“Oh. My. God,” I muttered.
As far as my eye could see, there was nothing but desert. Nothing but cracked ground, spewing up dark shadows in the form of caustic cacti and tumbleweeds. Tears lined my eyes as I searched for a road or a dirt path. Anything that I could shimmy down to and run toward. There were no signs of life anywhere, though. No wells of water. No cars sounding in the distance. No people chattering about.
How far away from home was I?
“Nice ass,” Dante said.
I gasped as I whipped around and I found the tall, subtle man standing there, clutching a file of papers. His head tilted off to the side, as if he were a father scolding a child who had just got caught with their hand in the candy jar.
Then, he licked his lips as his gaze slid down my body.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I hissed, trying to use my arms to cover up my body.
His smirk was positively devilish as his gaze came back to mine. “I have the documents you wanted to see.”
I jutted my arm out. “Give them to me.”
And of course, my tit fell out the second a brisk wind kicked up through the doorway. It puckered my nipple, much to Dante’s amusement judging by the hungry look on his face. I quickly gathered my arms back around my body. I stood there, shivering from the cold as goosebumps fled across my nakedness.
“I’ll just… leave them here,” he said, placing them on the edge of the tub.
Then, without another word spoken, he turned and made his way back into the bedroom.
“Dante?” I blurted out.
He paused, but he didn’t turn around. So, I figured I had his attention.
“You guys aren’t ever going to let me go, are you?” I asked again.
I hated how weak my voice sounded.
“If you truly want to leave after reading through all those documents, then be my guest,” he said, peering over his shoulder. “But if I’ve read you right, you won’t want to.”
His words stunned me. What the hell did that mean if he read me right? His words hung heavily in my head as he slipped out of the bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him. Hell, I barely heard it latch before the soft pitter patter of his footsteps practically scurried down the hallway. No doubt, to go tell his butt-buddies about my pathetic attempt at escape. I groaned as yet another cold, forceful breeze kicked up. It caused me to turn around long enough to slam the window closed before I made my way back to the tub. I eased myself into the warm waters, feeling another set of goosebumps race across my body in thanks for relieving my skin of the torturous cold.
Because it only made my pain worse.
“There we go,” I said with a soft sigh.
At first, I discarded the folder in favor of the food. My stomach let out an unearthly growl, one that would have gotten the government involved had they heard it. I wolfed down the grapes and wasted no time with the chocolate covered strawberries. But it was the comforting tuna melt with barbecue chips that warmed my gut. The fuller I became, the deeper I sank into the bath until there was no food—and barely any of me—left on the surface.
Then, my gaze panned over my shoulder and found the tip of that folder.
“You shouldn’t do it,” I whispered to myself.
And yet, I exchanged the empty tray for the file as my curiosity got the better of me.
The front page was a color-coded document of what the different colors of highlighting meant. Pink was urgent, yellow was important, green was good stuff to know but not necessary, and red was simply entitled,holy shit.
So, I skimmed the document for the red highlights.
“What the fuck?” I spat.
I went from slowly drifting beneath the bubbles to sitting upright. The very first red highlight mark I had come to was a section of my birthing documents entitled,birth order. How the hell they had gotten their hands on my motherfucking hospital records, I had no clue. Had they asked my parents? Dear God, had they done something to my family? Blood boiled beneath my skin. If they so much as laid a hand on—
Birth order: second.
That one word ripped me from my heated trance. Second. Birth order, second. What did that mean?
