“W-what do you mean?” I stammer, suddenly feeling extremely nervous as the tension in the room seems to rise with every passing second.
“Where is the rest of it?”
I frown at the table, where he's gesturing, before looking back at him. “I don’t understand.”
Theo snorts before muttering, “Shocker.”
His attitude has my hackles rising. “You told me to make you lamb chops for dinner. I did,” I tell him firmly, gesturing at his plate.
Robert steeples his fingers over the back of the talkback wooden chair as he stares at me. His voice is calm as he asks me, “Was there not an entire rack of ribs in the fridge?”
“Yes,” I answer slowly, unsure where he’s going with this. He didn’t mean for me to eat it, too, did he? That’s never happened before, not even on a holiday or my birthday.
“You were supposed to make all of it,” he tells me, his voice slowly rising with anger. “You were supposed to make dinner for me and my men.”
I glance at the other men who entered with him with worry. “You didn’t tell me that. You always used to tell me how many people I’d be cooking for.”
He moves quickly toward me, and I’m only able to take a single step back before his hand is fisted in my hair at the back of the head.
“Ow!”What was with him andmy hair lately?
When he speaks, his voice is barely a whisper, but I can hear the anger and menace tinging every word. “Not only have you insulted me by not serving my men, but you dare to talk back to me in front of them? Then you throw the blame onme?”
I open my mouth to respond, but he tightens his hand, making me hiss in pain. “It seems you have a lot to learn, dear sister. And let this be your first real lesson. If youeverspeak back to me again, I will cut off one of Elias’s toes and make you watch as I feed it to him.”
I feel the blood drain from my face, and I swallow the giant lump in my throat. He glances around at his men before his eyes settle on someone I can’t see from the angle he’s holding me at.
“I have no doubt those convicts of yours have already ruined your purity. Shame. But at least there’s no reason not to let others have their fun with you now.”
If I thought I’d been pale before, I probably look as white as a ghost now.What is he implying?
“Carlos,” he says firmly, confirming that’s who he was looking at. “Since she disrespected you as well, by not having your dinner ready, you can have her for the next hour.”
“No! Please don’t! I’m sorry!” I cry, my hands gripping Robert’s, where it’s tightening in my hair.
He stares at me, and for a moment, I think he’s going to concede, but he just looks back at Carlos as he tells him, “Lock her in the closet when you’re done.” He tosses me away, and I’m caught by the man I’d rather die than have touch me.
“No! Get off me!”
Robert just watches me with no emotion on his face as he tells me, “Consider this your punishment, Wren. Thinkabout that while you spend the rest of the night in the dark closet you seem to love so much.”
I scream as Carlos wraps both arms around my center and drags me from the dining room. Two men follow us as I thrash around and scream as loud as I can, even knowing that nobody here will save me from this fate worse than death.
Carlos just chuckles the more I scream, and I know my size is no match for his strength. He drags me kicking and screaming through the foyer and toward the stairs.
I let out another scream, and he slaps me across the face. Before I can recover from the shock of being hit, he throws me over his shoulder and hurries up the stairs. I pound my fists on his back, and he laughs.
Elias starts yelling out from downstairs, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. Then a loud bang echoes through the house, like a door being slammed, and his voice is silenced.
Through my panic, I tell myself I need to stay strong, for Elias. Then I remind myself that when I get out of this, and Iwillget out of this, to ask the guys to teach me how to defend myself better. What use was knife training when I couldn't reach it all the way down by my ankle?
He moves so quickly, every step makes me bounce hard against his hard shoulder, and I grunt in pain. Suddenly, I’m airborne before landing on a soft surface on my back. I realize I’m in the bedroom I got dressed in, and before I can reach for my knife, Carlos is on me, roughly flipping me to my stomach before lying on top of me.
I feel him run his nose up the side of my neck as he inhales. “Ew! Get off me, you cretin!”
He chuckles in my ear as he asks, “Cretin? What colorful language for such a pretty girl.”
“You want colorful?” I ask through clenched teeth.“Nadeyus', tvoy chlen ssokhnetsya i umrot, a ty budesh' goret' v adu vechno!”I curse in Russian, but it only makes him laugh more.
