Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
SLOANE
T he surrounding room is chilly, and fear is etched into every sound. Darkness veils my vision, but I know I’m not alone here. Now and again, I’ll hear the faint sounds of someone trying to keep their sobs silent. But they’re not quiet enough. I used to believe in the Lord and all things holy and right. But now, I think that everything I believed in is shattered.
My dad used to call me his little beacon of hope. He said I changed his life for the better when things were dark for him. But then he, too, succumbed to his demons, and I was left behind without answers. Questions keep me company in the dark now.
How did I get here?
Why does my head hurt?
When will I eat again?
Why did Dad kill himself?
A silent tear treks down my cheek, and I let it go for once.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here or what time it is. I know I was taken at night when I was walking home from being out with girlfriends, who I assume have raised the red flag to my disappearance by now.
Hours fold in on themselves, and time passes as the world turns beyond my hell. With each passing moment, I wonder if the world is forgetting I exist.
If I’m being written out of history this very second.
“Please,” a choked sob breaks out, “help!”
“Shh,” another woman tells the first voice. “You don’t want them to come back here.”
Her words are wise.
Whenever the door opens and light spills inside our small holding area, one of us is stolen. They drop loaves of bread and water bottles at our feet whenever they take a new girl.
And they never come back.
They’re usually the ones who make the most noise, as if they’re thinning the herd.
“I’m ready for them to kill me,” the first woman cries.
“Don’t say that. You need to remain strong,” the second woman replies.
I scoff.
“Don’t let your faith waver,” the second woman continues.
I roll my eyes. “Faith? If there is a god who is all-powerful, why did he let us get taken in the first place?” I counter to her faith that’s built like a brick wall.
“He’s testing us,” she answers.
“What is your name?” I ask her.
I might as well get to know some of my roommates before we meet our maker, or at least find out if he’s real.
“Sarah,” she says curtly. She knows I’m not a sheep she can control with her bouts of random, idealistic ramblings while we’re in here. We’re all hostages, and she needs to get a fucking grip.
“Well, Sarah, maybe you should look around you. Oh, well, you can’t, can you? This situation we’re all in proves that your Lord and Savior doesn’t care about you or me. He allowed this to happen and hasn’t come to save us.”
She says nothing, but the sound of teeth grinding is audible through the space.
The sobs of the scared woman directly across from me grow louder.
“And what is your name?” I ask her.
“Kristen,” she gets out.
Clothes rustle as someone in the room adjusts against the wall. Chains rattle.
My chains lay across my thighs, my hands clasped in my lap.
“Kristen, how old are you?”
More so, I’d like for her to stop crying. In a situation like this, it won’t save you, and it’s grating my fucking nerves on top of that.
“Twenty-five,” she says, with no evidence of tears in her voice.
Older than I am. Yet, I’m controlled.
I wince at the inner realization. I’m not like everyone else. Growing up in Brownsville in Brooklyn would harden even God himself.
“Your cries won’t do you any good. They’ll only dehydrate you more than you likely already are. Save them.”
My words settle in the room as I hear shifting from the direction of Sarah’s voice to my right. “And what is your name, then?” Sarah asks.
“Sloane,” I reply quickly.
“And your age?” she prods.
“Twenty.”
The tension in the room thickens. “So young, and yet so hardened to life already.”
“Mm, growing up with a drug addict father and a whore for a mother will do that to you.”
The door to the room we’re locked in opens abruptly. “Shut the fuck up in here!”
It seems our guards don’t like idle chit-chat.
I smirk, sighing as he moves too close to the door.
“Tommaso, dammi una nuova ragazza da vendere. Ho un cliente costoso che vuole la più bella che abbiamo!” a man shouts down the hall before the door shuts. — “Give me a new girl to sell. I have a priority client who wants the nicest one we have.”
We always hear the same deep, raspy voice before the girls disappear from inside the room.
I’m pretty sure the Italians have us, which means it’s likely one of the five families of New York, but sussing out which one will take some time.
Not that it matters when it comes to landing in the hands of the Italian mafia.
“Got it, Boss,” the man says, pushing back into the room and turning on a flashlight.
The intrusion of light is blinding. After who knows how long in the dark, it’s overwhelming, even to the calm demeanor I try to keep.
“Uncover your face,” he says in a thick Italian accent.
I growl, dropping my arm and looking into the blinding beam of the flashlight.
He chuckles darkly. “Ah, you’ll do just fine.”
Keys rustle from behind the light, and then he drops the flashlight back into the back of his pants and crouches to unbind my chains.
