The Boss (Chateau 3)

Eyes down, I measured the white sand and placed it into the bags, working like a bee in a hive with the other girls, the quiet sounds of us working as a backdrop of music to our servitude.

Sometimes my eyes would flick up to look at her.

To look at the only person in this world who ever really loved me.

Now I had to watch her pick up a box far too heavy and struggle to carry it to the table so it could be opened and processed.

Her brilliant mind wasted, she was just labor now, and she wasn’t even paid for it.

Because of me.

My eyes dropped in shame like always, because it wasn’t just too painful to look at her, there was also too much shame in my heart to meet her gaze, even if the rare opportunity arose for us to make contact with our eyes, our souls, and our hearts.

At sundown, we finished up the last box. We would be discharged to our cabins to have dinner, shower, and spend our short evening in each other’s company before we got up at dawn to do it the next day.

I was grateful I wasn’t alone in my cabin.

I hated the fact that Raven was.

A silent hush fell on the clearing, an abrupt change in energy that was felt by every single person even though it was unclear what had caused the shift. The girls looked in the same direction, as if something was coming toward us. It wasn’t Friday, so there was no Red Snow, unless there had been a change of plans.

Then I saw him.

In a black bomber jacket with gray fur down the sides, a man entered the clearing, flanked by his men. He didn’t don the guard uniform—and he didn’t hide his face. With dark-brown eyes and short dark hair that almost looked shaved, he scanned the area with his intelligent and cold eyes. A distinct shadow was on his jawline, the same darkness that filled the shadows in the corners of the cabin. His lips appeared then because they were pressed together tightly. He carried himself differently from the others, with a sharpness to his posture that made him stand out more than he already did. He was strong, straight-backed, his massive shoulders squeezed in the leather material of his jacket. Tall, muscular, carrying a silent power that reached every corner of this camp, he made his presence known with just his silence, showed his face like he didn’t give a damn if we saw it.

He stopped in his tracks, scanned the camp, and instead of looking past me the way he did with everyone else, his gaze halted the way his boots halted in the dirt.

Right on me.

As if tentacles had wrapped around my throat and squeezed, I was unable to breathe. Like a field mouse in the wild, when an owl stared my way, I turned absolutely still in the hope that I would blend into the background, that I would be camouflaged by the girls who surrounded me, that his stare wasn’t reserved for me and whatever sinister motives he possessed.

The stare continued.

My heart raced in my chest, and it felt as if the sound of drums in my ears were suddenly audible to everyone in the clearing, including him. I should drop my gaze and focus on my work. My fingertips still gripped the bag of cocaine I was holding.

But I was too scared to do that, literally paralyzed in that moment by that ruthless stare. It was like a spotlight from a chopper, and there was no hope I’d be able to run when that bright light put me on a stage.

There was a subtle shift of his eyes back and forth, those earthy-colored lenses absorbing information at such an intense rate that he couldn’t keep his gaze focused for more than a nanosecond. Furiously, his mind worked, comprehending whatever stimuli flooded his thoughts.

Then it was gone.

He withdrew his gaze and continued on his path through the clearing, moving past the row of tables and ignoring the stares focused his way from both the guards and the girls. His men flanked him, one on each side, trailing slightly behind him like he was the king of this camp.

Or better yet…the boss.

After dinner and a shower, I sat on my bed while most of the girls were gathered near the fire, talking about the encounter with the man with the bomber jacket.

Petunia was a veteran of the camp, a three-year resident. Her life had changed forever when she took a different route home one night—and that was it. She was in her late twenties, strong and able-bodied, working hard every day to make sure she wasn’t next in line for the Red Snow. “He’s the boss. I’ve seen him a couple times.”