“…secondly, we’re not going to my compound. We’re going to a private airstrip and flying to Vegas. Then we’re going to Thailand.”
“Thailand?”
“I have a house there and I think it’ll be more difficult for a certain gang of Italian slimeballs to find us in Southeast Asia, don’t you?”
I weave my fingers together and try to process what Mr. Parker is saying. My knuckles go white with pressure. “But how will we get to Thailand? I’d… I’d need a passport, wouldn’t I?”
“Sartell? Show the girl.”
One of the bodyguards digs around in a black bag, pulling out a familiar pink wallet. He tosses it into my lap. I unclench my fingers and flip it open. My face stares back at me from the photo window. This isn’t a fake, like the one Adriano was going to give me after I left the hospital. This is my real passport.
“Where…? How…?”
Mr. Parker giggles. “Your stepmother. She’s still more than happy for us to get married. And she should be. God knows I’ve given the bitch enough money.”
The news hits me like an asteroid. My stepmother betrayed me. Sold me again to this evil man. I feel a scream rising inside me.
Concentrate, bella.
I swallow the scream.
“Oh,” I say in my lightest, sweetest voice. “That makes sense. Mom always really liked you. So, we’re going to live together in Thailand?”
Mr. Parker looks annoyed by my reaction. “Yes, well, we’ll be going to Vegas first, then Thailand.”
“Why are we flying to Vegas? Is it a connecting flight?”
Mr. Parker whacks the top of Emilia’s head like he’s slapping his thigh with laughter. “We’re flying to Vegas to get married, you dippy cooze. Who knows, I might even get Elvis to do it.”
My insides turn to ice. “You can’t make me marry you.”
Mr. Parker squints as though I’ve suddenly become hard to see. “Are you fucking serious?”
“I won’t say the words. You can’t get married if both people don’t say the words.”
He presses the gun to Emilia’s head. “Say that again.”
Emilia and I scream, mine clear, hers all garbled.
I raise my hands. “Okay, I’m sorry! I’ll marry you. I’ll go to Thailand. I’ll do whatever you want!”
He flashes me a smile and tosses the gun onto the seat beside him. “Good. You know, I think with a little time you and Emilia could be best friends.”
“I-I’m sure we could be.”
Mr. Parker pushes Emilia’s head further into his lap, making her gag. “Actually, all three of us are going to get very close. Starting this evening.”
I press my knees together. Maybe the plane will crash and I won’t have to have sex with him.
We sit there for a while, Emilia going down on Mr. Parker as anonymous city streets rush past and the whole scene is so surreal I keep wanting to laugh. Then I want to scream until my throat tears open. I try to do what Zia asked and plan an escape but my mind keeps snagging on getting one of her cast iron frying pans and smashing Mr. Parker’s penis. Making it so that he can’t hurt anyone with it ever again.
“You remember the charity ball?” Mr. Parker asks. “The night you got all horny?”
That’s not the way I’d put it, but I do remember that night. Mr. Parker got around my bodyguards and drugged me with Orchard, an aphrodisiac Doc invented when he was a teenager. Mr. Parker took me to another room, but before he could touch me, my stepmom whisked me away. The drug didn’t work the way it was supposed to. Doc told me Mr. Parker’s batch was stolen and it had expired. It mostly just made me sick. Not the way I felt when I was given a fresh dose at Velvet House. But at Velvet House, all four of my captors were beautiful. They terrified me, but I never had to pretend to find them attractive and I can’t say the same for my thirty-eight-year-old, rubber-lipped ‘fiancé.’
“I remember the charity ball,” I say.
“I drugged you,” Mr. Parker says. “Gave you something I invented called O.”
