Probably so he could blackmail me. He’d noticed I cared for Katya and what happened to her, so I doubted I could play it off as just being pissed off about what was going on. I didn’t know what he truly intended to do with her, but Katya’s life was more important to me than mine. I’d known what I was getting into and what the risks were, but she’d been taken, drugged, abused... If Aaron knew anything at all about me, then he’d use her against me. Her life in exchange for whatever he wanted. Unless what he’d said was true and he really intended to give her away to someone else just to prove that he could do the same to me.
Marco carried Katya outside, and Aaron’s fingers wrapped around my wrist.
“Come,” he said, and I let him lead me outside, after Marco and Katya, but instead of following them, Aaron took me back toward his room.
“Keep your head down,” he whispered, winding his arm around me, surprisingly gently. As we passed through the hallway, I stared at the carpet and tried to clear my mind, but every thought scattered when I remembered Katya and what she had been through and was yet to suffer. And here I was, so utterly helpless to do anything.
I hadn’t even realized we were back in Aaron’s room until the warmth of his body left me. He checked the door twice to make sure it was locked and turned toward me.
“That was stupid,” he said, but there wasn’t even a hint of anger on his face or in his voice. No, his eyes were filled with something else; I just wasn’t capable of identifying it since my whole body felt heavy and my stomach was churning. “You could’ve...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know!” I snapped and ran a shaky hand through my hair. “But I couldn’t just stand there when...” I looked at his impassive face, shook my head, and groaned. “Doesn’t matter. You’re a Viteri. That whole thing is normal to you.”
“You could’ve come up to me and...”
“And what?” I glared at him. “What would you have done?”
He sighed, his shoulders drooping. “You know that girl. Who is she?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was sure he could find out on his own. After all, he had somehow found out about me too, even though my father had done everything to keep my existence a secret.
“Don’t lie to me. You wouldn’t have risked your life for her if you didn’t know her. I saw it in your eyes.” He made a step toward me, his eyes flashing dangerously. “I don’t care what she is to you, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll find out just how terrible the consequences can be. This isn’t a game! I thought you understood that, but apparently not.” His nostrils flared as he stopped in front of me, his teeth gritted. And there I’d thought he wasn’t angry.
“What are you going to do with her?” I couldn’t help but ask, my eyes boring into his.
“You’ll see.” He pulled his phone out, turning his back to me, and strolled to the other end of the room. It seemed that was all he was going to tell me for now, probably until he had more information on who Katya was. I sat on the bed, lowering my head into my hands, and wondered what to do next.
Chapter 9
A knock on the door startled both Aaron and me, but he immediately indicated for me to sit on the bed and pull the covers over me to hide the fact that I was wearing pants and a hoodie. Aaron opened the door and his shoulders relaxed as Marco walked in. When Aaron closed the door, he turned toward me.
“It’s okay,” he said, and focused his attention on Marco, who was holding up a phone. Aaron took it without a single word and tapped the screen a few times, a frown line creasing his brow.
“She’s too high profile. We can’t risk it,” Marco hissed, throwing strange glances my way as I sat up. “Are you sure you don’t want us to have this conversation somewhere else?”
“No,” Aaron said determinedly. “We don’t have time. We’ll have to try option B.”
Marco’s mouth fell open. “Are you crazy?”
“Probably, but there’s nothing else we can do.”
“And when he finds out, then what? It’s not worth it! She’s not worth it!” Marco raised his voice, then seemed to catch himself, and just gave Aaron a long look. I leaned forward, wondering what they were discussing.
“He doesn’t have time to care about that. I don’t expect him to even remember her. Just fix up her hair or something and he won’t even recognize her.” Aaron handed the phone back to Marco, who tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Just don’t forget to get rid of everything.”
“Okay.” Marco shuffled his feet, looking resigned. “But what about the rest?”
“We’ll see. Just do what we agreed, okay?”
Marco nodded. “But I still think you’re being an idiot.”
“Duly noted.”
It was obvious Marco was more than just Aaron’s bodyguard; he was Aaron’s very close friend.
“There’s something else we should discuss. The thing tomorrow.” Marco wiggled his eyebrows.
“It should go as planned.” Aaron’s voice was barely audible. Marco whispered something back, so I quietly slipped out of the bed and inched forward while they were distracted. Aaron was checking something on his own phone, so there was no way for him to see me reaching for the phone in Marco’s pocket.
“Hey!” Marco turned toward me as I snatched the phone and dashed across the room.
“Give it back! Now!” Aaron said with a hint of a threat in his voice, but I avoided Marco and jumped up on the bed, quickly scrolling through the info. My mouth fell open as I scanned through various fake passports, documents, and locations where the girls should be taken after his father had picked his favorites. If I wasn’t wrong, Aaron and Marco were shipping the girls off to other countries and giving them false identities instead of killing them like Roberto requested. Even their closest family members seemed to have been taken with them in some cases.
