Page 45 of Maxim

“We will be fine. Now go,” Thea says as she ushers him toward the door.

Before he slips out, he looks over his shoulder at me one last time. Thea shuts the door and locks it behind him. She types in the code on the panel, setting the alarm.

For a second my heart races.

She knows the code. We can leave.

Then I remember that Maxim made me a promise. I’ll never be able to get my siblings out on my own. He is my last hope. I need to trust him.

I have no need for the code anymore.

She leans against the door and faces me. “I thought he would never leave,” she jokes, making me smile.

She pushes off the door and walks back toward me, and I watch her as she sits down. Maxim said she was a friend, which I would have never expected. In all honesty, they appeared to be more like acquaintances, if not strangers.

Thea seems nice enough, though.

“I’m not going to lie to you. It seems counterintuitive. Maxim told me what happened. I can’t say I agree with your actions, but I understand them. I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but I’m not your jailer. I won’t follow you around or watch you go to the bathroom. I am trusting that you won’t try to harm yourself again,” she tells me.

“I won’t. I have too much to lose now,” I tell her, thinking about the deal Maxim made me. “How do you know Maxim?”

“I owe my life to a friend of his,” she says, looking down at her hands.

“Oh.”

Out of all the things I thought she would say, that wasn’t one of them.

Do Maxim and his friends just go around saving women for shits and giggles?

It’s then I realize what I just thought. I have been thinking of Maxim as my captor. My owner. My master.

Not anymore. Somewhere in the last few days I’ve started to think of him as my savior. Our dynamic has changed.

When Thea shifts, I look back at her. She looks like she’s contemplating what to say as she looks out the window.

“A couple of years ago I was a lot like you.”

“Your father sold you?” I ask, shocked.

Thea flinches but shakes her head. “I was actually taken on my way home from school.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Anyway, I was taken to a place and held hostage. They stripped me naked before waxing my body. Then one day they came in and made me put on this lingerie I would have never picked for myself, then they did my hair and makeup. I quickly figured out that I was going to be sold like a piece of meat.”

My heart races the more she talks. I guess we have something in common after all.

She runs her hands over her thighs. “I was dragged into a room where they made me walk in a circle. Four hundred thousand. That’s how much a man from Canada bought me for.”

“How did you escape?” I blurt out.

A small smile plays on her lips. “After they were done bidding on me, I was taken back to my room to wait. Next thing I knew, this man was busting in. He wasn’t looking for me but someone else. He got me out of there when he didn’t have to.”

“And that’s yours and Maxim’s mutual friend?”

“Yes.”

I look down at my hands as I wring my fingers together. “The man who saved you, he’s a good man?”

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