Buttons and Shame (Buttons 4)

He unlocked the metal chain from my foot, and I hid my relief. My skin was callused and bruised from the constant constriction. It was impossible to get comfortable when the metal was always digging into my skin. The only time it was removed was when he came to fuck me.

And every time, I felt sick.

“For the last time, up.” He slapped me in the center of the face, hitting me right in the nose and the eyes.

My eyes smarted and my nose stung painfully, but I still didn’t release a grunt. I moved off the bed and got to my feet, feeling weak from not eating a real meal in four days. My body was beginning to go into shock because I was severely dehydrated. A migraine had settled in my skull since I arrived.

“Good girl. Listen up.” He grabbed me by the throat even though it was unnecessary.

I pushed his hand off. “You have my attention. You don’t need to grab me.”

Here it comes.

This time, he punched me right in the face.

My nose bled, and the blood dripped into my mouth.

He grabbed me by the neck again. “I’m loaning you to a friend for thirty-one days. Pull any stunts, and that will be the end of your friend Lizzie.”

I had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. Lizzie could have been sold off to a psychopath. Or worse, she could already be dead. But if I didn’t cooperate, she was guaranteed to lose her life. He held that over my head extensively, making me behave like an obedient animal. “I know.”

“Try to run, and I’ll torture her first.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d told me that. “Who are you giving me to?”

Without warning, he punched me hard in the stomach. The air left my body, and I fell to the floor, too weak to hold myself up.

“Slaves don’t ask questions.” He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me across the hardwood floor.

I screamed and tried to get up so the pain would subside from my skull, but he moved too quickly. Chunks of hair came loose as he continued to tug on it like it was reins on a horse.

He finally let me go once I was in the center of the entryway. In just my panties, I was naked for all of his men to see. Some of them had taken turns fucking me, so we were acquainted. “Up.”

I didn’t test him this time. I got to my feet, feeling shaky. My hair was in my face so I couldn’t see in front of me, but I preferred it that way. I wanted to stick my head in the sand and pretend none of this was happening.

I pretended I was at home.

“I’ll see you in thirty-one days, Cane,” Tristan said.

Cane?

I pulled my hair from my face and looked at the man who was just here last night. With deep green eyes that looked equally kind and horrifying, he stood tall in a black t-shirt. I’d seen him naked, every inch of his masculinity. He was different from the others because he was good-looking. He had a nice jaw, strong eyes, and a five o’clock shadow that never seemed to fade. He was the tallest one at over six feet. He was the only man I’d encountered who had been somewhat nice to me, so I viewed him in a different way from the others. He was the only one who understood the meaning of no. He claimed he wasn’t a good man, and that was probably true.

But I hoped he wasn’t as evil as they were.

I wondered why Tristan was loaning me to someone else when he just got me a few days ago. He fucked me around the clock, coming into my bedroom during his breaks at work. He was obsessed with me—even though he had an odd way of showing it.

“I want her in the same condition as she is now—no broken bones.” He pushed me forward so I could get closer to Cane.

One of his men bound my wrists together with rope, even though it was clear I couldn’t escape. Even if I got away, I couldn’t live with myself for leaving Lizzie behind. I could go to the police and tell them everything I knew, but by then, it would be too late. These guys were masterminds of the underworld. They introduced me to a world I’d been blissfully blind to.

“Got it.” Cane removed his black blazer to reveal his muscular physique in a tight black t-shirt. He placed the thick fabric over my shoulders and wrapped me in the clothing, keeping my nakedness from the prying eyes of the sick perverts around me.

It was the first time that someone offered me clothes, that someone treated me like a human rather than an animal. I wanted to cry at the gesture because it meant so much to me. It was a jacket, something I would have taken for granted in my former life. But now that jacket was a life vest in freezing waters.