by Zoey Derrick
Fractured Breaths
Zoey Derrick
Kinky Panda Publishing
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Copyright © 2016 / 2017 by Zoey Derrick / Kinky Panda Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
COVER:
Model: Rachael Baltese
Photographer: Christopher John of CJC Photography
Designer: Parajunkee Design
FORMATTING
Parajunkee Design
EDITING:
Mandy Smith - Raw Books Editing - [email protected]
ISBN: 978-0-9968966-7-2
Created with Vellum
For all those who are surviving life and all its challenges.
Prologue
One.
Two.
Three...
Four…five, six, seven, eight…months.
That only accounts for the time I’ve been here. I put the makeshift mattress back in its place, covering the tick marks etched into the rotting floorboards. The marks don’t count the previous four months at another place or the seven months at another. One year and seven months. It took me more than nine months to figure out I was actually two weeks off. Those two weeks were spent in a daze as I healed in the darkness, unable to track the time. Meals weren’t delivered with any sense of regularity so keeping time was nearly impossible.
I remember it like it was yesterday, though. It was winter break, just after New Year’s in New York City, the place I called home my entire life. My father was once a respected New York City Police Detective. I snort. Some respected detective he was when he went and got himself killed. It was later on that I learned my kidnapping was retaliation toward my father. It only worked as long as those who had taken me believed my father gave a rat’s ass about me. As the months progressed, his loyalty to the force proved to be nothing but a bunch of lies and misplaced trust. I’ve since been arrested three times, and not one person in my father’s old squad seemed to look at me twice. All those supposed ‘cop’ friends haven’t even bothered looking for me. It’s been over a year since I was ripped from the streets that were my peaceful life. I was barely sixteen.
I flip open the cheap burner phone, checking the date.
“Happy eighteenth birthday, Livia,” I whisper to myself. I can’t even smile because who the fuck cares. My ‘driver’s license’ says I’m twenty-two and my birthday was three months ago.
“Sorcha.” Shit. I close the phone and tuck it back into my tiny purse, but not before powering it off. If they find out my phone was on inside the house, they’ll lock me away in the basement. But not before making sure I’m punished for my actions.
“What?” I snap back, hoping my delayed response doesn’t catch unwanted attention. Sorcha is my street name, though it’s one of several I’ve had over the last almost two years. It is one of my favorites.
The door that separates my area from the rest of the house flies open and beyond it is the one they call Fat Tony. He’s more of a Slob Tony with his greasy hair, a dirty white t-shirt underneath some fucked up tropical looking piece of shit that hangs open. The evidence of too many beers pushes his slacks to capacity. I don’t look at him too long before turning my eyes toward the floor. It doesn’t matter that I have a photographic memory and I already know what they look like. They won’t care and won’t appreciate me staring for too long. “You’re up,” the slob declares.
I sigh before plastering on a fake smile and looking up at him, pretending to be uninterested isn’t an option. Appearing overly interested raises too many suspicions about my motive for being on duty tonight. If I argue with him, or show him how I feel, I’ll get my head pistol-whipped and my ass handed over to one of Fat ‘Slob’ Tony’s goons. “Where’m I goin'?” My Brooklyn accent is strong, my New York attitude even stronger.
“Deets will take you.”
I get off the makeshift mattress of folded blankets and straighten my blue sequined halter top mini dress. I slide my feet into the matching pumps before giving myself one last look in the mirror. I got ready over an hour ago, nothing else to do. How anyone finds any of us attractive is beyond me. We’re nothing but skin stretched tight over bones, with hollow cheeks and eyes too big for our faces because food is a luxury that the slob refuses to indulge in. What food we eat is the food we buy with what little money we’re given. I notice the bruise under my eye is fading, but even covered by makeup it’s still visible. Nothing more I can do about it. My dark hair looks strung out and stringy, giving the perfect illusion of a drug addicted prostitute. Just the way they like me. The bruise around my eye was from my big mouth getting the better of me.
I’ve never touched a drug in my life. Partaking in all things drug related means I lose what little grip I have left on who I am, where I’m going and how I’m going to get there. Though I still haven’t figured that all out.
Each night I walk out of this shithole with the confidence that tonight is the night. Tonight is the night I’m going to get away, but each night I come crawling back here like an idiot.
I rub the back of my neck as a gentle reminder to myself that I’m tagged, like a dog. If I run, they’ll hunt me down, beat me, rape me and maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll kill me.
It’s pretty pathetic that I’ve welcomed the inevitable prostitution or solicitation arrest. It’s a nice little reprieve from coming back to this shithole. At least there I get hot food and an actual mattress to sleep on, even if it’s just for a night. I’ve nailed drunken and drugged up, which usually means they’re forced to keep me overnight until I sober up.
