Olivia heard the women before she saw them. Someone was yelling, and she could hear muffled sounds beating out a rhythmic pattern: Pat-pat-pat, pat, pat. Pause. Pat-pat-pat, pat, pat. With each step her anticipation grew to a panic. As they approached the door, Olivia saw a group of women clustered around two women facing off in the center of the room.
The door swung open and the man urged Olivia inside with a push to her back. Olivia stumbled in as the door closed behind her.
As she approached the group, several women stepped aside to give her room when they realized someone new had arrived. Olivia couldn’t hide her shock the moment she recognized Greyson in the center of the room. Greyson blocked several blows before throwing a punch of her own. Olivia gasped when Greyson’s punch landed, sending the other woman to the floor.
Cheers erupted as Greyson stepped forward and extended her hand to the woman on the floor. The woman took her hand and pulled herself up, smacking Greyson on the shoulder as she rose. Greyson looked like she had just conquered the world.
The woman next to Olivia moved just as Greyson looked her way. Greyson’s expression fell.
“Oh, shit,” Olivia groaned.
Several women had taken notice of her and were closing in. They circled her as if they were sizing up their prey. Olivia’s heart pounded so hard, she wondered if she was having a heart attack.
A tall, beautiful woman with coal-black eyes circled her, looking her up and down.
“I see the Recruiter has sent us another one of his girls to play with.” She sniffed Olivia’s hair. “You haven’t been here long. I can still smell the fear on you.”
Olivia stepped away, trying to put some distance between them, but when she did, she bumped into another woman standing close behind her. She looked around the room, desperate for someplace to run, anything to get away from the stalking. She felt like she had just walked into the lion’s den.
The tall woman took a strand of her hair into her hand and twirled it between her fingers. “I like this one.”
“Ruby,” Greyson said in warning.
Ruby smiled at her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Greyson asked. “Don’t we have enough problems in here without having to worry about each other?” Greyson walked toward Olivia.
Olivia shook her head. “Stay away from me.”
Greyson held up her hands to show she meant no harm, but she realized too late the boxing gloves made her look even more dangerous. “Look, we need to talk,” Greyson said more calmly than she felt. “This isn’t what you think.”
Olivia scoffed. “Yeah, right, like I’m going to believe you. It looks like you’re having a good time to me. I suppose you had me brought here just so you could gloat.”
Greyson shook her head, but before she could argue, Ruby stepped between them.
“Do you two know each other?”
“No,” Greyson said.
“Yes,” Olivia answered.
Ruby looked back and forth between them, an angry scowl on her face. “Which is it then, yes or no.”
“Yes. I ran into her one time not long before I was brought here,” Greyson answered.
Olivia seethed. “Ran into me? Ran into me! You probably did that on purpose. The Recruiter said it himself—you’re the reason I’m here.”
Ruby and Greyson both frowned.
Olivia pointed her finger at Greyson. “They had me brought into some kind of meeting this morning so they could gloat about it.”
Greyson’s anger sparked. “I wasn’t gloating, and I told you, I’m a prisoner here too.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that? You look like you’re having a pretty good time to me.”
Greyson took a step forward, her anger getting the best of her.
Ruby took Olivia’s arm. “Come with me.” She put up a hand when Greyson took another step closer. “Not you. You stay here.”
Greyson clenched her teeth. “That sick fuck has put these ideas into her head. I had nothing to do with any of this.”
Ruby glared at Greyson. “We’ll see.”
Greyson swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t know how she was going to convince Olivia that she wasn’t part of this sick game, that she hadn’t been the one to have her ripped from her life. She watched Ruby walk Olivia to the far side of the room, their backs turned away from her. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Any chance she might have thought she’d had to earn any trust in the group had just been thrown out the window.
Chapter Nine
Greyson watched the women huddled around a table talking to Olivia. She wondered what they were planning. If they really thought she was in on this with their captors, she was as good as dead. She wouldn’t have to wait for someone to take her out in the pit—they’d do it right here.
Olivia rubbed her wrist nervously as the women talked. When Audrey reached across the table to take Olivia’s hand, Greyson noticed a tattoo on the inside of Audrey’s wrist. She frowned and looked closer at Olivia’s arm where she continued to rub her fingers across her skin. Was that the same tattoo? Great, something else she had to figure out. Wait a minute, there was something else. She continued to look back and forth between Audrey and Olivia. The similarities in appearance were striking. They looked like they could be related, but there were differences that made the resemblance difficult to see at first. Audrey’s face was round and her eyes seemed set a little too close together. Or was it just the roundness of her face and the narrow bridge of her nose? Greyson studied Olivia. Her features were softer, as if her skin had been bathed in milk, and her mouth lifted up naturally at the corners in a hint of a smile. Greyson shook her head. Olivia didn’t have anything to smile about now. What had Ruby said about Olivia? Something about the Recruiter sending them another one of his girls to play with. And he’d said something that morning about his personal collection.
Greyson rubbed her temples. It looked like his personal collection had a type. He’d said she led him to Olivia. That meant he had been following her all along and just stumbled onto Olivia, just like she had done. Her head hurt. There were too many layers to this to keep track. The one thing she knew for certain was that this guy was really sick in the head.
