I frown as I walk inside, still keeping my eyes on him, as I don’t know what he’s planning to do.
“Feel free to check it out. There are dresses in the wardrobe that you can wear, and makeup in the vanity drawers. However, you are expected to be ready within fifteen minutes so we can proceed with your introduction.”
“We?” I turn to face him. I hope I didn’t hear that right.
“Yes, we,” he muses. “My brothers and I own you now.”
My eyes widen, and the temperature in the room just dropped by about twenty degrees.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he scoffs.
“Brothers? You never mentioned—”
“It is in the contract,” he interrupts. “The contract only mentioned my last name, which I share with my two brothers.” A wicked smile forms on his face.
I step backward, my hands balling into fists. I can’t believe he tricked me. Even after I read the contract twice. How did I not see this coming?
The tone of his voice darkens. “We all own you now.”
An uncontrollable fury rages inside me as I feel the need to run. So I do. I rush toward him as he exits and closes the door behind him, but before I can get past, he’s already locked it tight.
“You can’t do this!” I smack the door with a flat hand.
“Actually, I can. You signed a contract. You belong to us now, and we will use you in ways you can’t even imagine.” His voice echoes as he walks off, the last audible thing being his footsteps as they move away from me.
I twist the doorknob a few times but no luck. Of course not.
Fuck.
My head drops against the door as I take in a few sharp breaths, my pulse racing.
How could I be this stupid?
How could I have fallen into this trap so easily?
The contract stipulated so little that I thought it was some sort of giant joke, but it also means that whatever’s not included can happen. I gave my freaking soul to him. Willingly.
I ball my fists and slam the door a final time. Fucking fifty million dollars. It’d better be worth it.
“Um … hi?”
Who was that?
I hold my breath and turn around.
It’s a woman, sitting on a couch at the far end of the room, and she’s staring at me.
Along with seven other girls.
Part II
The Games
5.
Accompanying Song: “Aleph” by Gesaffelstein
Naomi
Day 1
Eight other girls sit in this very room. Eight girls plus me … all handpicked for the same wicked scheme.
“Hi! Wanna come say hello?” one of them says. She has a round face and shiny blond hair that makes me squint. When I was young, I used to dream of having hair that color. Now, I wouldn’t want to be found dead in a ditch with that kind of hair.
Another woman turns around, her long, auburn hair swaying to the side as she glances at me, and then turns her head right back again. “Oh … another one.”
Me. Another one. But how many more?
One girl turns her head and smiles at me, her pearly whites and ocean-colored eyes immediately standing out among the rest. “Oh, hi there.” She waves and smiles briefly.
“C’mon, don’t be shy.” A black woman with beautiful natural curls beckons me.
I take a step forward, wondering where the hell I’ve ended up.
In hell, that’s right.
Nine girls.
Did we all sign a contract to sell our soul?
An olive-skinned woman opposite of where I’m standing says, “Come sit next to me.” She speaks with an accent that sounds like she’s from India. She pats the empty space on the couch beside her.
She seems the calmest out of all the women. The most trustworthy. So I walk up to her and sit down right next to her. Everyone’s staring at me, and I wonder if they expect me to say something, even though I have nothing to tell them.
They were here before me. I know even less than they do at this point.
The Indian girl sticks out her hand and says, “Asya.”
“Naomi,” I reply, shaking her hand.
The other girls all introduce themselves too.
The pearly white teeth girl is Britt, a twenty-one-year-old model with a thin body and an oval-shaped face. The black lady with the curls is twenty-five-year-old Latisha, a professional dancer.
Then there’s Jordan, the thirty-year-old girl with the auburn hair and an aloof attitude. She seems closed off. Camilla is another thirty-two-year-old black lady in the back—she has a pixie cut with red dye in it, and she says she’s an assistant to a CEO of a corporation that makes sanitary products.
A girl sitting in the corner of the couch is Hyun, a twenty-year-old Korean girl who seems quite shy, and from what I can tell, she doesn’t know much English. From what she explains to us, she works in a coffee shop cleaning dishes.
Next to her is Lauren, a twenty-nine-year-old redhead intern for a video and entertainment company, where she helps upload content to the internet.
Twenty-seven-year-old Stacey, the shiny blond hair girl, has the most perfectly well-done nails I’ve ever seen, which is no surprise since she owns a hair salon. Finally, there’s Asya, the twenty-four-year-old Indian girl who doesn’t say much, other than just her name.
And lastly, there’s me, the cutthroat half-American, quarter-Vietnamese, and quarter-Japanese bitch whose mission in life is to make big, fat stacks of cash, and that’s it.
An awkward silence falls between us as I sit back and wait for them to tell me what’s going to happen, but none of them speak up. Ultimately, I’m forced to start asking questions, even though I’d rather not. Asking questions means you don’t know, and nothing is worse than showing you don’t know … because it’s weakness.
But in this case, I have no choice. I have to know what’s going on … so I can beat Max Marino at his own game.
“You all signed a contract?” I ask the ladies.
