Page 123 of Truth or Dare

“No one is after your sister. Everyone is all on the same side right now and while that means me and my brother are on the same side as the bad guys, me and my guys apprehended Jason and took down his snipers. That sniper only meant to injure you. Frost wanted me dead, you delivered. He had login details for your tracker, which is how he found out you left Thailand. And how he found you here. He tried to kill Gan Chen. Chen is in the hospital recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. He’s gonna live. I’ve now got Frost in a holding area. You wanna talk to him you can. You can think on that. He tried to buy you a number of times after his uncle died. He found out that you were recently sold and quietly lost his shit and began plotting so he could get his hands on you. He hired someone to take me out and deliver you.. We caught a gunman and interrogated, which led to finding Frost. We haven’t interrogated him yet. I haven’t gone there yet. Before I proceed, I need answers. I need all the answers, baby.”

“He proposed to me. He…he…” I started to panic.

“Chill out, baby. I’ve got you.”

I scampered off the bed onto my knees, a little too hard for the sake of my leg wound, but I ignored the pain and wrapped myself around his leg. He started to stroke my hair and shh’d me. Like this, at his feet, his hand on me, now I felt like he had me.

“I need a collar,” I whispered and his hand went into his pocket and he pulled out a box, “You’re not getting that blue collar back. I refuse to put it back on your throat. What about this necklace. Will it do?”

I glanced at it as he circled my throat with it. It was a thick silver choker with a heart pendant.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, “Thank you. But it’s not right.”

“Why?”

“It needs three strands. One means I’m available. Two means I’m booked to a patron or party. Three means I’m owned.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out two more necklace boxes and put them on me. One was a flat choker necklace with a bow pendant and the other was a longer necklace with charms, like a charm bracelet. It had a little horseshoe pendant, a tiny angel, and a little duck. He stroked my hair, playing with my curls, “We’ll figure something out. These okay for now?”

I leaned into his leg, “Yes. Thank you.” God he was sweet.

After a minute of more hair stroking, he continued.

“He can’t hurt you; he’s locked down. I had my liaison Stan tell the other powers that be about Chen’s injuries and that we have Frost. Chen said before that Frost and you have history and he suspected Frost was making a move so he came to meet with me. You need to fill me in, Angel. I need your story. I know you’ve been through a lot but I need details and I need them now so that I can figure out what to do to keep us safe. At this point the Kruna big wigs still think of Tommy and I as friends. That has to stay that way for now.”

“Dare, I… it’s so...”

“Please, baby. I need details. I need them now. I know it’s probably gonna break you to talk about this shit, Angel, but I’m here. I won’t let anything happen. You need to enlighten me so that I can deal with this shit. Give it all to me. Let me take care of you. I’ve got you. You break and I’ll help you get back together, okay my baby? It’s okay to break. I’m here. Trust me to look after you.”

He leaned down and took my hand and got me to my feet. He kissed my forehead. “C’mon, let’s get into bed.”

He held me close. I slithered down to his belly and planted my cheek on it and stared up at him. He had such a gentle and caring look on his face. It was hitting me straight in the soul. He tucked my hair behind my ear and jerked his chin up, urging me to start. It took me a minute but I found my voice.

“I do trust you. I do.”

“Okay, baby. Go.” He jerked his chin up.

“I was having fun in Thailand. Teaching, hanging out with other teachers, some other expats my age. We hung out in this nightclub and a lot of Americans, Canadians, and Brits went there. That’s where I met Jason. He managed the club. He was handsome. He liked me. We started to date. He wanted to get serious like really fast. It freaked me out but we were having fun, so I kept trying to keep it light. He was more serious than I was, though. This Thai woman who was the cleaning lady for the nightclub pulled me aside one day. She was always giving me weird looks and stuff and then one day Jason and I fell asleep in the office after the club closed. That’s the night he proposed. I laughed it off, thinking he was just drunk, and then he got emotional about it. I calmed him down with sex and we fell asleep.”

I glazed over for a second in remembrance, but shook it off.

“Anyway, the next morning he was in a mood because I hadn’t accepted and said he had to run an errand so I went to leave to go back to my place and the cleaning lady warned me. She told me that Jason’s family was involved in slavery and that I should steer clear. She begged me not to out her. They didn’t know she spoke English so spoke freely enough around her to tip her off, I guess. She said she thought I was a nice girl and didn’t want to see me tied to that. So I tried to back off from Jase and then he proposed to me again, sensing I was pulling away. He was really desperate the second time. It was creepy. He was talking in riddles and saying things to the effect of that I’d be sorry if I didn’t pick him because that’d change everything.”

“Keep going. You’re doing good, my baby.”

I took a big breath and let it out slowly. “I freaked me out, the conversation with that lady, so I was gonna quit my job once I got out of Thailand. I told no one. They must’ve been watching me because I got flagged at the airport, put in this little room, and the next thing I know I’m in that little room with Jase and his uncle, who I hadn’t met yet. They were trying to play things carefully with me, see if I knew anything.”

“Then what?” Dare prompted when I stopped talking, trying to breathe through my nerves.

I swallowed. “I told them I had an emergency back home and was just flying back temporarily. They didn’t buy it. The woman who warned me was brought in and I knew that they’d figured out she’d told me. Mr. Frost left me alone in the room with Jason and Jase tried to sweet-talk me. Obviously, they weren’t convinced that I didn’t know anything, so then his uncle took over and told Jason I was off limits, that they had to pull me in. Jase freaked and grabbed the gun from a guard and shot the woman in the head who told me. Right in front of me. He pointed the gun to his uncle and his uncle talked him down but then overpowered him and pistol whipped him until he was knocked out. The uncle took me. I tried not to break. I used to be so strong, but then they showed me–”

I was shaking. He pulled me up by the armpits so I was beside him and tight against him. I couldn’t see his face for the last part because I was right against his chest.

“They kept working on breaking me and then they showed me that they had Holly. My 15-year-old sister, Dare. They fucking had her bound and gagged on a plane and were threatening to bring her to Thailand. That’s when the name I was born with, that person, she ceased to exist. That’s when I became Felicia. I had to be Felicia so she wouldn’t have to be. Please don’t make me tell you the rest. Please. Mr. Frost kept me to teach Jason a lesson and I didn’t think Jase was all that dangerous. I thought he… he…”

“Okay, baby. That’s enough for now.” He stroked my back. I was trembling hard.

“They’re gonna get Holly if they find out I’m not behaving, Dare. Please…please. When you said Jason was here and Mr. Chen and you called me that name, I thought they’d think I told you and that’d mean I wasn’t behaving and they were gonna gonna g-get her, take me… I never want to run from you, I want to be yours forever, but I thought… I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I ran thinking I had to get to her first. They said if I ever uttered that other name out loud again that Holly would be theirs. Somehow, they knew I hated my mother so they made me take her name. You started calling me Angel and at first I thought you knew who I really was and then I realized that’s who I was to you, an angel, and Dare, that’s who I want to be. It’s me but a version of me, the me before Alaska, before all the ugliness, before Kruna. Daddy called me Angel. Oh God, I miss him. It was like you saw who I really was under all that ugly dirty ugly dirty d-dirty”

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