Greyson stiffened when Samone got up from the table and walked toward her. She had some explaining to do, and she wasn’t sure whose side Samone would be on when she was done.
“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” Samone said, taking the seat next to Greyson.
Greyson let out a deep breath. “Hell if I know.”
“Well, you need to come up with some answers pretty fast, because it’s looking like you’re a mole.”
Greyson snorted. “Some mole. If I was a mole and responsible for her being here, like she says I am, why the hell would they put her in here with me? That sick bastard is playing with everyone’s heads and you’re all falling for it.”
“True. But you’ve got to give me more to work with than that. How do you know Olivia?”
Greyson shook her head. “Like I said, I don’t know her. I literally ran into her and spilled coffee all over us both. I apologized. We had dinner together, I kissed her good night. Hell, I wanted to date her, not hurt her. End of story. At least I thought so. Then this morning that dick brought me into some conference room and paraded me around like I was one of his friends.”
“Why? Why would he do that?” Samone asked.
Greyson shrugged. “He said I needed to get with the program. He told me he only discovered Olivia after our little incident. He decided I’m somehow responsible for her. If I get out of line again, if I don’t follow the rules…”
“What?” Samone asked.
Greyson swallowed. “He’ll punish her to get to me.”
Samone hissed. “Sounds about right. He likes to play those kinds of games with us.”
“What do you mean?” Greyson asked.
Samone sighed. “We live together day in and day out. Our very survival de
pends on every other woman in the room. You can’t live with someone, care for their wounds, learn about their families without getting close. In here, we become family. What hurts one of us hurts us all. They use those relationships against us when they can. That’s what Ruby was trying to tell you. If we pull some stunt and fail, they will hurt those we love. It is a price that is too high to pay.”
Greyson chewed at the skin on the side of her thumb, nervously wanting to take her frustrations out on something. She put her hand down and looked straight into Samone’s eyes, needing to see the truth in her answer. “Will he do it? Will he take it out on her if I don’t fight?”
Samone closed her eyes a moment. When she met Greyson’s gaze, hers had hardened and her eyes were filled with hatred. “He will destroy her if he has to in order to get what he wants. She is his plaything, but you are a moneymaker. He doesn’t care what happens to her. He only cares about the money.”
“Son of a bitch,” Greyson hissed through clenched teeth. What was she going to do now? She glanced to Olivia, who continued to talk with the rest of the group. “What do you know about that tattoo on her wrist? She didn’t have that when we met. And it looks an awful lot like Audrey’s.”
Samone’s face reddened and her jaw twitched. “That’s his mark. All his girls have the tattoo, each with their own number in the center. They are like trophies to him. He parades them around the men as if they are a special breed of dog.”
“How can he put them in the pit? They’ll get slaughtered.”
“Ah, he uses them for other entertainment.”
Greyson flinched.
“No. Not that,” Samone said quickly to reassure Greyson. “Don’t worry—as long as they do what he wants, it’s a look-only business. There are women who have been sold to other men, so we don’t know what happens to them, but as far as I know he keeps sex out of the business.”
Greyson couldn’t figure out the connection. Why was Olivia here? “What if she’s the mole? What if she’s been brought here to upset the group?”
Samone looked toward Olivia and shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe you two are in this together, and maybe you are both victims. We don’t know. But I promise you, everyone will be watching you both.”
Greyson saw Ruby staring at her. “What about Ruby? What was she going to do to Olivia?”
Samone sighed. “She doesn’t trust the Recruiter’s girls. She was close to one of them once, an older woman who betrayed Ruby. The girls are sometimes asked to spy on us, to get us to do things. They can be manipulative.”
“Did Audrey tell you all of this?”
Samone glanced to Audrey. “Some of it. The truth is, no one can trust anyone here. Audrey and I are friends, but she is closest to Amala. We try to protect her when she’s here with us, but we can’t protect her against him. He always knows everything. We don’t know how he knows, he just does. Ruby thinks it’s the girls.”
“What do I do?” Greyson asked.
Samone sighed. “Looks like you have to decide what’s important to you. If you want to save the girl, you will fight.”
Greyson pressed her thumbnail into her palm, letting the pain center her thoughts. “I already know that, but then what? If I give in to what he wants, he will own me.”
Samone clasped her hand over Greyson’s shoulder and squeezed. “He already does.”
* * *
Olivia watched the women spar. She couldn’t imagine having to fight any of them. They were so fast and strong, she doubted she would last a minute. This must be what Liz was trying to tell her.
“How are you doing?” Audrey said as she took a seat next to Olivia.
“I don’t even know how to answer that question.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but the girls aren’t as bad as they seem. You have to remember, they’re prisoners here too. They’re just trying to survive.”
Olivia scoffed. “I don’t know. Some of them seem to enjoy this.”
Audrey shook her head. “No, they’ve just been here a long time and know each other very well. They know what they have to do. They know who’s to blame. They don’t want to hurt each other.”
