Rodriguez strode ahead, not appearing to worry she might attack him at any moment, or try to make a run for it. What he’d said about them being miles from anywhere was probably true, but she also remembered the café they’d passed. Yes, it was probably miles and miles from here, but where there was food, there were people. Lily didn’t plan on doing anything stupid, but she wasn’t just going to lie back and let this man do whatever he wanted to her.
He opened the front door to the house to reveal an interior with far more elegance than the outside. Everything was in white—the floors were white marble, the walls painted white, with archways leading to other parts of the house. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and white fur rugs covered the floors. The only items breaking up the white were the massive gilded mirror at the end of the entrance hall, and a gold dresser. A number of rooms led off the entrance hall, and at the back the space divided into two hallways which she assumed led to the two wings of the house.
“You’ve got the left wing,” he said as he led them through. “If you want to be treated right here, you need to behave correctly. I expect my women to be ladylike, courteous, and well-groomed at all times. You’ll find suitable outfits to change into in your rooms. I don’t expect you to be working in any kind of hard labor—I have my cooks and cleaners already. Your roles while you’re here will be to please the men. You will speak nicely with them, serve them their food and wine, and look beautiful. You will do as they ask, however they see fit, with no complaints. Is that understood?”
Lily opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of his ideas, and then promptly shut it again. Arguing with him wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She needed to be clever, not sharp-tongued and fiery.
“I’ll take your silence as understanding,” he said, leading them down the hallway. He stopped in front of one of the doors, also painted in white, just as the rest of the hall was. “This is your room, Lily. The other girl’s room is the next one along.”
Lily reached out and grabbed Jess’s hand. “It’s okay. We’ll share.”
“The two rooms are connected with an adjoining bathroom, so if you do decide to take to your own bed, you won’t be completely alone. But if one of my men comes for you, you’ll be expected to be in your own bedroom.”
He turned to her with a smile that made her blood run cold. “Don’t worry, Lily. The only person who will be coming for you, will be me.”
Four
Rodriguez opened the door to one of the rooms and stepped back. “Please, make yourselves at home, ladies. Dinner will be served in an hour, and you will be the ones doing the serving. I expect you both to be washed and dressed appropriately. The adjoining door leads to the bathroom, and a second door leads through to the next bedroom. You can move between the three rooms as you please. I will be back for you in an hour.”
And with that, he backed out of the room.
Lily heard the click of a lock catching. Whatever he had said about them not escaping due to the desert and snakes, he’d still made the effort to lock them in their rooms. That tiny action gave Lily a spark of hope. If there was no way to escape, why bother to lock them in?
She also had hope Monster was still alive.
If Monster survived his gunshot wound, which she prayed to God he would, would he know where to come looking for her? Would he even try? She couldn’t bring herself to believe he would just abandon her now Rodriguez had her. Monster had been so desperate to see she was safe. But were things different now she was here? Monster might worry trying to get her back again would start a war. She wanted to believe he loved her enough to try to get her back, but she didn’t intend on relying solely on Monster riding in to rescue her. She needed to be her own damn knight and save herself, and Jess, too.
Quiet sobbing caught her attention, and she turned to see Jess crouched on the floor, her hands covering her face.
Lily went to her, her palm finding the girl’s back. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
She shook her head. “No, it isn’t. I can’t do this again. I’d rather they just killed me.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears. “Please, don’t say that. We have to be strong, together.”
“I’m trying, but all I keep thinking about is what it was like with those other two men—how they forced themselves—” Her voice choked.
Lily didn’t need her to finish what she was saying. She knew exactly how the story ended.
“Listen to me. I will do everything in my power to stop that happening to you again. What they did isn’t even about you. It’s about their own sick need to feel powerful around women. If they were real men, they wouldn’t need to go around forcing themselves on women. You’re the innocent in all of this.”
She finally looked up, fixing Lily with bloodshot, blue eyes. “You, too. You’re innocent in this, too.”
Lily wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t it been her who had brought Rodriguez into Jess’ life? If she’d done as Monster had asked, and left the city, Jess wouldn’t be in this position now.
But Jess would be on her way to being sold to someone else, she reminded herself, and the other woman wouldn’t be free.
She hoped, at least, those other women were safe. Perhaps she wouldn’t be able to save everyone—even herself—but those few might go on to have happy lives.
Jess started crying again. “What do you think they’re going to do to us?” she asked between tears.
“I think they’ll continue to do everything they can to make themselves feel like self-important, powerful men, when in actual fact they’re no better than overgrown bullies. We just need to go along with them for the moment, until we can figure a way out of this.” She took Jess’ hand and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ll kill if I have to. If the opportunity arises, this time I won’t even hesitate.”
Jess pressed her lips together and nodded. “Kill or be killed?”
“Sometimes that’s what it comes down to.”
Jess shuddered. “I feel so dirty—inside and out. Do you think it would be all right for me to take a shower?”