All of them nod.
I shake my head and sigh.
“I know what you’re going through,” Lauren says, patting my back like that’s going to help. “We never expected it to be like this.”
“So you all know why you’re here?” I look up, gazing into each of their eyes, but all I see is despair. Fear. Worry.
“We sold ourselves to them,” Britt says. “I thought it was a job. That I could add it to my resume. Boy, was I wrong.” She snorts.
“Maybe you should’ve read the small print,” Jordan sneers.
They both make faces at each other until Camilla says, “Stop it, girls. We are not here to fight. I know y’all are upset; I am too, but we just gotta deal with it. We should stick together.”
“I agree,” Stacey chimes in.
Asya sighs out loud. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” She looks at me. “I only came here minutes before you did.”
“Who brought you in? Was it Max?”
“Who?” She narrows her eyes.
“The guy with the dark brown hair …” I say, but I stop because I can see it doesn’t ring a bell.
“She was brought in by Anthony. He’s a buff guy with long, curly black hair that was so smooth,” Stacey says.
She makes a weird gesture in the air with her hand, almost like she’s trying to touch him. “He’s the same guy who brought me in,” she adds. “I was the second girl.” She almost sounds proud of that achievement. “Gave me quite a shock when I saw Jordan sitting there all by herself. I didn’t know what to expect.”
Jordan rubs her forehead but doesn’t respond.
“I came in third,” Britt adds. “And I was brought in by some guy named Devon. He had a lot of tattoos, facial hair, and loops in his ears. And his hair was shaved on the sides.” She licks her lips. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
“Did they come on to you?” I ask.
“What?” Asya’s eyes widen.
; “I mean … did they try to seduce you into signing the contract?”
“No. It was purely business. I thought I was going to be his hairstylist or something,” Stacey says.
“Max did,” Jordan adds, and she looks me dead in the eyes. “But I ignored his advances.”
“Hmm … so how many of you were brought in by this Anthony guy?” I ask.
Asya, Stacey, and Camilla all raise their hand.
“And who was brought in by Devon?”
Now Britt, Latisha, and Lauren raise their hands.
That leaves Jordan, Hyun, and me. So I point at them and say, “Max?”
They both nod.
Three girls. Three men.
That’s not a coincidence.
It tells me something important. It tells me that they handpicked us for their own pleasure. Like dolls … Their favorites to play with.
“The contract. How long is it for?” I ask, wanting to know if we’re all in this together.
“Three weeks.”
Exactly as I thought.
“And the offer?” I eye each and every one of them to see if they’re lying.
“Fifty million …” Asya whispers.
“Same,” the other girls reply.
I nod in concurrence. “Ladies, I guess we’ve all been screwed.”
“But why? What’s the point of all this?” Lauren mutters. “Three men and nine women? What do they wanna do with us?”
“Well, I can think of a thing or two …” Latisha raises a brow and sniggers. It tells me a whole lot about her.
“Please don’t,” Jordan says, placing her hand over her mouth. “It’s already making me sick just thinking about it.”
“What is happening?” Hyun suddenly says in somewhat broken English.
Britt gets up and sits down next to her, grabbing her hand. “Nothing’s going to happen to us, okay?”
“Three men and nine women?” Hyun repeats. “For fifty million dollars? It’s not worth it.”
I frown, trying not to say anything even though I desperately want to. I’m not sure whether I can trust these women. Or if I even should.
We’ve been put in this room together for a reason, I’m sure of it. And it’s not just to get familiar with each other either. Let’s just say I have a feeling these eight ladies and I aren’t going to be best friends when this over.
“They said we had to get ready for something,” I say.
“Yeah, I remember that,” Latisha says.
“I think we should put on some nice clothes. Put on some makeup.” Stacey shrugs when the ladies look at her. “I mean that’s why we’re here, right? To make those boys happy.”
“Right …” Camilla says, frowning as she gets up. “Well, then let’s get to it. Only one way to find out what they want and it’s all happening behind that door.”
Exactly what I’m thinking.
Even when there are eight more girls than I anticipated, it still doesn’t mean I don’t want to get that fifty million dollars. They want me ready? They’ll get me ready.
“I don’t … want to,” Hyun says with a soft voice. “I thought this was another job …”
“You don’t have to, honey,” Camilla says. “I’m not changing, either. They can take me just the way I am. Take it or leave it.” She shrugs and then props herself up on her elbows, watching everyone else like it’s no one else’s business.
Not that I care what anyone here does.
The moment I walked into this room and saw them, I already knew we were rivals. Otherwise, what would be the point of bringing in nine girls when you only have three men?
So I go to the wardrobes in the back of the room and pull the doors open, shoving aside everything that’s not my type until I’ve found the perfect red dress that seems to fit me to a T. I put it on and go to the mirrors on the opposite end of the room, admiring myself before sitting down at the vanity. I pick up a pencil and touch up my eyeliner where needed, and with a brush and some blush, I add a few strokes to my cheeks. I smell three different perfumes and spray on the spiciest one. By the time I’m done, the girls have only just put on a new dress.
