers out and see if anyone has heard anything from him, but otherwise it’s business as normal.”
That was good. It meant he didn’t suspect anything. I just had to keep things that way until I was able to put the next part of my plan into action.
Chapter Thirteen
Torres opened the door and stepped into the room.
I’d known he wouldn’t be content with leaving us alone.
I reared back, hunching into a ball, making myself as small as possible. I huddled my hands up to my neck, trying to hide the blue and purple fingerprints that had appeared on my skin right after Kimmie had attacked me in the shower.
“Hello, ladies,” he said with a wide smile, but then the smile vanished as he picked up on the strange atmosphere. His intense gaze darted around us all and finally landed on me.
Taking several long, determined strides across the room, he stopped at the side of my bed. He reached out and yanked my hands away from my neck.
His eyes narrowed. “Who did this to you? Was it Bartow, last night, when I told him to bring you back here?”
I hesitated, wondering if I could say yes, it was him. The man had thrown me into a swimming pool and laughed as I’d almost drowned, but he’d done that at Torre’s instruction. Would lying also potentially get me in more trouble. Bartow was bound to deny it—as he rightly should—but would Torres think he was lying?
But a different voice spoke up, a voice I didn’t hear much. “It wasn’t Bartow. Kimmie did it. She attacked Catalina in the shower.”
Grace!
My gaze darted over to the blonde girl, who sat with her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, and she shot a look to Kimmie. I didn’t know why she’d told Torres what had happened. Did she hate Kimmie even more than Bartow? I’d been wanting to protect the other woman, despite what she’d done to me, but Grace clearly didn’t feel that way. Maybe she saw Kimmie as a threat to all our safety and wanted her gone.
Torres’s gaze fixed on me. “Is that true, Catalina? Did Kimmie attack you?”
I could feel the glare coming from Kimmie. But I couldn’t lie now. If I did, I’d be making Grace look like the liar, and she’d never done anything to hurt me.
I couldn’t look at Kimmie. “Yes, it’s true.”
His shoulders straightened, his chin lifting. “Right. Both of you. Come with me now.”
I wanted to weep. What was going to happen? “Please, it’s okay. It was just a misunderstanding.”
His brow furrowed in a frown. “That doesn’t look like a misunderstanding to me. Please don’t stick up for her, Catalina. You forget that I know Kimmie, and I know what she’s capable of. Girls like her need to be brought into line.”
I caught a glimpse of Kimmie. She didn’t look frightened. Instead, she seemed almost triumphant, as though we’d been playing a game I hadn’t been aware of, and she’d won.
“What happens to girls who misbehave?” he asked her.
She gazed up at him from b
eneath her eyelashes, lashes such a faint gold in color, they were almost invisible. “They get punished.”
“That’s right. Now get to your feet, both of you.”
I didn’t dare disobey him. I stood shakily, and Kimmie did the same. I didn’t want for it to just be me and Kimmie. I caught Deanna’s eye, and she gave me a tight smile and a nod to tell me to go along with all of this. It wasn’t as though I had much of a choice.
Torres had left the door open when he’d come into the room—a nod toward freedom. He turned and marched out of the doorway, and I put my head down and followed him.
Kimmie was behind me, and I was hugely conscious of her presence, perhaps even more so than I was of Torres. I hadn’t meant to present my back to her. I’d simply fallen in line, but having her behind me felt dangerous. I didn’t think she was stupid enough to try something with Torres right in front of us, however, and we followed him up the stairs to the second locked door, which he opened for us, so he could lead us into the main part of the house.
For the first time, I started thinking of escape. Down in the room, there were two locked doors between us and the main part of the house, but up in the main part of the house, those doors weren’t a problem. The problem up here was the men who roamed the hallways, and of course, the man leading us now. I’d always dismissed the idea of running, having had no experience of the world, and with nowhere to go, but I didn’t think I could live like this. It would be better to end up shot while I was trying to escape than to exist terrified of every moment. But I knew how final that would be. I would never see Angelo again. That would be it for us. And while I knew I wouldn’t see him while I was Torres’s prisoner either, I could at least hold on to that spark of hope that one day things would change for us. If I managed to escape, what would happen then? Would I be able to find Angelo? I doubted it. I had no idea where the compound was, and I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d also be broke, on foot, and homeless, and while I’d been able to handle those things when I’d had Angelo at my side, the thought of living that way utterly alone was horrifying.
But was it any more horrifying than staying here?
We followed Torres through the house and to a large, modern home office. At one end of the room, a couple of leather couches were positioned around a glass coffee table. At the other end, in front of a rectangular window, sat a large desk, also made of glass and chrome, with a big leather chair behind it. Two things caught my eye. On the desk was a computer and a phone. Even if I could access this room with no one else in it, who could I call? The police had already shown that they were untrustworthy—after all, one had held us in the back of his patrol car until Torres and Silas Cassidy had shown up. I didn’t know any other phone numbers.
Helplessness dragged on my soul like a physical weight. I wanted to be strong, and figure a way out of this myself, but I simply didn’t have the tools I needed.
“Go around the desk, Kimmie,” Torres instructed. “Catalina, I want you to stay on this side, facing her.”
I didn’t want to look at Kimmie, but that was obviously what Torres wanted.
“Please, sir,” I begged him. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I’m sorry, but I do.”
There was still a challenge in Kimmie’s green eyes, as though she was winning this somehow. Perhaps she was.
“Bend over my desk, Kimmie, and pull up your skirt. You know I’m going to punish you for what you did to Catalina.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice meek.
