Sasha Ramirez
I’d Rather Die
“Our friend here says you are not eating,” Razortip said softly, looking over at where I was standing in the corner of the room. I hated that. Hated the way he would keep his tone so quiet and yet fill it with such menace. It was more terrifying than screaming or open threats.
“I’m not hungry,” I muttered, rolling over to face the wall and turning my back on him.
“Don’t be foolish, girl,” he responded. “You think you can starve yourself to death so I will have nothing to bargain with?”
I shrugged. I’d spent long hours weighing up my options. There were eyes on me morning, noon, and night. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without someone watching me. My only solace had been that it wasn’t Raoul. Thankfully, my captor had made certain I wasn’t left alone with him. But the fear of him was constant. And those he’d been replaced with weren’t much more gentle. The woman who had initially wheeled the cart into my hotel suite when I’d been abducted had reappeared shortly after the call had been made to Prince. She’d obviously been given the role of taking care of me, and it was a job she seemed to resent.
“You’re hurting Gloria’s feelings, Sasha,” Razortip said, changing tactics. The tray of food that had been set on the table in the room was fragrant. It should have had my mouth watering. “She prepared this meal for you herself, did you know that?”
He reached for my arm and tugged me into a sitting position. I pulled back for a second, then realized it was pointless. Soon I was perched on the edge of the bed, feeling like a sullen child. It didn’t help that I’d been dressed in a prim white dress and had my hair brushed into a simple ponytail. He nodded at Gloria, who pulled the table closer to the bed I’d had been lying on.
“Come now. Eat,” he instructed, reaching for a rasher of bacon and brushing it against my mouth. I pressed my lips together, waiting for hunger to set in. Thankfully, there was nothing. Instead, nausea roiled.
“I’m not hungry,” I muttered. Though I should be. It had been three days since I’d eaten a full meal. Since my abduction, all that had passed my lips had been water, which they’d poured into my mouth, leaving me coughing and spluttering. I felt faint.
Good.If I die, this will all be over.
It was my only means of resistance. And the more I’d thought about it, the more it had made sense. I couldn’t let this devil take over Prince’s world. A bullet would be faster to get me out of the equation, but clearly, he wasn’t going to oblige me. So I’d found another way. And fortunately, just the smell of the mound of bacon, eggs, and toast had me biting back bile. There was nothing else that might come up my throat. My stomach was empty.
Razortip frowned as I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut. He glanced over at Gloria. “Has it been this way from the start?” he asked the woman, who nodded.
“Getting worse, señor,” she answered. Her melodiously accented voice seemed at odds with the blackness that I knew must live in her heart. What kind of woman would do such a thing to another? I’d pleaded with her for hours in the beginning. I’d received no more than callous laughter in response. In fact, she was probably more brutal in her handling of me than the men were. I couldn’t understand what had made her hate me so much.
I slumped away, grateful when Razortip tossed the bacon aside and licked his fingers.
“There’s no point in continuing this foolish path, Sasha,” he said at last. “We’ll keep you alive, even if I have to force food into you.”
I set my jaw and aimed a mutinous glare at him. It was an expression that was ruined when my stomach gave a sharp spasm.
“Oh, God,” I muttered, “can you just…get it away?” Now the mere sight of the food was making me want to vomit. I clutched a hand over my belly. The stress had become too much; it was giving me stomach cramps. Living in constant fear for my life had given way to the dull resignation that I was going to die here. I wished it could be sooner rather than later.
Razortip narrowed his eyes on me, then shot a glance up at Gloria. The pair exchanged a look, and then he rattled out a string of words in rapid Spanish.
Ignoring him, I sank onto the bed and curled into a ball. “Just leave me alone,” I groaned.
The stench rising from the thin blanket they’d finally given me almost overwhelmed me. It was hardly surprising that I couldn’t stop the nausea from building. The room stank of human waste and terror. I knew deep inside that there had been others in here before me. Others who had probably not left this place alive. I’d been locked up in here long enough to have been forced to take in my surroundings more closely. I knew what had caused the stains on the mattress, the spatters on the walls and floor. It was blood, dried and clotted. Clumps of hair. Desperate nail marks clawed into the wood of the door. These people didn’t care that I was surrounded by the gore of their previous victims. Why should they? It would serve them better if I remained terrified and malleable.
My abductor moved closer now. I sensed him rising behind me, staring down at me. “I will call for a doctor,” he said. “If you will not eat, he will put you on a drip.” I felt my blood run cold, but I couldn’t raise enough energy to object. There was no point in it, anyway. Dying would be easier. They would never let me see Prince. Not now, at any rate. Not until he did as they told him.
Maybe he’d changed his mind. And how could I blame him? I’d brought nothing into his world aside from trouble. First my brother, now this. Who could blame him for wanting to wash his hands of me?
I closed my eyes and tried to sink into oblivion. To block out the horror of what my life had become. However much longer that might be.
I just want to die.
