Page 59 of Defending Mateo
But how was she supposed to hope for anything else?
When the door to the tiny room she’d been left in, similar to the one she’d been held in after she was sold and before Koa Rolland came to collect her, swung open, Ally gasped.
“Mateo,” she murmured as she ran toward him, ignoring the two men holding him between them, and the man dressed in the suit standing behind him. There were bruises covering more of his face than not, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. It was clear that Azure had beaten him, but she had no idea what that meant for either of their futures.
At least he was alive, that was something.
And he’d been brought to her. That had to mean something, too.
“Don’t need to worry about me, little mouse,” he reassured her, and his one good eye scanned her body as though searching for injuries.
“They didn't do anything to me,” she assured him. “Just brought me in here and left me.”
Giving her a small nod, Mateo tugged his arms free of the two men, swayed slightly, and leaned into her when she wrapped anarm around his waist and tried to brace his much larger body against her own.
“Okay, Griffin, you had your fun. Now tell me what you want for her,” Mateo said. Despite the fact that he had to be hurting, his voice was still strong and sure, confident, even though they didn't hold the position of power right now.
“You’ve thrown quite a spanner in the works, Mateo,” the man in the suit—Griffin apparently—said as he strolled into the room and took the only chair.
“Told you already, you never should have gone after her in the first place. You wanted to play games, test loyalty, without understanding what you were touching.”
“You also told me that she meant nothing to you,” Griffin said.
“If you knew I'd already trained her just the way I wanted her, then you would have taken pleasure in making sure you rubbed it in my face that she belonged to Azure now.”
Griffin laughed, which Ally took to be confirmation that’s exactly what the man would have done.
“Wasn't going to say anything until I had the money pulled together to buy her myself, but you sold her off before I could.” Although Mateo snarled out those last few words, the big man in the suit didn't flinch.
“I don’t sell Azure’s stock to employees,” Griffin said, and Ally shivered at the totally emotionless way he talked about her, like in his eyes she was no longer human, or maybe never really had been.
“She was mine first. You only took her for some ridiculous loyalty test.”
“Which you failed.”
“How did I fail? I told Rolland that I was going to buy her myself, and it seems he agreed to swap mine for another womansince I'm still alive. What difference does it make to you if she belongs to me or someone else?” Mateo demanded.
If he wasn't leaning against her, she wouldn't have felt the fine tremors rippling through his large body. They terrified her. Because if Mateo was scared, then she was pretty sure this wasn't going to work out the way they’d hoped.
Maybe they wouldn't kill Mateo right away, maybe they’d torture him a little more first, but she was positive he wouldn't be walking away from this warehouse alive. And she’d probably be sent back down to the basement, kept in a cage, retrained by someone who wasn't using any restraint. Then sold all over again, and this time without anyone to make sure Prey knew where she was so they could come and rescue her.
“You really have a quarter of a million dollars to buy her?” Griffin taunted, brow arched as though daring Mateo to admit he didn't have what it took to purchase her.
A quarter of a million dollars?
That was really what the men who bought the women Azure provided paid?
There had been almost a dozen women in the basement along with her, that was almost three million dollars right then and there, not including all the other women they’d already sold and all the ones they would. She could see why, if you had no conscience and saw women as property, running a sex trafficking ring was attractive.
“I have half up front,” Mateo said, making her gaze snap up to his in shock. “Give me a month, and I can get the rest together.”
Just like that, hope flared inside her.
Surely Griffin was only in this because it was lucrative, so he really shouldn’t care if Mateo or someone else bought her. If Mateo really did have half the money already, she was sure that Prey would loan him the rest to get her out.
“No,” Griffin said, and her little bubble popped.
Against her, Mateo tensed, and she was pretty sure he was going to throw himself at his boss, ignoring the two armed men standing in the doorway, who looked more than happy with the thought of getting to shoot him.
