Page 15 of The Devil's Secret

When I refuse to move from the sheer shock of what’s about to happen, he flips me around and slaps me hard. My entire face burns. I grit my teeth, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me.

“You whores never learn, huh? Don’t worry, I’m gonna teach you some manners.”

He grabs me around the throat and throws me onto the floor. My body hits the wooden floorboards with a heavy impact, and I stifle the whimper from the pain to my back.

His belt buckle clacks as he undoes it, zippering down his jeans once the belt hits the floor.

“Face down.” His tone is clipped. “And don’t make me ask again. Don’t want to mess up that pretty face. Not that the customers will care with a body like that.” He laughs with such hideousness, I flinch.

I spin around, doing what he wants. There are two kinds of men who come to fuck women like me. Those who want to look at me, wanting some weird connection, or those who want to treat me like a slut.

With me, all their desires can be achieved. That’s what I’m there for. Less than human. A toy. I’m there to serve, and I do it well. I act. I perform. But right now, I can’t seem to become that person.

As I lie there, facedown, staring at the floor, I think of Enzo. I think of the man who looked at me like I meant a damn, and as the savage behind me roughly enters my body, a tear rolls down my cheek.

He grunts as he clutches my hair, and the tears trickle only for me to be their witness, falling silently down onto the floor. I don’t make a sound. Not of pleasure. Not of anything. I never do, not even when I’m crying alone. The droplets of agony, they don’t stop. They leak for the life I once thought I’d have, for the love and family I’ll never get to experience. They leak for the young girl I once was.

Women like me don’t get a happily ever after. Our life is riddled with never-ending pain. If only I had listened to my mother and not left that day. What would my life be like now? Would I have had a family? A loving husband?

But I wouldn’t have Robby, would I? And even still, I’d give it all back because all that boy has known is pure evil. That’s not a life I’d want for my sweet baby. I wish I died when they first took me. I wish I could go back and make them injure me badly enough that I wasn’t here right now.

The man groans as his pace increases, while I wish I could crawl into a hole and die.

What would Enzo think of me now? He’d never want who I really am. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t know a damn thing.

The man is finally done, the sound of his zipper echoing through the hollowness of my heart.

“Get dressed. We’re gonna be late.”

I quickly wipe the tears away, rising off the floor, and grabbing the dress and shoes I left behind.

“Fix your damn face!” he barks, baring his teeth. “You look like fucking shit.” He rushes toward me, gripping my hair. “You stupid bitch, were you crying, knowing we have clients to see?” He bares his teeth. “I should kill you for this.”

“You’d be doing me a favor. And you know what the best part would be?” I grin into his smug face.

“What?” His stare widens with a flare of his nostrils.

“Knowing Faro would kill you too.”

He shoots me a venomous look, his chest expanding while I stare at him unblinking. He knows I’m right. Faro has done it before when one of his men played a little too rough with one of us.

We’re money, and Faro doesn’t like anyone messing with his money. His one brother, Agnelo, is the one in charge of the women, but Faro is the actual boss. What he says, goes. He always shows his face at their private sex club, which is where this asshole is gonna take me.

There, we do everything. Anything the people pay for.

Shows. Privates. The sickest things one can imagine.

Some of the girls are regulars there, while others, like me, pull double duty. We go when we’re needed, when we’re specifically asked for.

I rush into the bathroom with the shoes and dress in hand, finally able to be alone. I quickly put on the clothes, slipping into the heels before looking at myself in the small oval mirror.

The house isn’t big. It’s a two-bed, one-bath home, which I recently shared with Laina, my roommate, a girl who was taken around the same time as me. But a few months ago, she disappeared.

When I once asked the men who drive me to the club about her, they said she won’t be coming back anymore, that if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t ask any questions.

I know when not to be stupid. I know she’s dead. She has to be. Why else wouldn’t she come back? They wouldn’t house her anywhere else. There’d be no reason to. She and I didn’t talk about anything we weren’t supposed to, so why kill her? If they heard anything through one of the cameras, we’d both be dead. Something must’ve happened while she was working.

The club is a place full of men with dangerous appetites. They could’ve done something to Laina, and then Faro could’ve ordered her body to be disposed of.

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