Chapter 2 #2
The turn-off appears in my headlights. I take it automatically. The Buick bounces over ruts and potholes, suspension complainin', and I slow down because the last thing I need is to blow a tire out here in the middle of nowhere with a kidnapped woman in the boot.
Because that's exactly the kind of situation where you want to be changin' a tire in the dark.
The cabin appears through the trees after another quarter mile. We use it for situations that require discretion.
This wasn't supposed to be a situation that required discretion. I just didn't want to drive nine fuckin' hours back to Boston after driving nine fucking hours to get to Riverview. Round trip to Pennsylvania for a thirty-minute reconnaissance job. Brilliant use of fuel.
It was just a rest stop. Couple winks, then back on the road.
Now… for fuck's sake. Now, who knows how long I'll be stuck here. Babysittin' Giovanni's collared woman in a safe house.
I pull up close to the door and kill the engine. Silence rushes in to fill the space the engine noise left behind. Just my breathin', and the tick of the engine coolin', and absolutely nothin' from the boot.
I get out and walk around to the back of the car. Then brace myself for the consequences of a dead body, pausin' to breathe.
I lift the lid.
The laugh rushes out in a plume of cold air.
She's alive.
I laugh again.
Because this is so fuckin' classic. So… apropos. The universe has a sense of humor, and apparently I'm the punchline.
First of all, she's naked again. She took off my shirt, wadded it up—a nine-hundred-dollar shirt, I might add, which apparently means nothin' to a woman who's decidin' hypothermia is preferable to cotton—and stuffed it in the corner.
It's a statement. A scream that echos how she has positioned herself. And not a subtle one, either.
Because she's kneelin'. Not sprawled unconscious or curled up in terror, but actually, deliberately kneelin'.
Positioned longways to fit in the limited space, her knees spread open in a precise V, arms stretched out in front of her like a supplicant before an altar, forehead pressed to the carpeted floor of the boot.
Which is not exactly standard kidnapping victim protocol, is it?
The position is too deliberate to be accidental. Too precise to be the result of panic or disorientation. This is rehearsed. Trained. The kind of muscle memory you don't pick up from a self-help book.
She's not prayin' or beggin'.
She's… submitting.
To a man who's currently standin' shirtless in a safe house driveway, questionin' every life choice that led to this exact moment.
Without turnin' her head, without breakin' position, the naked girl whispers, "Hello my Saint, how can I serve you?"
My brain just… stops.
Completely flatlines for three full seconds while I try to process what she just said, and how she said it, and why she's sayin' it at all when she should be screamin', or cryin', or demandin' I let her out.
Or literally anythin' else a rational human being would do when they've been kidnapped and shoved in a boot for two hours.
Instead, she's greetin' me like she's room service.
Saint? Oh, Father Patrick's gonna have fun dissectin' this one.
"What the fuck did ya just call me?" I only ask because my brain needs time to catch up with the absolute Patty Hearst world I've been dropped into.
She stays perfectly still in that disturbingly precise kneelin' position with her forehead pressed to the stained carpet and her arse in the air like she's waitin' for instruction.
"My Saint," she repeats.
Like I'm runnin' the Stanford Prison Experiment out of a stolen Buick.
I should probably be more concerned about the implications of that than I am. But this is neither the time, nor the place for that particular spiral. "Get out of the boot."
Immediately, she complies, but her body unfolds slowly. Like she's performin' some kind of ceremony I wasn't meant to witness. Her spine curves, shoulders roll back, tits thrust forward as she rises from that kneelin' position with the kind of grace that comes from repetition.
From trainin'.
From bein' broken down and rebuilt into somethin' that knows exactly how to move, when to move, and how to present itself.
Christ.
"Faster," I growl, because I can't watch this—whatever this is—for another second without my brain supplyin' commentary I don't want. "For fuck's sake, let's go. I'm freezin', woman."
She speeds up then, climbin' out of the boot with less ritual, but still too much control for someone who should be terrified. When her bare feet hit the gravel drive, she doesn't even flinch at the cold or the sharp stones diggin' into her soles.
I grab her roughly by the arm—partly to move her along, partly to see if she'll react like a normal human being and pull away, or protest, or somethin'.
She doesn't.
She just lets me pull her, pliant and obedient, toward the cabin door. Her skin's warm under my palm despite the November air bitin' at us both. Too warm. Like her body's runnin' hot from somethin' that has nothin' to do with temperature.
I shove the door open with my free hand and drag her inside, then push her toward the couch. "Sit."
She stumbles slightly when I release her—the first uncoordinated movement she's made since I opened that boot—and I turn away to deal with the practical matters of not freezin' to death in a cabin that hasn't been used in three months.
Lights first. The switch by the door controls the main overhead fixture, which flickers twice before stayin' on and castin' yellow light across the sparse interior.
Then the heat—there's a thermostat on the wall that I crank up to eighty because fuck it, we're not rationing electricity tonight. The furnace kicks on somewhere below with a mechanical groan that sounds like it's complainin' about bein' woken up.
I flip two more switches—kitchen light, bathroom light—just to chase away the shadows that make this place feel like a tomb instead of a safe house.
When I turn around, she's not on the couch.
She's kneelin' on the floor.
Right there in the middle of the room on the cold hardwood, like she's waitin' for Mass to start, positioned with her knees pressed together, hands resting on her thighs palms-down, eyes forward, chin lifted just enough to expose the line of her throat and that fuckin' collar still locked around it.
The position's different from the one in the boot but no less deliberate. No less trained.
"I didn't tell ya to kneel," I say. "I told ya to sit."
She doesn't move. Doesn't even blink. Just maintains that perfect stillness like she's waitin' for permission to exist.
How long has she been under Giovanni's control? Weeks? Months? Long enough for this to become automatic—for her body to default to submission the way most people default to breathin'.
Ya know exactly how long it takes, Father Patrick whispers. Ye've seen it before.
"Shut up," I mutter.
The naked woman's eyes flick toward me for just a second before returnin' to that forward stare.
She heard me talk to myself and she's not reactin' to that either, which means she's either completely dissociated or she's been trained not to respond to things that aren't directed specifically at her.
Both options are equally disturbin'. And I'm standin' here shirtless, cataloguin' them like I'm writin' a dissertation on psycho-sexual warfare.
I should find her some clothes. Cover her up so I can think straight without her kneelin' there naked and obedient, with those really fuckin' very nice tits all perky and… and wrong.
Wrong, Lorcan.
This is Giovanni's slave.
I don't know what to do with myself.
My brain's spinnin' through options like a fuckin' roulette wheel—each one landin' on somethin' worse than the last. Call Giovanni? Terrible idea. Drive her back? Even worse. Keep her here? Absolutely fuckin' mental.
Questions start spillin' out before I can stop them.
"What's yer name? How long have ya been with Giovanni? Did he hurt ya? Are ya here willingly? What's with the collar? Why did ya call me Saint? Do ya know who I am? Has he been—"
I stop.
Because her face does somethin' strange. Just for a second, confusion flickers across those features—brow furrowin' slightly, lips partin' like she wants to answer but doesn't know which question to tackle first, eyes dartin' between mine like she's searchin' for permission to speak at all.
And then I remember.
Fuck.
Slaves need space to obey. They need clear commands, one at a time, with pauses built in for compliance.
Ya can't just rapid-fire questions at them and expect coherent responses—their brains don't work that way anymore.
They've been rewired to wait for instruction, to process commands in sequence, to ask permission before speakin' unless directly ordered otherwise.
I know this.
I know this.
Because I've done it before.