Freed (Bad Boy Hitman Romance) (58 page)

Chapter 1

Gwen

“Oh come on Gwen, don’t be like that.” My boyfriend, Brandon Phillips, gave me a hurt look, his hazel eyes pleading with me to reconsider. His pants were undone and his shaft was exposed and rubbing against my inner thigh, as he waited for my approval to take things further and give him the one thing he’d been wanting from me for over a year.

It hurt me to upset him; his expression tore at my heart and nearly swayed me. But my conviction held strong. “We agreed to wait until graduation, so it can be special, Brandon.” Pushing at his chest I struggled to sit up, pulling my sports bra in our school colours – blue and white – and cheerleader sweater down over my exposed chest.

Truth was, I wasn’t quite sure Brandon was the one I wanted to give my virginity to. I loved him, but I was starting to think I wasn’t
in love
with him anymore, if I ever was to begin with. He was a good guy from a good upper-class family and my parents loved him. And we fit together perfectly, our high school’s power couple – the envy of all our peers.

It should have been perfect, but, it wasn’t… for me anyhow. A voice in the back of my head told me he wasn’t the one and I was having a hard time ignoring it. Most of my friends had had sex and told me to stop being such a prude and give it to him already; they said sex is incredible. I didn’t doubt that, I was sure it was – with the right person. I was no stranger to orgasms, masturbating more times than I could count, but never to the image of Brandon and I thought that was a sign. Correction, I
knew
that was a sign.

“Besides,” I said as I pulled down my plaid skirt and attempted to keep my eyes from his bobbing member as he sat up and tucked himself away, “I’m on my period.”

I wasn’t. My period was my standby excuse for not wanting to “do it,” and it tended to be effective. Just not this time.

“You were on your period two weeks ago Gwen,” he snapped and I saw anger flash in his eyes. He rarely got angry with me, but it had been becoming less rare lately.

“And. Your point.” I matched his anger and squirmed away from him and off of his bed. “You calling me a liar? Want to check and find out for sure?” I was bluffing and prayed he didn’t call me on it otherwise I’d be busted.

His face blanched and he shook his head, getting off of the bed to stand before me, his 6’1 frame towering a foot above mine. “Forget it. You might as well go home, it’s getting late.”

“I can give you a hand job,” I purred, reaching for the front of his pants. It was the best I could offer. I’d sucked him off lots of times, but he’d pissed me off and I had no interest in doing that for him tonight. I didn’t appreciate the look he’d given me or the tone his voice had taken. He was lucky I was offering a handy at this point.

“No, forget it. I’m losing wood anyhow.” He walked past me and motioned for me to follow. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

I should have been upset, I was being dismissed, but I wasn’t. I was relieved.

“No. I wanna walk home.” I followed him into the foyer and slipped on my white canvas running shoes.

“It’s almost midnight Gwen, you shouldn’t be walking alone this time of night.”

I snorted at him, grabbed my backpack from the floor and flung it over my shoulder. “Oh please, Brandon. I live twenty minutes away and
nothing
bad happens in our neighbourhood.”

“Gwen.” He gave me a no-nonsense stare, but stopped putting on his second sneaker. “I think I should take you home.”

“I’m fine. Jesus, stop sounding like my parents. I’m eighteen for God’s sakes.” I pushed past him and grabbed the door handle. Turning back to him I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Text me later, ’kay? Love you.”

Liar,
my conscience screamed at me.

“Love you too,” he grumbled, giving in and kicking his sneaker back off. “Don’t forget to text when you get home so I don’t worry.”

Opening the front door, I was greeted by a gush of cool spring night air. Closing my eyes I inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled. It felt good, freedom. Turning back I shot him the brightest smile I could muster and nodded. “Sure will. Night.”

Not waiting for a reply, I closed the door behind me. He’d be pissed and pout for a day or two, but then he’d remember graduation was only two months away and get over it. It felt like we’d been through this exact scenario a million times already.

Dismissing the thoughts of Brandon and the pressure to have sex from my mind I leisurely made my way down the street toward my house. It was such a beautiful night, the stars appeared to shine extra bright as if in competition with the full moon ahead of me. The streets were deserted and it was so quiet I could hear crickets chirping on the lawns of the houses I walked past. I loved the soft chirps of crickets; there was nothing more relaxing than sitting out on the back patio at night, reclining back in a chair with a novel – normally a crime story of some sort – and having the crickets chirping in the background.

I smiled as I continued my walk. I had a good life. A very good one. I wasn’t one of those teenagers who would bitch and whine about petty things. I appreciated everything my parents did for me. I had everything that mattered, most importantly loving parents who pressured me – some might say maybe a little too much – to overachieve, but that got me an acceptance to Stanford for the fall semester so I was thankful to them. So far in my eighteen years, I had no regrets and only anticipation for what the future held for me.

A third of the way home, my tranquil state gave way to one of alarm. An uneasy feeling came over me and I increased the pace of my steps. Looking around me nothing appeared out of the ordinary; there were no cars following behind me and no lone strangers walking ahead or behind me. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling.

