Page 20 of Beautifully Savage Butterfly

“Why are we here then?”

My original plan was to find Orion at the gym tonight and pitch him the idea of helping out with The Starlight project. But the closer I got, the more sure I was that he would tell me to fuck off again. I need him to trust me first.

“I’m going to show you something that might make you hate me a little less,” I confess, hoping I’m right. I get out of the car, and I can hear Orion laughing as he does the same.

“Why do you care if I hate you?” He rests his arms on the roof of the car once he climbs out. I can’t see his expression in the dark, but he sounds curious and amused.

“If you don’t know the answer to that, you may want to consider taking fewer blows to the head on a regular basis.”

He huffs another laugh, coming around the back of the car to meet me. “What I meant is that it seems like you get off on the way I hate you.”

We’re close enough now that I can see his face. His eyebrows are pulled together and his eyes roam over my face like he’s studying me. My cock swells at the thought of the heated look in his eyes before he put me over his knee and spanked me like a brat the other night.

“You might have a point there,” I mutter, swaying a little closer to him, but still not touching him.

“Ever consider seeing a therapist about that?” Orion asks blandly, arching one eyebrow.

I smirk. “Nope.”

Orion snorts with amusement and turns his gaze away from my face, leaving me feeling off balance. He looks towards the rundown motel a few yards away, half the letters in the sign burned out, the smell of booze and sex heavy in the air even from here.

“Alright, show me then.”

ORION

Elio’s arm brushes against mine as we make our way through the unlit parking lot towards the motel. There’s a heavy feeling in the air, like we’re being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I let the surge of adrenaline keep me alert, on my toes, my eyes moving at all times, on the lookout for movement. The urge to put an arm around Elio’s shoulders and pull him close nearly makes me laugh. If there’s anyone who doesn’t need my protection, it’s the man next to me. But the impulse to protect him anyway refuses to release its grip on my insides.

The orange lights of the motel finally reach us, and Elio steers us around the side of the building. He clearly knows where he’s going, so I follow him, alert to the muffled sound of moans coming from several rooms and the used needles I have to step over on the sidewalk. Around the corner, there are two out-of-order vending machines, with several girls gathered around in front of them. And by girls, I mean girls. There’s no way they’re older than fourteen, maybe even younger. All three of them are skinny, wearing skimpy clothing and the kind of blank looks I’ve seen too many times in my life.

“Jesus,” I mutter, bile rising in my throat.

Elio huffs through his nose and picks up his pace when the girls notice us.

“Hey, mister,” the smallest of the three says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She has an accent. Russian maybe? “Looking for company?”

“Not tonight,” Elio answers with a softness in his voice that makes my chest feel heavy. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. “How old are you, bambina?”

“Old enough,” the blond girl behind the small one answers with the same subtle accent, and an edge of defiance that gives me a little spark of hope for her.

“I doubt that,” Elio mutters. He pulls out three hundred-dollar bills and they all eye the money warily, no doubt wondering what exactly they’ll be asked to do for that amount of cash.

My stomach roils again, and the urge to put myself between him and the girls rises, even though I don’t think he’s here to hurt them. How many times was I in exactly their position though? Hungry and desperate, with predators closing in on all sides. If it hadn’t been for Jack, I might have ended up standing out here at this same motel, offering up whatever I had to for a few bucks. My bones feel like they’re vibrating, and I clench my hands into fists at my sides.

“What do you want?” the third girl pipes up to ask, her gaze fixed on the bills in Elio’s hand.

“Tell me who’s in charge around here, then take the money and get the hell out of here,” he says.

The first girl looks at him skeptically. “What do you want with Daddy?”

A strangled sound rises in my throat, but I swallow it down. Daddy? Fucking hell, these poor girls. Elio’s face hardens too, darkening into something dangerous and threatening that I haven’t seen before. It’s the kind of expression I’ve always assigned to people like him in my mind, an unmistakable threat that reminds you to steer clear of them. Until now, I’ve never seen anything but amusement or lust in his eyes, and maybe this new expression should cement all the terrible things I thought about him, long before we ever met in person. But it does exactly the opposite.

“Daddies don’t pimp out their little girls, bambina,” Elio says. “And they don’t leave bruises like that on them either.” I follow his gaze to the deep purple bruise on the small girl’s upper arm. “I’m guessing he’s in one of these rooms? That way he can keep an eye on you and collect his money, right?” He waves the bills and cranes his neck to look down the row of rooms.

The girls share a look with each other, communicating wordlessly with wide-eyed looks and shakes of their heads.

“We can’t leave. He’ll… do bad things to us,” the third girl says after a moment.

“I promise you, he won’t,” Elio insists before reaching into his pocket again and pulling out three more bills. “Point me to his room, take the cash, and don’t look back.”

---