“Whatdoyou know, Derek?” I asked him. “Because we’re going to stay here all day until I get the information I need.”
“She’s just awhore.” He spit out the word, his fear transforming into a false sense of boldness. “She doesn’t matter.”
Tightening my grip on his hair, I leaned down and put my face in his. “She’s the daughter of a mafia man. And shemattersto me,” I told him quietly. Placing the tip of my knife back into the outer corner of his eye socket, I enjoyed the sound of his scream as I slowly and steadily cut through the remaining muscles holding it in place.
A few hours later, I had a name and a phone number, and Derek was missing both eyes, three fingers, all of his teeth, and his tiny dick. I didn’t normally enjoy torturing others. Actually, I didn’t feel much of anything. It was business. Nothing personal.
But this time…this time I drew it out as long as I could, and I reveled in the pain I inflicted. Downright fucking joy flowed through my veins, increasing with every twitch and scream. Every time he begged for mercy. But before he bled out, I called a friend and had him trace the name and phone number he’d given me to make sure it was legit. Sure enough, it belonged to a man on the FBI’s wanted list for human trafficking. “I need everything you have on him.”
“Are we done?” Tristan asked.
Ending the call, I slid my phone into the front pocket of my pants. “Not quite.”
“Do you want help?”
I stared down at Derek’s prone body lying awkwardly on the plastic and shook my head. “No, thank you.” Tristan took a few steps back and pulled out his phone to call Luca. Kneeling down on the plastic, I let the rage I’d been holding inside explode inside of me as I finished the job with my bare fists. Then Tristan handed me a boning knife from the back of the SUV.
When I was done, Tristan and I removed our bloody clothes and boots and replaced them with the clean ones we’d brought along. Then we bagged up what was left of Sera’s spurned admirer along with our clothes, rolled it all up in the plastic drop cloth, and buried it in front of the large rock. While I double checked the area, Tristan called Milo, our cleaner, and—speaking in code—gave him the exact location of the body. He would take care of it for us. It was safer than driving halfway across the country to bury the body parts.
My phone rang as we were getting back into the SUV. It was my friend with the information I’d asked for, and it was enough to go on.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” I asked Tristan.
“To Mexico?” Tristan asked.
I nodded.
“Absolutely,” he told me. “Let’s go get your girl.”
My girl.
The words warmed my soul and sent a chill down my spine.
CHAPTER3
Serafina
“Eres un idiota! You gave her too much. He likes his girls awake, youpinche pendejo.”
“Relax. She’ll come around in a minute. They always do. Once she’s broken in, we won’t have to give her as much.”
The voices floated around me, rising in volume as the argument progressed—sometimes speaking English and sometimes Spanish. Sometimes a combination of both. I didn’t recognize any of them anymore. Not since they carried me out of that first house and threw me into the back of a truck with a group of other girls ranging in age from fifteen to forty. At least from what I could tell, because I’d been drugged. To keep me quiet, I would guess. And it worked. As we drove along, I’d faded in and out of a weird dreamlike state, not sure what was reality and what was a dream.
The trip to where I was now seemed to take forever, and yet no time at all. I don’t remember much of it, except that we didn’t stop once the entire way. And by the time we got here, the bucket in the corner of the truck was so full of piss and shit it splashed over the sides every time we hit a rut in the road. Some of the girls were too out of it to get up, and laid in puddles of their own waste. They hosed us off like cattle before they brought us into the house.
The feeling of complete and utter terror that kept me paralyzed? I remembered that.
I heard the clink of coins outside of my room as money was exchanged and then the latch of the door. I had no idea how much time had passed, or whether it was day or night. The single window was completely boarded up and heavy curtains hung over it. There was a new voice now. Deep, with a hard accent I couldn’t place. “Wake up, woman.”
But I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to float in this hazy place in my mind where I didn’t feel the stagnant air on my naked skin, and I didn’t remember the men that came and went from my new prison.
Sometimes though, they would be late with my next dose and the drugs would begin to wear off, and in these moments, I would claw my way to the surface of my consciousness only to find myself back in the real world surrounded by the overwhelming stench of body odor—mine? Or from the others?—rough hands tearing at my tender skin as I was thrown around on the dirty mattress, my muscles refusing to obey what my mind was trying to tell them. To fight. To run away. To do something other than lay there with words of denial clogging my throat. I didn’t like it in the real world. There was only pain and humiliation there. But sometimes, sometimes they were late with my next dose.
And that’s when the screams would come.
They simmered within me, starting deep in my gut, then gaining strength as they erupted up through my chest and throat, where they escaped out of my mouth with a force that exhausted me. And yet, I couldn’t stop them from coming. Not until the men who kept me here came in with the pills.
In the beginning, I fought them hard, and they would have to hold me down and force them down my throat. But that only lasted the first day or so. Now I was grateful that they gave me a way to escape the horrors of my new reality, and I swallowed them greedily, eager to fall back into the blissful nothingness. To forget where I was and what was happening to me. Or at least be able to endure it until I woke again with only hazy bits of pieces of memories that swiftly faded away. Much like a dream.
