Yours (17 page)

Perfect breasts. Perfect lips. As I thrust in and out of that perfection, I could feel my orgasm pushing up hard and fast. Good. This would be over soon. I tilted her head up, my thumb accidentally grazing her lip.

She pressed a kiss onto the pad of my thumb. A shock of pleasure bolted through me. I gasped. My cock jumped up, coming out from the slick place between her breasts.

Before I could put it back in place, Jessica was moving. Her head bent down, and with one motion, she slid her mouth over the whole of my shaft. I cried out helplessly as she sealed her lips around my base, flicking her tongue at the bottom of my rock hard cock.

Again, I exploded in her mouth, falling forward to catch myself against the wall with one hand. My other hand still gripped her hair at the scalp.

She swallowed as the orgasm unspooled through my body, my hips pumping instinctively once more before I could gain control of my body again.

I panted, regaining my breath after the orgasm. God, it had been so quick. I was glad for that, for Jessica’s sake. But she’d taken me again into her mouth, without me even giving the order…

This wasn’t how I’d intended it to go, but El Alfa didn’t know that.

El Alfa.
I glanced over at the wall, where the drunken bastard was stroking the front of his pants with obvious arousal. His greasy black mustache twitched.

I wanted to kiss Jessica, to pull her up from the ground and cradle her in my arms. I wanted to give back to her what she had given to me, ten times over. But I couldn’t. Not with him there.

Instead, I gave her an order.

“Kneel,” I said hoarsely. Obedient, her eyes still questioning mine, she lay back down, her palms facing upward.

I turned around, stuffing myself back in my pants. I hated for El Alfa to see me like this, in this moment. It wasn’t right. But right now, he was my boss, and I had to keep him happy.

For just a little longer. Two more days. And then I could kill him.

“Hope that was a good show,” I said, tucking my shirt back into my belt. No knife. He’d taken my knife.

“You didn’t fuck her,” El Alfa said. A dark gleam shone from his beady black eyes. Like a rat. Rats never had enough. They took whatever they could, stole things that didn’t belong to them, and they never, ever had enough.

“No,” I agreed. I brushed past him, zipping my pants back up, and he grabbed my arm, clamping down with his meaty fingers on my sweaty skin.

“Why?”

I stopped in my tracks, my fingers absently doing up my pants. I wasn’t sure what to tell him, what would be easiest. Finally, I settled on the truth.

“She’s a virgin.”

Now his eyes widened. Greed pulsed through his face as he licked his bottom lip, the pink tongue flicking out.

“A virgin?”

“I’m sure you’ll get more money if she stays that way,” I said. “I thought—”

“You thought right. Good work, Americano.”

He pushed by me and unclipped the chain from the wall. Slowly, drunkenly, he threaded it through the iron loops until it was no longer attached. Gathering it up in his hands, he tugged. Jessica rose by her collar, looking at me with blossoming fear in her eyes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking her up to my room.”

An icicle of fear dripped down my spine, chilling me all the way through.

“But—”

“You have done your job well, but a virgin is very...how do you say?
Valuable
. She will spend the night with me. Tomorrow they will all be shipped out.”

My throat froze. I barely had time to comprehend what he was saying. I licked my lips and tried to speak calmly. Jessica’s eyes sought mine, but I couldn’t look at her. Not now. It would give me away if I had to look into her face.

“Tomorrow? But, that’s only...I thought you said Saturday.”

He looked at me as though I’d said something suspicious. I carefully made my expression neutral, realizing he’d lied to me before. He didn’t trust me, not completely anyway.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated flatly.

He was gone with her before I could process the thought, and the word echoed through my mind like a death sentence. Not my death sentence, but it might as well have been. The raid wasn’t scheduled for another two days, but she was going to be gone.

Tomorrow
.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jessica

I was shaken by Vale, more shaken than I’d been by anything else since coming here. Even as El Alfa led me up a steep set of stairs by the collar, I couldn’t help thinking about what Vale had said to me before it all had happened.

Trust me.

