“I’ll wear a sexy dress,” I blurt, panicking as Mom lowers her head.
“No, what you’re wearing is better.”
I open my mouth to protest the “punishment” but clamp it shut again. The look on his face dares me to challenge him. I’ve learned from experience that I never win; he’ll only see it as further grounds to hurt my mother. Shame rattles my insides as I think of all the ways I have failed her. But I won’t fail her now, even if I detest what I’m being made to do. I don’t like that I’ll be responsible for this man losing his life, but it’s his life or my mother’s, and there’s no contest.
“Good girl,” Pablo says, looking at me as he pats Mom’s head while she bobs up and down.
Knots twist in my gut. I’ve been forced to blow that prick daily for months. Yes, I wasn’t violated regularly like Mom, but that didn’t mean my body wasn’t misused in ways that didn’t physically mark me.
Fuentes’ men nicknamed me “The Blowjob Queen.” They joked that their cum in my belly sustained me. Fuentes’ favorite hobby was blowing his load over my enhanced chest after the surgery, and I couldn’t hate my fake boobs any more if I tried.
“Have you memorized the file?” he asks, spreading his thighs and leaning back in his chair as he knots Mom’s longer hair around his fist.
Someday, I am going to gut that prick and make him choke on his vile cock. “Yes,” I grit out, clenching my jaw.
“I expect the performance of a lifetime, my little American Barbie.” He grins at his own pathetic excuse of a joke.
“I’ll deliver.” I often wonder if he targeted me because I was studying drama at Yale or if it was because I’m from New York. My gut tells me Thiago set the whole thing up, but it could just be we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess I won’t ever know because the prick refuses to answer any time I ask him.
“See that you do.” Grabbing the back of Mom’s neck, he forces her mouth lower. Garbled sounds rip from her throat as she struggles against his firm grip, trying to breathe over a mouthful of cartel cock. “If you blow this, you won’t ever see your mother again. I’ll video her final minutes and send it to you, ensuring you never know a minute’s peace. Her death will always be on you.”
“I won’t blow it.”
“Don’t even think of confiding in Don DiPietro or begging him for help. My contact will know, and that will be the end for dear mom.”
“I know what I need to do and what’s at stake. I won’t fail my mother.”
Loosening his grip on Mom’s neck, he leans into the screen. “See that you don’t failme.”
The screen goes black, and my hand shakes as I give the cell back to Diego. In some ways, I’ve become desensitized to all the horrors that are my new existence. I’ve had to numb myself to a lot of it to survive. Mom needed me to be brave and smart, and I’ve tried, but it’s not easy. I will never stop fearing that man and the things he can do and has done to my mother and to me.
Mom is counting on me. The only way she’s getting out of this alive is if I get Don DiPietro to hire me, bed me, and confide in me. Failure isn’t an option. Otherwise, we’re both dead.
* * *
I read through the file on my lap one more time as Diego rides in the taxi with me to the DiPietro Freight Management & Logistics building, where my interview is scheduled to take place. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but Fuentes says this fake background will be corroborated when the Italian mafia conducts their regular checks. The fact that I already have an interview confirms I passed. Fuentes has crafted a false identity that is as close to my real one as possible, so there is less margin for error, but not enough similarities to lead anyone to my true persona.
I’m dying to check online to see what was reported when Mom and I went missing, but I have no access to the internet. Diego and Alvaro have been all up in my business since we arrived in The Big Apple two weeks ago. I am only allowed out of the tiny apartment to shop for clothes and cosmetics or to exercise on the roof. My meals are carefully calorie-controlled. God forbid I put on weight. I’ve been slender all my life, but I was always a healthy weight. I’ve got to be at least ten pounds lighter by now, if not more.
I hate my thinner frame. Fuentes seems to think all American men want blondes with big tits and skinny frames. Or perhaps that’s Don DiPietro’s type. I wouldn’t know. I’ve been told the bare minimum about the man. I know he’s powerful within the Italian mafia in New York, he is a single father to his nephew, and he is the CEO of his family business. The cartel wants me to spy on him to discover the transportation routes for their drug distribution network within the US and, when the time is right, to deliver Cristian DiPietro to the cartel so they can kill him. I don’t know why they have beef with him personally, because that information wasn’t forthcoming.
How has my life come to this? Getting mixed up between a cartel and the mafia with my mother’s life hanging in the balance and everything resting on my ability to seduce a dangerous man. I can’t even enjoy the fact I’m back on US soil because I’m not free. My every move is watched and controlled, and I can’t contemplate stepping out of line because Fuentes will make Mom suffer for my mistakes.
Resting my head against the window, I close my eyes and allow myself one brief moment to be human. To throw a pity party. To wish I had never agreed to meet Thiago outside the resort. To lament the life I’ve been forced to leave behind. To mourn the future that no longer awaits.
“We’re here,” Diego says a few beats later, and my reprieve ends. He pays the driver in cash, and we get out onto the heaving sidewalk in the Financial District. “The building is around the corner. You’re on your own from here because they have cameras outside, but don’t try anything.” His eyes drill into my skull as his fingers dig into my arm. “I’ll be watching. One false step and it’s lights out for your mama.”
I yank my hand out of his grip. “I’m well aware.”
He stares at me for a few minutes. “Go, you don’t want to be late.”
I’m cursing him in my head and visualizing gruesome ways to kill him as I walk off in the direction of the DiPietro building. Although it’s futile, I run over scenarios in my head again, ways in which I can reach out for help. If I could get my hands on a cell, I could call Rory or give my bodyguards the slip and go to the police or the FBI, but those options only save me. They’d be a death sentence for Mom, and I can’t pull my best friend into this mess in case they target her too. So, I need to let thoughts of escape go and stick with the program. I have no choice but to do as Fuentes says, and hope he’ll let us go like he’s promised after I’ve played my part.
The impressive building rises majestically ahead of me when I round the corner. Tipping my head back, I stare at the looming building with multiple floors stretching farther than I can see. Nerves fire at me from all angles, and I wipe my clammy palms down the side of my skirt as I walk toward the entrance doors. There is so much resting on this first meeting, and I cannot fuck it up.
Shoving my shoulders back, I lift my chin and adopt my new persona. Sloane Barton isn’t here to be interviewed. Sloane Clark is, and she’s about to give the performance of her life. Nothing less will do.
* * *
