by Geri Glenn
Light pours in from the hallway, and when I see Mia’s tiny frame, my shoulders sag in relief. “We have to hurry,” she says urgently, fear clear on her face. “If they catch us, they’ll kill us both.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I follow Mia out into the hall and in the opposite direction I’d gone with Mrs. Todd during my little bathroom adventure earlier. We reach a set of stairs, but Mia doesn’t give me a chance to survey my surroundings before she swiftly runs down them, careful not to make a sound.
I follow her in silence, my eyes darting in every direction, ears straining for any indication that we’ve been discovered. When we reach the landing at the bottom, Mia freezes. Her hands clamor at my arms as she shoves me back against the wall, her finger going to her lips. Her eyes are wide with fear, and it doesn’t take long for me to understand why.
“Tommy, you’re too kind for your own good. If that girl doesn’t want to be with you, you force her. She’ll grow to love you.”
“She’s not a nice girl, Mama.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, she’s just a tiny little thing. Don’t tell me you can’t handle her.”
My gaze meets Mia’s and we stare at each other, barely breathing as we listen to Tommy’s mother instructing him to force himself on me. Her eyes are as wide as saucers as she presses a finger to her lips again.
“I can handle her, Mama, but she needs to learn some manners.” Tommy’s words come out slurred. I can smell the sour stench of alcohol on him from here.
Their voices fade as they get farther away, but I don’t miss the next words out of Mrs. Todd’s mouth. “Then teach her, Tommy. We may have taken her to piss of those goddamn O’Neill’s, but she’s yours now. She needs to learn how to treat you right.”
Neither Mia nor I move for several minutes. As we sit silent, I try to wrap my head around what I’d just heard. What kind of woman instructs her son to overpower a woman?
“I think they’re gone,” Mia finally whispers. “Let’s go.”
Together we race down a long elegant hallway until we come to a door that leads into the garage. She slowly closes the door, turning the knob as it latches, and releasing it so it doesn’t make a sound. Taking my hand, she pulls me through another door and into an alley at the side of the garage.
When a tall man steps out of the shadows, I can’t stop the yelp tearing from my throat. “Shh,” Mia whispers. “This is Aaron. He’s our gardener, and he’s going to get you off the property.” Aaron smiles softly and lifts a hand in a half-hearted wave. “We need to move quick. If Mama or Tommy find you missing, all hell’s going to break lose.”
For the first time, I realize just how much of a sacrifice it is for Mia to be helping me. “What about you?”
Mia gives me a sad smile. “I’ll be okay. Aaron will take care of me.” She presses herself up against Aaron’s side, circling her arm around his waist. “He always does.”
I watch as Aaron kisses the top of her head and hope that she’s right. I wouldn’t put anything past Mrs. Todd and her psychotic son.
“If we’re gonna do this,” Aaron says, his voice deep and gruff, “we gotta move now.”
Mia takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Good luck.”
I step forward and wrap my arms around her. “Good luck to you too.”
Pulling away, I turn and follow Aaron through the pitch-black of night until we reach a golf cart. Urging me along, Aaron takes my hand and practically shoves me into the flimsy feeling vehicle, and I wait, blood pounding in my ears as he hurries to the driver’s side, and then we’re off.
Cory
“The Todd’s have her,” Butch says, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “Just got a call from Shotgun. Says he ran into Tommy down at The Pint earlier tonight. Was bitching ’bout the new woman his Mama hooked him up with. Said she was a mouthy little thing, but he was gonna go home and put her in her place.”
My gut clenches. “How do you know it’s Astor?”
Butch raises a brow. “You ever known any woman to go willingly with Tommy Todd?” I don’t answer. He’s right about that, and he knows it. Tommy is a total dick, and the strangest motherfucker I’ve ever come across. “Shotgun said Tommy was hitting the bottle pretty hard, and told a couple of guys her name. Not many women named Astor around here I don’t think.”
