Chapter 4
JADE
“Put this on,” a man who was sent to pick me up the following day says, scratching his long gray beard specked with brown. “The boss wants you in this dress and those heels you wore last time.”
I nod, picking up a black mini dress that will barely cover my ass, the glistening silver high heels lying on the floor beside it. I pick that up too, taking both to the bathroom.
“Where the fuck you think you’re goin’?” His voice crawls with venom and my entire body breaks into hives, like it’s swarming with ants.
I turn, rapid heartbeats firing off in my chest. “I’m gonna go change.”
“Yeah…” A callous grin creeps up his face. “Right here.” I swallow against the bile slamming into my stomach, slithering up my throat.
“I prefer to change in the bathroom.”
He laughs, his shoulders rolling. “You prefer.” He chuckles louder. “Bitch, take your fucking clothes off. I’ll get to see your cunt later anyway, but at least right now, it’s all mine.”
My pulse thrashes with hard spasms as I drop the clothes, and they tumble to the floor.
It’s just another job. He’s just another customer.
My fingers fall to my leggings, and I blink back the tears piercing into my eyes.
Don’t show him your pain.
I suck in an inaudible breath, sliding my pants down to my hips. He parks himself on my sofa, spreading his thighs wide, as wide as the grin he still wears.
He lifts a finger, pointing it in between his legs. I know what he wants. There’s no point in fighting it. He’ll get what he wants anyway.
Fighting has gotten me nothing but wounds, both the ones that go away and the ones that stay, scars I’ll carry for as long as I’m alive.
I move to stand in between him, dragging my underwear and pants all the way down my legs, trying hard not to bend my chest close to his. Disgust pools into my empty stomach, nausea swirling, battling to get out.
Fight it.
Be strong.
I inhale low, pulling a breath of healing. Of salvation. They can’t have my suffering. Not ever.
“Your shirt. Let’s go,” he chides, his eyes narrowing. He waits for me to bare myself fully, knowing I despise every moment. But I’m just a whore. That’s all he sees.
When the shirt is off my body, his eyes roam every inch of me, and unlike Enzo, he looks at me like I’m a shiny object made just for him to enjoy.
“Mmm, mmm, mmm. It’s no wonder the boss fetches top dollar for you.” His hand reaches for my hip, his fingers creeping up and down, my skin prickling with dread.
The back of my nose burns with tears I won’t shed, so heavy, it engulfs me. But I can’t. I don’t cry. Not for them.
“Turn around,” he demands. “I want to see your ass.”
I do what he says, and that’s when I feel his sweaty palm groping my ass cheek, twisting harshly like I’m not a person but a thing he can manipulate however he likes.
“Bend over.”
I choke on his words. “We’ll be late. Faro will be mad,” I try to convince him, hoping it scares him enough to leave me alone.
“You’re not here to have opinions, Joelle. Don’t worry about him. He told me I can test drive you for myself.”
No.
My heart pounds harder, faster, making me sick all over again. I tremble where I stand, feeling so alone.
He rises, his hand in my hair, yanking hard. “I said, bend the fuck over before I grow impatient.”
When I refuse to move from the sheer shock of what’s about to happen, he flips me around and slaps me hard. My entire face burns. I grit my teeth, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me.
“You whores never learn, huh? Don’t worry, I’m gonna teach you some manners.”
He grabs me around the throat and throws me onto the floor. My body hits the wooden floorboards with a heavy impact, and I stifle the whimper from the pain to my back.
His belt buckle clacks as he undoes it, zippering down his jeans once the belt hits the floor.
“Face down.” His tone is clipped. “And don’t make me ask again. Don’t want to mess up that pretty face. Not that the customers will care with a body like that.” He laughs with such hideousness, I flinch.
I spin around, doing what he wants. There are two kinds of men who come to fuck women like me. Those who want to look at me, wanting some weird connection, or those who want to treat me like a slut.
With me, all their desires can be achieved. That’s what I’m there for. Less than human. A toy. I’m there to serve, and I do it well. I act. I perform. But right now, I can’t seem to become that person.
As I lie there, facedown, staring at the floor, I think of Enzo. I think of the man who looked at me like I meant a damn, and as the savage behind me roughly enters my body, a tear rolls down my cheek.
He grunts as he clutches my hair, and the tears trickle only for me to be their witness, falling silently down onto the floor.
I don’t make a sound. Not of pleasure. Not of anything.
I never do, not even when I’m crying alone.
The droplets of agony, they don’t stop. They leak for the life I once thought I’d have, for the love and family I’ll never get to experience.
They leak for the young girl I once was.
Women like me don’t get a happily ever after. Our life is riddled with never-ending pain. If only I had listened to my mother and not left that day. What would my life be like now? Would I have had a family? A loving husband?
But I wouldn’t have Robby, would I? And even still, I’d give it all back because all that boy has known is pure evil. That’s not a life I’d want for my sweet baby. I wish I died when they first took me. I wish I could go back and make them injure me badly enough that I wasn’t here right now.
The man groans as his pace increases, while I wish I could crawl into a hole and die.
What would Enzo think of me now? He’d never want who I really am. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t know a damn thing.
The man is finally done, the sound of his zipper echoing through the hollowness of my heart.
“Get dressed. We’re gonna be late.”
I quickly wipe the tears away, rising off the floor, and grabbing the dress and shoes I left behind.
“Fix your damn face!” he barks, baring his teeth. “You look like fucking shit.” He rushes toward me, gripping my hair. “You stupid bitch, were you crying, knowing we have clients to see?” He bares his teeth. “I should kill you for this.”
“You’d be doing me a favor. And you know what the best part would be?” I grin into his smug face.