Olivia watched Ruby land a series of punches to her opponent before sweeping her foot behind the woman’s legs, taking her to the floor. The instant the woman was down, Ruby came down hard on the woman’s back with her elbow.
Olivia winced. “I’m not so sure about that. Ruby seems to be having a good time.”
Audrey chewed her lip. “If there is a leader here, it’s Ruby. She can be a bit intimidating, but she keeps everyone together and makes the system work.”
“What system?” Olivia asked.
Audrey pointed to the sparring floor. “She helps everyone learn how to fight, she makes the plan for the fights, and she’s the one who keeps the girls from going at each other when they are about to lose it.”
“Are you saying the fights are fixed?” Olivia asked.
Audrey laughed. “No. Not exactly. No one really knows who will go into the pit together until it actually happens. But she tries to teach the girls how to put on a good show without killing each other.”
“Have you ever had to fight?”
Audrey’s face paled. “You mean in the pit? Yeah, once.”
“What happened?”
Audrey shook her head. Her eyes were wide as if she was facing a fight in that very moment.
“Audrey?”
“I kept refusing to follow the rules. I was still on the upper level with the rest of the Recruiter’s girls. I didn’t even know about the big fights. Liz tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. They brought me to the pit one night. I didn’t know what was happening until they put me down there.”
“Who did you fight?”
Audrey swallowed and trailed her gaze across the room. “Her.” Her eyes were sad when she identified the woman who had delivered her fate. “Samone.”
Olivia gasped. “But she’s so much bigger than you! And you guys seem so close.”
Audrey looked at Olivia. “We are close. I can’t imagine my life without her. She’s been a good friend.”
“What did you do? What happened?”
“I couldn’t fight her. She was too strong and too fast. The men were yelling at her to kill me.”
Olivia’s heart raced. She couldn’t imagine. How had Audrey possibly survived?
“Samone knew what she could do to me. She had no choice but to follow orders, but instead of beating me to a pulp, she took me down as mercifully as she could and delivered a blow that knocked me out pretty quickly.”
“Oh my God.” Panic rushed through Olivia and she gasped trying to catch her breath. “How could she do that to you?”
Audrey shook her head. “She didn’t have a choice. You don’t get it. It’s so much worse if you don’t fight. She was trying to protect me. But the men didn’t like it very much. They made her fight every fight that night until she was beaten so bad she couldn’t get up. They brought her to the room where I had been taken after the fight. Her face was so bruised and swollen, I barely recognized her.”
Olivia watched the women across the room, wondering what hell each of them had endured in this prison. Her gaze drifted to Greyson. “What about Greyson?”
“She’s a tough one to figure out. She’s new. They kept her in solitary for a while before taking her to the pit for her initiation.”
At the mention of Greyson’s fight, Olivia’s curiosity got the better of her. “Who did she fight?”
Audrey nodded to a woman across the room. “They put her in the pit with Amala.”
Olivia shook her head. “I bet she enjoyed that. Who won?”
Audrey frowned. “It wasn’t like that. Greyson wouldn’t fight. She did her best to get away from Amala, begged her not to do it. She tried to protect herself, but she never threw a single punch. Amala did a number on her. She couldn’t make the mistake of going too easy on Greyson—they would have killed her if she had. Greyson has been n
ursing sore ribs since.”
Olivia frowned. “It looked like she was enjoying the fight when I walked in earlier.”
Audrey shrugged. “Whatever happened this morning got Greyson riled up. She came back here asking us to teach her how to fight. That was the first time she’s been willing to fight anyone.”
Olivia wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. When I saw her this morning, she was kicked back in a chair drinking whiskey with that bastard who brought me here. I’m telling you, she’s in on this.” She’d been wrong about Greyson before and had let her guard down. Look what that had gotten her. She’d been taken in by Greyson’s good looks and her charm and it had gotten her hurt. It wouldn’t happen again.
Audrey sighed. “Time will tell. But the one thing I’ve learned in here is that nothing is what it appears to be. You can’t afford to make any enemies.”
Olivia frowned, considering everything she had learned. “So what about you? Does Ruby give you a hard time for being one of the Recruiter’s girls?”
Audrey shifted her gaze to Ruby. “Not anymore. Samone and Amala and I are close. Ruby will never trust one of the Recruiter’s girls, but she has accepted me. I’ve been here quite a while now. I thought he would have moved me back by now, but I think he’s using me.”
“Using you how?” Olivia asked.
“I think he knows I’m close to them. I think he uses me to control them. I’m like their pet. Sometimes I feel like I’m the cheese in a trap.”
Olivia thought about this. “So Ruby thinks I’m a trap too?”
Audrey nodded. “Probably. She can be pretty rough when she gets something in her head. Watch yourself with her.”
* * *
Greyson spent the rest of the week watching and learning as much as she could. Olivia avoided her like the plague, and she was fine with that. The last thing she needed right now was more drama. Some of the girls were already treating her like she was the enemy, and she didn’t need to keep the hornets stirred.
Greyson was quick to get in line when Uncle Dan arrived with the food cart. She wanted to see if she could get any information out of him about what was going to happen. She was shocked to see one side of his face swollen and bruised.
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