“Y-yes.”
“Show me.”
She turned to run again, but he was too fast. He pressed her against the wall and pulled her panties down while he shoved her skirt up and awkwardly aimed her body into the light. She thrashed and fought him. She expected he’d throw her down and violate her, but after he found proof of what she’d said, he covered her back up.
“You may be the luckiest dumb slut in the world.” His arm went around her throat, pressing, pushing her consciousness down a dark well until the world shrank to a tiny pinpoint of light, then blinked out of existence.
Faith didn’t expect to wake up. She especially didn’t expect to wake up unclothed in a bathtub of water, with her pursuer—now captor—sitting on the closed toilet lid, staring down at her. She struggled to cover herself.
“You don’t gotta worry about me. You’re not my type.” He motioned to some soap in a dish on the rim of the tub. “Clean yourself up. If you smell like a sewer, even Leo won’t have mercy on you.” He flipped open a cheap burner phone. “Pray this goes in your favor.”
His eyes didn’t waver from Faith as he dialed. The call connected, and his features softened, breaking out into a smile that made him almost attractive. If he hadn’t been trying to kill her, that is.
“Leo!” he said.
Faith took the soap from the dish, too scared not to do whatever he asked. She tried to ignore her nudity, focusing instead on the man’s conversation.
“… yeah, it’s been awhile. I’ve been busy. Listen, I have something here you might be interested in—think of it as an early Christmas present. Remember what you told me last time I was out there? That thing you’d have if it weren’t for your moral code?… I’m not suggesting that… Stop and listen for a goddamn minute, Leo. I had to fire one of my crew tonight. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been, but I’ve got someone doing cleanup now. There was a witness. She’s your type. Redhead. Slender. Big green eyes and full lips. I don’t know what it is with you and Irish bitches, but she’s perfect for you. You can have what you wanted. All you have to do is come collect her.”
There was a long pause where Faith heard indiscernible shouting on the other side of the phone.
“Calm the fuck down. Look, what you do with her once you get her is up to you. But if you don’t take her, she’s dead. If you let her go, you know I’ll find her, and once again, she’s dead. Her life is in your hands, and once you see her, I know you’ll take her. I’m doing you a favor, giving you what you want, and saving her life. I’m a regular saint. I could have shot the slut… yeah, I’m at the house… Yeah, well don’t pretend your hands are clean. You may not be in the family business, but you know where the money came from. Don’t forget that… Honest business my ass… You couldn’t have started that business without your family. Now get down here.”
Awful images flashed through her mind, even worse than the scene of the murder she’d witnessed or the recent threat of death. He was going to prostitute her out. She just knew it. What then? Would she be passed around until she was used up and then left in a gutter? Faith wrapped her arms more tightly around her body. Despite his personal lack of interest, she’d never felt so exposed.
He closed the phone, his gaze raking over her, assessing her like a horse he might sell. “You’re a lot more trouble than you’re worth. My brother is an ungrateful ass.”
The bathroom door opened and another attractive man in a slick suit walked in. Faith rushed to cover herself.
“The fuck?” the man said, spotting her in the tub.
“Relax, baby. She’s for Leo.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled. “Did you think I’d switched teams?” He turned hard eyes back on Faith. “Get out. You’re as clean as you’re getting.”
He held out a robe and she stepped into it, trying to figure a way out of this mess.
If this guy Leo saved her, it wouldn’t make her safe.
2
Leo stared at the phone in his hand, not sure what to think. Myriad emotions rolled through him: disgust, guilt, excitement. The guilt was premature. The disgust was warranted. The excitement was the problem. As repulsed as he was by his brother’s twisted gift, his cock had twitched in his pants the moment the scenario had unfolded over the phone. He hadn’t seen her yet, and already he was fantasizing about his very own slave, existing only to please and obey his every sexual whim.
Angelo ran a crew out in Brooklyn now. He wasn’t bluffing. He’d kill her. The family didn’t like having to kill women and avoided it whenever they could, but Angelo’s dick didn’t swing in that direction, which made a woman just another man to him. He was the least likely to hesitate, the least likely to give a shit what kind of genitalia his victim had.
Bad luck for the girl.
Leo was the first person Angelo had come out to. His brother had worried the others wouldn’t follow him if they knew, but it had turned out to be a nonissue. He was so brutal, his orientation didn’t make the slightest difference in the level of respect he could command. And Uncle Sal hadn’t blinked when he’d promoted him. All he cared was that Angelo was a big earner and family.
In a drunken moment of twin-bonding and secret-telling, Leo had confessed his own alternative sexual leanings—a choice which in hindsight may have been a mistake, given the way his brother’s mind operated.
Leo had had a few long-term kinky relationships. They’d gone okay, and they’d ended without much trouble, but the thing he wanted was the thing he’d never been able to have: a true slave.
Could he do the things he fantasized about? It was one thing to wank to it; it was another to do it. She was a living, breathing human being. Frightened. Losing everything in her life. Could he be that callous and cold? Did he have a strong enough moral leash to stop himself?
Angelo’s words echoed in his mind: What you do with her once you get her is up to you.
Easier said than done. Once she was in his care, dependent on him and vulnerable, would he be able to resist training her? Taking her? He doubted he had such saintly self-control. Going to his brother’s home guaranteed he’d become as amoral as Angelo. But if he didn’t show up, she’d be in the harbor before dawn.
Angelo opened the door on the first knock and Leo stepped inside. Chaos greeted him: a broken vase, smashed bottles on the floor, upturned tables. In the midst of the maelstrom, sat the girl in a white bathrobe, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Bruises were forming at various points on exposed flesh, while blood dripped onto a towel from her feet.
“For God’s sake, Ange, what did you do to her?”
Her head jerked in the direction of his voice, and a sharp pain jabbed at his chest. Even so, seeing her bound state aroused him. It shouldn’t, but it did. How could he go through with this? His brother had backed him into a corner, and a part of him wished Angelo had killed the girl without Leo ever knowing of her.
Angelo shrugged. “She struggled. I almost thought, ‘to hell with it’, and killed her, but I knew you’d be upset. Look her over, see if you want her. Makes no difference to me one way or the other.”