Now.
Quick dialing Tito, he answered with a yawn. “It’s fucking early,” he groused. “Someone better be dead.”
“She’s gone.”
“Who?”
“Holly, you dumbshit,” I answered. “I woke up this morning and she was gone.”
“Fuck, Cason, you can’t keep track of one girl?” he teased, clearly finding the humor that I couldn’t. “Did she kick your ass or something? Maybe whip out some ninja-style Kung Fu? Did she go all Uma Therman on ya?”
“If you don’t shut the fuck up and get your ass over here, I’m going to shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll taste my boots for the rest of your life. I’m fucking serious. I need to find her.”
Tito sobered. “Calm down, Cason. We’ll find her.”
I shoved a hand through my hair. “How soon can you be here?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
The sleepy murmur of a female voice sounded in the background, groaning with disappointment and I clicked off. Whoever Tito was shacking up with, wasn’t going to be happy.
But my heart was thundering and I was pissed as hell that Holly had bolted.
Hadn’t I been considerate?
Far more considerate than I should’ve been.
I should’ve ignored her cries of pain and tied her to the toilet for the night.
Fuck.
My whole plan was going up in smoke because Holly had made me weak.
Wasn’t going to happen twice.
I would find her and when I did…I was going to put her somewhere she couldn’t escape.
Which meant, Tito’s place was no longer an option.
But no worries…I had a place I could go.
Someplace a good girl like Holly wouldn’t be caught dead in.
Now I just had to find her.
Chapter 12
Holly
I groaned as I opened my eyes. I rolled to my back when I realized my face was stuffed against a disgusting mattress that smelled of urine and other things best left unmentioned.
I never imagined things could go from bad to worse.
Suddenly Tito’s lumpy bed didn’t seem so terrible.
I clutched my pounding head, biting back a cry as a wave of nausea threatened to burble up my throat.
My eyes fought to focus and I discovered I was in a bedroom, bare of anything aside from the mattress thrown on the musty carpet.
Great, now I’d been kidnapped by a sex trafficker.
If I weren’t scared witless, I’d have laughed at the irony.
Was I wearing a sign on my back that said, “Kidnap me, please!”?
A near hysterical laugh fell from my mouth.
But there was nothing to laugh about.
I was in real trouble.
Serious, bad, fucked-up trouble.
I rose on shaky legs to look for something I could use as a weapon but the room was like a prison. The window was bolted shut with thick, black metal bars across the grimy glass.
Wiping at the tears that leaked down my cheek, I realized I’d have to go down swinging.
If only I’d taken that self-defense class, I thought with despair. But the class had conflicted with my reading time and I wasn’t going to sacrifice my precious down time with getting awkwardly sweaty in a class filled with Barbies.
Right about now, I was rethinking that decision. It occurred to me that I hadn’t put the correct priorities in place.
But I was such a sucker for a good romance novel and I’d been so excited to finally dig into the newest Kresley Cole that I don’t think it would’ve mattered if the Vin Diesel had been teaching the class.
Nothing was going to keep me from that book.
Which put me here. Alone — defenseless — and feeling pretty low.
I tried the door but it was locked.
Not that I expected anything different but…I had to try.
Footsteps came my way and I sprang away from the door, running to the furthest corner of the room. The door opened and Juanita came in, tossing some clothes my way.
“Put these on,” she told me.
“Why?”
“You do as you’re told, bitch. Put those on,” Juanita said.
“Or what?”
“Or you gonna wish you’d done as I told you.”
The threat was vague but real enough.
I reached to pick up the clothes she’d thrown at me. There was nothing to them. Lingerie? I held up the filmy negligee and balked. “I can’t wear this,” I protested, unable to imagine being squeezed into something so ridiculous. “I’m…I’m a college student…not a…”
“You what we say you are,” Juanita cut in with a smirk. “And today, you a whore. Got that?”
“This is illegal,” I said, my voice shaking. “I…if you let me go, I’ll forget this ever happened. Please.”
It was the same plea I’d offered Cason — surprise, surprise, Juanita scoffed at my offer, too.
“You a dumb bitch. You think it’s fun to slum it up? Well, you gonna find out just how life works here. We got customers who gonna love banging a redhead uppity bitch. You gonna make us some fast cash, honey. Maybe if you nice, I let you shower after you done.”
Oh God.
I was in a nightmare. “My brother is Butcher Brannon,” I blurted out in sheer desperation. “You don’t want to mess with me. My brother is crazy. Let me go and I promise I won’t say anything to him.”
“Who Butcher Brannon?” Juanita asked, not impressed. “That supposed to mean something to me?”
“My brother runs the Ice Town Rebels.”
The gang name struck a chord of recognition but Juanita wasn’t sure what to make of the information.
But instead of peppering me with questions, she turned and left, locking me in again.
I breathed a sigh of relief, if only for the short reprieve.
An hour later Juanita returned with her man. I still didn’t know his name.
He was eyeing me like a wolf slavered over a juicy sheep.
“And here I thought you was just good for whorin’. Then my lady tells m
e you’re related to someone actually important.”
I tried to remain brave. “That’s right. And my brother will cut your balls off if you hurt me.”
“Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right,” he agreed, rubbing his chin in thought. “But here’s the problem…I already got you booked, baby girl. I got money on the line. My reputation is at stake. I have to deliver.”
The blood drained from my cheeks. And here I’d thought I’d missed a bullet.
“Your life isn’t worth a few bucks,” I tried reasoning with the man. “I’m not joking when I say my brother will hunt you down and strip the meat from your bones. He’s…unreasonable when it comes to what belongs to him.”
“You belong to him?” Juanita repeated, tittering. “Twisted.”
“Not like that,” I muttered. “But I’m his only living relative.”
“So, he’d probably pay for your safe return?” the man said, thinking out loud. “Maybe even more than I could get from that sweet pussy.”
I cringed, hating the entire conversation but I had to keep it up. “Yeah, probably.” Actually, Butcher would probably just feed Juanita her man’s balls and then shoot her in the head. Or have someone else do it for him. But there was no sense in telling these creeps that. “Let me call him.”
“Ahhh, hell no, sugar. I will be handling the negotiations. These things is delicate.”
I wanted to scream but I held the urge in check.
“In the meantime, you just sit back and enjoy our hospitality,” he said with a wide grin, exposing a rotten tooth. He motioned to Juanita. “Get the girl something to eat.”
No thanks. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
So when Juanita returned with some gloppy gunk poured over a chicken fried steak, I didn’t go near it. No telling what that crazy bitch had put in the gravy.
I wasn’t taking the chance to find out.
Chapter 13
Cason
True to his word, Tito arrived fifteen minutes later, which meant he hadn’t been far.
“Who would take her in?” I asked. “Who would be willing to help her?”
Tito thought for a second, shaking his head. “This place isn’t big on Neighborhood Watch, if you know what I mean. Half the houses are abandoned anyway. The only house still regularly occupied is down the street…I think he’s a pimp of some sort.”