Page 10 of Keeping My Captive

He’s finding all of this oddly amusing while I’m over here trying not to lose my shit, thinking there is a ghost out there haunting me. I stand up abruptly, knocking over the chair I was sitting in. Moving towards the glass, I point with a trembling finger at the ghost on the stage. “Her face,” I whisper.

Thiago’s eyes widen as he watches me intently. He’s probably never seen me this on edge before, about to lose my shit. I try to always remain calm, regularly masking my inner thoughts, like I’m constantly in a game of poker in this fucked-up world we live in where one wrong move can get you killed.

“Her face. I need to see her goddamn face!” I demand almost in a panic. What I don’t add is that I need to make sure it’s not the face of my dead mother or sisters.

Thiago stares up at me, confused. “Okay, okay,” he concedes before he quickly types something onto the keyboard.

I watch through the window anxiously as the guard checks his radio before grabbing the woman’s arm in a bruising grip. She’s still on the floor, and I can see his lips moving as he instructs her on what to do. She just lays there, not moving, not listening. Finally, the guard forces her into a standing position, swinging her around to our viewing window. Then, he roughly brushes her long, dark hair away, revealing her face.

As if sensing me staring at her, the young woman looks directly at me even though it’s impossible for her to see into the room. A lump lodges itself in my throat, and I’m finding it hard to swallow or even breathe at this point. Those piercing amber eyes of hers seem to somehow focus on me, and I can’t seem to tear my gaze away.

“Hermosa,” Thiago comments.

Beautiful.No. Beautiful isn’t even enough to describe someone like her. She looks like a broken angel, fallen to the earth, displaced from her otherworldly home. Almost too perfect to be real.

The guard releases her, and the woman stares through the window before elegantly raising her middle finger and flipping me the bird. I can’t help the smile that stretches across my mouth as Thiago roars in laughter behind me.

The gesture earns her a verbal reprimand from the guard, and then the connection we shared is severed as he forces her to stand facing in another direction.

“United States origin. Twenty-one. Certified virgin,”the robotic voice says over the speakers in the wall.“We’ll start the bidding at…one-hundred thousand dollars.”

The bidding takes off quickly; and before I can even blink, it’s over a million.

Thiago points to his screen. “That bastard,” he says with a chuckle.

“What?” I ask, reluctantly tearing my eyes away from the girl to go take a glance at the computer monitor. I realize it shows the number of bidders and how much each one has bid on a particular woman. Number ten is lit up with the current max bid.

“This is the fourth virgin he’s bid on in the past few months.”

“Who?”

“I dunno. Damion something.”

So much for anonymity at The Island,I think to myself.

“I actually feel sorry for the girl,” Thiago continues. “I heard that he tortures and kills them after he brutally rapes them. He brags about it all the time to the others.” He shakes his head solemnly. “I’ve even seen some pictures of the aftermath. Fucking gruesome. He’s one sick son of a bitch.”

My blood boils at his words, and the nagging memory of that fateful night hits me with full force once again. Enraged, I grab Thiago by the collar of his shirt and force his beady eyes to look at me. “Why did you bring me here?” I hiss at him. Does he somehow know about my fucked-up past? Is he doing this to hurt me, to fucking destroy me?

“I-I-I thought you would enjoy it!” he stammers with fear in his eyes.

“Enjoy it?” I say through clenched teeth. I’m two seconds away from ripping out his fucking throat and leaving him to bleed out on the dirty floor.

“Si!The girls here are exceptional. You can simply look…or buy. You could buy yourself a sex slave!”

“You think I need to pay for pussy?” I ask with a glare, barely containing myself from strangling him to death.

“No, no, of course not!” His hands cover mine when I grip his throat. “Por favor, Mateo!” he cries out. “It was my mistake!”

“The current bid is at two million dollars for the premier choice,”the robotic voice announces.

Suddenly, I release him and take a step back. My eyes go to the girl on the center stage. Even though she can’t see anyone through the mirrored glass, she flips everyone the bird. She’s screaming something, but I can’t hear her words.

The guard comes back and thrusts a long cattle prod in between her ribs. Her entire body shudders from the electric shock, and she collapses to her knees.

None of the other women even came close to defying their captors. They probably knew what would come as a result of their misbehavior. This woman doesn’t seem to be scared of anything even though her fate lies in the balance of everyone in this building.

“This doesn’t bode well for her. Damion likes when they fight,” Thiago says in barely a whisper.

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