I’d reached my room again, but I couldn’t just sit down and wait, not when I knew what was going on in the other wing of the house. I had no intention of getting caught up in the fire and dying in here.
A shout of panic reached my ears.
Finally, someone had noticed.
I undid the button and zipper of my jeans, took off my t-shirt, and half pulled off one of my boots, and then stumbled out into the hallway, pulling my clothes back on as I went.
“What’s happening?” I shouted. “I can smell smoke.”
I could already feel the heat from the fire.
Others had started to emerge. I caught glimpses of bodies running down the hallway. It was dark, the air quickly clouding with smoke.
I finally saw my father. He looked to me, confusion and fear written across his features. I’d never seen him looking out of his depth, but right now he did, and a surge of pride and bitterness rose up inside me.
“There’s a fire! We need water!” he shouted at me. “The goddamned sprinkler system isn’t working.”
I nodded. “I’m on it!”
I had no intention of helping him, but I didn’t want anyone innocent to get caught up in the fire either. I didn’t know if any of the women had noticed, or if the fire would spread as far as their rooms, but I didn’t want them to end up hurt.
I ran out of the building and into the courtyard.
The women had all emerged from their rooms, confused and frightened, hands to their mouths, looking at each other in concern. Behind me, Bruno and Rufus were wrestling with a hose, trying to get it inside, though I doubted it would reach.
I spotted Yolanda and had an idea.
Quickly, I turned and ran back through the house to my room. I crouched to reach beneath the bed, my fingers snagging the case. I opened it and took out a couple of sheaves of notes, shoving them down the back of my jeans, and then I slammed the lid shut again. Holding the case close to my body, I ran back through the house. Everyone was too preoccupied to ask what I was doing. People were running and shouting and fighting their way through the smoke to deliver containers of water to be dumped on the fire.
The women looked like they were trying to help, buckets of water scooped up from the fish pond and passed along a line into the house. I spotted Yolanda and hurried up to her.
“Angelo? Thank God you’re safe. What’s happened?”
“Don’t worry about that. Take this.” I pushed the case into her arms.
She looked down at the case in confusion. “What is this?”
“Money. A lot of money. Enough for you and the other women to get started up somewhere.”
“What? I can’t take this. It doesn’t belong to me.”
“Yes, it does. You earned it, and so did the others. It more than belongs to you.” I pushed the set of car keys into her hand. “These are for the Mercedes. You need to move fast, while they’re distracted. Get the other women and get out of here.” I thought of something. “You know how to drive, don’t you?”
She nodded. “It’s been a long time, but yes, I remember.”
“Good. They’re distracted, and they won’t even notice you’re gone for a while, but when they do, I’ll make sure they won’t be able to come after you. It’ll buy you some time.”
Worry tightened her beautiful features. “I don’t know, Angelo...”
“You deserve to have a life. All of you do. You might not get another chance if you don’t go now.”
She stared into my face, clearly trying to decide what to do, and then gave a brief, determined nod. “Yes, you’re right.”
She turned away from me, back toward the rooms where the other women were waiting, and then quickly spun back around. Her long arms wrapped around my neck, and she hugged me tight.
“You’ve been like a son to me, Angelo.” She released me and placed her hand to my cheek. “And I’ve loved you like one. I hope you find Catalina, and that you both stay safe. And thank you.”
With that she turned and ran back to where the others were waiting. I couldn’t hear what was being said, the sound masked by the roar, crackle, and bang of the fire in the house, but I could see their gazes darting to me, and then to the gate, which was now unmanned.
Marie frowned, her eyes wide in alarm. Bianca glanced over at me in disbelief. One of the others shook her head. I hoped they’d move quickly. I couldn’t stand there, waiting for them to decide what to do. There was something else I needed to take care of, though it sickened me to my very soul.
But I had no choice. If I wanted to have a life with Catalina, this part needed to be done. If I didn’t, we’d forever be looking over our shoulders.
That was if I even managed to find her, and she was alive when I did.
Gripped in determination, I pulled out the gun from where I’d hidden it in the waistband of my jeans. Going back into a burning building wasn’t on my list of things I wanted to do before I hit thirty, but I didn’t have any choice. I needed to act on the offense, not on the defense, and I was relying on everyone being distracted by the fire. It wasn’t as though they’d be able to call the fire department out here. This was something we had to deal with ourselves, and my father would know that if he didn’t locate the source of the fire and get it dealt with, then he would lose everything.
Little did he know he was about to lose everything anyway.
I ran back through the house, ducking low and covering my face with the back of the arm not holding the gun. The fire was growing louder by the second. I jumped at a massive crash where something collapsed.
I reached the wing of the house that was on fire. My father was standing with his back to me, but he must have sensed me there as he glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of me standing there.
“Angelo, where the fuck have you been? We need help or this whole place is going to burn to the ground.”
He held a bucket of water in his hands, and he threw it at the fire. The water hit with a hiss and a cloud of steam, but really didn’t have much impact on the flames.