The slob tosses me out the door and right into Deets’s waiting paws. “Let’s go, sweetheart.” The pet name sends a chill up my spine as he grabs my arm and forcibly drags me toward the waiting black Escalade.
A long time ago they quit hooding me when they took me places because I keep coming back. I’ve somehow managed to gain their trust. Unlike the other girls who were dumb enough to run away the moment they got the chance, I’ve always returned. I learned long ago I needed to mind my p’s and q’s so they’d loosen the reins on me, if only for a little while. And my persistence has paid off. I’m usually taken to the location, told what room I’m supposed to go into and then left there until I call for my pick-up. Usually an hour or two later.
Deets roughly shoves me into the backseat of the Escalade and someone else, Vinnie, or some shit like that, is waiting in the driver’s seat. See, no one in the organization wants to handle the trafficked girls voluntarily. But when they piss off the big boss, they get sent here for pussy control.
I’m one of nine girls in the house curren
tly. It’s a lot for this bunch of idiots, though not uncommon in the organization. The big guns usually keep this house smaller, around four or five girls, but the slob has gotten careless and maybe even a little reckless. The smaller numbers draw a lot less attention, but nope, they’re getting greedy or they’re getting desperate. Or, I shiver at the thought, they’re getting ready to ship off the girls.
Because I’ve been around the longest, the girls come running to me. For some reason, once they realize their fate, they lean on me for answers. At first, I hated it. I hated that the girls got attached to me because when I decide running is finally going to happen, I don’t need them running to Fat Tony when I don’t show up. That will give me less time to get away. Now, not so much. I never had anyone to cling to when I got here, so I see the value in being that girl for these girls. They’re less scared and more cooperative. Then again, I’m the one they all come running to when they got problems.
The problems I can deal with, I do. Usually it’s the emotional bullshit that comes from girls, especially ones as young as the lot that’s shown up lately. Fourteen, fifteen, maybe even sixteen if I had to wager a guess. When they come here that young, they get moved out of the city and sometimes out of the country pretty quick. The problems I can’t handle on my own, I’m stuck running to the slob with. Yeah, telling Fat Tony when one of his girls gets knocked up is never fun. The girls leave and never come back.
The first time it happened, I was naïve enough to believe the slob, to believe he’d taken her to a different house. Until four days later when I caught a glimpse of the morning paper being put out in one of the hotels I was working in. On the cover was a girl, her eyes closed, laid out on a metal table with a headline that read something about Jane Doe’s body found…help identify her. A couple days after that, they’d identified the body. Though I never got to read the article, it made my chest hurt. She was a good girl, a friend of mine. Next to me, she’d been with Tony the longest.
The memory sends an icy shiver down my spine.
After that, I knew the drill. So without telling the girls what their fate would be, I stressed the importance of birth control and condoms. Most girls got wise after it happened a couple more times and when they went to the doctor, because the slob made us all go, they got the shot behind Tony’s back. Meanwhile, Tony and his goons handed us birth control pills the minute we woke up.
The moron behind the wheel drives off down the road and I slide over to the middle of the bench seat because I like to be a pain in the ass. The only problem with that is Deets and his grabby hands. The goons aren’t supposed to touch the girls, well, unless they’ve come up with a reason to punish them. It doesn’t matter how big or small the transgression is or even how non-existent it is, they always find a way.
I smack his hand away when he reaches for my thigh. “You know damn well what Fat Tony will do to that hand if you don’t keep it off me,” I sneer.
“He don’t scare me, sweetheart.” I shiver at his tone. I know damn well nobody scares Deets. He’s fucking insane. I bite my tongue. The urge to say something back, something smart, is too great and it’s better to stay in his good graces. Though smacking away his hand is enough to earn me another black eye, or getting bent over the arm of the sofa while the slob jerks off watching Deets fuck me.
I look into the rearview mirror, redirecting my thoughts from what Deets and his little pecker will do to me later tonight and I catch a glimpse in the rearview mirror as a black sedan with dark tinted windows pulls out behind us. I smile inside.
The cops are coming for Fat Tony and they ain't playin’. These two fuck-knuckles ain’t got one damn clue. Ah, the perk of being the captured one – the innocent one. A small sense of satisfaction washes over me. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get picked up tonight. I let the thought vaporize before I let the hope take hold.
I’m tired of Fat Tony’s bullshit, and what’s even worse is I’m tired of Big Daddy’s bullfuck. I’m ready to turn them all in if I’m given the chance again. Of course, my last arrest was before we moved into this house.
I’m over their shit. I should have turned them in a year ago. I’ve come to the conclusion that a life six feet underground has got to be a million times better than this.
