Page 55 of Blind Devotion
I hated this boat, so goddamn much. I missed home. I missed my brother, my mother. I missed going to bed alone. I missed the protection of bodyguards not allowed to leer at me or touch me. I missed my pathetic life where I thought the worst thing was the rejection of the man I loved. Back when I let the menmake decisions for me because that was the world I grew up in. The men ruled the mafia. The women obeyed and smiled. All that ignorance had done was get me here. On this boat, with no one to care for me or protect me. With more horrors to live through every day until the time came when I finally chose to give up.
No one was coming to save me. I’d given up on that after the first two weeks. I wasn’t even certain when this all began. I’d long ago lost track of the days. Day counting meant remembering every disgusting, horrible moment. I counted men instead—the decent, the bad, the sick. How many there had been. How often each chose me. And when their time finished, I played the reel of my life before this place, over and over on a loop, until the sunshine beat its rays through the thunderclouds. Lately, the storm rampaged longer and stronger.
I stifled my tears. They would do me no good. The guests here always went hardest on the women who showed fear. The man at my back, the Albanian known as the Dreq, was said to be one of the worst.
He owned this boat and crew. He ran this operation and selected which guests were allowed on his yacht. Every once in a while, he selected a girl for himself, usually someone who had defied his long list of rules. He’d never chosen me before—the girls he did never lasted long after—but I’d been foolish this morning. I was caught sharing my breakfast with another girl who’d been deprived of food after a guest complained about her performance.
Six days ago, Tasya, the last girl he had chosen after she assaulted a guest, jumped overboard. She’d already been cut up and covered in blood by then.
They made us other girls watch her fate, knowing it could have been any of us. The men took turns playing target practice. I’d been hearing gunfire since I was little, so I didn’t flinch, but theother women cowered. They used guns first, then started lancing harpoons. The moment they scored a hit, they tossed out a large grappling hook and snared her. They dragged her back onboard, bleeding with bullet wounds and impaled. She was still alive when they hung her from the railing.
It wasn’t the best death, but at least she wasn’t suffering anymore.
With my father’s businesses, I knew it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been stuck in a whorehouse bed, drugged up on heroin, unable to think beyond the drugs, unable to move, dirty and disheveled, used and abused without a lucid thought.
It was odd to think I’d gotten lucky, but compared to that, this yacht was a palace. They still drugged us, but with barbiturates instead of opioids and only after a meeting with a client or on days when we each had no clients to service. The Dreq liked to spout that this was a classy place, that the clientele didn’t want a dead fish in bed. For that, I considered myself fortunate. Most of the girls didn’t feel that way.
I zoned out my first few times. The longer it went on, the easier it became to block out the men’s visits, to do what I had to do because I wanted to live. I made it into a choice for myself, one of the only ones I had. Either I chose to put myself out of my misery, or I survived through it. My choice. One day, there’d be an opportunity, and I’d take it. Until then, I endured. For myself and for the rest of the girls. We were all each other had.
Now, though, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue. The threat of the devil at my back as we tramped down this corridor might be just the thing to push me over the ledge.
I didn’t glance back at him as his hand landed on my shoulder and twisted me to face the main suite. I hesitated to cross the threshold, long enough for him to crowd me into the room while his hands grappled my body like that unforgiving three-pronged hook they used on Tasya. I hurried my steps forward to getaway, only to stop dead. The walls were black, but with the way sunlight shone through the sheer red curtains, the entire room held an eerie, demonic glow.
What lay in front of me could only be described as torture devices. Whips with metal ends, gags, masks, collars with interior metal teeth, rope, a cage, restraints dangling from the ceiling, a pillory stand. The list went on. Fetishes were one thing. The darkened stains in the pale carpet were another, as if he had not wanted to wash away the hurt and torment committed here.
I couldn’t stop the tremors racking my body. He drew closer, the heat from his presence uncomfortable. I couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t survive it. I’d be that girl jumping overboard for sure. I jerked away from him and lunged for the bathroom.
His voice lashed through the room. The thumping of his footsteps gonged behind me as I slammed the bathroom door shut and flipped the lock. The light flickered on, and for a moment, I stared at myself in the mirror. The long black hair I had once been so vain about was nothing but a frazzled dirty-blonde mess. My eyes were drawn and heavy, the green in them so empty they could have been gray. I was paler than I’d ever been, not a hint of my family’s golden Italian hue to my skin. I looked dead.
How much further was there for me to fall? What was the point? Why hadn’t I given in to the pull before?
The pounding at the door shoved me into action. I tore the drawers open as he yelled on the other side. I tossed bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, rubbing alcohol to the ground. There had to be something I could use. Cracks formed in the door with every bang. I frantically searched for something big, something heavy.
My hands wrapped around an electric razor. It would have to be enough. I backed away, my heels bumping against the bathtub. With everything I had—my fear, my anger, my hate—I threw it at the mirror. The glass didn’t break.
A panel of wood on the door flew off, the Dreq’s head backlit by the cabin chandelier. A devil in his true form. He yelled and cursed as he hammered against the door. His words promised pain. I blocked out his vile vows of what he planned to do to me.
I scrambled to the bathroom counter, the electric razor clenched tight in my fist. Again and again, I rammed it into the spiderweb crack in the mirror. Another panel of wood tore off the door and crashed to the floor. His hand dug through the hole and flipped the lock.
Once more, I hit the mirror. It shattered, finally, glass clattering everywhere. He was already reaching for me as I clutched onto a long, broken piece. The punch to my jaw landed faster than I could act, and my head snapped back. The shard of glass slipped out of my hand and clanged on the tile. Debris crunched under his boots.
His fist found my gut next before he slapped me hard, his ring splitting my lip open. Tears poured down my face as my shrill sobs drowned out his raspy voice. When he snatched my hair around his fist, I spat at him. I knew it would only anger him more, but maybe that was my way out. Instead, he twisted my hand behind my back until the bone nearly snapped and shoved me to the ground.
I landed right next to that shard of glass and tucked it beneath me. When he lifted me again by my hair, I didn’t waste the glass on myself. I rammed it up into his armpit.
His bellow made me quake. He slapped me again, and I tumbled out of his grip to the floor, over the bottles of bathroom products. Glass cut my arms, but I ignored the pain and twisted the bleach lid. The moment he snagged my top, I turned the bottle around to douse him head to toe. Some splashed on me, worse, in my eyes. It stung and burned as if they were melting from the outside in. I wiped at my face, screaming, distantly aware he was too.
It snapped me back to now. His men would come to check on him. I had to get out.
Tears streaming down my face, the room blurry, I ran. Past the bathroom door, past the bed, but his hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me back. I yelped as he spun me back and shoved me against one of the bedposts. His fingers squeezed my neck tightly. I couldn’t breathe. My head swam.
“Te hangert dreqi shpirtin,” he spat at me. May the devil eat your soul.
Months on this boat, I had learned a good bit of Albanian, especially those words. They were practically a ritual for him to say before he dealt a girl a killing blow.
The chandelier light glinted off the shard of glass that still hung from within his armpit in a blur of fluorescent colors. Blood dripped from it like a taunt. Hands shaking, I stretched for it.
Black spots swam around and on his face as I forced my burning eyes to stay on him. My fingers grazed the glass, and his death grip fell away when he switched hands. I sucked in a deep breath, sharp and almost painful, and finally I nudged the glass shard out. More blood flowed, but then his dominant hand wrapped around my fingers and the shard.
