Page 68 of Savage Love

“None of your fucking business,” the man tells me, his gaze raking over me again. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get to see her again before the boss is done with what he’s got planned.”

I feel a cold chill at that, down to my bones. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He grins, reaching down to adjust himself as he looks at me. “You know,” he adds conversationally, as if I weren’t tied to a chair in the middle of a room with a gun pointed at me, “I think you’re the prettier of the two. The other one looks like she’d bite your dick off, but you—” he licks his lips. “You look like you’d suck it real good.”

“Don’t bet on it,” I snap at him. “What have you done with my sister?”

“Me? Nothing. Diego said we can’t touch the two of you, more’s the pity. Something to do with buyers and all that, although I don’t see what it matters, since neither of you are virgins. But boss man’s orders are orders.” He grins again. “He said you were the priority. He’s gonna be real fucking pleased that we managed to grab you both.”

“So you do have Isabella.” I feel sick at the thought. I’d seen her grabbed before I passed out, but I’d had some small hope that she might have fought her way free, that somehow she might have avoided this fate. There’s a possibility that the man is lying to rile me up—there’s always that possibility—but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I think he’s telling the truth.

“Diego is gonna be fucking thrilled,” he repeats, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Real fucking happy to get his hands on both of the sisters who made a fool of him. That’s all he talks about, how much he hates the both of you. How you made a fool out of him. Not what I’d say in front of the men who work for me—but hey, maybe that’s why I don’t have men who work for me.” He laughs, a deep, rolling laugh from his gut, as if he’s said something especially funny.

I don’t laugh, and that seems to piss him off. He stands up, striding towards me, the gun in one hand. Somehow—maybe because I know Diego will have plans for me, and that means this man can’t actually hurt me—I manage not to flinch when he stops right in front of me and grabs my chin between meaty fingers.

“It’s a real fucking shame he won’t let us do anything to you girls,” the man growls. “I’d show you what happens when you don’t laugh at a man’s jokes.” He lifts the gun, pushing the muzzle against my lips, and this time Ican’tflinch, because the terror that spreads through me is so absolute. Diego might have given them orders not to hurt me, but that can’t save me from an idiot with a shaky trigger finger. It also can’t help me if I move and startle him.

“I’d make you wrap those pretty lips around this gun, see how well you suck it off,” he hisses. “And then, if your face was still in one piece, you could do a repeat performance on my cock.” His hand slides down, rubbing himself lewdly. “Either way, I’d be coming in your pretty mouth.”

I think I’m going to throw up. The only thing that keeps me from it is knowing what could happen if I do, and the fact that I have no idea how long I’m stuck here for, how long I could be sitting here in my own vomit.

“Hugo, what thehellare you doing?” Another voice comes from the doorway, and this time I do flinch. I can’t help it, and I brace myself for the gunshot, for the oblivion that comes after, especially when I feel Hugo jerk too, the gun twitching against my mouth.

God help me. This is not how I want to die.

“Get that out of her fucking face.” The man who stalks towards us is thinner than Hugo, but with an air of authority that Hugo doesn’t have, an intelligence in his face that the one standing in front of me is missing. “Diego’s plane just landed. He’s going to want to see them. Come thefuckon, and don’t fucking try me, or I’ll tell him I caught you with your gun to the face of the one he wants the most.”

The thinner man circles around me as he speaks, cutting through the ropes tying me to the chair. “And you used ropes, not plastic ties, on her wrists. Fuck, man. You better fucking hope she doesn’t have burns—”

“She just woke up,” Hugo says defensively. “She didn’t have time to struggle.”

The thinner man ignores him, pulling me up from the chair and looking me over in a detached sort of way, without any of the lewdness that Hugo had on his face. He pushes the sleeves of my t-shirt up, inspects my arms, lifts the hem, and checks my thighs for marks, all with a clinical detachment that tells me he’s more worried about Diego being pissed than he is about any attraction he might feel for me.

“Go get the other one,” he snaps at Hugo. “I’ll handle her.”

And with that, I’m marched out of the room.

“Don’t bother struggling,” he tells me as he leads me down a hallway. “Just get in the car like a good girl, and you’ll see your sister soon—for a few minutes, anyway. If you struggle, I’ll have to drug you again, and I don’t think you’ll like that. For one thing, they used a cloth for the sake of time. I’ll put a needle in your neck, right in a vein, and you’ll sleep like the dead until you wake up. Feels way shittier when you come to.”

Another wave of nausea hits me, and despite the fact that everything in mescreamsthat I should be fighting back, trying to escape, I walk with him, doing my best to keep up with his pace even as my muscles cramp and my numb feet trip over each other from what I can only imagine are the lingering aftereffects of the drug.

I’m not dead yet. I am, as far as I’m aware, not out of Boston yet. And if there’s the slightest chance that I can make it out of this, I have my baby to think about. I can’t risk this man drugging me again and increasing the chance that something might happen to them.

So I do my best to keep pace with him, and I don’t fight. I get into the car, my stomach knotting and heart sinking, because it feels like doing so is another step further away from safety, further away from the chance that I’ll ever see Levin again.

The only thing that keeps me from dissolving into a complete panic is both the hope that the man is telling the truth, that I’ll see Isabella again soon, and that if I fall apart, there’s a chance that he might drug me anyway.

The car ride feels like it takes an eternity. I sit stiffly in the back, my hands bound in front of me with a plastic tie, not too tight to cut off circulation, but tight enough that I’m well aware that I’m at someone else’s mercy. I have no doubt that it’s intentional. When the car pulls up in front of a large house, the man who took me out of the warehouse opens the door and reaches for my wrists, pulling me unceremoniously out of the car.

“Don’t struggle,” he warns me again. “Diego will be angry if I have to subdue you, and he has to wait. It won’t be me that he takes it out on.”

Fear pools in my stomach, because the way he says it makes it sound as if Diego intends to hurt me. As if he’d beokaywith hurting me, and a lot of my courage is coming from the idea that Diego still sees me as having some value, that he has plans for me. That I have time, and I’ll be physically okay for a little while, still.

The house appears to be a mansion, one that has either been taken over by Diego or acquired for him, and I’d honestly be willing to place bets on either. I’m marched into a large room that looks as if it’s used as a study, with bookshelves lining the walls and a huge desk, and my stomach cramps with fear as I see Diego sitting behind it—the first time I’ve seen him since the afterparty following the auction that Levin bought me from.

That feels like a lifetime ago. Like it happened to an entirely different person.

He stands up, setting the cigar that he was smoking aside and dusting his hands off on his chinos as he rounds the desk and walks toward me. “Elena Santiago.” Diego makes atsking sound with his tongue as he comes to stand in front of me. “Jorge, give me a moment with her. You can check on Hugo, make sure he hasn’t gotten too handsy with the other one. I expect her here in a few moments as well.”

---