My name is Livia Meadow Fazio, and I’m the daughter of Mercutio Fazio, ex-number one-inside cop for the biggest mobster in New York City.
I am a whore because my father fucked up.
I am part of one of the largest sex trafficking rings in the United States because my father couldn’t keep his nose out of places it didn’t belong.
My father is dead and I’m paying the price.
Chapter One
Working Girl.
BRYAN
“Dude, a strip club? Really?” I glare at Liam, my best friend and bodyguard, as we pull into the parking lot of a Phoenix, Arizona strip club.
“Why the hell not? At least it’s dark in there. You can hide in the shadows and I highly doubt anyone will recognize you.”
He has a point, but that’s not the point. “So, we can deal with the headlines tomorrow too?”
“Look around, no one here cares, all they care about is the piece of ass wiggling in their faces.” He ushers me ahead of him and I hand the bouncer my ID, my fake one.
Once we’re inside the club, Liam ushers me toward a roped off area in probably the darkest corner of the club. “Besides, it will give the media something new to print,” he tacks on when we’re out of earshot of most people. The music is loud, but not obnoxious. The patrons of the joint are quite loud. Being inside a crowded club has its advantages as far as staying in the shadows, but the more people present; the more likely it is I’ll be recognized.
Realizing Liam is set on being here tonight, I decide to make the best of it. I simply shrug and lead the way to the VIP area.
I need a night of mindless, mind-numbing nothing. A chance to escape the outside world, or maybe even spark new headlines. The media outlets have been filled with nothing but the big bad breakup between me and Heather, an up and coming pop-singer. I won’t lie. I was shocked it managed to stay out of the news for more than four months. Then again, our relationship was over three weeks into our little charade.
Sure, Heather was a sweet girl, but it was never going to work between us. I knew three weeks into the relationship; it just took me another month to end it. I guess I put too much faith in the idea that maybe I’d found someone worth keeping around or that I would change my tune about her. It never happened.
I pull myself from the memories of Heather and the bad tabloid headlines as I take in the sight of two rather large men standing on either side of the roped off entry of the obviously improvised VIP area of the club.
Strip clubs used to be a tradition for me and Liam. My concerts always ran late into the night but being amped up on adrenaline from the show made settling down impossible. So, we did the only thing open, we hit the strip clubs. In each new city we’d check out the local flavor. Eventually it grew tiresome and boring. It was a great escape from the crazy that is my life, but eventually it became redundant and boring. I will admit that some places were better than others, but Phoenix has never been one of my favorites. Plastic has always been a popular choice amongst Phoenix strippers and I don’t like the plastic ones.
I should have stayed in my hotel room, but after months of being on the road, confined to a bus and a schedule not my own, I’m ready to wrap up this business so that I can take a few months off and get back into the studio. That’s why I’m here in Phoenix. We arrived this morning and by the afternoon I was already going stir crazy, but like most things, I should have waited until tomorrow to come into town. My meeting isn’t until then and we could have easily flown in right before and right back out after to avoid going stir-crazy in a hotel room.
Liam and I take our seats and he smiles at me. I give him a small smile back. I’m not too sure about tonight, but I give him the best I can manage and remind myself that this i
s going to be better than bad hotel TV.
The club is dark, typical for strip clubs, and the décor is mostly black chairs, tables and nearly black carpeting. There are purple accents and the accent lighting is neon pink. Reminds me more of a dance club than a strip club.
Being a ‘VIP’ has its advantages. It doesn’t take more than a minute before the two bouncers let a petite blonde with overdone makeup past the ropes. She’s carrying a tray in her hand, wearing pasties over the nipples of her tiny tits and a pair of barely there shorts and fuck me heels. She leans over between me and Liam, showing off her lack of cleavage. “What can I do you for, boys?” she purrs.
“Crown, neat,” Liam orders then looks at me.
“The same,” I tell her.
“Perfect, I’m Mary and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you anyone else?” She winks at Liam. I snort softly before taking in his relaxed form. He’s attractive as hell, of course. He’s Scottish for crying out loud. Most girls usually live for the accent, but the coppery red hair helps accentuate his attractiveness, and that’s all before he opens his mouth to talk.
“You’ll do,” he smirks. His accent is purposefully thicker than normal. He’s working himself tonight and I just shake my head. If he wanted to pick up women, we could have done that in a bar. At least there he would have a better chance of picking up something he could take home with him.
Mary giggles with fake enthusiasm and she gives him a little shimmy before sauntering out of the area.
“You know, mate,” I say leaning forward and mocking his accent, “You might have better luck getting laid in a bar than a strip club.”
He chuckles, “Right, but this way I can flirt with anything and know they’re not going to beg to come home with me.”