Rage like I’ve never felt before threatens to consume me. Without another word, I head for the door. My promise to her mother plays over and over again in my mind as I stalk toward my ride. I’ll find her, Mrs. Bloom. I’m gonna bring her home.
“Wait,” Butch calls out, running up behind me. “We need to do this right. Running in there on your own is gonna get you killed. The girl too.” That makes me stop. I turn and glare at Butch, my anger barely in check. I just want to get to Astor and get her out of there. “Let’s rally the boys. We’ll go in heavy, get the girl, deal with the Todd’s, and get out without anyone even fucking knowing we were there.”
He’s right…again. The Todd’s might be scum, but they’re protected by one of the biggest crime families in the country. Agnes Todd’s brother, Vincent DeCarlo, is the head of that family, and if he knew we’d messed with his sister and his nephew, he’d declare war on the Lucifer’s Bastards, and it wouldn’t end well. But right now, I don’t care a whole lot. I need to get to Astor before that bastard lays a hand on her, if he hasn’t already.
The thought of his hands on Astor’s creamy smooth skin makes my vision fade to black along the edges as I battle back my rage. “You best hurry,” I tell Butch through gritted teeth. “I leave in five, with or without the Bastards.”
Astor
The road is dark as Aaron pulls the golf cart to a stop. “I can’t take you any farther,” he says. “Just follow the road two miles north, and you’ll come to a little gas station where you can call for help.” Sadness clouds his features as he helps me from my seat.
“And you and Mia?”
“We’ll be okay,” he assures me. “We’ve got a plan.” He turns and starts back to the driver’s side of the small cart. “Now go. They’ll notice you’re gone any minute. Stick to the side of the road, and if any cars come, hide in the treeline.”
I nod, my feet already starting to move. He wastes no time in rushing back toward the house and I follow his example, tiny rocks cutting into my bare feet as I rush down the empty roadside. Twice a car passes, and I do as Aaron told me and step into the woods. Branches and stones tear at my skin. I know my feet are a mess already, though I’ve barely made it half a mile.
About thirty minutes later, I see the lights of the gas station in the distance, and tears sting my eyes as I force my feet forward a little faster. The pain now is almost unbearable, but I know that once I get inside that building, this entire ordeal will be behind me.
There’s just one car in sight when I hit the parking lot, and for that I’m thankful. I look a mess, and I’m still wearing my pajamas from last night. Walking up to the door, I tug it open and breathe a sigh of relief as my torn-up feet land on the cold linoleum floor.
“Hello?” I call into the empty store. “Hello? I need someone to call the police.”
The door to the right of the cash register opens, and when I see Tommy step out, a wicked grin on his face, my insides twist. Another man, this one in a suit, steps out behind him, the store clerk held to his chest with a gun to his head. My entire world screeches to a halt. How did they know I’d end up here?
“Hello, Astor,” Tommy says, his tone calm and collected, as if we’ve just run into each other by chance, and he’s one of my oldest friends.
My gaze slides to the store clerk whose face is pale, his body trembling with fear. The man holding the gun to his head steps forward, around Tommy. “Astor, my name is Vincent DeCarlo. Since Tommy here has been careless with you, I’m here to take you back to my home.” Tommy’s eyes grow wide, but Vincent pays him no attention. “Now, be a good girl and walk your sweet little ass outside to my car and get
inside, or this man here is going to get a bullet in his temple.”
My chest aches as panic freezes my lungs entirely. The clerk’s eyes plead with mine. “You have until the count of three.” Vincent digs the gun deeper into the man’s flesh, and tears swim in my eyes, blurring my vision. I’m frozen, unsure whether to obey or to turn and run. “One.”
I glance down at my sore feet and see the skin hanging from the soles, blood and dirt smeared on my flesh. “Two.”
The clerk lets out a small sob, and I watch as a patch of wetness grows from nothing to a large stain on the front of his pants. Vincent opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, I turn, slowly hobble outside, and make my way toward the car, defeat making each step heavier than the last.
