“I’m sorry, but they do. I’ve made a lot of money on this fact.”
“What do you mean, you’ve made a lot of money?” I probably didn’t want to know the answer to that.
“You’re in a training house, Pet.”
Terror struck my heart as my eyes widened. Definitely didn’t want to know that answer.
“My brothers and I sell slaves.”
I could literally feel the ground falling out from under me. My mouth opened and whispered out, “Are y-you going to s-sell me?” as the freefall into dread consumed me.
“No.” He leaned in, brushing the scruff on his face against my cheek, “You’re my virgin to defile.”
My body reacted faster than my brain. Throwing my knee up into his groin and then dashing out of the bathroom when he hunched over groaning. By the time my thought process caught up, I was already at the door, tugging uselessly on the handle.
I didn’t have a second to contemplate my actions, or where to go from there, because Enzo was barreling down on me.
All I had time for as his hand reached out and wrapped around my neck, was to wonder if anyone would find my body.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, yet I saw every miniscule movement. His fingers tightening around the fear beating in my neck. His chest lifting with an angry growl. Warm, minty breath flowing over my face, along with the wood paneled wall digging hard into my back.
I felt the air leave my lungs, followed by the ache in my shoulders reigniting. My captor’s mask was off. I was face to face with the monster.
“You want to play rough, Pet?” The tribal lines on his forearm barely flexed with the effort it took him to lift me off the ground. “I can do that.”
My hands didn’t go for the arm around my neck. They went for the cloth around my body. Tightening around the fabric while the rest of me fought for air. The possibility of suffocating to death wasn’t my first thought.
I couldn’t pull in enough oxygen to make my dangling feet stop kicking. I should’ve been concerned about the pulse pounding against my constricted airway. Not the towel barely hanging on.
Enzo’s eyes dropped down to my desperate attempts.
That’s when I really got scared. Because he smiled. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sinister curl that turned my blood cold.
“You give away your weaknesses so easily.” He leaned in, tsking in my ear, “You’re practically asking for it.”
A single tear trickled from the corner of my eye. “Please.”
“Please what? Please let me go? Please don’t hurt me?” His chest rumbled as he stepped in closer, flattening his hard body against mine. “Or is it something else you’re begging for?”
This man wasn’t just stronger, or bigger, his frame swallowed me up. Every part of him dwarfed mine in comparison. His solid chest expanded against my torso with each heavy breath, while the hand skittering up my leg practically engulfed my thigh.
There was no chance to fight him. No extra effort could be given on my part. It was a losing battle. I simply couldn’t win. And yet, my first reaction when his fingertips touched the bare skin of my thigh, was to try and kick him away.
That worked out as well as my sad excuse for an attempt at escape. Not only did my heel smack back on the wall from the sharp pain of hitting his solid shin, but the grip on my neck tightened, completely cutting off my oxygen.
“Hurt me if you want, Pet.” Warm breath puffed across my skin, blowing away the stray hairs stuck to my cheek. “You reap what you sow.”
I knew he was the one in the wrong. This man kidnapped me, but that didn’t stop the guilt from welling up. It burned through my mind, telling me I’d done something wrong.
I was always messing things up. Forgetting to do things before I locked up the diner. Disappointing Mom by not being good enough, or pretty enough. The mistake that I hid from the world.
My captor tipped his head, giving me the same look she had.
‘Why couldn’t your father have taken you with him? You’re nothing but a burden.’
“I’m sorry,” I wheezed out.
It wasn’t my mother that heard me.
