Coe turns and locks eyes with me as he nods. “You got it. We’ll be waiting.”
He hangs up and shoves the phone back into the pocket of his jeans as he turns to Sandman, Butters, and Hijack. Tilting his head toward the door, he silently orders them to follow him, and they all jump up from their seats and head outside. As soon as the door closes behind them, I suck in a breath. I’d like to jump up and peek out of the window to see what’s going on, but if they come back into this room and I’m not on the bed, Coe will have no problem slapping me around to remind me of who is in charge here. Holding my breath, I close my eyes and focus on trying to make out any part of their conversation through the door, but they must have gone far enough away so that I couldn’t overhear anything.
I don’t like it.
Anytime there has been a change in plans since I was knocked out in the alley behind The Java Zone, it has spelled out bad news for me.
The door opens, and I open my eyes as they all file back in. Butters and Hijack begin going around and gathering up things that have been scattered around the room during the days we’ve been here while Sandman grabs a rag and begins wiping down every surface in the room.
“Up,” Coe orders, stopping next to the edge of the bed, and when I don’t move fast enough, he grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet. I can’t get them under me fast enough, and they tangle together as I fall into his chest. His fingers dig into my arm in annoyance, and I know there will be fresh bruises there soon. Not like that’s anything new, though. I’m covered in bruises of varying ages from my time here. My shirt gapes open from where he cut it down the middle and I try desperately to bring the two pieces together to cover myself as he begins dragging me toward the door.
“What are you doing?”
He glances over at me as I struggle against his hold, desperate to avoid whatever is waiting on the other side of that door and smiles. “That was Geno on the phone. Told us to move you to a new location where we can make your stay with us a little more . . . permanent.”
“No,” I whisper, jerking against his iron grip as my heart climbs into my throat. All of this, the past five days, has been bad enough. I don’t want to know what Geno is going to do to me or allow his men to do to me if I leave this hotel room and he takes me somewhere new. As much as it pains me to admit it, he was right when he told me it could get worse, and that’s something I don’t want to learn first-hand ever again. Coe stops halfway across the room and turns to me, lowering his head until he is right in my face.
“Yes. Your defiance has convinced Geno that he needs to take up a more active role in your life, and you best believe, you stupid little cunt, that we will break you. The boys and I have all sorts of ideas that we can’t wait to test out.”
The hatred in his eyes stuns me, but in a moment of clarity, I realize this is it. This is my moment. Because if I go along with this, if I allow them to move me to a new location, it’s over for me. I’ll never escape these men or whatever fresh new hell they have planned to bend me to their will.
With that thought running in a loop through my mind, I ignore the protests of my maltreated body and kick Coe in the shin as hard as I can. He lets out a yelp, and his grip on my arm loosens enough that I’m able to rip it free. Feeling emboldened, I shove him away from me, and as he stumbles back, I race toward the door, praying with everything I have that I can make it. My muscles are screaming at the exertion after days of sitting or lying around in bed, but I don’t care. If I can manage to get away, if I can make it free of these assholes, then I can deal with the aftermath of this ordeal.
Right now, the only thing that matters is surviving.
Relief floods my body as I reach out for the door handle, my salvation in sight, but then pain slices through my head as I’m jerked back by my hair so hard that I fall to the floor. Coe stands over me, his nostrils flaring and his lips pulled back in a snarl.
“You dumb fucking bitch,” he hisses, his hands shaking as he reaches into his pocket and pulls his knife out, flipping it open with ease. “You will fucking pay for that.”
“Coe,” Hijack bites out, a warning clear in his tone, but Coe doesn’t even spare him a glance. “Geno will kill you if you do anything without his order.”
Coe finally looks up at the man and narrows his eyes into a menacing glare. “Shut the fuck up and get that shit out to the truck. I’ll deal with Geno.”
During my time with these men, it’s become clear to me that when Geno isn’t around, Coe is in charge. So, Hijack doesn’t argue with him, simply sighing as he grabs a duffel bag of items he collected from around the room and heads toward the door. I turn away from him as he grabs the doorknob and focus my attention back on Coe. The man is flipping the damn knife back and forth, just like he did before he raped me for the first time, with a smile on his face, and I can see the pain he wants to inflict on me playing out in his eyes.
“Oh, fuck.” The shrill cry of one of Geno’s men pulls both mine and Coe’s attention to the open door of the motel room.
Bang.
The sound is deafening, and time seems to stall as I stare at the empty doorway waiting for an explanation, but Coe jumps into action, flicking the knife closed and shoving it back into his pocket as he pulls a gun from the waistband of his jeans with his other hand.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
“Motherfucker,” he hisses, crouching down and creeping over to the doorway to peek out into the parking lot. He pokes his head out quickly before ducking back behind the wall and snapping his fingers at Butters and Sandman. “We’ve got company.”
The other two men file in behind him in a line, both of them pulling guns out of their waistbands, and he glances back, meeting their gazes before he clocks the piece in each of their hands and nods.
“Hijack is hit. Butters, you go right, and Sandman, go left. On my count . . .”
Coe begins counting down from three, simply holding up one finger when he gets to that number, and then they file out of the room, Butters breaking off to the right and Sandman going left past the window as Coe runs straight out the door before I lose sight of all three of them. Once I’m finally alone, I scramble to my hands and knees and crawl in between the two beds, wedging myself up against the bed closest to the door. I know nothing about Geno, his men, or who they might be involved with, and I’m fucking terrified that whoever is out there is far worse than they are.
The thought pulls a sardonic laugh out of me as I hug my knees to my chest again and slowly rock back and forth. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be worse than a father who spent days beating the shit out of me before letting his men violate my body endlessly. But I’ve certainly learned my lesson the hard way when it comes to thinking things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
More gunshots ring out, and my heart thunders in my ears as I eye the space under the bed. It isn’t very big, but maybe I could squeeze under there to hide. Of course, if whoever is out there comes in here to search the room, it’s the first place they’ll look.
Shit.
Closing my eyes, I visualize the room in my mind, but there isn’t any better alternative for me to hide. I open my eyes and look at the space under the bed again. It isn’t a good option, but without anything better, I don’t see what choice I have. The world falls silent, and I hiss out a curse.