The three men follow me from the store and watch as I climb inside the back door, closing it behind me. I watch as Vincent speaks to the clerk who is shaking his head wildly, then nods. Vincent then pulls the gun away, claps him on the shoulder and walks away. The clerk doesn’t move as the two men get into the front seats of the car. He doesn’t move as we pull out, and as I watch through the window as we drive away, he still doesn’t move an inch before we’re out of sight.
“That was a wise decision, Astor,” Vincent says from his place behind the wheel. “I knew you were a smart girl.”
“Why did you say I was careless with her, Uncle Vinny?” Tommy asks, his voice pitched in a whine. “It’s not my fault she got away.”
“Do you have any idea what would have happened if she’d made it to that gas station before us, Tommy?
I watch from behind as Tommy’s shoulders slump, and he pouts. “But she didn’t.”
“But she could have,” Vincent replies, the calmness never leaving his tone. “And if she had, that would have looked bad on all of us. I’m not letting you take me down because you can’t take care of your things. And if you can’t take care of your things, they’re going to become my things.”
My fear is nearly forgotten as I watch Tommy cross his arms, his face turned toward the window. There is no trace of the man who’d struck me. No sign at all that this is the same man that Mia had warned me was a bad man. In Vincent’s company, he’d become a petulant child, angry that his new toy was being taken away.
The drive to the Todd’s huge manor takes but a few minutes, and I watch out the window, trying to get some sense of where I am. I don’t even know if I’m in the same state anymore. The house looms above us as we draw near. Mrs. Todd is standing on the front step, arms crossed, her angry eyes on Tommy. Vincent exits the car first, and I watch in surprise as Mrs. Todd’s head dips in a submissive pose. Even though I can’t hear their words, it’s clear she’s afraid of him.
Tommy reaches for the handle, but before he gets out of the passenger seat, he turns toward the back and spears me with a look that makes me shrink back in my seat. “This isn’t over, you stupid bitch. You’ll be seeing me again.” An evil grin spreads across his face. “You think you escaped me, but Vinny is much, much worse. Believe me.”
He swings his giant frame out of the car and lumbers up the stairs, his head held low as Mrs. Todd speaks sharply to him, and then he disappears inside the house. As Vincent and Mrs. Todd finish their conversation, my mind races to keep up with this recent turn of events. I’d been free. I’d escaped, only to be grabbed by someone even more sinister than the psychopathic Todd’s. The way they submitted to Vincent makes my blood run cold. What kind of man could bring those two monsters to heel?
As Vincent climbs into the car and starts it up without a word, I realize that whether I like it or not, I’m about to find out.
Cory
My fist crashes into Tommy’s face before he’s even registered the fact that me and ten of my toughest biker brothers are standing here, beside his pool, ruining his perfectly peaceful afternoon. “Where the fuck is she, you piece of shit?”
Blood spouts from his nose as he straightens from the table I’d knocked him into with my punch. He presses the back of his hand against it and pulls it away to inspect. As he registers the blood, his wide eyes land back on me. “Cory, what the fuck, man? Where is who?”
Tommy always has been a dense motherfucker, but there’s no way he doesn’t know who I’m talking about. “I’m only going to ask you one more time, asshole. Where the fuck is Astor?”
I can see the instant he realizes who the she is that I’m talking about. His jaw drops slightly as his face pales. “She’s gone,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. My heart drops to the soles of my feet.
“What do you mean gone?” Images of Astor’s innocent face, pale with death, float through my mind before he answers.
“She got away and we couldn’t find her. My Uncle Vinny caught up with her and took her with him. I don’t know where he took her.”
The relief I feel at hearing she’s not dead is overshadowed by the fact that she’s now in the hands of Vincent DeCarlo. While Tommy might be violent, and a pervert, Vincent is cold and calculating. He never does anything without a plan, and if he has Astor, there’s a good chance she might be gone forever.