Was he only manipulating me, or was there something more? He hadn’t said anything to El Alfa about my escape attempt. I wasn’t sure if that was because Vale truly didn’t want me to be hurt, or if he wanted me all to himself. And I wasn’t sure what to make of the look between them when he’d told Vale that I was being shipped out somewhere tomorrow.

Shipped out? I didn’t know if I was glad to be leaving, or if I was being sent to another place. Either way, I didn’t want to leave without figuring out what was really going on with Vale.

God, I hated myself for how easy it had been for me to follow his orders. Even when El Alfa was standing there, watching, I couldn’t stop my attention from focusing on Vale. His body was immense, hard and muscled. His very touch was possessive. When he’d told me to do something, I’d followed his orders instinctively.

Now, though, I didn’t have him to instruct me.

Now, I was alone with El Alfa.

He yanked again on my collar. I stepped up the last step and out of the stairwell. I panted a little, catching my breath. It had been so many days since I’d last been able to move at all, and the act of climbing a steep stairwell was enough to make my heart pound.

A movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. There was a woman sitting on a marble bench a little way down the hallway. Her dark hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders.

None of the other women I’d seen in the house had met my eyes, but she did. Her eyes were pools so dark that I could not tell where her irises stopped and her pupils began. And when she saw us, she stood.

With a feline swagger of the hips, she stalked over to us. Her lips plumped up as El Alfa noticed her, and she shook her dark hair back.

“Will you need me tonight, master?” she asked.

I couldn’t believe her. Would anyone willingly go with El Alfa? I didn’t think it was possible, but her hand was trailing down the sleeve of his shirt, her olive skin pristine and perfect. It was then that I realized she was the woman from the banquet, the one who had already been kneeling on the ground when I came in. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, but at El Alfa.

“Not tonight, Valentina,” he said. He patted her hand. “Maybe tomorrow.”

She pouted, her lips plumping up even more. As though she was sad that she couldn’t be the victim tonight. I cringed inside as El Alfa touched her.

Was this what I had become? After all, I’d followed Vale’s commands. I was just as much a slave as she was. I was the one wearing the collar, after all. I didn’t know if that was better or worse than having the illusion of freedom.

A tug on my collar took me out of my thoughts, and El Alfa pulled me across the marble floor toward what I imagined was his room.

I steeled myself for what I was going to face. I’d survived down in the cell, after all. I’d been able to make it through the training that Vale had given me. And though I imagined El Alfa’s training would be much worse, I thought that I would be able to withstand it. I had to.

What I didn’t realize was that I would have to withstand more than that.

El Alfa opened the door to his bedroom. He’d seemed very drunk downstairs, but now he was walking on steadier feet. He jerked the chain to my collar and led me into the room.

“
No
,” I said, stopping in my tracks.

April was there. She was already chained up in the middle of the room. She was topless like me, a bruise running down her side. Her skin all along her waist was black and blue. There was a table—oh God, a table full of whips and knives. My heart sank.

“No,” I said again. It was the only word that came to my lips.

No. No. No.

April was sobbing, and when she saw me it was like she didn’t even recognize me. Her eyes were blank, empty pits of suffering.

The collar choked me as El Alfa yanked me forward. I hadn’t realized that I had stopped in the middle of the doorway.

“Move, bitch,” he muttered, pulling me forward. My feet walked as if of their own accord. I couldn’t feel anything.

“You know her, don’t you?” El Alfa asked. He hooked my chain up to the ceiling near April. Not near enough to touch her. I felt my hands ball into fists as I saw her bruise close up. The dark swelling looked too painful to breathe.

“Answer me!”

He slapped me across the cheek, and I realized that I hadn’t said anything. I’d only been staring.

“Yes,” I whispered. April looked back down, her hands clasped across her chest, already in cuffs. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“You are perfect. A virgin princess, yes?”

I shuddered as his fingers trailed down my cheek. His black eyes were hungry. Greedy. He turned to April.

“But this one is not. A common whore, likely.”

