“I'm not his business,” she objected, her eyes flashing. Pride?
“That brand on your ass says otherwise.”
“The brand says nothing other than he was trying to scare my father.”
Her father? What the fuck?
“Get your skinny little ass out into the kitchen so I can get more coffee. And you're going to explain your shit. Got it?”
She nodded.
That was all I needed. I turned and walked back to the kitchen.FiveSummerOkay. I believed in telling the truth. As a rule. Ninety-eight percent of the time. The two percent was saved for those times your friends asked if their new dye job looked good and you personally thought it was absurd for someone who routinely baked in the sun to dye their hair red and think it looked natural... or when a relative gave you a gift certificate to a store that you wouldn't be caught dead shopping in. In essence, lying was only acceptable to save you from hurting someone's feelings.
But then again, that was before.
Fact of the matter was, I didn't know Reign from Adam. And aside from what I had already stupidly admitted, I needed to keep my wits about me. He could see an opportunity to help himself and whatever criminal underground thing he had going on by dropping me right back in V's arms.
Or to barter me.
V would pay.
I knew that. But I wasn't going to let him know that.
I needed to start playing things smart. My freaking life was on the line. I had to stop blurting stuff out like a teenager caught with a six pack.
I was a good liar. At least I was pretty sure I was. I just really needed to commit to my story. Whatever the hell that story was. Which I was going to have to come up with on the fly seeing as the space between his bathroom and his kitchen wasn't nearly long enough to come up with a cover.
Reign reached up into the cabinet for a second mug, filling it, and handing it to me. Now, I was always a coffee person. Before. I would get up in the morning and take the drive to the coffee shop around the corner and get my fix. Then again in the afternoon. And if it was a rough day, the evening too. But I liked my drinks milky and sugary. Preferably with some sort of flavor. Caramel. Mocha. Pumpkin.
I had never had black coffee in my life.
But the fact of the matter was, I hadn't had anything but struggled handfuls of water from the bathroom tap for months. So I was going to drink it. And I was going to learn to enjoy it.
“Thanks,” I said, cradling it between my hands for a second before taking a sip. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good either. But it wasn't bad. And it was strong. It felt like it kicked the whole way down.
“Talk.”
Well then.
“What do you want to know?” I hedged.
“I want to know why you got the brand of a fucking skin trader on your hip. I want to know what happened to you. I want to know how the fuck you escaped that fortress.”
“I have a brand because he brands all the girls he brings in.” That was true. Even though I wasn't one of those girls. It felt wrong to say 'thank god', but thank god!
“So you're just one of his chicks?”
“Yes.” Nope.
“How'd you get out?”
“Honestly?” I could do this honestly at least. “I don't know. I have no idea what happened. My binds were loose and I slipped out of them. I got up and went to bang on the door to go to the bathroom and... no one answered. Someone always answered if I made a fuss. Even if it was with their fists, they answered.” Did he just wince? I was pretty sure he winced. That was good. I could play the beaten woman card. It was really the only one I had anyway. “So I looked out. And... there was no one. I didn't even think about it. I just ran. Which was probably really stupid.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding.
“But it worked. I got outside and... there was no one there either. I just bolted to the gate, hit the button, hopped into one of the cars and floored it.”
“You hot wire it?”
“No,” I said, half-laughing. Because if he knew me, he would know how absurd a question that was. I didn't even know where to put wiper fluid in my car back home. “No, they leave the keys in the cars.”
“That's careless.”
“I guess they never thought anyone would get the chance to run.”
He nodded, looking out the window for a second. “Who is your father?”
Shit.
Shit shit.
I never should have said that.
“Just a guy. A normal guy. V wanted to screw with him I guess.”
“Babe,” he said, his voice very flat. “I know criminals. And I know crime lords. V is a fuckin' crime lord. No way he wanted to fuck with your daddy for shits and giggles. He had a reason. What's the reason?”
“I don't know,” I said, putting a little desperation into the words, making them convincing. Because I did know. And it was horrible. And I was willing to keep going through the torture every day that my father denied V what he wanted. Because he was doing the right thing. I begged him to do the right thing.
“You come from money? You sound like you come from money.”
I sounded like I came from money? That sounded like an insult. But if his mind was running toward extortion, well that was a good direction for him to go. “Yes. I come from money.”
“V likes money. Almost as much as he likes stealing girls off the streets and making them suck and fuck until they're too used up to be useful.”
I felt myself shiver because it was true. It was so awfully, disgustingly true. That was what he did. I saw them all the time. Getting dragged in. Screaming. Crying. Trying to claw away. But it never did any good. The men were too strong. Too immune to it all. And the women would be held down. They would be forced to endure the searing, unbelievable pain of branding. Then they would be thrown into some building with a hundred other girls, waiting to be transported out. Waiting to spend their lives being raped and tortured by whoever paid the most money.