by Callie Hart
“How ’bout you stop wasting my time and hand her over, Perez? That way we can get out of your hair and you can get your ass to bed.”
Julio grunts, clearly unhappy. He pulls the door of the car open wider and moves aside, and there she is, sitting on the back seat. The blurry girl from Cade’s security footage. The girl who witnessed my uncle being murdered. Her hair, thick and dark, has been pinned up into fancy twists and knots. Dark eyes peer out of the darkness, fixed on me, wide and round—she’s afraid. I can see it on her the moment our gazes lock. She’s wearing some sort of dress, looks like a fucking prom dress. All poofy and flouncy. That’s the last thing I fucking need.
Julio jerks his thumb at her, gesturing for her to get out of the car. She slides forward, gathering up the dress so she can clamber out into the night. She’s taller then I expected. Still a foot shorter than me, but taller than she appeared in that video as Hector Ramirez’s men tossed her in the back of that van. She doesn’t move. Looking from me to Carnie and then back to Julio, she doesn’t seem to know who to be more afraid of. I take a step forward.
“What’s your name?” She looks at me, throat bobbing, eyes shining brightly, and shakes her head. “What, you’re not gonna tell me your name?” I ask.
She shakes her head again.
“All right. Suits me fine.” I turn to Julio. “Andreas has proof of funds. We’re done here.”
Julio paces toward me, his wide body swinging as he walks. He speaks so only I can hear him. “You may have me by the balls, but you know me. You know the type of man I am, Rebel. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“You’re telling me that you’re working on a way to kill me, I’m betting.” Julio just stares me in the eye, neither confirming nor denying. I slap him on his shoulder. “Good luck with that, man. You know where you can find me.”
But Julio won’t kill me. He won’t even fuck with my club. He knows there are measures that have been taken. He knows the repercussions, what will happen to him and his familia if he does.
His men have gathered in front of the villa, glaring at us, as Carnie and I begin walking toward the gates. As we pass by the car, Carnie takes hold of the girl’s wrist and tugs her along behind him. He’s firm but not rough. She looks like she’s about to have heart failure, though. She pulls back, trying to wrestle her arm free. Carnie doesn’t let go. He doesn’t give her any other option but to follow us. She stumbles, crying out, but Carnie simply pulls her to her feet and carries on walking.
If Julio’s gonna shoot us in the back, now’s when it’ll happen. But as we reach the gate, the high wrought iron barricade slowly swings open.
“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come back here,” Julio calls after us. I don’t look back. Neither does Carnie. We walk right out of the compound, the girl in tow behind us, to where we’ve left our rides.
Carnie starts the engine of his bike, revving it so we can’t be heard. “What we gonna do about the dress?” he asks. He’s having the same thoughts I did as soon as I saw what she was wearing. The girl can’t get on the back of a motorcycle wearing something so big. It’ll get caught in the wheels or something. I turn to the girl, scanning her from head to foot. She’s started to cry low, exhausted, barely there sobs that shake her whole body.
“What are you wearing under there?” I ask her.
She looks up at me, and bam. It hits me at possibly the most inopportune of moments: she’s fucking beautiful. Even when she’s crying, face covered in running mascara, she’s breathtaking. I can’t afford to be standing around like an idiot in the desert, checking her out, though. “Did you hear me? What are you wearing under that ridiculous fucking dress?’
“Nothing,” she whispers. Her lip trembles, making her look really young. In fact, how old is she? She looks like a kid. A kid in a bullshit dress, wearing nothing underneath.
“Carnie, give me your knife,” I say.
Carnie hands it over, slapping the well-honed blade into my palm, handle first. It’s a serrated, mean-looking thing—great for scaring the ever-loving shit out of people when they’re not behaving themselves. The young woman standing in front of me turns a ghostly pale white when she sees it.
“Please. Please don’t hurt me. I—”
I grab the hem of the long dress she’s wearing and I begin to hack at it. The girl stops talking. I work quickly, cutting the skirt of the dress so that it rests about mid-thigh, throwing handfuls of tulle and other lacy shit onto the ground. When I’m done, I straighten up and the girl’s arms are locked around her body, her eyes clenched tightly closed. Her legs are on show now, and they are mighty fucking fine.
“Which bike you wanna ride on?” I ask her, pointing to them. She looks at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m asking her. “You pick which bike, which means you pick which one of us you’re trusting to carry you.”
“What if I don’t trust either of you?” she asks carefully.
“Then I pick you up and put you on the back of my bike anyway,” I tell her. She lets go of herself long enough to wipe the tears out of her eyes. “That one, then. The bigger one.” She points to my bike. I grin so hard it feels like my face is gonna split apart.
“Good choice.” I’m aware of the fact that Julio hasn’t closed the gates after us; he’s still watching us from the entrance of his villa, bulky form silhouetted against the light spilling out from inside. I start the engine of my Ducati Monster, snapping my wrist as I gun it, warming up the cylinders. I climb on, turning my attention back to the leggy girl at my side. “Get on,” I yell over the roar of the Ducati.
She just stands there, shivering.
“I mean it. Get on this bike, or I’ll have to come get you.”
