by Riley Ashby
Vin dropped his hands and took a step back, allowing Quinn to take the glass from me. She took a few sips, then drained the rest in two gulps. Her fingers clutched the cup so tightly I thought it would crack, but Vin knocked it away the second it was empty. It shattered on the concrete floor, and she winced at the sound. “You got your drink. Now, I asked you a question. Do you want to know why you’re here?”
She was still shaking but looked steadily at me. Rolling back her shoulders to sit a little straighter, she finally met Vin’s eyes and nodded again. “Yes. Tell me.”
Vin chuckled. “Your mother has some debts to pay. She bet a little too much on the wrong horses. She owes us a lot of money.” His face was very close to hers. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Her eyebrows drew close when he mentioned the horses. “We…” Her voice was raspy, and she cleared her throat. “We have money. They’ll pay what you want.”
“Your mother owes a lot more than what you have in liquid cash,” I said, folding my arms. She looked at me again, her face turning white as the weight of that statement settled on her shoulders. Her family was very wealthy. If her mother couldn’t get the cash to pay off whatever she owed, it had to be a lot of money.
Vin snapped his fingers in front of her face, drawing her attention back to him. “And you’re going to stay here until it gets resolved, one way or another.” His face was leery, suggestive, and he made a point of looking her up and down. Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. Vin chuckled, feeding off her fear. Her tiny dress, short to begin with, had ridden high on her hips. I hadn’t missed the curve of her body as she slept next to me in the car, so it was no surprise Vin had noticed as well. She struggled to pull down her skirt without catching his eye, but he saw. He licked his lips and ran one hand up her thigh. “I can think of a few ways that debt could get paid without your family losing one cent.” He inclined his head, eyes flickering to the bite marks I’d left on her neck and chest. “Seems like you gave it up willingly enough to Gunner already.”
She moved so quickly, it caught me off guard. Vin certainly didn’t see it coming. In less time than it would take me to blink, she slammed the heel of her hand into Vin’s face. He stumbled back with one hand over his nose, blood leaking from between his fingers.
“Fucking bitch!” he roared and lunged toward her, but she was already moving toward the door. She took two steps before the chain connecting her to the wall stopped her short, sending her headfirst toward the ground. I grabbed her around the waist right before her face smashed into the concrete and gritted my teeth as Vin landed a blow meant for her against my back. I pulled her upright and held her steady against me, speaking over my shoulder. Her heart beat against my chest through her back.
“She’s got one up on you right now, boss. You were the one who wanted to wake her up fast. That little boost I gave her isn’t the best for her decision-making.”
Growling, Vin pushed me aside and grabbed Quinn by the hair again, throwing her back onto the mattress and pushing her face into the thin pillow on the cot. “Consider yourself lucky this time around. If you even think about striking me again, I will reconstruct your face beyond recognition. Do you understand me?”
She nodded furiously, struggling to breathe against the fabric. With a final shove, Vin finally stood and stormed out of the room. “Get her under control,” he growled over his shoulder as she gasped. Colby, who hadn’t moved since bringing the water, followed him upstairs. I waited until I heard the door to the main level close and lock. When I was sure they weren’t coming back down, I grabbed a towel from the tiny attached bathroom to protect my hands. I scooped up all the glass on the floor, checking to make sure no shards were hiding under the cot, and then dropped them out in the hallway to dispose of later. When I came back into the room, she was finally sitting up and examining the clasp around her ankle. She grimaced as she rubbed at her skin, already reddening with a bruise. I folded my arms and stood in the doorway, staring her down. Finally, she looked up.
“The door to get into this room is locked by a deadbolt that can only be opened from the outside,” I said. “To get from here to the main level, you need an eight-digit code. To get outside the house, you’ll need my thumb and cornea. Do us both a favor and don’t try to run. If you’re good, I can make this easier for you. If not, this can get a lot worse. Do you understand?”
She absentmindedly rubbed the back of her head where Vin had grabbed her. I wanted to put my hand there, too. She was surprisingly calm—not screaming or crying or begging. In fact, she’d barely said anything since waking up. Her gaze dropped to the floor, but she didn’t respond otherwise.
I stepped forward, crowding her space. “I asked you if you understand.”
She nodded without looking up.
“Good. Are you hungry?”
She nodded again, and I turned to leave. “I’ll be back. Be a good girl and stay put.”
Upstairs, Colby was picking at his nails in the morning sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was so beautiful up here; it was a shame she wouldn’t get to appreciate the view. Vin was talking to someone on the phone.
“No, don’t say anything. Let’s let them worry a little. Better to let them worry. We can make our move tomorrow.” He looked up as I walked past to the kitchen and said, “I’ve got to go. Keep me updated,” as he snapped the phone shut and followed me to the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
“Bringing her some food,” I said, slathering peanut butter on a piece of bread. “I didn’t think you wanted her to die up here.”
He rolled his eyes at my exaggeration but didn’t say anything. “We’re going to hit the road. We’ll be back tomorrow night at eight to call her parents.”
I nodded silently as he snapped his fingers at Colby, who hopped to attention like an obedient puppy. They walked out without another word, the locks beeping as they whirred shut. I breathed a sigh of relief that they were gone, and the house was all mine again. Well, almost.