“What?” His stare widens with a flare of his nostrils.
“Knowing Faro would kill you too.”
He shoots me a venomous look, his chest expanding while I stare at him unblinking. He knows I’m right. Faro has done it before when one of his men played a little too rough with one of us.
We’re money, and Faro doesn’t like anyone messing with his money. His one brother, Agnelo, is the one in charge of the women, but Faro is the actual boss. What he says, goes. He always shows his face at their private sex club, which is where this asshole is gonna take me.
There, we do everything. Anything the people pay for.
Shows. Privates. The sickest things one can imagine.
Some of the girls are regulars there, while others, like me, pull double duty. We go when we’re needed, when we’re specifically asked for.
I rush into the bathroom with the shoes and dress in hand, finally able to be alone. I quickly put on the clothes, slipping into the heels before looking at myself in the small oval mirror.
The house isn’t big. It’s a two-bed, one-bath home, which I recently shared with Laina, my roommate, a girl who was taken around the same time as me. But a few months ago, she disappeared.
When I once asked the men who drive me to the club about her, they said she won’t be coming back anymore, that if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t ask any questions.
I know when not to be stupid. I know she’s dead.
She has to be. Why else wouldn’t she come back?
They wouldn’t house her anywhere else. There’d be no reason to.
She and I didn’t talk about anything we weren’t supposed to, so why kill her?
If they heard anything through one of the cameras, we’d both be dead.
Something must’ve happened while she was working.
The club is a place full of men with dangerous appetites. They could’ve done something to Laina, and then Faro could’ve ordered her body to be disposed of.
There’s a loud bang on the door, and I startle with a gasp.
“Hurry the fuck up!” the man hollers. “If you’re not out in one damn minute, looking as good as you did when I first came in, you’re going to answer to the boss.”
My fingers fumble when I reach for my makeup inside the drawer. I rip off some of the toilet paper and wet it in the sink, wiping off the mascara stains under my eyes, applying a fresh coat before adding some concealer and liner to my lower lashes. I look as good as I can.
He bangs again, louder this time. I open the door just as he’s about to raise his voice. As soon as he sees me, he assesses me for imperfections. “That’ll do.” In his fist is a black hood I’m all too familiar with, along with a black eye mask.
“Put it on.” He holds out his hand and I take the mask, slipping it around my eyes, the world turning pitch black. His hands are on my face now as he slips the hood over me, ensuring I see nothing as he grabs my upper arm and drags me out of the house.
The chill of the evening violently hits my body. I shiver, my nipples beading as the door of his car clicks open and he throws me roughly inside.
The leather’s cold beneath my thighs and it practically turns my body into ice as I tremble, wrapping my arms around myself.
The door bangs to a close, then another, and a few seconds later, the car speeds down the road. Sharp turns and uneven gravel send my body side to side, the black nothingness making the rough drive even scarier. The fear of dying overwhelms me.
I think of my son, wondering where he is, who he’s with. The only thing Agnelo told me was that Robby wouldn’t be kept in a cage as long as I obeyed.
I can’t get much out of my son when we see each other for those short minutes, especially with the men listening. But once, when we hugged, I asked if he’s in a house and he whispered, yes.
I was relieved, as relieved as I could be, but I still don’t know what is being done to him. Who has my son? My heart squeezes in my chest like brick after brick of heaviness sitting over it. I’ll never stop worrying about him. I don’t know how to.
The car stops and my stomach sinks with heavy dread. I push against the tightening in my throat just as a door shuts with a loud thud and footsteps creep closer. The cold air greets me once more, a rough hand pulling me out, and I almost stumble, catching myself.
“Let’s go,” the asshole says, jerking me.
When his feet move, the footfalls crunching over the gravel, mine do too.
I fight the shudder rolling up my arms as he leads me to hell, a door creaking until the frigid air is replaced by a warm current and sounds of people talking in hushed conversations drifting from all around once we make it down a flight of stairs.
The man’s hands are on my face again as he pulls off the hood and blindfold. My eyes adjust to the sight before me, the dimmed lighting, the men with women beside them.
As we move further in, I see the children.
I turn away with a cry, unable to stomach the sight of their faces, the pain behind their eyes.
It’s permanently sewn into my heart. Some of them are as young as my Robby.
Tears swell into my eyes when I think about all that they’ve endured in their short lives.
The horrors they’ve witnessed. Their poor families.
“You’re entertaining three tonight.” He looks over his shoulder as he says that. “They’re gonna share you and they won’t be as gentle as me.” A vile sneer slithers to his mouth.
My gut churns, panic setting in, the air escaping my lungs in a hurry as I try to get it back. I should be used to this. The violation. The abuse. But every time, it’s as though it’s happening for the first time.
I’m still that girl who ran on the road, away from the men who were about to alter her entire future. Still the girl who was raped by a man who gave her a son, then took him away. Still the girl who screamed for help as multiple men took turns day after day.
I’m her and she’s me. We’re one and the same. And I don’t know who’s worse off. The girl who didn’t know what was about to happen or the woman who now does.
I enter a room where three men sit, their expensive black suits and loafers matching the black upholstered leather sofa. They’re only a little older than I am, maybe in their late thirties.
As soon as they see me, they rise, their sinister smiles like multiple daggers to my chest. I bleed, yet they can’t see the droplets spilling from my flesh, from my very existence.
The man who brought me here shuts the door behind him, and I’m alone now. With them. The men who hold the power.
Each one takes a menacing step closer, a shot glass in the hand of the one in the middle, his eyes as dark as his soul.
“Let’s have some fun, boys,” he tells the others. “I paid for the full package.”
And then, their hands are everywhere.