Page 15 of Captivated with Them

Chapter Seven

Rue

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MIRACULOUSLY, I’D BEENleft alone after the dinner party that had gone wrong. I’d struggled to sleep, though, my head filled with thoughts of Dillon, and Kodee and Ryan, but eventually exhaustion had taken hold and I’d fallen into a slumber filled with dreams. The dreams had been fragmented and confusing. At one point, I’d believed Dillon was dead, and had cried in my sleep, but then he was alive again, and I didn’t know what to believe. I’d been relieved to wake up, only to remember that my reality was almost as bad as my nightmares.

I’d barely wiped the sleep from my eyes before a knock came at my door. It opened to reveal Frankie Capello standing in the doorway.

I scooted up against the bare wall at the back of the bed and pulled my knees into my chest. I eyed him warily. Would I be punished for what happened last night? He’d told his guest that I couldn’t be injured physically, but there were plenty of other ways to hurt someone.

He held something in his hand—a hanger holding clothes covered in a bag—and stepped into the room. “Here. Put these on.”

Frankie hooked the hanger onto the knob of the closet and unzipped the bag, revealing the contents. It was a dark blue skirt suit and a white shirt to wear beneath.

The outfit didn’t look anything like the usual skimpy dress I was forced to wear.

“What’s this?” I dared to ask.

“What does it look like? Clothes.”

I still didn’t understand. “For what?”

“You have a meeting with the prosecutor for Joe Nettie’s case. You need to look the part.”

Now I understood. The outfit was for me to wear to court.

A ripple of nerves went through me. This could be an opportunity for me, but I didn’t want to screw up.

“What if I say the wrong thing?”

A muscle twitched beside his eye. “You just have to tell them what you saw. No more, no less.”

“Okay.” I could do that.

Being around any kind of authority intimidated me. I was hugely conscious of my lack of education when I was around men like that. Men who might not admit they looked down on me and my life, but still did. They knew what I was, as though it oozed through my pores, and I was always filled with shame.

“Be ready in twenty minutes,” Frankie said then left me alone to get dressed.

The smart suit was a welcome change from the skimpy dresses. Even as I buttoned up the shirt, I felt myself standing taller. I understood why businesspeople wore them. As I pulled on the skirt and jacket and caught sight of myself in a mirror, I looked like a different person. My dark hair fell around my shoulders, and I lifted my chin. I risked a smile, but even though my lips moved, there was no happiness in my eyes.

I finished off the look with a little light makeup I’d been provided with. I kept it natural. The last thing I wanted was for the lawyer to take one look at me and think ‘whore,’ even though it was obvious what I was. They already knew I’d been at Joe Nettie’s the night rival gang member Cisco King was killed because I’d been a part of the ‘entertainment.’ What else would I have been entertaining with if it wasn’t sex? It’s not as though I was there to make fucking balloon animals.

Maybe it was stupid of me to care about what other people thought, but I couldn’t help it.

A light knock came at the door, and it opened without whoever was on the other side waiting for me to respond. It was Otis.

“Time’s up,” he announced.

I sucked in a breath. “I’m ready.”

His gaze flicked up and down my body, and I deliberately stood straighter.

“You look the part,” he said.

What part? The part of a girl whose life wasn’t her own, who had been dressed up by a rich and powerful man to get what he wanted? That was the only part I could see I was playing.

But I managed to keep my mouth shut. If I kept running my mouth, I was going to get myself in trouble, and that wasn’t going to help anyone.

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