He bent to the side of his desk and picked up a meter-long wooden ruler. He placed the flat side in the palm of his other hand, and then lifted it and hit it against his own skin. I watched, wide-eyed, already predicting what was going to happen next.
Was this what she’d wanted all along? Had she hurt me because she wanted him to hurt her? I didn’t know how messed up she was from everything that had happened to her, but I couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly put themselves in this situation.
Any attention from Torres was good attention in her mind.
Kimmie pulled up her skirt, and Torres yanked her panties down around her ankles.
I stood feeling sick, my fists clenched, wishing I could be anywhere but here.
He positioned himself behind her and lifted the ruler. With a whistle through the air, he brought it down, hard. This was no playing around, no teasing, or fun.
It struck her skin with a crack that made me jump and wince at the same time, and Kimmie cried out.
“No, stop.” I begged. “Please stop.”
But he lifted the ruler and struck her again, just as hard. Kimmie’s hair had fallen over her face, and her fists clenched above the glass surface of the desk. From the whistle through the air and the crack as he hit her, there was no possible way it didn’t hurt. Her body jerked at the contact, but this time she didn’t make a sound.
I wanted to rush over there, to yank the stick from his hand, but I was frightened they would both turn on me.
He raised the ruler again and again, thwack, thwack, thwack.
I shook my head, tears filling my eyes, only wanting for this to stop. It felt like time had slowed, and we’d be stuck here forever, like this was my own little personal version of hell, and I wasn’t even the one being beaten.
Torres raised his gaze to me, his dark eyes flaring with something unreadable. I wanted to run or disappear, but I had nowhere to go.
Hitting her had made him hard, I could see the ridge running beneath his pants. He dropped the ruler, and his hand went to his zipper. He undid his pants, yanking them from his hips, his cock springing out, long and thick. He fisted his length, his gaze focused on Kimmie’s flaming red ass. I remained frozen in one spot, praying he’d forgotten about me, and that I wouldn’t be made to get involved.
Kimmie’s expression contorted as he pushed inside her, and her eyes squeezed shut as she was shoved forward across the glass desk with every thrust.
Torres lifted his gaze to fix upon mine, and my blood ran cold. He took hold of her hips, his teeth gritted as he fucked her while he stared at me. This wasn’t about lust and definitely not love. This was about control.
His movements grew faster, and Kimmie’s cries of pain morphed to moans of pleasure. She opened her eyes again and lifted her gaze to mine, the triumph easy to read. There was no doubt in my mind that this was exactly what she’d wanted, perhaps had even planned for when she’d attacked me in the shower. She thought she was getting one over on me by having me watch Torres have sex with her, but I felt nothing but dismay. They were both playing games that I wanted no part in.
She was welcome to him.
Chapter Fourteen
My father had decided there was nothing more that could be done about Paul’s apparently random disappearance, apart from make some phone calls to get his contacts to let him know if Paul showed up anywhere.
I kept my head down and stayed busy in the yard. I resisted the urge to go to my room and guard the bed to make sure no one looked under it, but I knew acting in any way suspicious was going to get me in trouble. Instead, I got on with raking and scraping moss from cracks in the paving. I fixed up a side of the fish pond that was starting to collapse, using chicken wire to mesh it back into place. I cut down a creeping ivy from a wall, working until exhaustion blinded my thoughts. Night was going to be my friend again, and I needed to bide my time until then.
I was jittery, antsy, but the physical work was good for me, keeping me occupied. I had only managed a few hours of sleep the previous night, but I couldn’t let my father or anyone else see that. If they suspected something had disturbed my slumber, I might end up being questioned more about Paul’s sudden disappearance.
The only break I took was to eat lunch. I was worried my father might search my room, and if he did, the game would be up. I tried to watch his movements from the courtyard, but it was near impossible. He’d shut himself up in his office, and I was braced the entire time for his sho
ut of anger when he discovered the safe empty.
Over the course of the afternoon, men arrived in expensive vehicles, choosing which woman they wanted to spend time with and vanishing into their rooms with them. I kept my head down, letting the hours pass by. I didn’t know if any of them thought it was strange—the boss’s son raking leaves in the yard, his head down, his clothes casual instead of the usual sharp suit. If they did, none of them said anything.
Afternoon passed into evening.
Dinner was served, and I took food from the table served to the women, not wanting to be around my father or Bruno or Rufus, a part of me worried they’d be able to read that I was planning something. They already knew there was something different about me because I’d run with Catalina, and right now I was relieved to have something that separated me from them.
After I’d eaten, I went back to the yard. I was running low on things to do, but I didn’t want to sit around the house. I felt like if I stayed in the bedroom, I would look like I was protecting the stash beneath the bed. The whole time, I was tense, waiting for the shout that would signal Silas having been in the safe and noticing the items gone. I only hoped that if he did, he would assume Paul had been the one to take the briefcase full of money.
I sensed someone watching me as I bent to gather another pile of leaves. One advantage—or disadvantage, depending on your viewpoint—of living in the middle of the forest when fall was approaching was that there were always plenty of leaves to rake.
I glanced up to find Yolanda watching me, disbelief and suspicion written all over her face.
Shit.
I put my head down again, hoping she’d leave me the hell alone, but I heard her feet against the cobblestone, moving toward me.
She drew to a stop beside me. “What are you planning, Angelo?”
I shot her a sideways glance. “Nothing.”
“Really?” she said. “I’ve known you almost your entire life. Don’t try to pretend to me that I don’t see what you’re doing. You know you’ve got Bianca running her mouth off as well, complaining about what an asshole you are, and how you think too much of yourself.”
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