Back downstairs with the sandwich and a new cup of water—plastic this time—Quinn was sitting in the same position I had left her in, though her face was clean of smeared makeup and her hair had been smoothed down somewhat. I set the water down on the small table next to the cot. After handing her the sandwich, I sat against the wall facing her. She stared at the sandwich for a moment before realizing it was food and then taking a bite.
The flavor seemed to energize her, and she devoured it in only a few more bites, then downed the glass of water. Her eyes seemed clearer now as though a fog had lifted from her mind. She looked around the room again, really taking it in this time. It was nicer than a third-world prison, but not by much.
“Why am I here?” she asked, her voice a little stronger but still strained.
I snorted. “Do you seriously not remember the entire conversation we just had?”
It was her turn to sneer at me now. “I remember, but I want to hear it from someone who isn’t trying to sexually assault me while he’s talking.”
I winced internally. If only you could see my thoughts. I fixed her with my best stern look. “I’ll make it simple for you. Your mom owes a lot of money to bad people. My people.” I stood and walked across the room slowly until I was towering over her on the bed. “You’re here to make sure we’re repaid.”
He left me with the cup of water but took the ceramic plate. With food in my stomach and my panic temporarily pushed aside, I got a chance to examine my surroundings. The room was a box, not much larger than my en suite bathroom at home. A standard security camera watched me from one corner, a blinking red light alerting me that someone observed me at all times. The chain on my ankle allowed me to get close to the door, but I didn’t have room to push open the door, even if it had been unlocked. I was able to enter the small, doorless bathroom, which only contained a cramped toilet, a sink with a shatterproof mirror, a plastic trash can, and a package of moist towelettes to clean my body as well a
s remove my makeup. The one I’d used on my face while Gunner was upstairs sat crumpled in the wastebasket, smeared with black eyeliner and pink blush, the only remnants of what was supposed to be my one night to cut loose.
I bit my lip and stared at my reflection, pushing away the memories of what had happened right before everything went south. It must have been so amusing to him that he was able to get me half-naked before revealing his plan. He could have put me in the car and knocked me out, but no, he wanted to finger fuck me in his back seat first. Why did he do that? Was it just to mess with me? Had I imagined the connection between us, underestimated the effect of the alcohol on my brain? But he’d also put himself between that awful older man and me. My face burned where he’d pushed me against the cot, but at least Gunner had kept me from falling on my face.
This is ridiculous. He abducted you. Gunner was right. I really must be desperate if I was sitting here still trying to convince myself he cared for me in the slightest after he had kidnapped me, drugged me, and locked me in a cell. He was the enemy, and I couldn’t forget that.
The door opened behind me. I turned as Gunner entered the room with a pile of clothes and set them on the cot. “Here. You can change if you want.”
I looked at him, then the clothes, and took them tentatively. He bent over to undo the lock around my ankle. I forced myself not to flinch away from his fingers as they brushed my skin. I gestured to the camera. “Can you turn that off?”
He placed the lock aside and looked up at me from his crouched position. “No. Vin reviews those. He won’t be happy if I break the rules to preserve your modesty.”
I bit my lip to hide the urge to cry and covered my legs with the folded jeans. It was bad enough Gunner had already seen almost all of me. I didn’t want another stranger to have that power over me. “I don’t want him looking at me.”
His face remained impassive, and he didn’t speak as he rose to his full height. His eyes burned through me, landing on the bruises on my neck. My hand flew to cover them. Even with the danger he’d put me in, this prison I’d all but allowed myself to be confined to, blood flooded my cheeks and my lower belly clenched, flush with excitement. The look he gave me now was too reminiscent of the night before, like he already knew me and what I wanted. And he did, didn’t he?
I didn’t want to be under his eyes anymore. He could leave and take the clothes with him. I didn’t have a lot of power here, but I needed to hold onto what little I did.
He spoke before I could. “If you go into the bathroom, I’ll stand and block the view.”
I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to be steady. “Then you’ll see me.”
“That’s as good as I can do.”
Don’t push your luck. He was capable of anything now that my friends weren’t around to watch out for me—not that they had before. I stood and moved toward the bathroom, but my ankle buckled under me. Damn that stupid attempt at running! Even without the chain, it would have been futile, and now I had a sprain. My hand flew out to catch myself on the cot. But I didn’t move more than a few inches before he grabbed me around the waist and steadied me.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, but the words came out barely louder than a breath.
“Too late for that,” he muttered. He pulled me upright, hand trailing across my stomach and pausing briefly on my hip. My scalp tingled. I braced myself, waiting for him to step back, but he moved closer instead and brushed a few strands of hair off my neck. Goose bumps sprang to life on my head and flew down my spine. Had he really touched me like this last night, and I enjoyed it? I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against the bruise on my chest where he’d bit me as I climaxed in the back of his car. That was when I thought I’d never want him to stop touching me.
