Gravel crunched beneath advancing footsteps. Something heavy landed beside her head, followed by the sound of a zipper.
“Pass along our gratitude to Señor McGregor,” Jefe said, maintaining his twenty-foot distance. “We look forward to more business from him.”
Sorry, ese. Larry McGregor’s doing business with the Chief of Hell.
Van lowered, his breaths near, and she curled tighter into a ball as if his proximity had conditioned her to do so.
“It’s not all here.” Van huffed. “This wasn’t the agreed price.”
What the fuck was he doing? He had no idea what was negotiated.
The man who had approached with the money treaded away, only to return a moment later. A second bag dropped on the ground.
“My mistake,” Jefe said. “Now take it and go.”
Well played, Van. Had he not questioned the payment, they would’ve known he was a fraud. Her eyes drifted closed behind the blindfold, but her relief was short-lived.
The bags lifted, and Van’s presence retreated. She clung to the sound of his diminishing footfalls, aching for him to turn around.
Don’t go.
What if there were too many guards and the operation was bigger than she’d estimated? What if this was all for nothing? Her surveillance had uncovered dozens of low-life scumbags like Larry McGregor. Men living normal lives—when they weren’t stealing young girls and selling them to…who?
She’d imagined an operation like Mr. E’s. Small and efficient with a network of Larrys on one end and buyers on the other. But five men had been sent to collect her. Five! How many were waiting at her destination? They could be gangsters, snuff filmographers, drug lords, chainsaw massacrers…
Van’s Mustang growled to life, and the tires skidded. Leaving.
She was alone. Outnumbered. She didn’t know what they looked like, what they were armed with, or who they worked for. And now they owned her. They could do whatever the hell they wanted to her.
Sweat pooled beneath her braless breasts as the rumble of Van’s car faded into silence. There was no turning back. It was done.
“He’s headed your way,” Jefe said.
Dread churned in her gut. Who was he talking to? Someone on the phone?
“No, let him pass,” Jefe said. “Just make sure he gets on the interstate. We’ll wait.”
Van was smart. He would know if someone followed him, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t try to come back for her.
Her stomach clenched. With her hands bound behind her and miserably numb, she couldn’t remove the blindfold. Only slightly less bothersome were the strands of hair stuck in her mouth. She tried to spit them out as she tracked the creaking of leather, the fall of heavy boots.
She’d expected a gang of uneducated hoodlums to fall upon her with grabby hands and verbal threats. But they remained silent. Disciplined. Like an army of professionals. Somehow, this was worse.
She dragged herself to her feet, teetering on shaky legs. “C-can someone…r-r-remove my blindfold?”
Well, that sounded effectively timid.
The air shifted in front of her face. She stopped breathing. Someone was there, close enough to touch a fingertip to her forehead.
She recoiled, but the hand stayed with her, trailing over the blindfold, down her cheek, and freeing the hair stuck to her lips. Her pulse raced, and the muscles in her neck strained against the pressure to hold still. She burned to slam her head forward and break his fucking nose.
Give him a weak little girl. Let him believe you’re not a threat.
“Please don’t t-touch me.” She bunched her shoulders to her ears and tucked her chin to her chest.
Brushing the strands from her cheek, his finger followed the line of her jaw, pressed beneath her chin, and forced her face skyward.
She didn’t have to pretend to be scared. The reminder that this man bought and sold humans was enough to get her throat working, her fear bobbing in her exposed neck.
The finger on her face disappeared, and metal clicked behind her. She jerked. Too late.
A slim ring of steel snapped around her forearm. More clicks, and the manacle cinched tighter. A handcuff.
He slid it down her arm, securing it above the rope on her wrists. Where was the second cuff?
Her answer came when he gripped her arm and the metal on his wrist clanked against hers. Her pulse thrashed in her ears.
What kind of man was she handcuffed to? Was he young or old? Covered in scars? Did he fuck his victims after he killed them?
“Let me go.” She raised her voice several octaves and pulled against the restraints. “I won’t tell anyone. I haven’t even seen your faces.”
She shook her body, hoping her freak-out was believable. Inside, she was frozen with terror, but showing her emotions didn’t come natural for her.
“I wouldn’t fight him, puta.” Jefe’s accent issued from farther away. “He bites.”
An image flashed through her mind of an oversized man with a boar’s face and dribbling tusks. And I’m handcuffed to him.
“Get away.” She blindly kicked his legs, snarling as she clawed at the hand on her arm. “I want to go home. Please don’t do this.”
In a flash, he shifted in front of her and wrapped an arm around her thighs. Her feet lost contact with the ground, and she was lifted up, up, and over his shoulder. She landed upside down, her face against the cotton on his back, and her wrists locked to one of his behind her.
No amount of bucking and kicking would dislodge the hand on her ass or the other one attached to her wrist. But she struggled anyway, which only worked her panties into her butt crack and hitched the t-shirt halfway up her back.
Blood rushed to her head, and hard-packed muscle flexed beneath her. Jesus fucking Christ, maybe he was an oversized boar-man.
He carried her a short distance, tossed her onto a long bench seat, and pulled her to sit upright. Leather stuck to her thighs, and rubber mats met her feet.
The boar sat beside her, his shackled arm tucked between her tailbone and the seat back.
“Let’s go,” Jefe said through the open door on the other side. Then he slid in next to her, his body pinning her against the boar.
Doors slammed shut, and the Range Rover shot forward, bumping along uneven ground.
With the t-shirt rucked around her waist, the cool air from the vent pebbled goose bumps across her thighs. She squeezed her knees together, hating how she couldn’t use
her arms—to pull down the shirt, to work the blood back into her hands, to stab her fingers in their eyes.
She’d chosen modest navy-blue panties because they resembled swimsuit bottoms. I’ve worn less at the beach. But it didn’t make her feel any less exposed.
“Where are you taking me?” She tightened her arms against her sides as pins and needles penetrated the numbness in her fingers.
There were at least three men in the car. The driver and the two on either side of her. Yet no one spoke. As unnerving as it was, it made sense. If she escaped or was sold, their anonymity would protect them.
“I can’t feel my hands.” She squirmed between them and amped up the spasmodic sound of her whimpering. “What do you want from me?”
Jefe gripped her neck and angled her face in his direction. “Shut up.”
She considered throwing a spastic fit until the bite of cold steel touched her cheek. A knife? She made a noise in the back of her throat and squeezed her eyes shut, letting her body go limp in the collar of his hand.
The dull edge slid across her cheekbone, gliding upward and slipping beneath the blindfold. With a flick of his wrist, he cut through the scarf and pulled it away.
Her heart pounded as she squinted through the darkness and found Jefe’s black eyes watching her from the narrow opening of a black ski mask.
There was nothing noteworthy about those eyes. Were they even black? Hard to tell in the shadows of the car’s interior.
He tightened his grip on her throat, stopping her from turning her head. The mask covered his hair, face, and throat. A glance downward revealed an average-sized physique in a nondescript t-shirt. He could’ve been anyone.
Beyond the heavily tinted windows, murky fields blurred beneath a starless sky. Which direction were they headed?
His gaze flicked over her shoulder and locked on the other man. Then he shoved her head between her knees.
What the fuck? Bent in half, she got a good view of her filthy feet. They looked so tiny and sad between the men’s rugged boots.
She turned her neck to get a glimpse of the boar, but the fall of her hair blocked her line of sight. Fuck.