Page 44 of Protecting Talia

By some miracle, Cheryl stopped him. Maybe her sister felt something, or maybe it was the money she would get by selling her. Cheryl didn’t explain. Instead, she directed the men to carry her outside.

Before they got her in the trunk, Talia clipped one of them in the nose with her foot. She’d drawn blood twice. If her body was found, and some police department decided to do some sort of DNA testing, they would find something. She didn’t have a chance to get blood from her sister, but maybe one of these two would turn on her and tell the cops about how awful Cheryl really was.

Talia pushed away the fantasy as the car engine rumbled to life. Riding in the trunk wasn’t comfortable. Every bump of the road jostled her. She couldn’t get a good hold to brace herself and there were things rolling around hitting her.

No question, she was heading to her death. Whatever awaited her wouldn’t be fun. She needed to escape, but how? Cheryl had the upper hand, and Talia saw no way to regain it.

How could her sister sell her? It was like they weren’t even made from the same people. Her siblings were terrible. Though her brother wasn’t involved in this escapade, he’d known their sister had forced her into doing porn when she was a teenager and had done nothing about it.

This felt similar. No one could help her, and they never could when she went up against her sister. They could have been friends, maybe not good friends, but they could have gotten along. But no, her sister had to make everything a competition and force the win. If only she’d learned to fight dirty before her sister had started taking advantage of her. Now she was in this situation, and there wasn’t anyone who could rescue her.

No way would Zip know where she was. He wouldn’t be able to track her down, even if he wanted to. She should have taken him up on the tracking earrings. She wouldn’t be in this situation if she had. He could have already found her by now, and she would be at home in his bed.

What if he didn’t care that she wasn’t around? He would be better off without her. Everyone would be better off. If she was gone, there would be no explaining that she’d been forced to do porn. There’d be no whispers behind her back, or guys coming at her, thinking they could get in a quick one with her because she was a porn star who did it once with twelve guys. They wouldn’t even think it was abuse because she’d done it on the screen so many times in their jerk-off sessions.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She hadn’t even known she’d been crying. She hated crying about this. All the tears in the world wouldn’t save her. Nothing would.

32

Zip wanted to tell Hop to drive faster, but they were going a little above the speed limit, and the last thing they wanted was to be stopped by the police. Before leaving, they’d made sure their weapons were loaded and had plenty of firepower to take down multiple people.

They didn’t want to hurt Talia, so they were planning to go in quiet, and overpower them in stealth. But if things went sideways, they had the ability to drop them where they stood.

“How much farther?” Hop asked.

“Five minutes,” Smiley said.

Trip and Bud were in the car behind them. They planned on driving past the entrance and coming to the marina from the west. He was going to hang back until they located Talia. His emotions were high, and the last thing he wanted was to make a critical error.

“We’re approaching now,” Hop said.

Zip must have been deep in his musings to not notice the last bit of distance they’d traveled. He checked his watch, seeing they had about twenty minutes before Talia was set to arrive. He was ready, or he thought he was. If they hurt her, he would make sure they paid.

The lot seemed deserted as they pulled in, but then another car pulled in right after Hop killed the lights and engine. They’d taken care of the dome light before leaving Thario’s place so they wouldn’t draw attention.

“They’re going for the trunk,” Hop said.

“That has to be her,” Smiley said. “I’m texting the rest of the guys and letting them know she’s here.”

“You ready?” Hop asked.

“Yes.” Zip was glad the guys were ready to move. They didn’t wait until they had confirmation that Talia was in the trunk. Waiting would put them at too big a deficit.

He slowly inched out of the car, not even trying to close the door. It would make too much noise and alert Talia’s captors that he was there.

Hop and Smiley were already out of the car and approaching the group of four. Two men were dragging, half-carrying Talia. Anger rose as he watched her struggle to walk. What had they done to her?

Someone stepped off one of the boats and onto the ramp leading from land out to the boats farther out. The guy was big, and from the glimpse Zip got, it looked like he was going to be a problem.

“We ain’t taking damaged goods.”

“She’ll survive,” the woman said.

That had to be Talia’s sister. He wanted to hurt the woman and make her pay for being such a freaking jerk to Talia.

“Can she walk? We aren’t taking her on this boat if she can’t stand on her own.”

Zip inched closer. He was about five feet behind Hop but could hear the conversation going on between the trafficker and Talia’s sister.

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