Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(15)

But the time I’m awake and alone trudges by in the most painfully long increments.

I contort my body to follow the chain with my fingers all the way to the concrete wall it’s secured to and feel and pull, hoping it will give way. Of course it doesn’t. But I still try, just like I have every day.

If only I could see where I was. Get a bearing on my surroundings. Maybe I could see a tool or . . . I don’t know, something to help me get out of here. If I could get them to take the blindfold and chains off . . . I could play along if I had to. I could run if I got the chance.

I will kill to get away.

I feel like I’m still wearing the knee-high, flowy summer dress I had on the day they took me. And I’m grateful, even as I’m surprised, that none of them have put their hands on me . . . sexually.

Could I be in some way important?

I listen as what sounds like a door squeaks open. Heavy feet walk towards me and someone slowly and carefully begins to pull at the tape.

“Just rip it off, Pedro!” a gruff voice says in Spanish.

“Yes, like you would her dress!” The men laugh and jeer.

Once I’m free from the tape, I say, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

This is one English phrase that Pedro has learned from me. He’s quiet as he steps away and comes back with the bucket.

So miserably humiliating to urinate and shit in a bucket someone else is holding. He squeezes my arm carefully to steady me in my position over the bucket. He even lifts my dress, keeping it out of the way. This is his everyday job, but he’s being unusually quiet.

“Will you sing to me?” I hum to make sure he understands.

“No.”

I hum more, pushing through the fear his silent stance is generating inside me.

“No puedo cantar hoy,” he insists, and I can’t help but wonder what’s different about today, why he can’t sing. “Me siento triste.”

Why do you feel sad, Pedro? I want to ask desperately, but I’m not ready to reveal my ability to understand their language.

“Please?” I press. “How do you say that in Spanish? Poor favor?” I butcher the word purposely.

He sniffs and whimpers very slightly, as if he’s crying.

“I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”

“Terminado.” He sets me down on the bed without wiping me and grabs away the bucket with my sloshing waste. A moment later I hear his footfalls run out of the room.

The word freezes me in place. Terminado.

“I told you not to get attached to her,” one of the gruff men’s voices calls out in Spanish.

“You should have licked her * when you had the chance,” the other adds, and both men laugh raucously. It takes me a moment to translate that one in my head, and I have to school my features once I do so they can’t see my revulsion.

“She was supposed to go home!” Pedro shouts in an unexpected flash of emotion. “Not go with the others.”

The first man taunts, “Poor Pedro lost his girlfriend.”

The next thing I hear is a splash of liquid against the floor and the man’s laughter changes to the violent shouting of curse words, a few I’m not familiar with, but I get their meaning just fine.

“I’ll kill you, Pedro!” he screams in Spanish. “You threw her piss all over me!”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!”

“I won’t hurt her. Her buyer in Mexico City will hurt her. Why else do you think we have orders not to touch her?”

I shudder, but try to show nothing but confusion in my expression. I must be hiding my terror well enough because the man continues smoothly, revealing my fate to me without realizing it.

“No bruises, no cuts. The buyer wants her creamy white skin. That is why he pays Miguel so much money to buy her. Miguel will fix his problems with El Carnicero because of the drugs he lost. While the buyer gets a perfect girl to”—my mind races to translate this next word—despedacen. When I come up with the translation, I can’t help but whimper.

Tear to pieces.

“Poor, poor Pedro.”

Their words churn in the deepest recesses of my belly.

They never intended to send me home. They’re selling me! They kept me pristine so my buyer could do what he wanted with me . . .

Then murder me.



Anger. The final stage in my hostage’s handbook.

Since I’ve been held hostage, I’ve believed the gunman held my fate. And maybe he does.

But maybe, I hold his.



Ryder





“Cameras?” Briggs asks later when I brief him over the phone.

“Nothing that records. He doesn’t want anything he does there caught on film,” I explain. “There’s a live feed monitor only. I hacked into the wiring down the block to give you access. I also got a motion sensor so you can tap into the back stairwell to give me some extra eyes. It’s connected to the kitchen, which is poorly understaffed and used to deliver Miguel’s meals to his office, which is adjacent to his bedroom. The security is a joke.”

“What time are you going in?”

“Zero one hundred hours.”

“What’s your entrance strategy?”

“I already disabled the security for an overlooked window leading into the basement. The entire place has got great shrub coverage. The basement contains a storage pantry that leads into the kitchen—and thus the stairwell.”