Denied (11 page)

Fourteen

The man dragged
her across the abandoned port.

Lily kicked and twisted in his grip, and screamed against the rag blocking her mouth. Sheer panic gripped her, but she was helpless in the man’s hold.

Her abductor paused and released his grip on one of her arms. She wanted to lunge away and run, but she wouldn’t get anywhere with her face covered and her hands cuffed. She heard the clunk of a car door opening, and then he shoved her from behind, pushing her onto what she assumed was a car seat. He grabbed at her legs and she kicked again. He gave a grunt of pain, and she took some satisfaction that she’d hurt him, if only a little. His fingers wrapped around her ankles and he shoved her fully onto the seat, and the door slammed shut behind her. 

The act of being put in a car confused her. Why didn’t they just open the front of one of the containers and throw her in with the other women they already kept in there? Where was the man taking her?

Her kidnapper wasn’t Cigarette Hands or the weasel guy who had threatened to rape her. She’d recognize them instantly, she knew she would. This man was new to her, and there must be a second man for Cameron to have been taken out at the same time she’d been abducted.

She lay cuffed on her side on the back seat as the car started up and drove away from the port. Silent tears leaked from her eyes, dampening the cloth bag over her head. Was Cameron dead? That she’d brought a good man into all of this and gotten him murdered wrenched her insides with pain. She should have stayed clear of him from the start. She was a poison. Bad things followed her. No wonder she and Monster had been such a great match. Their souls had been singing from the same hymn sheet, only the hymns had come from below the earth instead of above.

She wondered what Monster was doing now. Was he getting on with his life in his huge house within his walled grounds? She hated him for that. He should have predicted she wouldn’t go back to her quiet little life. He might have told her he loved her, but by casting her off, he’d secured her fate as a sold woman.

The car moved smoothly and almost silently. It was an expensive model, unlike the trunk of the vehicle she’d originally been transported in all those weeks ago. Where were they taking her? Did they already have a buyer lined up? Was that why they hadn’t put her in one of the shipping containers? So many questions ran through her mind, but she couldn’t answer any of them. All she could do was hope they’d keep her alive long enough for her to find out some of the answers.

A couple of hours passed with her lying on the back seat of the car. The rag stuffed between her lips glued to her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Her jaw ached from being forced into the same position for so long, like a nightmare trip to the dentist. Even if she wasn’t gagged, there would be no point in crying or screaming. No one would hear her. After a while, the volume of the traffic around her increased. Had she been brought back to the city? What did they want with her there?

Finally, the car drew to a stop, and the engine died.

Lily froze, every muscle tensed. Her breath was shallow and fast through her nostrils, and she tried to breathe more quietly so she could listen to the movements of the man who had taken her. Would he just leave her here?

But then the door beside her head cracked open, making her jump, and hands grabbed her by the upper arms. The hands dragged her off the seat, and instinctively she pedaled and kicked with her feet, but it did no good. She was hauled out of the car and onto the ground. The temperature was warm, but she didn’t feel the sun baking down on her, so she figured she was under some kind of shelter. She hadn’t been gone long enough for night to have fallen yet, though it must be late afternoon by now. All around her rose the sounds of the city—cars, sirens, distant rap music. It was the background hum she’d heard most days of her life when she woke up.

She was back in Los Angeles.

The man pulled her to her feet, and to her surprise, he removed the bag from her head. Lily blinked in the suddenly bright sunlight, her eyes watering. But she was able to see enough to notice the man stuffing the bag into the back pocket of his pants. He wore a suit, and an expensive looking one at that. Whoever this guy was, he was certainly a couple of rungs higher on the people trafficking ladder than Cigarette Hands. He reached out to her and she reared back, but his finger hooked into the cloth in her mouth and dragged it out. She gave a hiss of pain as it felt like he’d just removed the inner layer of her mouth, but at least now she was able to move her jaw.

With a moan of both pain and relief, she wiggled her chin around, trying to relax the muscles while simultaneously hoping her jaw didn’t lock. She snuck a look at the man. He had the appearance of a doorman, in his late twenties, she guessed, with a hard face, and muscles barely concealed beneath the expensive suit. He didn’t give her time to process him any further.

Moving behind her, he grabbed her by the wrists, digging the metal of the cuffs into her skin. She tore her attention from him and quickly looked around her surroundings. They were at the back of a tall building—a hotel, she realized.

