Chapter 10
I’m caught off guard when, after making sure my seat belt is properly fastened when I fumbled with it for longer than I should have, the man sitting beside me pulls a small blanket out of some kind of travel bag and drapes it over me like I’m a child.
He hasn’t said another word to me, and although I have a thousand questions swirling in my head, for the first time in my life, I choose silence.
I’ve always been the one to confront, to face danger head-on. But not tonight.
I’m too shaken to speak, and more than anything, I’m terrified of the answers.
Slowly, carefully, I turn in my seat to study the man who paid two million dollars for me.
He looks far more like a motorcycle club biker than a billionaire with money to throw away on a body—which is exactly what I was to every one of those bastards tonight.
His eyes are closed, though his posture remains on alert.
He’s intimidating, radiating danger, but not like Fiorello, Angelo, or any of the Sicilians.
It’s like a cold, restrained kind of fury. The kind that never loses control.
The complete opposite of mine.
“Sleep, Elodie,” he says suddenly, startling me. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I don’t believe in promises, but I find myself praying this one is true.
I look out the window, but when the city begins to shrink below us, nausea hits.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to follow his suggestion, but I can’t relax knowing I’m trapped in a metal box hundreds of feet in the air.
“Who are you?” I finally ask, throwing caution straight to hell.
I don’t really expect an answer, so I flinch when he says, “An enemy of your enemy.”
His eyes remain closed.
“Does that make you my friend?”
“I don’t have friends,” he replies flatly. And this time, I really do choose silence.
The helicopter lands minutes later at what looks like an airport.
Just as I’ve started to calm down, panic slams into me again.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a choice. I don’t trust this man or his promise not to hurt me. I need some kind of reassurance.
“Are we traveling?”
“I’m taking you out of the United States.”
I stop pretending to be calm.
“What? I can’t go! I don’t even have documents! My sister needs me!”
“Your sister isn’t in danger. LeBlanc is infatuated with her. It’s your life you should be worried about.”
I assume he’s talking about the man Amber was supposed to seduce and lure into a trap.
I have no reason to believe him, but somehow, I know he’s telling the truth.
He walks beside me to the plane, and I briefly consider running. But where would I go? We’re on an airstrip in the middle of nowhere, likely some clandestine airport, and I have no clothes, no papers.
“Sir, I don’t know your name or why you spent your money on me. But you told me you wouldn’t hurt me, so I’m begging you, let me go.”
To my own ears, I sound like some na?ve country girl. This man didn’t spend that kind of money for nothing. There’s more behind his so-called help.
We climb the stairs of what I can tell from its size is a private jet.
“The other man who was bidding for you enjoys offering his women to gang orgies with up to fifty rapists at a time, taking turns with their bodies,” he says in a monotone, as if he’s talking about the weather.
“They’re given the bare minimum of food and water to keep them alive, used in every way imaginable without rest. They don’t stop until the women stop breathing. It can last for days. Or weeks.”
I think he notices the horror on my face, but still, he continues:
“He isn’t happy he lost the auction to me, Elodie. If I let you go, you wouldn’t live to see another sunrise.”
I try to hide my trembling after his brutal explanation, but he notices, guiding me into the jet.
I feel dizzy, and as soon as I see a seat, I try to lower myself into it. I stumble, nearly falling, and he catches me, fastening my belt again.
My head spins with Fiorello’s words. None of it makes sense. The rage he showed when his friend “lost” me at the auction was real. Why would he hand me over to someone who’d kill me?
“One of the men inside said he would help me,” I blurt out, even though it might be a trap and this stranger could, in fact, be Fiorello’s acquaintance.
“What?” For the first time, he seems to truly pay attention to me, really seeing me. Until now, it was as if he was handling a child.
“One of the men keeping me prisoner, a Sicilian working for Angelo, told me he would help me. He swore he was in love with me, that a friend of his would bid for me and keep me safe for a month.”
He looks at me, and I see something close to pity on his face.
“If what he said was true, which I doubt, that ‘friend’ backed out early. He probably didn’t expect such high offers, not for someone who’s no longer a teenager.
Right after the bidding started, once we reached two hundred fifty thousand, everyone else stepped aside.
It was just me and the other buyer. That man left you to fend for yourself, Elodie. In this world, there are no heroes.”
“I don’t believe in heroes,” I say, feeling foolish for knowing so little about this twisted game of human trafficking. “And I don’t believe you’re a good man, either.”
He settles into the seat across from me, fastening his own belt.
“That only proves you’re an intelligent woman.”