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“Your money to lose. “
“Our money. Let’s say we start off small. Five grand each.” I nod to the lady behind the bars. “And…" A plan starts to form in my mind. I turn back to him. "How about a wager of our own?”
“Shoot.”
“If I win, we’re flying home, and we ship the bike.” I smile and look up at him. The thought of repeating the journey back already has me wanting to cry.
He closes the distance between us and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear before trailing his fingers down to my chin. “And if I win, you get a sore little pussy all the way home.”
“Deal, baby.”
CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO
KAI
The day started off well enough. I woke up in her bed with her draped over me.
Within an hour of getting downstairs, that calm and peace turned exactly where we all knew it was going. We were home after all, back to reality.
A brand new, black Mustang got delivered to the house, and an envelope was handed over to me. The maid didn’t even look at Mariana as she came into the breakfast room. She just handed it to me and walked back to the kitchen she’d come from. There was a note inside to tell me where I needed to go. I got dressed, kissed Mariana on the forehead, and left without any real conversation.
Why bother? We both knew what was happening.
By the time I got up the dirt track at the place I was sent to, Knox was leaning on a car and talking on a phone. He kept conversing with whoever was on the line, then flicked his chin at the old warehouse we were at in the middle of nowhere. It only took about ten damn seconds of being in there to remember everything I’d seen at the other place Dante took me to.
I ignored the clean part of the place and followed the corridors until I found cages full of women again. Might have stood there for a while, wrapping my head around what I was about to do to some of them. At least ten of them shook at the back, like they had no idea what was about to go down. All attractive in their own way. Good figures. Dirty, though.
A few of them tried reaching for me for help. Some even glared at me, as if they might just try taking me on so they could run for freedom. That’s why my predecessor called them cattle. I worked that out the minute I gave it some real thought. They're just animals. Some wily, some timid, some aggressive. They’re not for fucking or thinking about, either, because fucking – good or bad – requires an acknowledgment that they’re human beings. That they have thoughts and fears and concerns. They can’t have any of that in my head. Whatever they think is nothing to me.
I picked up a metal rod on the floor and let it run along the cages, making sure they understood that there would be no saviour here to help them out. The ones that reached for me ran backwards at the sound and vision, choosing refuge rather than flirting. The rusted metal smelt the same the deeper in I went, and that sweat and dirt from before hung heavy in the air, irrespective of this being a new location. I could hear the same shrill voice of a woman shouting orders to the low sound of the music, same thing tapping the floor that I remember. There was only one thing missing – acrid smoke.
Still, I followed the sound. Kept taking in the rooms, the sights, the pitiful sense of grime and punishment these new walls provide. So now I’m here. In. No way out. No wanting out either.
Leaning on the wall, I watch whatever this woman is doing with a run of ten women in the same kind of floor space the last place had. She looks at me whilst she’s hurrying one of them up with a move, and smiles. It’s a good smile. I wouldn’t be surprised if that smile got her here being the bitch she is in some way. I don’t return the favour, though. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t be smiling for another woman ever again. This one sure as shit isn’t getting her way with me, nor will she ever cajole me into doing something for her unless Abel’s asked for it. As far as I’m concerned, orders come from him and him alone. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.
“There you are,” the man himself says. I look sideways at him, watching as he comes out of the gloom with another guy. “This is Ratchet.” Dude looks big, but he nods in greeting, as he hovers in the shadow. “Ratchet. Kai.” Shaved head, like he takes a blade to it daily. Dark as fuck eyes. Big scar going across the side of his jaw. It isn’t until I watch him pull a leather mask down over his face and head off towards the girls that I realise who he is.
“Who’s the woman?” I ask.
Abel puts his hands in his pockets and leans on the wall next to me. “Carmen Bennett. She's the trainer. You’ll learn a lot from her. Probably spend a lot of time with her too.”
“How long has she been with you?”
“Since I decided she was worth fucking.” I look at him, surprised. “It was a long time ago. I like nasty. Call it a weakness of mine.” A scream sounds out on the stage at the same time, and a low chuckle rumbles through him because of the sound. “You’ll work with both her and Knox to get the girls where they need to be. Shaw will hold them down for you when you’re branding. If he can’t, Ratchet will. Or me if I’m here. Knox doesn’t get dirty most of the time.”
“Anyone else I need to know about?”
“Yes. But we’ll introduce you slowly to the wider team across the States and into Mexico.” He kicks off the wall and beckons me, taking me back through some corridors and towards a different end of the building.
“That gonna mean flying?”
“It's a long way to walk.” Fuck. “We move this place every three months or so. The schedule is tight. Needs to be. You ready?”
“For what?”
He opens a door on his left, and we’re plunged into darkness for a few seconds. Screaming starts up instantly, and a fuckload of shuffling and movement carries on, as a low, flickering strip light fires above us. There must be a dozen women backed up into a corner, most of them looking scared as shit. He walks straight at them, taking the first one he gets to by the arm and leading her back to me. No thinking, just doing. She’s slung in my direction, and he watches every damn second of me taking hold of her. Another proving my worth session, I assume.
My fingers grip on, as he nods me out of the room again, and I hold her in the corridor until he’s back out with another one in tow. She squirms in my hands the whole way along the corridor, trying to get her feet backpeddling to where she’s come from. I stay fixed on Abel’s back in front of me.
