Falling for a man like Stan did not eraseme.
So, I took the slaps, the gropes, the threats.
And I filled my cup with them.
I let them fuel me, building, surging, trouncing the pain my captor dealt out.
I bore the ignominy of the animal tearing at my dress, exposing my breasts to his gluttonous gaze. I watched him watch me, knew what’d come if I didn’t act.
I always acted.
Then, when my cell rang, he accelerated things.
Having spied my loathing, he grinned, disgusting teeth barely gleaming in the overhead light. “Pose for lover boy.”
He took a picture—I heard the click, though I never raised my head.
For Stan.
He’d see me like this.Weak. Another burden for him to bear.
And my nerves howled like a Valkyrie unleashed.
I.
Was.
Not.
A.
Fucking.
Burden.
The second my captor cackled, I knew he’d sent the picture and that a metaphorical timer had begun ticking.
Especially when it appeared to kick-start a conversation between them.
Stan was so near, at that moment, yet so far.
I had no idea as to our location because I’d woken up in a moving trunk, but we were in the city—born and raised in NewYork, I knew the song my hometown sang. Crazy traffic, endless red lights, and rattling as we drove over steaming manhole covers, the faint vibrations from the subway equaledhome.
Which was proof, of course, that I’d led a sheltered life.
Nothing about this dump they’d smuggled me into spoke of home.
Chloroform still dulled my senses, though hours must have passed since the bastards had tied me to a chair squashed between the wall and a bed with a tiny nightstand and a light. A small window scant inches from the ceiling exposing the grody streets beyond told me this room was subterranean and night had fallen while I’d been unconscious.
Sobs and weak moans echoed throughout the building, leaving me wondering if they’d brought me to a brothel. Which meant I was on my own. Nobody would save me when they couldn’t help themselves.
So far, this piece of shit with terrible teeth had only used his fists on me—I considered that to be a blessing.
Blessing or not, my face had to be a mass of bruises. My lips were torn from being backhanded because of a ring he wore on his index finger. A scrape on my cheek stung from the scratch of the diamond embedded into it.
I ached—fuck, I ached in so many places from how he’d bound me—wrists tied in front, two thick ropes trussing me below my breasts and at my hips, ankles strapped to each leg of the chair he’d stuck me in.
None of it would stop me.
