Page 25 of Sinful Honor

“His own supply?” I was sounding like a parrot. I’d encountered slavery. Encountered human trafficking all over the world. I knew this. But I hadn’t expected to find it here. In my family. Hadn’t expected my uncle to be that deranged.

“Allegedly, he never keeps them long—just long enough to break them.” Christo shrugged. “Most of them die. At least, those are the rumors.”

Fuck me.

The car stopped, and I looked outside into the grinning face of my overweight but tiny uncle. He’d lost his black hair, and he’d aged much more than I’d expected—testament to an unhealthy lifestyle.

Slaves…

I waited until Cristo was outside before stepping out, as well.

I swiveled and scanned all the feasible positions for a sniper attack. Braced myself for the glint of the sun hitting the barrel or the scope.

But I found none.

So, my uncle would use something more underhanded to kill me.

But I had my guard up.

This was a battle of who was the most sly and the most ruthless.

And to survive, I had to be.

My last thirteen years had trained me for exactly this.

I had forty-nine black lines tattooed on my thigh.

Forty-nine kills.

Forty-nine lives I’d ended.

And it wouldn’t stop there.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Before the evening came—and they came to get me—this day had seemed endless.

I’d gotten used to my cuffs. Gotten used to lying in my cage because it wasn’t even high enough to sit.

The marks from yesterday had almost started to disappear—at least the ones where the skin didn’t break.

The good thing was nobody took me for another whipping or commanded me to suck someone’s dick.

The bad thing was they handed me a see-through gown—and started a different kind of torture.

When I thought the Ape couldn’t take any more from me than he’d already taken, he found another way to torment me—not hurt me physically but mentally.

So here I was, in the Ape’s huge dining room, that could easily be used to hold a ball because of the sheer size and grandiosity of it. Though right now, it was filled with men in black suits standing around the long and extravagantly set dinner table talking in Italian. They looked dangerous, though most of them seemed as if they’d enjoyed their mamma’s pasta a little too much.

And I?

I was serving the Ape’s guests in this thing that wouldn’t be considered decent even as a beach throw-over, my naked body visible, including the angry red welts painted all over my body.

My eyes were glued to the floor when I served drinks, like an automaton.

I was broken. Dead inside.

“Thank you.”

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