“Where are you, arsehole?”
Alec.
Even if Eileen tries to close the door quietly, he always gleefully slams it shut first.
“You know where I am, you infant,” I call out, knowing that he’s already loping down the hall.
“Your goddess of a housekeeper told me she’s made lamb tagine for dinner,” he says, strolling into the room. “I am stealing that woman from you if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“Attempt to poach Eileen and itwillbe the last thing you ever do,” I warn him, but his gaze is already fixed on the girl, who’s holding the book to her chest like its armor.
“So, this is your little acquisition?”
Her grip on the book is so tight that her knuckles are white.
“She is,” I say mildly, watching the rage and dislike sweep over his face. Alec is my closest friend, a brother to me, but if he attempts to hurt her I will make him regret it. The flush of violent emotion rattles me.
“Does she speak?” he asks, head tilted and watching her like she’s a particularly fascinating strain of bacteria.
“Not without my leave.”
“Hmm… Those eyes and that haughty little face? Yes, she’s definitely a MacTavish,” he spits out the word like it tastes bad in his mouth.
I can tell she’s barely holding onto her self-control, so I pick her up. “I’ll be back.” Alec’s already helping himself to my Macallan Lalique Sixty-Year-Old Scotch bottle, the bastard.
The girl is stiff as a board again on our trip back to the guest room. “You’ll eat up here tonight,” I tell her, “I have business.”
She remains silent the entire time, still clutching her book.
Chapter Twelve
In which Alastair finds being cold-hearted bastard with Sorcha is more difficult than he expected.
Sorcha…
Put in my room like a child with my supper on a tray.
He is a bastard.
Fighting my relief that he hasn’t hurt me - at least, not yet - I ponder how I know his unpleasant friend. There’s something about him that is so familiar. Have I met him before but don’t remember it? He’s tall, about the same height as my captor, a leaner build with blond hair and green eyes, the same expensive suits, the same swagger.
For one horrifying second, when he’d strutted into my captor’s office, I thought he was giving me to his friend. But the way the man looked at me was not at all sexual, thank you, Mother Mary. Dislike, aye. Contempt, no doubt about it.
I know my family has enemies. Enemies upon enemies, most of them manky sons of bitches who are the lowest of the low; human traffickers, like the pigs who took me, and syndicates that sell drugs to children, get them hooked and force them to pay their debt with their bodies.
My captor doesn’t seem like a man who does those things, but he doesn’t seem like a man who would buy a woman at a horrible slave auction, and yet here I am.
There must be a way out of this house, or at least a chance to contact my brothers. There’s an insistent nudge at the base of my spine, making me anxious and pushing me to dosomethingbefore it’s too late. If this Alec person hates me as much as he seems to, things are going to get much worse. I don’t understand why he hates me so much, but they’re best friends, it’s obvious. Would my captor kill me if his friend wanted him to? Would he sell me to Alec, or someone else?
***
The warehouse is always dim, even with the sunlight squeezing around the cracks in the boards over the windows during the day. They took Auntie Lorna away. I think she’s close, I can hear her crying sometimes.
It’s just me and my cousins, Nessa, and Rona. They're both so little and it’s my job to keep the men away from them. They speak Chinese, that’s all I know about them. That, and they like to hurt us.
The one I hate the most opens the metal door, shoving it open with a screech. He’s holding two apples and two bottles of water. They love doing this, not giving us enough to eat and hoping we’ll fight over it.
“Eat up, you little cunts. You’re going to need your strength for what we’ve planned for you.” He grins at me; his front teeth have gold caps and he smells horrible. We do too, but even if we had access to a shower I wouldn’t dare let my cousins take their clothes off.