He hefts me off the floor, and it takes all the strength I can muster to keep my unwashed body on my shaky legs.
I hear a gun click, and then cold metal presses to my temple. “You try anything. Your pretty ass sleeps with the fucking fish tonight; feel me?”
I nod, self-preservation kicking into overdrive.
“Move,” he orders, gun pressing into my spine as he urges me out the door.
“May the Lord be with you,” Sarah says to me as I get into the hall of what looks to be a basement filled with cells.
I want to turn around and tell her to shove it up her ass, but I take her blessing and wrap it around me like a warm blanket of courage.
Because I’m going to need it.
Looking at the broad, tall man behind the desk with the scar right beneath his left eye has me realizing that I’m filthy and disgusting compared to his sharp-dressed body. He’s in a suit tailored to fit his massive frame.
He’s got a cigar hanging from his lips, but he’s not puffing on it; he’s chewing it.
It’s disgusting to watch.
The gun presses into my temple again as the brute who removed me from the cell rounds to my left.
“This one seemed the prettiest, Boss. I’d love to fuck her pretty cunt. Surely, the client will feel the same.”
The man behind the desk stands and gets even more enormous than he already was. “Did I ask you for your fucking opinion, Tomosso?”
He did when he told Tommaso to pick the next girl. I keep my mouth shut, however. My sass will only get me into more trouble.
“Leave,” the man orders Tommaso, and Tommaso freezes under the stare of his boss.
“But, Sir, if you need…”
The man lifts a paperweight off his desk and throws it in Tommaso’s direction. I dodge to the right to avoid getting hit with the damned thing. Tommaso remains still, likely as he’s supposed to. When it connects, the man grunts and blood sprays the Italian marble below our feet.
“You think I can’t handle one puttana?” the man asks, rounding the desk and pulling a gun from the back of his pants. “Is that what you fucking think, Tommaso?”
Now, I’m growing worried about the idiot I know as Tommoso. Because by questioning his boss, he’s put himself in his crosshairs.
“No, Boss. That’s not what I meant at all. I apologize. I’ll just go…”
A shot reverberates through the room, making my ears ring with pain. I cover them, opening and closing my mouth to get them to pop. It doesn’t help.
Tommoso’s lifeless body lies on the ground at the man’s feet. Ringing in my ears muted his commands to those who filtered in through the office door after the gunshot.
I back into a bookcase and remain there.
There’s nowhere to run.
When the man turns on me, his lips move as he speaks, but I can’t make out a thing.
His smile is damning, like the somber smirk of a demon let out of hell.
Finally, some of his muffled words reach my cortex. “I always try the product first, you see…”
Fuck.
Fuck no!
I decide then and there if what he’s implying is that he’s going to rape me, I’m going to fight. Life be damned.
I’m no virgin, but I’ll be goddamned if this man takes a shred of my power away from me. Myra—my best friend—was raped almost her entire life by her father, and I’m convinced it’s what has her so broken.
“Too bad you smell so fucking bad. I guess you’re safe from Don Adamo for another night. But I'll be back for you once you’re clean, little sheep. I’ll taste this body before I sell it.”
Don Adamo.
As in Giani Adamo?
Fuck’s sake.
How the hell had I gotten on his radar?
Giani Adamo is the leader of the Adamo Crime Family in New York, one of five families that run the tri-state area.
A woman rushes in, and then I’m led through the mansion of what I assume can only be their headquarters before I’m stripped and scrubbed thoroughly as if I can’t wash my body myself.
When the same woman—who won’t give me the time of day or even a sidelong glance for more than two seconds—places a plate in front of me at a small dining table in the suite she’s got me in, I shamelessly scarf it down and then vomit most of it back up.
When she leaves, the door locks behind her, and I’m left inside yet another fucking prison.
The windows have bars on them and overlook an extravagant backyard filled with gorgeous greenery and fountains galore. It’s gaudy, but it’s beautiful.
Deciding I have no choice, I allow the bone-deep exhaustion to take over as I crash into the bed, not bothering with the covers and closing my eyes as soon as I’m comfortable.
It’ll prove to be the single worst decision I’ve ever made in my life.
Because when I’m jolted awake, there’s tobacco-scented breath raking its way up my throat, and hands cupping my breasts beneath the nightgown the woman had dressed me in.
“There you are, little sheep. I thought you’d never rouse,” Giani says, alcohol wafting from his breath and fanning over my senses.
Panic wells in my throat as I try to wiggle from beneath him to anywhere else other than here in my skin.
I’ve never wanted to be someone else more than I do right this second.
I’d kill to wake from this dream.
From this nightmare.