“I have a gun,” he said, speaking low in her ear. “If we pass someone and you do or say anything that might get us noticed, I will shoot whoever it is you are asking for help, and then you will watch them die. Do you understand?”

She nodded frantically. The last thing she wanted was for anyone else to die.

“Who are you?” she dared to ask. “What do you want?”

“You’ll find that out soon enough. Now walk nicely, and remember what I said.”

He shoved her toward the back entrance, and pushed through a set of doors and into a stairwell. They moved as one, climbing each step in a single motion, up to the next floor, and then beyond that one and to the next.

They passed a few people heading down, but she didn’t dare even make eye contact, the man’s threats still ringing in her ears and what felt like the metal barrel of a gun pressing into her back. The muscles in her thighs began to burn as they continued to climb, floor after floor. Her breathing became labored, and she was thankful she no longer had the cloth in her mouth—she’d have passed out by now if she had. The man’s breath gusted hot and heavy against her ear, and she took comfort that he was finding the steps hard work, too.

They finally reached the top floor, pushing through the fire door and out into the corridor. This was a high class hotel, with lush carpeting, expensive oil paintings with gilded frames hung on the walls, and corniced ceilings. If they were on the top floor, they must be going to one of the penthouse suites.

What the hell? What sort of sex trafficker brought the women he abducted to a penthouse suite in a hotel?

The man brought her to a halt in front of one of the dark wood doors. The number 8001 was embedded in gold and attached to the wall beside it.

He released her with one hand and reached into his back pocket and pulled out the hood.

Lily realized what he planned and shook her head in desperation. “Oh, no, please. Don’t put that back on me. I’ll be good, I promise!”

Shaking his head, he put it back over her face and said, “Sorry, boss’s orders.”

She was enclosed back into darkness.

Boss? What boss?

The door clicked open and a push against her back sent her stumbling forward. Hands grabbed her before she could fall, yanking her upright, but within a number of steps she was pulled down again, her backside hitting the hard wood of a chair seat. Before she could react, the handcuffs clicked open and then slammed shut again. She pulled on her arms and understood that she’d been cuffed to the wooden struts of the back of the chair.

“Who are you?” she cried. “What the fuck do you want with me?”

Only silence met her questions.

But something else caught her attention, and her heart ran faster. She didn’t know if she should believe it, but every sense was on alert, her nostrils flaring, and her skin tingling.

No, it couldn’t be. Surely not?

It couldn’t be him.

Monster (Present Day)

Monster stared at
her sitting in the chair, her hands bound behind her back, her head lowered, and his heart broke with longing and regret. He wanted nothing more than to kneel on the floor in front of her and place his head in her lap, and absorb the warmth and scent of her. Just be back in her presence and allow himself to love her again. He’d been forcing himself to continue as though she’d never entered his life, but the truth was his heart had ached with every second that passed without her. A small part of him wanted to make sure she was safe and then give it all up. What was the point in living if she wasn’t a part of his life? But he’d been raised to run his father’s business, cold-hearted and emotionless, and that was what he needed to do. He needed to find a way of taking himself back to the time before he met Lily, even though he wanted more than anything to spend the rest of his days curled up in bed with her, losing himself in her soft skin.

But he couldn’t do anything to change that. If she was in his life, she was in danger. If she stayed here, she was in danger. If she wanted to stay alive, she needed to run and forget both he, and Lily Drayton, ever existed.

Remaining silent, he nodded to the man he’d hired, Sean Hamilton, to do his thing. If things went smoothly—which they rarely did when Lily was involved—she would never even need to know he was here.

The other man walked behind Lily’s chair. Monster could tell she heard him from the way her shoulder’s stiffened and her head jerked in the direction of his steps. Sean leaned down to speak threateningly in her ear. “If you want to survive, you need to leave Los Angeles.”

Her whole body froze. She paused and then said, “Survive? What do you mean?”

“You heard me. You need to leave L.A. and never look back.”

“I can hardly leave when you’ve handcuffed me to a chair.”

Though muffled, her tone was biting, and she sat with her back straight.

A part of Monster wilted, while the other part felt proud of her. Even with everything she’d been through—the initial kidnapping, the captivity he’d kept her in, him drugging her to send her back here, and now kidnapped again—she was still fighting. She was strong. It didn’t matter what he’d put her through, she refused to break.