“I think that’s what they want, but of course. You do whatever it takes to make yourself feel better, okay? I’m going to take a look at what sort of outfits they’ve provided us with.”
The white décor theme followed into both the bedrooms and the bathroom. White marbled bathroom, white bed linen, white carpets and walls. It was like living in the middle of a snow storm.
Lily shut the bathroom door to allow Jess some privacy, and within seconds she heard the thunder of the shower. She was worried about the other woman’s state of mind, and hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid. Perhaps she should have checked to see if there was anything sharp in the bathroom, but then she figured Rodriguez and his men would probably already have made sure of that. They would have been more worried about them using something sharp as a weapon against them rather than against themselves.
Lily crossed the room to the large—unsurprisingly white—closet in the corner. She pulled open the door and surveyed the selection of clothing with a sigh. It was exactly as she’d been expecting. Every item was designed to highlight, reveal, and accentuate her figure. The dresses were all from slinky, clingy material, some long, some short, but all with plunging necklines and tiny straps, if they had straps at all. She guessed she should be glad they were at least in various colors. If they’d all been in white, she would have screamed.
Pushing the door shut again, she went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. She reached in and lifted up a handful of lacy, skimpy underwear. These clothes were here purely for the men’s benefit instead of to provide any kind of warmth or comfort to the wearer.
Lily contemplated refusing to wear the clothes, but the stench of death from shooting Cigarette Hands still clung to her shirt and jeans, and she was spotted in blood, though she couldn’t even be sure to whom it belonged. Though she hated the idea of dressing up to please Rodriguez, she also couldn’t stand the thought
of living and sleeping in clothes covered in someone else’s blood.
With a sigh, she reached into the drawer and found panties that would cover her most, and selected a black bra she hoped would fit. There were a selection, but she couldn’t even be sure what size she was anymore. While she’d always been voluptuous in that area, she’d lost so much weight lately, she was sure some of it had come off her chest. Moving to the closet, she flicked through the numerous dresses. She wanted to find the plainest dress which would hide the most skin, but none of them would work. In the end, she selected a long, one-shouldered, silver dress. The body was corseted, with a split in the skirt which would reach right up her thigh.
From the bathroom, the thrumming of the shower came to a sudden end.
Lily waited for a moment, giving the other woman enough time to get out and wrap herself in a towel, and then went to the closed door and lightly tapped with her knuckles.
“Are you okay?”
No reply came, so she pushed open the door. Jess was standing in front of the mirror, an area in the steamy condensation cleared away so she could see her reflection. Tears streamed down her now clean face, but she didn’t take her eyes off herself as Lily walked in.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked again.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I barely recognize myself anymore. I don’t look like the same girl who was taken.”
Lily hesitated, wondering if she should ask, but then figured perhaps talking about things would make them both feel better. “How long ago were you taken?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. A couple of weeks, perhaps. Maybe a little longer.”
Jess was abducted after Lily had been sent to Monster. Perhaps, if the timelines had been any different, they might have even ended up in the container together.
“They took me, too,” Lily told her. “They kept me in the same place you were in before we found you on the plane.”
She tore her eyes from the mirror and looked to Lily. “How did you get away?”
“I didn’t, not really. I was sent away to the man who bought me. He made me come back to America, but I wanted to stay with him.”
Jess’ brow furrowed, her eyes narrowing. “You wanted to stay with a man who bought you?”
Lily nodded. “He was different. Not at first—at first I thought I’d be used for the same thing all these men try to use women for—but then it turned out he needed my skills for something else.”
“Is that the same man who was with you at the plane? The one who was shot?”
Pain punched her heart as she thought of Monster hurt. “Yes, that’s the same man. He has his faults, we all do, but he’s not all bad. The men who were working for him were also trying to help. They freed the other girls from the containers.” Lily sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is not all men are bad, and we can’t give up hope.”
Jess shivered. “It’s going to be a long time before I can trust anyone again.” She gave a small laugh. “If we ever get out of this place.”
“Come on,” Lily said, noticing the goose bumps on the other woman’s skin. “Let’s find you something to wear.”
She guided Jess into the other adjoining bedroom. It was decorated almost identically to the room she’d just been in, with the exception of a couple of different pictures hanging on the wall. “There should be underwear in the drawer,” she said, nodding to the dresser, and then went to the wardrobe to look for something for Jess to wear. Opening the doors, she noticed the dresses were all of a similar style to the ones in her wardrobe—all glamorous and figure hugging.
Jess’ voice came from behind her. “That one.”
Lily turned to see Jess standing in a set of black underwear, her arms wrapped around her body to cover herself as best she could.
Lily looked to where Jess had nodded. It was a black dress, with a knee-length skirt which had several layers of ruffles beneath to give it the style of a dress from the fifties. Lily took it out and handed it to Jess.
The other woman got dressed, and pulled a comb through her blonde hair, still damp from the shower.