Was that what they were trying to do with Katya? Ship her off somewhere? Have her drugged so she wouldn’t even remember what had happened to her or who she was? Was that why Aaron had mentioned option B? Katya couldn’t just be sent somewhere random since my family would be looking for her and they’d find her. Marco had climbed on the bed with me and got a hold of my arm, trying to pry the phone out of my fingers, just as I scrolled past a plan that suspiciously looked like a tip off to the cops about one of Aaron’s shipments.
It even contained the name of the detective... Although, maybe that was just to warn the cops to let them pass and search elsewhere, but it didn’t look that way. Why would Aaron want his own shipment to get busted? Maybe so his father would give him some of his? Marco managed to take the phone from me and I crossed my arms as I glared at Aaron.
“You’re both idiots for keeping this information written down on that.” I nodded toward the phone. “What if it’s hacked or stolen? You saw how easy it was for me to take it.” Unless that was exactly what they’d wanted me to do. I bit down on my lip, eyeing Aaron as I got down from the bed.
“That information will self-destroy as soon as Marco’s out of this room,” Aaron said. “And that’s not a phone. It just looks like it. It can’t be hacked that easily and no one knows I have it. But if you breathe a word to anyone about what you’ve seen, the deaths of all those women and their families, including your cousin’s, will be on you, because if my father finds out, he’ll hunt them all down.”
I flinched at the mention of my cousin. There was a tic in his jaw as his hard eyes met mine. So he’d found out Katya was related to me, probably the same way he’d figured out my real name.
He glanced over his shoulder at Marco. “You can go. Proceed as planned.”
Marco quickly exited and shut the door behind him. Aaron’s gaze settled on me again.
“Are you trying to bust your own shipment?” I asked.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Um, you made it my business when you forced me to help you, so why don’t you tell me what exactly we’re doing? I could be of more help if I knew wha
t the hell is going on. Why are you helping those girls anyway? Do you think it makes you less of a monster? You’re still sitting there and doing nothing to stop what your father’s doing. Do you think saving a few makes up for the ones that your father uses and kills?”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and just watched me for a moment. “You can think whatever you want about me. I don’t care. I told you why you’re here and there isn’t anything else you need to know. Do you really think I’d give that information to my enemy? Did it ever occur to you that having too many dead bodies lying around would be hard to explain? My father sometimes thinks he’s untouchable, but I know better. If the girls don’t remember anything, it’s better to send them away. Easier and much cleaner.”
“I don’t believe you.” A smile quirked my lips. “I’ve seen the files. No one would miss those girls or look for them too much. Hell, I don’t think anyone even knows some of them are in this country, and yet... you try to do everything to get them safely far away from your father.”
He let out a loud laugh. “Believe whatever you want to, but if you think I won’t do whatever it takes to get what I want, you’re fooling yourself.”
“Right,” I said dryly. “You want to take over the whole drug empire, but you don’t care about the girls.”
“Finally you get it. I don’t want anything to get in my way, especially not some insignificant pets.” He flashed me a smile so cold I thought the room would freeze over.
“How do you expect me to trust you that you’ll let me go once I do for you what you ask of me when you say things like that?” I raised an eyebrow at him. He was lying about not caring about the girls. If he was worried about the cops, he’d just do what his father did and get them buried somewhere deep where no one could find them and kill off anyone who dared to ask about them. Why would he care about the body count when I’d seen footage of him killing his enemies or partners who’d betrayed him? The cops wouldn’t even blink if he killed someone right in front of them because his father had them in his grasp.
“You can’t, but now that I have your cousin...” He sounded so pleased with himself. “She’s been drugged out of her mind. If you want her to stay alive, you’ll do exactly what I say.”
“Yeah, yeah, so I’ve heard, but I’m going to need proof.”
His brow furrowed.
“I want proof that my cousin’s alive and well.”
“Fine.”
I waited for him to say something else, threaten me, or argue, but he didn’t. Huh. Maybe I should’ve asked him if he was bipolar.
Chapter 10
“Here,” Aaron said, handing me a phone. I took it with a frown, unsure what he wanted me to do, but as I looked down at the screen, I realized a video was ready to be played. I tapped the screen to start it. It was footage of a security camera, or maybe someone had been filming from afar, but I could see a street and a few people standing in the middle of it. I immediately recognized Katya as she hugged herself, a few bruises still marring her face. She was wearing a black jacket and jeans and she looked much better than the last time I’d seen her. Well, as far as I could tell.
At least she wasn’t looking like she was about to drop to the ground at any moment, and something inside me relaxed. She was fine. She would be. A moment later, she stepped toward a few shadowy figures, which the camera purposely cut off so I couldn’t quite see who they were, and seemed to embrace someone. I focused on the dark figures, and for a fraction of a second, I recognized Dylan’s jacket. The video stopped and I gaped at Aaron, who grabbed the phone from me and quickly tapped the screen.
“I hope you’re satisfied. Your cousin’s safe and you’re going to do exactly as I say and won’t try to run away because I know where to find her, and I will put a bullet in her head if you don’t fill your end of the bargain.” He gave me a pointed look. Had I hallucinated my brother’s favorite jacket?
