Buttons and Shame (Buttons 4)

But I could tell exactly what she was thinking.

She was hopelessly in love with her husband.

“What do you think of Cane?” Pearl drove me back to the house at the end of the day. She was running late but didn’t seem to care if it pissed him off. Despite the fact that both Crow and Cane were terrifying men, she didn’t appear bothered by their anger.

That was a complicated question. “What do I think of him?”

“Yeah. Do you wanna stab him in the throat in the middle of the night?”

The question was ironic because he suggested I pull a similar stunt. “No, but he encouraged me to kill him in his sleep. Said I should take him out and run for it.”

Even through her thick sunglasses, I could tell she was surprised. “He said that?”

“The only reason why I haven’t attempted to flee is because of my friend Lizzie. He says I shouldn’t stick around for her. He treats me well.” I could never abandon my friend like that. We were in this together, even if we were apart.

“He treats you well? He told me he does, but his definition of well could be different from mine.”

The only thing I could compare him to was Tristan. “Staying with him has been really nice. I don’t want to go back.”

She tilted her head again in surprise. “Really?”

I didn’t want to go into detail. Even if she experienced the same terror, some things were better left unsaid. “Yeah. I have my own room. I can shower when I want. I can eat when I want…” I’d always had a big appetite, so starving myself had been even more difficult. I constantly had been light-headed and weak, so when Tristan came after me, I fought him even less. “When I go back to Tristan, I’ll be chained to a metal pole and kicked in the head. I’m not saying Cane is a good man, but there are different kinds of evil. And Tristan is certainly a much darker shade than Cane will ever be.”

Pearl faced the road again, and her voice came out much weaker than it ever did before. “You shouldn’t be grateful that Cane is treating you like a human being…because you are a human being.”

“I know, but that’s not the way the real world works.” I stared out the window and spotted Cane’s house in the distance. “The moment I was taken, I was no longer a person. I became a punching bag, a whore, and a nobody.” Tristan never exposed an ounce of pity when he tortured me. The more I cried and begged for mercy, the more he beat me. I wasn’t a human being in his eyes—at all. “I’d give anything to turn back time and never leave America. I’d give anything to redo that day. But this is the hand I’m stuck with…and I have to play the game.”

Pearl shook her head. “No, you don’t have to play the game, Adelina. Don’t give up like this.”

“I’ve never given up.” The accusation was insulting—to the core. “Every day, I hope that something will change. I haven’t hung myself because I think the police will track me down. I continue to breathe for the possibility that my life will get better. I endure every day of torture just for the slim chance that I’ll be saved. So don’t tell me I’ve given up. I never have, and I never will.” I kept my gaze out the window, Cane’s house coming closer into view.

“Don’t depend on someone else to save you. The only person you can rely on is yourself.”

“I know. But my hands are tied.” I didn’t know where Lizzie was or if she was alive, but I chose to believe there was hope for both of us.

“I know it’s not my place to say, but I think Cane is right. You and Lizzie have a better chance of survival if you escape and go to the authorities.”

“You don’t know Tristan.” Maybe Pearl had been tortured by a different psychopath, but Tristan was a madman. “He won’t kill her until he’s tortured the life out of her. Only when she’s limp and brain-dead will he finally cut her head off. I could never live with myself if that happened to her.”

Pearl didn’t press her opinion any longer. I knew she thought I was stupid for not taking her offer to help me. But survivor’s guilt was a serious thing, and I couldn’t leave my best friend behind. “I know you think I’m stupid—”

“I don’t think that at all. I think you’re brave.”

My madness was finally complimented.

“But maybe we can still figure something out.”

“Like what?” Crow seemed like a powerful man with lots of resources. And it was obvious he would bend over backward for this woman.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can do some digging and find out where Lizzie is being held. I’ll talk to Crow and Cane about it.”