The girl shrinks in on herself, her shoulders rounding, pulling up to her ears. For a moment, I think I’m actually gonna have to do it. I think I’m gonna have to get off my bike and forcefully put her on it. I’m seconds from doing exactly that when she cautiously steps forward and throws her leg over my ride. I can feel her looking for something to hold onto, a handrail at the back like the street fighters have. She’s not going to find anything, though. I reach back until I find one of her arms, and then I pull it around me. “Now’s not the time to be shy, sweetheart. Hold onto me and you’ll be fine.”
I’m not stupid; I know the last thing she wants to do is wrap her arms around me and get all up close and personal, but we don’t have time for me to explain why holding on is a good idea. We really need to get the fuck out of here.
“You been on a motorcycle before?” I ask over my shoulder.
“No.” She answers very quietly, but I can still hear her over the roar of the engines.
“Then the smartest thing you can do right now is hold onto me and not let go until I tell you. Unless you want to die, of course?” Slowly, very carefully, her other arm snakes around my waist. “There’s a good girl.” I gun the engine again, jerking my head to Carnie. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before they change their minds and kill us after all.”
“Copy that.” Carnie takes the lead. He burns off into the desert, and the only thing I can see as I charge after him, an unknown woman clinging onto me for dear life, arms growing tighter and tighter as we go faster, is the red flicker of his taillight.
SOPHIA
I’m going to die.
The cool desert air whips through my hair as we burn the night, ruining the intricate style Ramona created so that I’d be pretty when my new owner came to collect me. My heart is in my throat. I press my cheek into the back of this stranger’s back, and I stare out into the abyssal darkness¸ not seeing anything. Not caring. Practicing at stilling the screaming panic in my head.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
This is happening.
This is happening, but it will be okay.
Everything will be okay.
Eventually, we come to a h
ighway—god knows how these guys knew which direction to head in—though everything is still pitch black. No streetlights. No other cars. Nothing. I loosen my grip around the guy’s waist, not that I don’t feel like I might be tossed out of my seat any second. The seams in the blacktop make regular thrum, thrum, thrum noises as the motorcycle’s wheels travel over them. I think about jumping.
What are the chances of me seriously damaging myself if I throw myself off this bike? What are the chances of me dying? It’s almost as if the guy in front of me guesses what I’m thinking. The motorcycle speeds up, tearing up the open road, the engine roaring in my ears. No chance I can do it now. I’d be road-kill the second my body hits the ground.
I allow myself the luxury of a few tears as we travel on, on, on into the night. There seems to be no end to this journey. It feels like I’m going to be trapped here on the back of this motorcycle forever, forced to hold onto a man who paid a huge amount of money so he can do god knows what to me. So he can own me. That thought makes me feel sick. My head’s still spinning from where Raphael’s men hit me, which doesn’t help.
I can feel the last reserves of my energy draining from me, my body falling limp, as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. We pass a Winnebago at first light, the driver honking his horn at us in greeting. He obviously hasn’t seen another person on the road for a long time, either. As we pass the souped-up vehicle, I catch a glimpse of the guy behind the wheel—he’s grinning, wearing a bucket hat, the kind people only ever wear on vacation, and there’s a small kid in the front seat beside him. They both look so damned happy, flashing their middleclass smiles at us. I wonder if they can see the terror in my eyes as I whip by them in a blur.
Probably not.
The guy with the glasses on the other motorcycle revs his engine, and suddenly the front wheel is off the ground. He’s pulling a wheelie. I can hear him hollering as my guy pulls forward to catch up with him. Underneath my now very lax grip, I can feel his stomach muscles contracting as he…as he laughs. I hate him. It’s wrong that he should be laughing at the stupid, reckless behavior of his friend after he’s basically just kidnapped me. Tertiary kidnapping—that’s what it was. Raphael first, then that Julio guy, and now this one. I’ve been passed from pillar to post like lost property. The worst part of now being bought and paid for by this new guy is that he’s really good looking. There’s no way he would have a problem getting any girl he wanted, which makes me think scary things. Maybe normal women won’t let him do the things that he wants to do. Maybe his sexual proclivities run so dark that he can only act out his fantasies on people who have no choice in the matter. That could be part of it, too—the sense of power he’d feel as he took something precious from someone who didn’t want to give it.
An hour after we hit the highway, the guys pull into a diner at the side of the road—Harry’s Place. My body is aching from sitting on the back of the motorcycle for so long; my back, my butt, my shoulders, my legs—all of me is throbbing or complaining in one way or another. It hurts even more when the guy kills the engine and makes me get off, my limbs protesting at being straightened out after remaining in one position for so long. The guy swings off the motorcycle and kicks out the stand, letting the heavy machine rest.
I quickly look around, wondering if I should run. Now that it’s light and I can see where we are, that doesn’t seem like a good plan. Arid desert stretches on endlessly in every direction, the landscape without life or vegetation. Orange rocks and dirt forever.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.” I snap my head around. The guy I rode with is standing in front of me, hands in his pockets, mouth pulling up at one side. It’s almost a smile, but not a friendly one. He looks amused. “People die out there without trying very hard. That’s why our good friend Julio built his compound out there. No chance anyone’s gonna stumble across him, if you catch my drift.”