“Here,” he said, shoving the empty bucket at me. “Go and fill it back up, quickly!”
Bruno ran past me, handing another bucket of water to my father. The other man gave me a confused stare, but didn’t challenge me. Smoke filled the air, stinging my eyes, and I put my hand over my mouth as a volley of coughing caught my lungs. Neither man had appeared to notice I held a gun in my hand instead of a bucket—a gun I wasn’t even supposed to have.
“We need all hands on deck,” my father shouted. “Shit. We could have done with Paul right now. We might even need to get the women in here to help.”
There were staff, too—Georgina in the kitchen, and a handful of others. I hoped they’d find their way out of this unharmed. I couldn’t help everyone. Had the women managed to get away from here yet? The fire was too loud to pick the sound of a car engine out of it. I hoped they had, because this place was about to become even more chaotic.
Bruno ran back for more water.
It was just me and my father now.
My vision blurred with tears of regret for something I hadn’t even done yet. This was still my father—the only parent I’d ever known. But he’d raised me under a tyranny of fear and violence, and he sold a young girl to a monster, just like him. He kept women prisoner here, and traded their bodies to other men in return for money. Silas Cassidy was not a good man. The world would be a far better place without him, and yet still my finger waivered on the trigger.
Catalina.
I had to keep her in the forefront of my mind. I remembered how it had felt to have her arms wrapped around me in bed, the moment when she’d danced in the gas station parking lot, when she’d cried because she’d felt my pain in the bear trap as her own.
Her life was more important than his.
“Father,” I said, not wishing to shoot him in the back of the head. He was still focused on the rapidly spreading fire and didn’t respond. “Father!” I repeated, louder t
his time.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, irritation painted onto his face. Then he caught sight of the gun in my hand, the barrel pointed in his direction. He’d been asleep when the fire had started and hadn’t thought to arm himself. I’d been betting on that, though Bruno and Rufus might be a different story.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Angelo?”
“You should have let us go,” I said. “Me and Catalina. Everything would be different if you’d only let us go.”
And I squeezed the trigger.
The crack of the gunshot sounded like a rafter snapping in the house. No one outside would have been alerted to it being anything different. Silas Cassidy staggered backward. His knees folded and he fell sideways to the floor. The flames crept closer, the smoke growing thicker with every second that passed. The light quickly died from his eyes, but I stood and watched to make sure his chest didn’t rise and fall, wanting to make sure he was dead. There was no way I wanted him coming back.
I needed to get out of there. Bruno and Rufus would return with more water at any moment, though it would do no good. I wanted the fire to consume the property, to burn the house and my father and Paul’s bodies with it.
I’d already taken two lives. What were two more? With them would die the tale of what took place here today. They’d killed the young girl, Dani, and they would most likely go on to rape and kill more women if I allowed them to live.
I felt like a vigilante, storming through the burning building, ready to kill whoever stood in my way. The roar of the fire hid my tracks. Rufus rushed toward me, a heavy bucket in both hands. He might have been armed, but he was currently occupied. Fucking dumb of them to think they were going to put out a house fire with a few buckets of water, anyway.
“Hey, Rufus.”
He jerked his head toward me. I didn’t hesitate. I lifted the gun again and shot him point blank in the head. He toppled to the floor, the water he’d been carrying spilling all over him. Not that he’d have even noticed. He’d been dead before he even hit the floor.
Then Bruno came careening through the burning building. “The gates are open! The women are gone. We’ve been sabotaged!”
This time, I smiled when I lifted the muzzle of the gun. “Yes, you have,” I told him.
Understanding registered in his eyes.
“This is for all the times you threatened Catalina.”
I pulled the trigger.
Just like Rufus had done before him, the bullet hit him in the head, and he slumped to the floor.
I was glad he was dead.
I’d given the keys to Paul’s car to Yolanda. Would Bruno even have his car keys on him? I crouched and rifled through his pockets, letting out a wild whoop of victory when my fingers closed around the key fob.
I kept hold of the gun and ran from the house.
Some of the other members of staff were still milling around, not knowing what to do.
“Go!” I shouted at them. “Get out of here. Forget this place ever existed.”
I couldn’t worry about them now. I’d done what I could.
I climbed inside the car and pulled the door shut behind me. Jamming the key into the ignition, I started the engine and put my foot down.
With a screech of tires, I drove away from the burning compound.
Chapter Seventeen
The following morning, Kimmie’s mood was nothing short of manic. She raced around the room, trying on one outfit after the other, leaving those she had discarded all over her bed and the floor. She chattered to herself as she went, a constant stream of consciousness not directed at any of us.
“No, no, no. That won’t do at all. The hemline of that one is weird, isn’t it? I don’t like the way my legs look. Got to get it right, though...”
We all stayed out of her way as best we could, not engaging her in any way, and exchanging worried glances between ourselves. She got angry with herself, balling dresses up and flinging them against the nearest wall, where they made no impact whatsoever and simply floated to the ground in a waft of silk and chiffon. Finally, she decided on something to wear and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.
