Mercedes appears from inside the factory. “The other women are accounted for.”
“We’ll deal with them later,” Margo snaps. “Jorge, get her in the trunk.”
Jorge stalls, rubbing at his cheek. “Jesus, Margo. Do we have to kill her?”
“I don’t pay you to question me, asshole. Now do it, unless you want to go in with her.”
He hesitates for another second, which is another second than I’d given him credit for. Apparently he’s okay with bargaining for my body, but he’s not comfortable killing me. In the end, though, he grabs my forearm and pulls me around the car.
His grip on my arm, the uneven gravel under my feet—they drag a cry of pain from me.
“Shut up,” Margo hisses. “If we had more time, I’d really make you pay.”
Mercedes opens the trunk. “We don’t. For all we know he’s on his way.”
Jorge gives me a rough shove, and I land on rough thin carpet. My knee bumps metal on the way in, my temple scrapes something sharp. None of that matters as the trunk closes, the sound echoing in my ears, the darkness folding in on me. I curl into a ball.
I feel mostly numb. This is how I’m going to die.
The only pain I feel is at the bottom of my feet. As I touch them against the wall of the trunk, they’re slippery. Bleeding, I realize. They’re bleeding.
A sound comes from outside—a car engine, tires on gravel. Not the car I’m in. It hasn’t moved. Is that Sebastian Conti? I can’t be sure he’ll save me. He was willing to kill the women in the factory for convenience. Maybe I’ve charmed him enough. Maybe wanting to have sex with me will be enough to keep me alive.
Except he won’t know I’m here. Margo and Mercedes will make up some lie about how I disappeared. Jorge will back them up, out of fear if nothing else.
I bang on the lid of the trunk. “Sebastian!”
Nothing.
More bangs—and then my racket is drowned out by shots being fired from outside the car. I would recognize that sound anywhere. The sight of a body being shot in the back, falling, falling. The sound coming through the walls as Tia’s knee broke apart.
And then everything is quiet.
The lid opens. Sebastian Conti’s severe expression looks down on me, his face drawn in moonlight. My breath comes faster and then not at all.
Strong arms pull me from the trunk. “Shh,” he whispers. “You’re safe now.”
Except I’m not safe. I’ll never be safe.
He lifts me into his arms, carrying me to his limo. I close my eyes against the sight of bodies on the gravel. Slowly, carefully, he deposits me on the back seat. I barely hear the orders he gives the men with him—something about paramedics, about clean-up. A fire?
“Tia,” I sob brokenly. And I tell him about the other women. About Antonella and Luciana. About Rosa, who disappeared. I beg him not to hurt them. “I’ll do anything.”
His expression is hard. “You have to do nothing, Lucia. I’m not a fucking slaver.”
I blink, uncertain. He seems offended. But he owns this place. He must.
He growls. “I acquired the entire business holdings of a competitor six months ago. I knew that he was involved in shady dealings. Hell, I am too. I even heard whispers about the brothels. But I didn’t know about the factory.”
“You—you didn’t?”
“I assumed they were illegal, especially considering the way no one would meet my eyes. And I even assumed they were treated like shit. That’s how he ran things, Viktor. But property? No.”
“He killed my father,” I whisper.
Sebastian tenses. “Your father was the Don?”
“He used to be. That life is over now.”
“Fuck, Lucia. You’re the heir. The fucking bloodline.”
I’m nobody. I’m nothing. “I don’t care what happens to me. The women inside, they’ve had a hard life. Harder than I can imagine. If there’s any way you can help them, Sebastian. Please.”
He swears. “We’ll set them up in a fucking palace if that’s what you want. And you’re staying with me. After you ran away, after I almost lost you, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
After I almost lost you. “I thought I was going to die in that trunk,” I whisper. “I thought you couldn’t hear me, that you wouldn’t know where I was.”
“I knew,” he says, his voice grim.
“How?”
His hand is gentle when he lifts my foot, revealing the bloodied bottom. “You left a trail, sweetheart. A trail of blood on the gravel.”
It’s gruesome but somehow fitting. This isn’t a clean world that we live in. There’s death and destruction. There’s pain. But even in the darkest places, the most tainted hearts, there’s hope.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It would have been enough to let the women live. When you’ve lived under threat of death for years, every breath feels like a miracle. It would have been more than enough to let the women free.
