How long had they had her?
How much had been done to her that I couldn’t see?
She was still dressed, at least.
There was that.
Though, given Frank’s borderline obsession with me, I didn’t imagine I would be so lucky.
I was suddenly too aware of the state of me: the too-tight dress, the low-cut bodice, the skirt that could so easily be hiked up, the barely-there thong that was not really a barrier at all.
I was so exposed.
So vulnerable.
So outnumbered.
“Let her go,” the pit boss demanded, jerking her chin up in defiance as the man standing near her took a threatening step forward. “I told you it was me.”
Oh, God.
She’d been trying to take the fall for me?
Why?
Why would she do that? Risk that?
Did she feel it was only right because she’d been the one to let me go?
Or was she trying to protect me from the very specific kind of torture she knew Frank would have in store for me?
She was trying to protect me.
And I didn’t even know her name.
“Monroe, I’m so glad you could join us,” Frank said, his tone slick.
Ice slid down my spine.
I lowered my legs to the floor, but they wobbled.
I still had my purse on my arm.
Somewhere inside, I had the heavy door lock Milo had given me.
But that would only momentarily disable one of the men. The other two would be on me in a second.
I had my phone.
But there was no way I’d get a chance to send out a text or call.
“You can release her mouth,” Frank told the man towering over me. “These walls are reinforced. I’ve heard stories that themob that used to run this back in the seventies used this room to cut off fingers or hands of cheaters. They never got caught.”
Great.
That was a lovely tidbit I could have done without.
Knowing that he said it to scare me, though, only made me determined not to despair.