I jumped as I felt fingers at the base of my neck. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t get this off yourself.” He pulled the zipper down slowly as if he was undressing me for bed. At the bottom, his touch lingered on my lower back for a moment. I was frozen with a strange mixture of revulsion and longing. Just a few hours ago, I’d imagined him doing this exact thing, and now I couldn’t get far enough away from him. But somehow, my skin retained some memory of how he’d made me feel, and the shameful tingling between my legs refused to be ignored.
When I didn’t move, he stepped back on his own. “Go on.”
I rushed the rest of the way to the bathroom, not even feeling the pain in my ankle. I kept my back to him as I changed as quickly as possible. Shedding the expensive dress onto an undignified pile on the floor felt like a crime, but I was relieved to cover my legs more fully, and there was even a pair of tall socks to protect my ankle from the restraint.
When I turned to face him, my cheeks flushed red with shame, he gave no indication anything had happened.
“Back to the cot,” he ordered. Once I was seated, he closed the manacle around my ankle again.
“Do you have to do that? I can’t get out of here. You’ve made that clear.”
“Sorry. Not my rules.” His hard voice was so different from the seductive tones he used last night as he cajoled me out of the club.
I swallowed and clenched my hands between my knees. “What happens next?”
“You wait.” With that, he turned and left. No comment or reassurance. Nothing to explain what had happened between us last night. And no indication of how long I would be down here on my own while chained to the wall like a dog.
I wrapped my legs beneath me on the cot, then pulled the thin blanket up to my waist. Pulling a bobby pin from my hair, I leaned back against the wall and slipped my hands underneath the blanket. The lock was tricky, even more so when I couldn’t see what I was doing, but with some trial and error and not a small amount of frustration, I was able to open the shackle. I breathed a sigh of relief as the heavy metal fell off my ankle, and I rolled it discreetly to get the blood moving again. I couldn’t move around with it off or someone would see me on the camera, but I enjoyed the false sense of freedom from it. I silently thanked Katie for teaching me how to pick locks in the tenth grade.
I took another look at my prison. The smell of fresh paint lingered in the room, and nothing hung on the walls, not even a clock. I had no idea what time it was or even how long it had been since I passed out in Gunner’s car. We could be down the road from my house or two states away. Were we even still in the United States? The man who’d spoken to me earlier—Vin?—didn’t have an accent, but that didn’t mean anything. They’d mentioned a debt owed by my mom, but would paying it mean I got to go home scot-free? I knew what they looked like. Many more people had seen Gunner. Was there any way this story didn’t end with me in the ground or at the mercy of a rich man who liked to hurt women for fun?
The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees in one second, with goose bumps rising on my arms that had nothing to do with a man’s touch or the memory of last night. My mouth tasted sour, and I swallowed hard to keep the meager sandwich I’d eaten from coming back up. I was going to die. Whether here or somewhere else, it didn’t matter. My mom could pay these men whatever they owed a thousand times over, and it wouldn’t change the fact that I knew their faces and their names. They wouldn’t have done that if they ever meant to keep me alive.
Tugging the blanket up around my neck, I curled in on myself tighter as an invisible hand tightened around my throat. I struggled to keep my mind quiet and not run off with visions of torture or rape. But every concrete-colored point I tried to focus on in the tiny room only reinforced my fear. I could hear my breath inside my skull, fighting to access my lungs but stopping at the base of my throat. I sobbed once involuntarily, then clapped a hand over my mouth.
Your ankle. Focus on your ankle.
The chain was off. That was a good thing. I had better clothes; that was second.
I couldn’t think of a third.
I tried to move forward and sit on the edge of the bed, no longer concerned about hiding the open chain, b
ut found I couldn’t move. Any attempts to lean one way or another resulted in more tears, more sobs. I was paralyzed.
My brain wouldn’t stop racing. I had spent years, most of my life, trying to beat down the intrusive thoughts of what had happened to her—the one whose name we didn’t speak unless we were prepared to hold my mother while she cried and force her to eat for a week before she could pull herself out of her depression. I had strategies to deal with my own mental illness that came as a result of her disappearance. However, in the face of this new threat, every step I’d gained in the past dozen or so years was forgotten.
I tried to lie down, but all I could do was rock back and forth, ignoring the sound the cot made as it rubbed against the wall. Maybe if I breathed fast enough, I’d cause myself to pass out for a little bit.
The door swung open with a bang, but even that couldn’t startle me into a reaction. Gunner stood in the doorway, his face unreadable, but his body stiff and rigid. I leaned harder against the wall, burying my face in my hands and willing my torso to stop trembling. His weight on the cot as he sat next to me almost sent me into a final paroxysm of terror when I felt his hand on me—that same rough yet soft skin around my wrist, pulling it away from my face.
“Get away,” I snapped, finally regaining enough control to yank back my hand, but he held on tight and ignored my protest.
“You’re having a panic attack.”
“No fucking shit.” The words were dull in my ears as if my hearing was fading. That same cotton lined my throat now, making every breath harder to swallow.
“Take this.” He held out his free hand, revealing a small pill. “You’ll feel better.”
My dizziness shifted into hyper-focus. This man would not take advantage of me again. “I’m not taking anything you give me.” I kicked his thigh, but he didn’t move an inch. I sucked down a deep breath and readied myself to respond to whatever move he made next. “I’m not letting you put me under.”
