I’d started taking these types of jobs two months after the night I’d learned the truth. After that night at Salvatore’s house when my world had exploded around me, and left me holding the smoking gun. When I’d stood over my brother’s—half-brother’s—dying body.
He didn’t die.
But that didn’t matter. I’d felt Franco’s hate. His revulsion. Had he always felt that way about me?
I sat down on the edge of the bed, as if needing the support.
Had I just always been too fucking stupid to see it? Too cocky? I’d been my mother’s favorite. Her little prince. I knew why now. She’d loved my father more than she’d loved Franco Benedetti. And I was the living, breathing result of that love.
I shook my head. What would she think if she saw me now?
My throat closed up, and I stood. I had to forget. I just had to fucking forget. I could try to understand forever, and it wouldn’t make any difference. It wouldn’t change anything. I just needed to stop thinking about it.
I went to the dresser and opened the top drawer, taking out a fresh pair of underwear, jeans and a long-sleeved, V-neck T-shirt. Black. It was all I wore these days. Underneath was the photo I kept there. Taking it out, I touched the little face. The tiny smiling face. Effie. My little girl. She was eleven now. And I missed her. I’d been in her life off and on for her first three and a half years, but when she and Isabella had moved back to New Jersey, I’d seen her almost daily. I think that’s why I missed her so much now, even after so many years had passed.
I was just Dominic to her, though. Not dad.
Dad.
I shook my head.She’s better off, asshole.
Isabella—for some unknown reason—kept e-mailing me photographs. I printed the ones I was especially fond of. It was strange. I didn’t think she’d want me in the picture at all. Did she feel bad?
No. That bitch didn’t have a conscience. Or she hadn’t until Luke.
She was the only one who knew how to get ahold of me, and I knew she hadn’t told a soul. That was confirmation of her lack of conscience. She’d watched her sister and my half-brother search and search for me, and she never said a fucking word.
But even she didn’t know about this cabin in the woods.
Even she could not forgive this.
I tucked the photo back into the drawer and got dressed. That was what I needed—to remember all the lowlifes in my life. To remember none of us had a conscience. Well, except maybe Salvatore. And fuck him. I was sick of thinking about him.
In the kitchen, I grabbed another beer and opened it, taking a sip and looking at the food supply. The cabinets would have been stocked before I got here. Part of the setup. I had several contacts, but only one man knew of the location of this cabin. And I only knew him as Leo. He got me my jobs. No one knew they were hiring Dominic Benedetti or Dominic Sapienti. Leo got the cabin ready and delivered the girls. I didn’t kidnap them. I was purely a trainer. I spent about six weeks with them. I got them from here to the auction. And I delivered them submissive.
Like I said, I had no delusions about what I was.
I took out the eggs and bacon and switched on a burner. My thoughts went back to the girl. No sound came from the room. All cried out from her whipping, she was probably sleeping off the rest of the drug.
She was different than the others. She fought me; they all did to an extent. But they also begged for their lives. She’d done the opposite. She’d told me to get it over with if I was going to kill her. I wondered where she’d come from. Who’d had her, and who’d branded her. I wondered if her new owner would want that mark cut out. They usually liked them pure. Maybe he’d burn his own brand over top of whatever decorated her hip.
There was one thing that bugged me, though. That kind of nagged at me. When she’d bitten my hand, I’d gone to slap her but stopped. I’d never stopped with any other girl before. It was something in her eyes that had done it. Not the fear, but something else. Something almost familiar.
I lay strips of bacon into the pan and cracked two eggs beside them, the sizzle and smell making my stomach growl, and wondered who she was. It wasn’t just her looks but the lookinside her eyes. She was different than the others. She wasn’t a random pickup off the street. And I had a feeling she was older than the usual girls by a few years. The girls I trained were between eighteen and twenty-one. I wouldn’t take them younger. If I had to guess, I’d say Gia was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. The buyers usually wanted young flesh.
Sick fucks.
Sicker than you?
I scrambled the eggs and told that voice to fuck off. Once everything was cooked, I plated it and set it on the table, grabbed my laptop out of its bag beside the door, and booted it up. I finished the plate of food as I checked my bank balance for the deposit—ten grand up front, the rest upon sale, the final price determined by the amount the girl brought in. Not bad money. But I guessed human trafficking brought in serious money. The auctions were always interesting. I enjoyed looking at the girls. Who wouldn’t? But I more liked watching the buyers, who were mostly men, some couples, and a few single women. The same ones seemed to turn up at every auction. I wondered if they were growing their stable of stolen women or if they needed to replace lost or damaged goods.
That little bit of conscience that gnawed at me got shoved back down into its box and the lid locked down tight. I thought of the girl—the job—and how I could maximize my earnings. She was good-looking, even if she was older than the usual girl, but she had something most of the others didn’t: that arrogance. Nothing like breaking a cocky girl. I just needed to somehow preserve that during her training, make her bow down with just that hint of indignation.
Once I finished, I cleaned up, then grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water and headed toward Gia’s room. The cold inside gave me a chill. I saw how she lay sleeping huddled into herself on the bed. I set the water and the granola bar down on thesmall bedside table and walked back out. Tomorrow I’d give her a chance to earn back the blanket.
4
GIA