April sobbed. I wanted to take her into my arms and comfort her, but I was too far away. My whole body ached to act—to kill El Alfa, to hurt him, to escape. But the collar around my neck told me that I couldn’t escape from here. I was trapped, waiting for my kidnapper to hurt me… or my best friend.

“You’ll be worth a lot more on the selling block,” El Alfa said, coming back to me. I stood as steady as I could while he put his hands on my hips, as though measuring me. His voice was a chilling whisper in my ear.

“Touch yourself.”

I whipped my head around. El Alfa was smiling, a needle-thin smile. He was already unzipping his pants. I expected him to tell me to kneel.

But instead of me, he went to April.

“
No
.” The word died on my lips as he tore down her panties. Her sobs grew panicked, and I turned my head away.

“
Watch
!”

El Alfa’s voice was a roar in the room. April’s sobs grew fluttery and faint. I met El Alfa’s eyes.

“Watch, and touch yourself,” he said to me. “Do it or I’ll whip her.”

April screamed, a desperate scream, and he shoved a gag in her mouth. It was then that I realized why she didn’t want to recognize me. She didn’t want me to see her like this. This wasn’t her.

“Do it!”

My hand moved down between my legs, but I was numb. All of my feelings went dim, and the tears blurred my eyes. I watched as he fucked her. I watched and cried, and couldn’t do a damn thing.

When he was done, he sent her back down to the cells. Two guards came to take her away. She limped as she walked, and she didn’t look at me again. I didn’t look at her either. There wasn’t anything I could do that would help.

I would kill him. I would kill them all for doing this.

Then she was gone, and El Alfa came back over to me. I thought he would send me back down too, but he didn’t. As he walked toward me, he smiled, an awful, terrible smile that made the last of my tears dry up in my eyes.

“Now it’s your turn to please me, princess.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Vale

Down in the cells, I paced back and forth. There was no way I could wait until the raid happened. It had to be now.

I couldn’t let Jessica be taken away tomorrow, or there was a good chance I’d never see her again. El Alfa hadn’t given away much information about where the girls would be sold to after they went to Antigua. She might end up in Russia, or China, or Brazil. There was no way to be sure where she would go after El Alfa had given her to the highest bidder. I only hoped that he would keep his hands off of her before I had the chance to rescue her.

A noise in the hallway made me stop pacing. A woman sobbing. I came out into the hall, closing the metal door behind me. It wasn’t Jessica, though. It was her friend, in between two guards. There were handprints on her hips. A flare of anger made adrenaline pump through my veins.

“Finishing up for the night?” one of the guards asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Is El Alfa done with the girls?”

“Done with this one,” the second guard said. He dragged Jessica’s friend into her cell and began putting the chain back through the loops.

“And the other one?” My mouth was dry, but I was calm. I came forward and planted myself in the doorway, between them.

They weren’t careful with their weapons. The first guard had put his machine gun against the wall before locking up Jessica’s friend. He was still messing with the chain lock. Already, the plan was forming in my mind.

“Oh, he’s still having fun with that one,” the guard said, laughing. My blood boiled and I struggled to maintain composure. The guard outside was tired, yawning. His hands were nowhere near his gun.

Do it. Do it now.

I tried to think rationally, but I couldn’t. The idea of Jessica up there at the hands of El Alfa… it was too much for me to handle.

I turned away from the doorway, my arms coming up lightning-quick. I grabbed the guard in the hallway and smashed his head against the stone wall. He grunted once and slumped down to the floor, his gun clattering to the ground behind him.

“Hey, what’s going on out there?” the other guard asked. As he leaned out into the hall, I grabbed his head and twisted. Dumb fuck. He hadn’t even bothered to pick up his gun.

Then the girl screamed.

I stepped across the body of the guard and clapped a hand over her mouth. She shrieked against my palm.

“Shh, shh,” I said, panic rising in me. I hadn’t counted on her making a scene, but I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs already. “Be quiet!”

She screamed again against my hand. There wasn’t much time. Letting her scream, I darted back into the hallway and dragged both guards into Jessica’s room. Closing the door, I was back in the hall as another guard came down the bottom step, holding his gun.