Sweet Collateral

“You know I don’t deal in slaves, Dominges. She’s just a favor. I won’t go back on my word.”

“Ah, yes, the honorable cartel boss. A good businessman would sell her to me, take the money, and tell your buyer she escaped.”

I smirk. “And announce to the world that I couldn’t contain a helpless whore? That would make me look weak.” His face becomes positively murderous, and I chuckle to myself before I hang up.

Ten million dollars.

“Carlos!” A few seconds later he steps into the room. “I want anything and everything you can find on the Russian girl and Nero Verdi.” I release a long breath and slump back in the chair. “I want to know what kind of collateral ten million dollars buys.”

I glance at the wall of monitors, watching as Maria and the doctor tend to Anna on the bed. Seems the little bird is hiding secrets…or she is the secret.

Such a broken little thing, cowering away from the doctor. Right up until he tries to inject her with something. Then she’s like a feral animal, and Maria can’t hold her down. She leaps off the bed, limping to the balcony. Would she jump? Shit. That would be problematic.

Pushing to my feet, I stride upstairs, toward her room.

When I walk in, Maria is crying as the doctor attempts to restrain Anna on the balcony. Scratches cover his face, and she’s screaming like a banshee as he drags her back inside. “Calm down,” he says. Which seems to be working so well.

I walk over to them and grab her throat. “Enough.” She stills, the fight leaving her at once, replaced with vacant tear filled eyes.

The doctor releases her, letting out a sigh. She just stands there like a statue with my fingers around her throat, and as useful as her conditioned response is, it makes me sick. “Get on the bed, Anna.”

Silently she crawls onto the mattress and lays down like a damn corpse. Like a slave obeying a master. Bile threatens the back of my throat and I have to force it down. Maria fusses over her but the girl doesn’t even acknowledge the older woman.

“Do you know what drugs she’s been taking?” the doctor asks me.

“No. She was given methadone in the last twelve hours.”

It isn’t uncommon. Traffickers have been known to kidnap girls off the street, but slaves must be compliant, and no matter how broken, a girl will always long for her freedom, perhaps even risk death to escape. So, they drug them, get them so hooked on heroin that they won’t leave because they can’t be without their source. She doesn’t look like a heroin addict. She lacks the sallow, feral look they usually possess.

“Anna, are you going to tell the doctor what you take? Or don’t you know?”

“Please don’t,” she begs. “No needles.”

“You either speak, or he takes blood. With a needle. Your choice.”

“Ketamine,” she whispers.

“Well, that explains the tremors and nausea. I’m afraid you’ll have to ride it out. As I was saying before, the ankle isn’t broken, but judging by the swelling, definitely torn ligaments. If you’ll just let me give you anti-inflammatories—” He picks up a syringe of liquid from the nightstand, and Anna snaps out of whatever trance she was in. The tiny little girl goes from flat on her back, to off the bed in a matter of seconds.

“Anna.” I bite back the urge to snap at her as my patience dwindles. I grab her from behind, dragging her up against my chest. She fights as I haul her to the bed, climbing on it and pinning her against me. The doctor looks horrified as he watches us. As she thrashes against me, my mind flashes to my sister—to a time when it was her I held like this. I swallow around the lump in my throat and tighten my arm around her chest.

“Anna. No one will hurt you.” I stroke over her hair like I would a spooked horse—like I used to with Violet. Her chest heaves under my braced arm, and I can feel her heart pounding through her ribs. “Just knock her out, doc.”

“I…” He hesitates.

“Fucking do it,” I grunt as Anna throws her head back, writhing as though she’s in physical pain.

He draws up a different syringe.

“No, no, no,” she cries, and it tugs at something in my chest.

The doc manages to hold her arm still enough to jab her. She fights, even as the plunger slowly releases sedative into her veins. Her breaths even out until she becomes dead weight in my arms, her cheek resting against my chest. Her lips part slightly, and long lashes fan over her pale cheeks. How can a girl who is undoubtedly tainted by god-knows- how-many men, look so innocent and pure?

The doctor clears his throat, and I snap my gaze to his, shifting my weight out from beneath Anna’s tiny frame. “Do what you need to,” I say gruffly and leave the room without a backward glance.