Page 263 of Bad for Me

I try to ignore the knock, but it comes again, more insistently.

“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling out of Misha fast enough to make both of us whimper.

Misha collapses onto the bed, his legs spread enough that I can see his abused hole. I don’t want to stop, but nobody would be knocking at this hour of the night if it wasn’t important.

I wipe off my cock and zip up, groaning at the pressure on my erection. Then I head to the door, opening it with a frustrated growl. “What?”

Fifi is on the other end, dressed in a long shirt. Her eyes are wide and panicked. “Sir. There are dark SUVs coming up the driveway. The master says to destroy everything.”

Destroy everything.

Fuck.

Fuck!

“Go untie Misha,” I tell her, striding toward my desk. “Bring him with you to the emergency quarters.”

I grab my physical ledger. It’s the only one I keep on site, written in code so that nobody can discover my business. If somebody steals it, it’s theoretically still useless—but I don’t want to bet on it.

I take the ledger over to the fireplace and throw it in. A quick splash of kerosene, a spark from the lighter, and it starts burning.

Is this fast enough, though? Will it be destroyed before whoever arrives starts going through our shit?

Fifi has untied Misha, who is looking far more alert now.

“The emergency quarters!” I bark at Fifi. “Take Misha down there. Close the door, and stay quiet…”

I trail off.

The emergency quarters are hidden, and the door is impossible to open from the inside. If anybody searches the place, they’re unlikely to find the room. But if anything happens to my family and me, that means whoever’s inside the room isn’t ever getting out.

I know that’s the point. If they die in there, there’s no evidence that we had slaves. They can’t testify against us, either.

But I don’t want Misha to die.

Our lawyers are good, but I don’t have high hopes about any of us getting back in under a week. Even if we do get back fast enough, we’ll be under constant surveillance. No matter what happens, if we seal off that emergency door, it’s going to stay closed, and at least twelve people — including Misha — will die.

“Hide,” I hiss at Fifi. “Just hide somewhere, don’t make a sound, and…” I rub my temples. This isn’t part of our plan. My father would fucking kill me if he knew I was giving her these orders. “We’ll find you. Just don’t open your mouths, or you’ll wish we had killed you.” I turn to Misha, my heart thudding painfully as I think about the idea of never seeing him again. “Follow Fifi.”

Misha stands up, rubbing his wrists. When his eyes meet mine, I see that steady defiance I’m so used to.

“No,” Misha says quietly. He strides over to the nearby dresser and opens a drawer, pulling out a pair of underwear.

“Misha, I don’t have time to argue right now! If they find you, you’ll be arrested for… for prostitution. They won’t believe you if you try to argue anything else, and even if they did…” My heart threatens to seize in my chest. “Just fuckinggo. I have shit to do.” I go to him and shove him, hard. “Hurry up, or they’ll end up taking Fifi too. She can’t survive in jail.”

Misha puts on the underwear—myunderwear—and turns to me again. “Prostitution? That’s the best you can come up with? That may work for scared teens, but I’m not a kid. Your family is going down, Raul.” He opens another drawer to pull out sweats and a t-shirt. “You’regoing down. Because there’s a mountain of evidence against you, no matter how much of it you burn or… or how many of them you kill.”

I can’t seem to reconcile his words with the sight of him. There’s something different about him, about the confident way he dresses himself in my clothing.

“I’m trying to avoid anyone else dying!” I shout, grabbing him by the arm and managing to move him a few feet away from the dresser with the sweats half-on. “Just get the fuck down there with Fifi! If you can make sure she keeps her trap shut, she won’t accidentally get shot!”

Fifi stares at me with wide-eyes, and I realize in that moment just how young she really is. She’s only in her mid twenties, maybe, which seems ancient unless you think about the fact that she’s been here at least a decade.

Misha stands up straighter and glares at me. “Then do the right thing. If those SUVs are who I think they are, you have two choices. Cooperate, and save not just Fifi and all the others here, but every single person you and your family have victimized. All the children who’ve been tortured because of you. Or fight them, and go down for life.”

“Who do you think they are?” I bark out a laugh, but there’s no humor to it. “There’s a lot of people it could be. A rival family. Somebody related to the victims.”

Misha shakes his head. “You and I both know it’s the feds. That’s why you’re destroying evidence.”

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