I smile to myself and think about all the ways I could screw them over and take their cut as well.
I know … I’m fucked in the head.
But what would you do when you desperately wanted to cure your parent’s cancer?
Let he who cast the first stone be without sin.
As I watch the girls struggle to get ready, I hear a clicking noise at the far end of the room. The entrance.
The door is unlocked, and a handle is pulled.
“Ladies, are you ready?”
It’s a voice I don’t recognize, but I’m certain I’ll get to know it all too well soon enough.
“Time to come out and play.” The last two words make my skin crawl.
The girls seem frozen in time, clutching their dresses and their brushes with their partially done makeup, but I am ready to face this challenge.
I stand up and walk with pride toward the door. I meet a man with hair as black as night and looped rings through his ears, his bearded face darkened only by the grimace on his face.
I cock my head as I confront him, smiling viciously. “You must be Devon.”
His smile is peculiar—and equally as disturbing as mine is—as he leans against the doorpost. “Well, well … I don’t remember introducing myself to you.”
“There’s no need,” I muse. “I know everything I need to know.”
His eyes glimmer with a rage I’ve seen only rarely in men. The kind that reminds me of savage bulls wanting to impale a human being. I wonder if he can restrain himself while I walk past him, underneath his arms. Apparently, he can.
I walk out of the room and go downstairs. I stop in the hallway once I spot two men standing near the door on the left side. One of them I recognize; the other is new but familiar from the descriptions the girls gave me. A man with long, curly black hair and luscious lips. I imagine him being a handsome womanizer. He reminds me of Antonio Banderas in his younger days.
Too bad these guys don’t just play bad boys … They embody them.
Without saying a word, I watch them with parted lips as they saunter toward me, neither of them uttering one word. I suppose they’re enjoying my supposed surprise at their brotherhood. I’m so good at faking it I even surprise myself. Gag.
“Ladies, c’mon,” Devon says to the other girls, who come running down the stairs one by one like lost lambs.
“Line up,” Devon yells after them as he closes the door and comes downstairs too.
I stand at the center as some girls pause on my left and others on my right. Soon, we’re lined up and facing three men who stroll back and forth along the line, spinning on their heels to repeat the same thing over and over again. Their eyes never leave our bodies, and they fail to make eye contact even once.
It’s like they’re judging cattle.
Pricing the meat.
Ready for slaughter.
I swallow away the small amount of nerves bundled in my throat as I stare straight into Max’s eyes.
For a second, I think I spot a faint smile on his face, but then his eyes turn cold.
“Listen up, ladies,” Max says. “I know you must be confused, so let me explain what’s going to happen.”
I can feel the air thicken with angst.
It chokes me, even though it isn’t my fear I’m feeling. It’s the girls’ fear.
“Each of you signed a contract with one of us. You were picked because you are special. You are beautiful. You are smart. You are perfect. Which is exactly why we want you. Why you now belong to us. And it’s why we chose you for this game.”
“What game?” Camilla interrupts.
Anthony lifts his finger and places it on his lips, silencing her without saying a single word.
“Our game. To win it, you must compete against each other. You will earn fifty million dollars if you win our game. The rules are simp
le. Entertain us in whatever way necessary, and you will win.”
“How?” I ask bluntly, not giving a shit whether I’m allowed to ask questions.
Max bites his lip. I don’t know why I see it, but I do. “By doing everything we desire. Whether it be serving us, massaging us—”
“Or undressing for us,” Anthony adds.
Devon grins. “Or being fucked in any orifice.”
“What?” Jordan’s jaw drops.
“Do you mean …” Stacey mutters.
Asya, who’s standing beside me, grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. I want to shake her loose, but I know that’s not in my best interest now. It wouldn’t look good, and I will fucking look good if I have to fight these girls for the same prize.
“Yes, you heard that right,” Max muses, his eyes honing in on my face. “Sex. Anything goes. Anywhere. Any time. Any fucking thing that we want, you will do it.”
He takes a step into my direction, one foot ahead of the other as he broadens his shoulders, obviously trying to intimidate me.
“Do you want to get fifty million dollars? Earn it. Follow the rules.” I know he’s talking to all of the girls, but his eyes are on me. “Do not defy us. Do not deny us pleasure. Fail, and you will be eliminated, the contract nullified. That’s all. Any questions?”
Eliminated.
I wonder in what sense.
Stacey raises her hand, and Max signals her to speak. “What are the rules exactly?”
Max’s wicked smile somehow finds its way into my devious little heart. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
6.
Accompanying Song: “The Demon Dance” by Cliff Martinez
Max
Evening
Nine girls and three men at one dinner table. Can you imagine the size of the table?
Exactly.
Luckily, the dining room is large enough. It could even fit twenty more people if needed.
I’m not humble, and I like to brag. I know what I have, and I know I was born into wealth, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t work my ass off to earn what I have.
Indecent Games Duet - Boxed Set Page 4
