Page 38 of Captivated with Them

Frankie shook his head. “That promise was never made.”

Hadhe ever said that? Maybe not in so many words, but he’d never said anything about selling Rue. We would never have agreed to that—not that we had much choice.

“That’s bullshit.” Ryan slammed both his fists on the armrests of his wheelchair. “We’re not going to make her a passport just so you can sell her to some sick son of a bitch who can’t get a woman and so needs to buy one.”

Frankie chuckled, unfazed by Ryan’s outburst. “Isn’t that essentially what you are doing? You’re asking for her as payment for something your friend did.”

“No, it’s different,” I said. “Rue wants to come with us. She would be with us willingly, not because someone paid a big sum of money for her. Isn't that right, Rue?”

I looked to her for confirmation, but she shook her head, her eyes wide and filling with tears.

“It’s okay.” She blinked back tears. “Just do what he asks. We don’t have any other choice.”

“Good girl,” Frankie nodding approvingly. “See, gentlemen, you could learn a thing or two from this young lady. She knows her place in the world.”

Rue’s chin dropped, and anger at her reaction grew inside me. Rue’s place in the world should never be this. She deserved to be treated like a queen, not a goddamned slave. Where was her spark? She was like the girl she’d been when she’d first come to us. What the fuck had they been doing to her? Had they hurt her. Raped her? I wanted to launch myself at Frankie and rip his fucking head off, but I was unarmed, and he wasn’t, and besides, he still had Rue. He wouldn’t think twice about hurting her if it meant punishing me, and that was the last thing I wanted to happen.

Ryan’s voice came from beside me. “It’s okay, Kodee. Just let them in. Let’s do what Mr. Capello wants. We don’t have any choice.”

I spun to face him, opening my mouth to demand to know what the fuck he was talking about, but then I caught the look in his eye. It was one I recognized—one that told me to shut the hell up and just run with this.

I suddenly understood what Ryan was thinking. This whole time, we had needed to make Rue a passport to get her out of the country and away from the Capello brothers and Joe Nettie’s men, and now the opportunity to do so was landing right in our laps.

Maybe we’d have Frankie standing over us while we did it, but once all the information was in the computer, there was nothing to stop us from making two copies of the passport instead of just the one. Of course, it also meant we would be handing Frankie the opportunity to get Rue out of the country without us, and that was a dangerous risk. Yes, we might have the chance to do the same, but we would have to get Rue back first.

Time was running out.

If Frankie was planning on selling her, he would do so right after the trial. That meant we only had a matter of days to get her back and out of the country.If we didn’t achieve it before then, Rue would be sold on to some bastard on the other side of the world, and we would probably never see her again.

But we had to do it. Like she and Ryan said, what other choice did we have? If we didn’t do as Frankie asked, he would probably decide to shoot one of us anyway just to make a point.

At least this way, we would still have a chance.

“Fine,” I relented. “I guess you’d better come in.”

Frankie stepped into the apartment, looking around. I doubted this was the first time he’d been in here. He would have come when we’d done our vanishing act, wanting to see if there was anything we’d left he could have made use of or anything that would tell him where we’d gone. The place was in a better state of tidiness than it had been before. We’d at least made an effort to clear up the mess Dillon had created before we’d gone on the run, and the subsequent damage I assumed Frankie’s men had made after we’d left.

Rue was pushed in behind him.

My heart ached at the sight of her back in the apartment. This place should have been her home. She should have been safe here if it wasn’t for men like Frankie Capello.

“This way,” I said, leading them toward our office.

I had to clench my fists by my side to stop myself grabbing Rue, wrapping my arms around her and fighting off anyone who tried to take her away again. But the sensible part of my brain told me to play it cool. At least we were doing something. Fighting them now was never going to work. Frankie Cappello needed to believe we were cooperating on all levels.

I paused at the door and turned to Frankie. “We can’t have everyone in there. The equipment is delicate. Just the slightest knock can throw something out of whack and render it useless. We’ll take Rue in with us, but that’s all.”

Frankie snorted. “You don’t actually think I’m falling for that? He jerked his head at the bigger of the two. “You can take Clay in with you. Stand at the door and make sure they don’t try anything stupid.”

Clay nodded.

Ryan’s crutches were propped up against the wall right outside, and he picked them up and used them to get to his feet. I wondered what he’d done with the knife that had been in his lap. Had he secreted it somewhere in the wheelchair, or did he still have it on his person?

Leaving Frankie outside, we took Rue into the office. We needed to control the lighting in the room, so I had no choice but to shut the door after us. The man we now knew to be called Clay took up position in front of it, as though one of us might escape, despite his boss being on the other side.

I needed to take digital photographs, and to make sure she was sitting in the right position for the photograph to be acceptable, I needed to get close to Rue.

I leaned in and spoke against her ear, my heart aching with my proximity to her.

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