No, I hadn’t. He’d had that custom made, and that embroidered phoenix wasn’t just anything you could find in a shop because he’d drawn it himself, and I knew people other than my cousin were purposely cut out of the image so I wouldn’t see who they were. Aaron was trying to prove he’d shipped off Katya somewhere she wouldn’t be abused or drugged, but he didn’t want to let me know he’d sent her back to my family. That had to be a huge risk for him, so I couldn’t understand why he’d done it, but he had.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” His eyes narrowed at me, but they weren’t as cold as they used to be, or maybe I was just seeing him in a whole different light. If I tried to escape, he might kill me, but I didn’t think he would ever be able to get to my cousin. My family would make sure to take her someplace no one could ever find her, not even us. His whole story about sending off girls right under his father’s nose to keep the body count low was so full of holes.
“Nothing. I just... Thank you,” I said sincerely, but I didn’t want to let him know that I had the whole thing figured out.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He picked up a black paper bag and set it on the bed in front of me. “You and I have to go to a party. Put this on. And these shoes.” He handed me a white box.
I took the bag and peeked inside. A box of makeup was lying on top of something black. “Let me guess. Another skimpy dress?” If I ever got out of here, I was so not wearing a dress ever again. I wondered if it was worth sticking around to find out more about that new drug that could ruin my family. Aaron might have a soft spot for slave girls—which might not even be that surprising, considering my father had told me once that no one knew who Aaron’s mother was, so she could’ve as well been one of Roberto’s pets—but I wasn’t exactly an innocent kidnapped girl, so I had a feeling he wouldn’t just spare my life for no good reason, so my opportunity to escape had to be good because I was sure I wouldn’t get another one.
He arched his eyebrows, a smile playing on his lips. “You look good in skimpy dresses.”
“Mm-hmm.” I supposed I couldn’t really argue that. Still, I hated not being able to choose by myself. With the bag in my hand, I hopped to my feet and headed to the bathroom. Once I emerged, I stopped in front of the mirror and cursed under my breath. The dress wasn’t that terrible. It was black, lacy, short, and covered with golden glitter.
Surprisingly enough, I’d also gotten to wear nice black lace underwear that for the first time was normal and not revealing at all. Just where the hell was he planning to take me? When I was finished with my makeup, I glanced down at my bare feet and slipped into the golden heels Aaron had gotten for me. They had a bunch of straps that need to be buckled, which made me groan. I looked at Aaron who was lounging against the wall, his eyes trained on me.
“A little help here?” I said, putting my hand on my hip.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“You want me to wear these pretty shoes with a hundred straps and this dress is tight, so if you don’t want something to rip, come here and buckle these.” I pointed at the shoes while keeping my face deadly serious. I’d expected him to refuse, but he simply walked over to me and dropped to one knee in front of me.
His fingers gently brushed against my foot as he expertly buckled the straps. I put the other foot forward and he looked up at me through his thick eyelashes while his hand lingered on my skin. A flash of heat spread through my body, my lips parting. If he weren’t my worst enemy, I’d fuck him in a heartbeat... I coughed lightly, tearing my gaze from those sinful blue eyes. Why the hell was he looking at me like he was having exactly the same thoughts as me?
“There. All done.” He got to his feet before I even realized he’d already fastened all the straps.
“Thanks.” My voice was a little unsteady. “So you’re not going to tell me where we’re going.”
“No. It’s a surprise.” A smile quirked his lips and he offered me his arm, so I looped mine through his and we walked out as if I were his girlfriend and not his pet.
***
The place where we en
ded up wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I supposed that for some people this could be considered a party, but for me it wasn’t. Aaron’s car had tinted windows through which I hadn’t been able to see where we’d been going, so I had no idea where this was, but it looked like a gym, or more like a modern arena. In the middle of it was a huge cage, and two men inside it were trying to lay a punch on each other while everyone around them cheered.
Around the ring, there were steps with special cushions on which the guests were sitting, and the semi-naked waitresses and waiters were serving drinks to the crowd, which consisted mostly of men in business suits. With them were a few women, some smiling, some not, and I had a feeling some of them were slaves too, but it was hard to tell. I looked around for exits, hoping to sneak off somewhere since everything was pretty dark aside from the cage, but there were guards with guns in every single corner, well hidden in the shadows so that the audience could relax.
Aaron told me to sit on a pillow on the step next to his legs, so I obeyed, my attention focused on the ring as someone jeered. A sickening crack resounded through the room as one of the fighters jumped on his opponent, bringing him to the ground, and kept on punching him in the head, blood spraying around. My whole body went still as the fighter got up, his chest and face covered with blood, and raised his arms in the air while the crowd erupted into a frenzy and applauded.
The other guy didn’t even stir, and I realized these fights were to the death. Of course, only people like the Viteris would come to such an event and consider it fun. The only question was whether the fighters were slaves, those who were trying to pay off their debts, or simply people who wanted to join the ranks of the organizer’s crew or something. The look in the winner’s eyes as he lowered his arms and was taken out of the ring, none too gently, told me that innocent men had probably been forced to fight as slaves. It was a look of happiness mixed with desperation as he realized a win only meant he’d get to live another day. As two guards came in to drag away the body, I averted my gaze.
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