Page 106 of Cruel Debts
"Get the car, Hawke, and get it fast." I yanked off the tourniquet on my arm and ripped the sleeve off from the shoulder, turning it into a makeshift pressure bandage. "Liam, come hold this for me while I strap it down."
He put his hand on the wadded-up cloth chunk and pressed, knowing to ignore my hiss of pain as I made quick work of the belt to secure it in place. With the bleeding staunched, and not just slowed, I pulled Trinity's phone out, hoping we could get something useful off of it.
But the screen was shattered. It didn't even respond to touch. And it looked like someone had tried to put it in a garbage disposal, or run it over, from the depths of the gouge marks in the case.
It was a miracle it was still in one piece.
"Remind me to get her this exact same case, so she'll never break another phone as long as she lives," I told Liam, refusingto entertain the idea that we were too late. That we might not find her. Anything that allowed me to live in the delusion that it was a guarantee that she'd come home with us was worth playing into in my opinion.
Until I found her, untilwefound her, and she was back where she belonged. Where she'd always belonged.
With us.
FORTY-FOUR
TRINITY
"You getyour hands off me, you big ape! I saidleave me alone!"
I kicked the asshole trying to take my clothes off in the balls for what had to be the third time tonight, and with a curse, he threw the stupid lingerie set at me and stormed off, holding his dick like it might fall off.
I hoped it would. I hoped I kicked it hard enough to make it swell to three times its normal size and turn purple, so no woman would ever fuck him again, and he'd never fuck another woman, either.
Men like him didn't deserve to breathe air. They deserved a long walk off a short pier, into shark-infested waters. Or crocodile-infested ones. Like the Dread River.
"Listen here, you ignorant bitch," the second guy spat, moving from the girl he was currently intimidating into putting on the skimpy shit he had in his hands, "you either put on the clothes, or we shoot you and take your skin for the leather trade." His gun flashed at his hip as he moved his coat out of the way in warning. "I'm pretty good with this thing."
Unfortunately, my hands were bound, and I was currently chained to three other girls, so I couldn't exactly run, or slip hisgun out of his possession. Moving me meant moving them, and half of them were drugged, dosed, or dying inside. A lot of these girls—because that was all they were, when it boiled down to it, was girls—were already broken. They obeyed without argument, without protest, without resistance, knowing what awaited them at the other end of this fiasco.
Death, slavery, sexual abuse, or torture.
There was no escape once the chains went on, as my chain gang neighbor had warned me when they put me in line. It was smarter to not fight so you could live longer. If you wanted to, that was.
I wanted to live. The boys would come for me, I was sure. And if they didn't, then I'd just have to make sure I made my own opportunity for escape.
I wouldn't be someone's pet for the rest of my life. I wouldn't be sold at auction for some old man to fuck and whore out to his friends for political favors. I wouldn't be someone's slave. Someone's captive.
I was Trinity fucking McCoy. My brother taught me better than to roll over and give up.
But boy, when that gun barrel pressed against my temple, it was tempting to do just that.
"I said put the damn clothes on, you fucking whore," the asshole said, the click of the barrel cocking echoing in the silence of the room. "Now pick them up, and get moving, dammit."
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and put on my best impression of an heiress, because that was what I was. "If you knew who I was, you wouldn't put that gun against my head and threaten me."
"Oh, is that so?" He pulled the gun away an inch, cocking his head as he leaned over and regarded me like I was stupid. "And just who do we have here? The Princess of Wales?"
"You ever hear of McCoy Oil Industries?" I tossed my damp hair back from my face as well as I could manage without my full range of motion, and grinned proudly. "I'm the sole heiress of the company."
"Oh, look, you guys, an oil mogul's daughter." He laughed, which prompted his buddies to laugh, too, before he hit me on the back of the head hard enough to force compliance, but not hard enough to knock me out. "Guess what, princess? We don't care who the fuck you are, okay? So why don't you just get your ass in gear and get those clothes on, before I let one of the others dress you like the little bimbo you are."
I didn't want any of their hands on me, so I did as I was told this time, my hands shaking a little as I did up the laces on the sides of the cheap bikinis they passed off as underwear.
I waited until they all left the room before I sank to the floor and sobbed, finally realizing I was powerless to prevent any of this from happening.
There would be no escape. I was out of my element. My name meant nothing to them. And without the guys, I was fucked.
And I wasn't even sure if Liam even heard my voicemails.