I glare at him, wrapping my arms around my body. This dress is not the kind of thing I want to be wearing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, with the sun really starting to heat up. I have far too much skin on display, especially since half the skirt was hacked away by a really sharp knife.
The guy standing in front of me tips his head to one side. “We’ll find you something a little more appropriate to wear soon.”
He’s wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and worn-out jeans, white sneakers on his feet. Tattoos cover every available inch of his skin from the shoulders down—colorful sleeves that I only allow my eyes to skim over before quickly looking away. I have no idea what a person like him would consider more appropriate attire for me, but I’m not looking forward to finding out. “Where are you taking me?” I demand.
The other guy, joining us, laughs. “Pissy, ain’t she?” He spits on the floor.
“Seems so.”
I want to get smart with them. I want to ask them if being witness to a murder, kidnapped, assaulted, violated, and sold would make them pissy, but I don’t know much about these people yet. They’ve yet to show me who they are. Whether they’re violent people. They look like violent people.
The one I rode with smirks at me. “I’m Rebel. This is Carnie. We’re taking you back to our clubhouse. If you have any further questions, you can direct them straight to Cade.”
“Who’s Cade?”
Rebel—obviously not the name his parents gave him when he was born—points a thumb over his shoulder. “Cade’s the guy sitting in that Humvee behind me. I believe you’ve already met.”
Sure enough, there is a black Humvee parked in the lot, twenty feet away from where we’re standing. I can’t see much through the dark tint on the windows. The car’s massive—looks like something that belongs in an army convoy, not sitting in a diner’s parking lot. The door opens and a broad guy in a black hoody jumps down from the driver’s side. I don’t recognize him at first, but as he gets closer I see more and more of his face. It’s the guy from the side alley, the one who gave Raphael the bullet. The one who told me to say I was a virgin.
His face is expressionless as he arrives next to Rebel. “Went off without a hitch?” he asks.
“Surprisingly. You got everything prepped?”
Cade nods. “The guys have been warned. We should arrive back early evening or so.”
Rebel nods. “Okay. Don’t let her out of your fucking sight, you hear?”
“You know it.” Cade steps closer to me, and that’s it; I’ve been transferred over to yet another person. Rebel climbs back on his motorcycle and he doesn’t look back. He and Carnie burn off into the early morning without even acknowledging me again. I stare after them, wondering what the hell is going to happen next.
Cade takes hold of me by the arm, pulling me in the direction of the Humvee. Eyes fixed straight ahead, he doesn’t look at me as he opens the passenger door of the monstrous vehicle and waits for me to climb inside. I shuffle backward instead.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I’m Cade,” he replies.
“I’m not asking what your name is. I’m asking who are you? Are you guys some sort of sex ring or something? Do you trade in people that are stolen off the streets? Are you going to use me up and then kill me?” I feel a little braver around this guy, so the questions flow one after the other. I probably shouldn’t feel brave around him, but he did tell me to lie to Raphael and Hector. Part of me wants to believe that’s because he was trying to save me from whatever horrors Raphael had planned for me. Equally, it could mean that he simply wanted his boss to have me instead of his enemy.
“We’re not gonna kill you,” Cade tells me, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes. “And we don’t deal in girls, either.”
“Then why won’t you just let me go? You could just send me back to my family. I swear I won’t breathe a word about what I saw.”
Cade places his hand on my back and pushes me toward the car. “’Fraid we can’t do that. Rebel needs you.”
“He needs me? What for?”
I have no choice but to climb up into the Humvee as Cade moves to my left and urges me forward.
“Not my place to tell you, kiddo. Just keep your head straight. Don’t freak out on me and everything will be fine. Rebel will get what he needs, you can go back to Seattle and everyone’s happy.” He slams the door closed and walks around the car, but he doesn’t get in. He locks the doors and heads inside the diner, instead.
As soon as he’s vanished inside the building, I get to work. There has to be something in here I can use as a weapon. Something I can use to get free. A cell phone to call my dad. I check the glove compartment, on the backseat, underneath the front seats as best as I can, contorting my body into awkward positions in order to get my head down into the foot wells, but there’s nothing. Not one scrap of paper. Not one piece of trash. Not even an owner’s manual. The interior of the car is spotless.
I don’t realize Cade has returned until I hear the driver’s side door opening. I’m on my front, looking under his seat at the time, which is where he finds me. He has a brown paper bag in his hand and a bemused expression on his face. “This isn’t our first time at the rodeo, kid,” he tells me. “Where are you planning on going, anyway? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
I push myself upright, slumping back into my seat. “I don’t suppose it’d matter where I go, asshole. All I’d need to do is find a payphone. I’d call the police and have them come arrest all of you, starting with that psycho Raphael and his weird boss.”
Cade nods, passing me the brown paper bag. He gets in, starting the engine. “Raphael is definitely a psycho. Hector, too, when you get to know him.”
The smell of melted cheese hits me, and I realize what I’m holding. Food. Actual, real food. I haven’t eaten anything since back at Hector’s ranch. I glance over at Cade, trying to suss him out.