The atmosphere in the room changed noticeably now there was a door between us and her. I exhaled a long breath, and I sensed the other girls doing the same, our shoulders dropping and bodies relaxing. Being in a room with Kimmie felt like we were all poised on an unexploded landline and were all too terrified to move in case we set it off.
“Is she okay?” I whispered to Deanna, not wanting Kimmie to overhear me. “Was she always like this?”
I couldn’t imagine spending even a matter of weeks trapped in here with Kimmie acting this way, never mind months or years.
Deanna shook her head. “No. She’s always been a bit bitchy, but nothing like this. Your arrival seems to have triggered something in her.”
My heart sank at that. I had no love lost for Kimmie, but I didn’t want to be the cause of another girl losing the plot.
Deanna must have read my feelings on my face. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Torres is the one who’s done this to her, not you. He likes to work his way into our heads, if he can. It’s not all physical with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He likes to play with our minds as much as our bodies, and he’s seen that Kimmie has latched onto him and is the jealous type. He’s probably enjoying watching both of you squirm.”
Yes, I’d seen that in his eyes when he’d been fucking Kimmie over the desk and watching me watching him. While I was sure he’d enjoyed having sex with Kimmie and spanking her, too, it was the way he’d focused on me to get my reaction to the scene that had weirded me out most of all.
“But what’s enjoyable about that?” I asked her.
Grace sat on her bed on the other side of the room, her knees drawn up to her chest, watching us with wide, blue eyes. Inside the bathroom, the shower turned on as Kimmie continued to get ready for that evening.
“It’s like a game,” Deanna said. “We’re all different, and he likes that. He seeks out our weaknesses and tries to figure out a way to break each of us. That’s how he likes his women, Catalina. He doesn’t want to see us as whole people. He wants to see us broken. Damaged. He’ll work out our weaknesses and use them to make us lesser people than we ever used to be.”
“Kimmie’s weakness is him,” I said.
“Yes, though he could be any man. She just wants to be loved and worshipped, and will do anything to feel that way.”
“What about you, Grace?” I asked to the girl on the other side of the room, but she only shrugged and glanced away.
Deanna filled in for her. “Her youth, perhaps. Her innocence, and naivety. That is how he took her.”
That made sense. He clearly had a thing for that, considering he’d bought me at age ten and had wanted my virginity. Maybe that was his idea of breaking someone—destroying everything pure about them and degrading them down to his level.
“What about you, Deanna? What’s your weakness?”
She gave me a small smile. “I don’t know yet, and he doesn’t either. I think most men would have gotten frustrated by now, and perhaps tried to beat my stubbornness out of me, but I also think he rather likes the challenge.”
“So, he wants us all like Kimmie?” I asked.
I wanted to say, or like Grace, but I didn’t, not wanting to upset the other girl. She’d already lain back down on her bed and pulled the sheet up over her head, as though she’d decided she wanted no more part of this conversation.
“No, not like Kimmie. She’s just one part of his game. Like I said, we’re all different, and that’s what keeps him entertained. I think he’d get bored of us if we were all the same.”
“What do you think he’ll do if he decides he can’t break you? When he’s finally gotten bored and had enough?”
I was asking for myself as well as Deanna. Things had changed since he’d first purchased me. I
wasn’t that naïve little virgin anymore. I hadn’t seen much of the world, but I’d seen more than I would have if I hadn’t run away with Angelo, and I’d experienced what love was like at the hands of a real man.
Deanna caught my eye, fixing me in her gaze.
“He’ll probably kill me.”
Chapter Eighteen
I drove all night, right through until morning.
The stink of smoke filled the car. It was on my skin, in my hair, permeating my clothes. Had the compound burned down to the ground now? I hoped so, and I hoped the flames had destroyed the bodies of my father and the other men I had killed as well. It was strange to think of the place no longer existing. Even though I hadn’t lived there for several years, I’d still always thought of it as a home, a base, and now it was gone, and I’d been the one to destroy it.
I’d killed my father, and the other men, too, but strangely, I felt nothing. There was no guilt or remorse, or even happiness that Silas Cassidy was dead. Maybe it would hit me eventually—perhaps when the shock of having taken so many lives in the last twenty-four hours struck—but right now all I knew was that I’d done what was necessary. None of those men’s lives were as important as Catalina’s safety—far from it. I’d have traded one hundred of their lives for hers, if I had to.
I thought to Yolanda and the other women. No one would be coming after them. I doubted even their regular customers would bother trying to track them down. I trusted they’d use the money in the briefcase wisely and find somewhere to live, and not fall back into their old ways of drugs and prostitution. I wanted better for them than that, and I believed Yolanda would help the others make the right decisions. More than anything, I wanted to tell Catalina that the women were free, that they were able to make their own choices again. It was something that had bothered her when we’d run away together, feeling as though she’d abandoned them, and I knew she’d want to hear this news.
Damaged for Him Page 12