“You look beautiful,” Lily said with a sad smile, and then immediately kicked herself. Perhaps that was completely the wrong thing to say. After all, they didn’t want to be beautiful here. They didn’t want to get any more attention than they already had.
“Are you going to be all right while I take a shower and dress as well?” she asked.
Jess turned to her and gave her the first smile she’d seen since they’d been taken. “Of course. We have to look presentable for our master.”
Lily wanted to throw a retort, to tell Jess Rodriguez wasn’t their master and never would be, but what was the point? Instead, she took her dress and the underwear she’d chosen into the bathroom.
Rodriguez’s dress. Rodriguez’s lingerie.
Maybe she hadn’t argued with Jess because the girl had been right.
For the moment, at least, Rodriguez was their master.
Five
A knock came at the bedroom door and Lily and Jess turned to each other, their eyes meeting with reflected fear.
The lock clicked open and the door swung wide. Rodriguez stood on the other side. Just the sight of him made every muscle in Lily’s body tense. She wanted to rage at him, to bite and claw and kick, but she knew it wouldn’t get her anywhere. If Rodriguez was here to take them out of the room, she’d keep her eyes open, and try to spot a phone or a computer—if they were even able to get a connection. She didn’t believe they were out here in the middle of nowhere with no way to contact people. It had been different when Monster had taken her and she’d been looking for help because she hadn’t even known what country she was in. They were in America now, and she knew the number to call the emergency services just as well as any person. She could even give them an idea their location. All she needed was a phone.
“I’m pleased to see you are both dressed,” he said with a smooth smile. “I hope you are ready for dinner,”
Lily stomach gurgled in response. She hated her body for betraying her. It must have been loud enough to hear, because Rodriguez raised his eyebrows. “Oh, the dinner isn’t for you. If you please me, I’ll allow you to eat once the men are done. But until then, you will be serving us.”
“Fuck you!” she spat.
He ignored her. “And you look stunning, by the way. It makes me happy to see you make an effort.”
Lily bunched her fists. “We could hardly stay in our filthy clothes, and you didn’t give us much of an option when it came to picking out something to wear.”
“It’s just as it should be. Women should be beautiful creatures to be admired and to give us pleasure. If you can learn how to control that mouth of yours, we’ll all get along just fine.”
Lily resisted the urge to growl at him. He was living in the dark ages.
She glanced down at her still bare feet. “Aren’t you forgetting part of our outfits?”
He followed her line of sight, and arched a dark eyebrow. “You don’t think I would give you high heels to wear, do you? The perfect thing to use as a weapon? No, you can stay bare-footed. It’ll help deter you from running off anywhere as well.”
Again, that idea there might be somewhere he was worried they could run to. He’d told them they’d never make it, yet he was concerned simply having shoes would give them an advantage.
Rodriguez stepped side-on to the door and gestured out into the hallway. “Now, you’ll come with me.” It was a demand, not a request.
Lily shared another glance with Jess. They didn’t have a whole heap of choice in the matter, so Lily walked from the room, Jess on her heels. Rodriguez left their door open and strode down the hallway ahead, making them hurry after him. They found themselves back out in the entrance hall, four doors leading from the space.
Rodriguez led them through one on the right, and into the kitchen.
The kitchen was as luxurious as the rest of the house, wi
th clean lines, and, even though three people were busying themselves preparing a meal, almost no clutter on the work surfaces. Lily was starting to think Rodriguez had some kind of obsession with dirt—everything was immaculate, even though the whole house was in white. His staff must work hard to keep things this way. The scent of food cooking—grilled meat of some kind—made her stomach clench with hunger. Other than a short period when she’d been well fed, this feeling of emptiness was becoming more familiar to her than being full. She’d taken being able to eat when she was hungry for granted before—even the slightest twinge of hunger had resulted in a snack—but now she knew hunger as a very real beast. Something that clawed up inside her throat and made her nauseated and starving all at the same time.
The three people busying themselves in the kitchen didn’t even look toward the new arrivals. Two women, and one man of a small stature. They kept their heads down and continued with their work.
Are they regular employees? Or are they stolen people, like me and Jess?
She tried to make eye-contact with one of the young women, who scrubbed at pots in the sink, but the dark-haired girl remained focused on her task. Lily didn’t think these people were working for Rodriguez voluntarily. She’d probably never know their backgrounds, but by the beaten, cowed way they held themselves, they didn’t look like regular employees.
Lily assessed every item her gaze landed on for use as a weapon. They were in a kitchen, so there must be knives. She looked over to where the other staff, or slaves, were busy working, but she didn’t see anything. The food prep must have already been done, but perhaps one of the drawers held a knife or two. Why hadn’t any of these people tried to use a knife on Rodriguez or his men? Perhaps one of them had and they’d seen the consequences. What good were knives against armed men? Even so, she didn’t completely dismiss the idea. If the moment arose, she planned to use it.
Delivered (The Monster Trilogy Book 3) Page 4
