“Want me to shut you up, pretty girl? I can do that right good and I’d like it,” he says, getting up, walking around to my side. I cringe when he grabs my ankle and tugs me so I’m lying back down.
“I told you you ain’t goin’ nowhere, didn’t I?”
I stare up at him, unable to answer.
“I asked you a question,” he says, leaning his big face close, his stale breath on me.
“Yes,” I say. “I just wanted—”
“Don’t matter what you want. It matters what I want and I want you to shut the fuck up. Understand, cunt?”
I swallow. Nod my head.
He nods his, straightens, looks at me again, his eyes moving from head to toe. I watch his hand move toward me, toward thatsliver of naked belly where my sweater has risen up. I make a sound when his fingers touch my skin, and when his hand fists the waistband of my jeans, I scream.
The door opens, slams against the wall and lets in a gust of cold wind. We both turn. Suit man is standing there minus his jacket. He looks pissed. Two others, these from the back of the car, flank him.
“Don’t fucking touch her, fucking imbecile. You know the rules.”
The man curls his hand tighter around the handful of material, lifting my hips off the bed. Although he’s bigger than the man at the door, when the one at the door takes a step into the room, he backs off, releasing me.
“I just want her to shut the fuck up so I can watch TV.”
The leaner man looks at me. “You think you can shut the fuck up so he can watch his cartoon?”
I nod.
“There,” he says to the big guy. “She says she’ll shut up.”
“What if she don’t?”
The man cocks his head to the side, looks at me. “I’ll let you stick your dick in her big mouth. That’d shut her up, wouldn’t it?”
I feel the blood drain from my face.
When I shift my gaze away from him, I see the swell at the crotch of the fat one’s pants.
“Yeah. That’d shut her up good,” he says, rubbing his stiffening dick.
“Fuckin’ idiot,” the man mumbles with a chuckle, picking up the jacket hanging over the back of the chair. He turns to the two men who are younger than the big one. “Remember the rules or the boss will have our heads,” he reminds them.
“No problem.”
Suit man heads back to the door but one of the guys stops him.
“When do we get the money?”
Suit man pauses and I see evil in his eyes. He’s smarter than the others. He’s manipulating them. “Tomorrow morning when I come back to pick her up.”
The guy nods and suit man heads out the door, closing it behind him. I hear a car start and when I know he’s gone, I look back at the three men I’m left with. The two younger ones walk through a door that I notice leads to an adjoining room. Fat guy picks up the remote and gives me a disgusting grin, his hand in his pants now, rubbing his erection.
I turn away and I shut up.
22
SERGIO
Iknow something’s wrong when Ricco calls me at nine o’clock to tell me she’s still not there. He’s been waiting at Natalie’s house and she should have been home hours ago. The driver hasn’t picked up a single call and I feel like a fucking idiot for letting her go alone.