Astor
Vincent hadn’t spoken to me the entire drive to…wherever it is he’s brought me to. I did everything I could think of to get him to let me go. I screamed and I cried. I threatened and I pleaded. We’d driven a couple of hours down dark country roads, where there was rarely even an oncoming car in sight.
Twice he’d made a phone call, but I’d only been able to hear his side of it. The first one was short and sweet. He’d informed whoever it was that he “had obtained new merchandise” and was “on his way there.” The second one was more disturbing, if one can get more disturbed after being called merchandise.
He had been rhyming off instructions to someone on the other end, but the one that got me was when he’d said, “And bring in Doc Evans. We need to make sure this one is clean and get an estimate on what she might go for at auction.”
Now, I may be naïve. I was homeschooled my whole life. I haven’t watched much TV, and the books I’ve read are predominately ones my mother vetted for me beforehand, but it didn’t take a genius to understand what Vincent’s plans for me were.
I’d started screaming before he even ended the phone call, but that hadn’t made a difference. He just finished up and kept driving. Now I’m here, in a small room with a single bed and stone walls. The air around me smells musty, which could have something to do with the fact that I’m in a basement so old, it’s more like a dungeon.
“Hello,” I call out, knowing that even if someone can hear me, they’ll do not one single thing to help me. I’d lucked out with Mia. Nobody was going to save me this time. “Please,” I say in a whisper. This time, I’m not asking some random set of ears out in the hallway. This time, I’m asking God Himself. “Please, God. I’ve done everything I need to do to be a good person. Please get me out of here and let me get home to my mother.”
The sound of a key in the keyhole interrupts my prayer and I back into the farthest corner of the room. When the wooden door opens, it squeals on heavy iron hinges. Vincent is the first one to step through it, followed by a second man wearing a lab coat. “Astor,” Vincent says. “Meet Dr. Evans. He’s going to do a full examination on you to make sure you’re as fit and healthy as you look.”
Dr. Evans doesn’t even smile at me, or make any attempt to put me at ease. He just takes a step toward me, his eyes roving up and down my body. “She’s lovely,” he compliments. “A good find.”
I shrink back and press myself even tighter against the wall as Vincent grins and stares at me. “She is. A bit skittish, but some sellers like that. Like to break them in themselves.”
This can’t be happening. This isn’t real. These men are standing there talking about me like I’m some sort of prized horse, not a human being. Anger builds, my fear forgotten, and I step away from the wall, my fists raised in front of me. “Keep your hands off me.”
Dr. Evans chuckle
s. “Feisty too.”
Vincent doesn’t seem to find it funny. He steps forward and pushes aside his jacket at the waist, showing me the gun he has strapped to his belt. “You will cooperate on this, Astor.”
My eyes are glued to the gun as defeat threatens to carry me away. “Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“The customers we cater to are very particular. They come back to us again and again because we produce quality girls, free of all sexually-transmitted and communicable diseases. Now, stand still and let Dr. Evans begin.”
I don’t say another word as the doctor performs a routine exam. He checks my eyes and ears, down my throat, and my reflexes. I start to relax a little until he looks to Vincent. “All looks good. Now I need to do the internal.”
“Take your clothes off, Astor,” Vincent instructs.
My heart stutters in my chest. “But…why?”
For the first time, Vincent’s calm and collected demeanor wavers, and I would almost swear he just rolled his eyes at me. “As I said, we must ensure you are free of STDs.”
STDs. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s saying, but when I do, I straighten. “I don’t have any. I can’t.” Vincent levels me with a look that makes it clear he’s not going to budge on this. “I’m a virgin.”
The slow grin that takes over his face at the V word makes my blood run cold. His teeth flash as he looks to Doctor Evans. “See if she’s telling the truth.”
The next few moments pass me by in a blur of screams and terror. Tears stream down my face as the two men wrestle me out of my panties, lay me on the bed, and the doctor pries my legs apart. When his hands touch my most private area, a part of me dies inside. His fingers poke at me, spreading me wide. His eyes are wide as he looks to Vincent. “She’s telling the truth. She’s still intact.”