Continuing to quicken my pace as the feeling of foreboding increased, by the time I hit the halfway mark to home I was jogging. I was about to dismiss the feeling in my gut when a vehicle came up behind me at a speed too fast for this neighbourhood, although I didn’t think it mattered too much to the driver. Speeding would be the least of the crimes for the passengers of this vehicle tonight.

I spun around, my shoulder-length, golden hair whipping into my face and as I brushed it back, the side door of the van slid open and two masked men leaped out. I was so shocked, I found myself rooted in the spot for a second, unable to even scream for my life. But suddenly my inner terror and survival instincts took over and I kicked into flight mode. I turned back around intent on sprinting to the next house, to the first person who could save me from whatever it was that was about to happen, but I only got two steps before one of the men was on me. His arm wrapped around my waist and another hand holding a white rag covered my mouth, muffling my screams. I kicked and lashed out, my fingernails clawing at the hand covering my mouth, and I was pulled backwards.

My last conscious thought was that I should have let Brandon drive me home or maybe even put out. Despite the faults in our relationship he was always there for me. Would it have killed me to have given him my virginity?

Maybe I’d never know the answer to that question...

~*~*~*~

My head hurt and my mouth and lips were craving any type of liquid. I swiped my tongue across my lower lip, but it was only a temporary relief, making the dryness worse rather than better. While my head was feeling hazy, I knew I wasn’t home in my soft, warm bed. I was on a bed of some sort, hard and lumpy. I imagined it was what a prison cot would feel like. When I slowly opened my eyes all I saw was darkness; it took me a moment to realize I was blindfolded.

Lying completely still, scared any movement would gain the attention of whomever it was who took me, I concentrated on the sounds around me. My head was hurting so damned bad, a continuous thump against my temples making it hard to concentrate on anything but the pain. Forcing myself to focus beyond the pain I heard soft whimpers coming from the left of me and a couple of female voices. They were speaking too low for me to make out what was being said.

After an unknown amount of time, I finally felt assured whoever it was who took me was not in the room so I struggled to sit up on the cot and realized my hands were free. I immediately ripped the blindfold from my eyes and blinked several times, my eyes adjusting to the dim light of the room.

“OhmyGod…” I hardly believed my eyes as I scanned the room, which was actually a dungeon, with 6x8 cells of women lining the walls.

The murmurs of whoever was speaking a moment ago stopped and every set of eyes – all young women who I guessed to be between the ages of 15 and 25 – in the room focused on me. Slowly I slid from the cot and tested my legs on the concrete floor; they seemed to hold me so I rose up to my feet and walked to the front of the cell.

I counted the women in the room. There were twenty cages and twelve had women in them, a mixture of blonde and brunette, Caucasian, black and Asian. All beautiful and slender and naked. I looked down at my cheerleader uniform and wondered why I was allowed my clothing when the others weren’t.

“Where are we?” I looked from one face to the next, but none offered up an explanation. They simply stared.

“Please. Tell me. What’s going on?”

“Shhhh. Lower your voice or they’ll come.” My head whipped to the cell to my immediate left to see a tall, black woman with mussed-up black curls motion for me to come closer.

Hoping for some sort of answer I walked over to her and leaned in closer. “What’s going on?”

“You’re for sale now, honey.”

“What?” Even though I asked the question the situation became perfectly clear. I was a hardcore book junkie and I loved true stories and documentaries, especially ones involving women who’d been taken for various reasons. A class I planned on taking for my fall courses was on the human slave trade – the irony that I may just be part of what I planned to study wasn’t lost on me. Never had I considered I’d be one of them. I had a very good idea of the scenarios that could play out for me; the knowledge was both a blessing and a curse.

“We stay here until we’re ready for sale. They take us out once in a while for training and to be put on display or to auction us and then throw us back here until they’re ready for us.”

“How long have you been here?”

The woman shrugged. Upon looking closer at her I saw her body was littered with long red gashes, especially on her backside and lower back. Her lip was cut and slightly swollen. I didn’t even want to imagine what she’d endured and the scary thing was she appeared to be one of the women in the best condition.

I looked around the room once again. There were no windows so there was no telling what time of day it was. One string of dim fluorescent lights hung above us, lighting the room, and there was only one steel door in and out. Looking behind me I saw my cell contained three things, a cot, a bucket and a roll of toilet paper.

So kind of them to supply ass wipe.

Seeing the bucket made me realize one more thing; it fucking stunk in there, a combination of piss, shit, puke and blood. It was nasty, but despite the smell it seemed to be as clean as a dungeon could be.

“So what happens now?”

We heard footsteps outside of the door and a key working the lock. The black woman’s eyes widened and she stepped away from the bars and rushed to her cot, sitting down and lowering her eyes to the floor. The other women followed suit, scurrying to their cots and keeping their eyes glued to the floor.