Sean’s eyes flicked up to his. Monster gave a slight nod to tell him to continue.

“If you agree to the terms,” Sean said, “you’ll be allowed to go free.”

Her voice came from beneath the hood. “What kind of terms?”

“You need to leave Los Angeles and get as far away from the city as you can. You’ll be given a new name, with all the identification you need, a new place to live and enough money to get you started.”

She lifted her chin and appeared to be staring in his direction, though he knew she couldn’t see anything. “Is that what the money was for, Monster? Sending me back to America wasn’t enough distance for you?”

He jolted at her accusation. Did she somehow know he was there, or was she hazarding a guess? It wouldn’t be difficult for her to figure out he was at the root of what was happening to her. After all, who else would be offering to set her up in a new identity in a different city? He hesitated, unsure of how to react. Did he reply and admit he was there, or stay silent and have Sean make out like she was mistaken?

She didn’t give him a chance to decide. “I can smell your aftershave, Monster. I know you’re there. After all the times I was in the same room as you when I was blindfolded, do you think I wouldn’t recognize it again the moment I was in the same situation?” She gave a small laugh. “Plus, who else would do this? You can’t expect me to think for a single moment that the traffickers start creating new identities for the women they sell on? Certainly not like this, anyway.”

“Flower …” he said softly.

To his horror, she let out a sob. Beneath the bag, she shook her head. “You can’t call me that, not anymore. You let me go. You sent me away, against my will. And now you do
this!
”

“I sent you away against my will, too,” he said. “I never wanted to let you go, but I had to.”

“That’s bullshit. You did what you wanted, just like you always do, and now you do this to me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry. This was never my intention.”

“So what’s this all about? Take off the hood, Monster.”

“No.”

“What?” She rocked in the chair, slamming her feet against the floor. “Take off the fucking hood.”

“I can’t. Nothing has changed. I still need you to agree to the terms before I can set you free.”

“The terms?”

“Yes, to leave the city, change your name, and never come back.”

“So just sending me away from Cuba wasn’t enough. You want to make it look like I never even existed.”

“Yes,” he said, though the words hurt to say. “That’s exactly what I need to happen.”

“How about what I need? What
I
want? Does that count for nothing?”

“What you need and want will mean nothing if the man who wants you takes you.”

She froze.

He wished he could see her face, look into her eyes, even if it was so she could shoot him daggers as though she hated him. Somehow he felt like even more of a coward by not looking into her face. But if he gave her what she wanted, if he made her think he would give in by even a fraction, then she would think he’d give in altogether. He couldn’t do that. He needed to force her to leave, even if it hurt her. Even if it hurt them both.

“What did you do with Cameron?” she asked suddenly, steering his train of thought in another direction.

“Who is Cameron?” He kept his tone cool, though he knew exactly who Cameron was.

“The man I was with.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because he’s a friend. He was helping me, unlike you.”

“Only a friend, Flower? I’ve heard he was more.”

“That stopped being your business the moment you drugged me and had me carted back to America like a piece of livestock. Where is he? Did you kill him?”

“No, not me.”

“So you had someone else do it?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Fuck you, Monster!”

Her voice may have been muffled, her face covered, but he felt every syllable of anger in her words as though she had struck him with them. He longed to remove the cover from her face. He’d silence her words by pressing his lips to hers and forcing his tongue inside her mouth, while his hand knotted in her hair to hold her still, but he turned away, fighting against the desire.

“Please, Flower, just do as I ask and this will all be over.”

“You’re asking me to give up everything—my home, my job, my name—and on what basis? Because you said so?”

“There are no other options.”

She sat up straighter. “Yes, there are. There are always options. That’s the thing about being human. God gave us free will—remember? We get to make choices.”

He gave a short laugh. “To believe that, I’d need to believe in God.”

“Or maybe just believing in your own humanity would be enough.”

Humanity. How was he supposed to believe in a species that seemed intent only on hurting and murdering one another? His whole life, he’d known nothing but pain. Even his love for her couldn’t heal the wounds that had been festering ever since he was a small child. It wouldn’t stop. This world would keep hurting him, and the worst possible thing he could imagine was Lily dead and him forced to live in a world which she was no longer in.