Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Because he’d missed her.
It left her feeling groundless, dizzy, and utterly seduced by the idea of him and her, by the beauty and promise it bestowed. She could envision living here, being whatever Matias willed her to be, if it meant spending time in this place, recreating stolen moments with him, and cultivating dreams.
Because she’d missed him, too. So fucking much it made her chest hurt.
Maybe that was why he’d chosen this location for the meeting. To bewitch her so thoroughly she’d forget the reason she was here.
Tightening her muscles, she angled her body to face Nico and gave him strong eye contact.
“You might see me as just a slave, but I’m not controlled by fear.” She crossed her legs at the knees, the position pulling the jeans tight across her ass as she rested her hands on the table. “I’ve killed people, and I’m intimately familiar with human trafficking.” She paused. “Can I call you Nico?”
“Please do.” His eyes flickered, and it might’ve been curiosity.
“I’m not an accountant, Nico, but I find it hard to believe the slave trade yields as much profit as, say, your drug smuggling ventures. First off, the slaves I’ve seen on the property are my age. Some are even older. I doubt any of them are virgins.”
He exchanged a look with Matias, and she would’ve given anything to know what was going on beneath their blank expressions.
“Not that I’m suggesting you capture young girls.” Her foot twitched restlessly. She stilled it. “I’m just questioning why you capture and sell people at all.”
“Tell us your theories,” Matias said. Elbow on the table, he rested his jaw on loosely curled fingers, the liquid gold of his eyes sharp around the edges.
Twisting her thoughts to that of a criminal, she voiced a cut and dry hypothesis about how they sought to gain market share and remain competitive against rival gangs and drug lords. She talked out of her ass while trying to keep her opinions on a cohesive level, brainstorming ideas they could relate to, and maintaining an eager, unbiased tone, like she was a fucking marketing consultant for the cartel.
It was ludicrous, listening to herself suggest how they could broaden their drugs and weapons smuggling to other countries, like Australia. But in her desperate mind, smuggling those things were a lesser evil than selling innocent lives.
Neither of them interrupted her long-winded pitch. Matias nodded at some of her points and lifted his eyebrows at others. She avoided those hazel eyes, though, as well as the symmetrical beauty of his flawless face. She tried not to glance at him at all for fear he’d derail her, command her with a look, and make her want things that didn’t belong in this conversation.
Focusing on Nico wasn’t any easier. He was dangerously handsome, or at least, he would’ve been if he didn’t look so scowly and disinterested all the time. Didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing, he gave the impression that he wanted to be somewhere else, like he was too goddamn important for the world around him.
Other than the night Van delivered her to them, Nico always wore a suit. The crisp black fabrics and collared shirts that opened at the neck projected an urbane, cultured persona that was only mildly intimidating if taken at face value. It was what he hid beneath the casual arrogance that had her carefully choosing her words.
Was she talking to a psychopath? An empty soul? A man who didn’t rationalize his own behavior? If he was a man at all, then somewhere in there was a heart.
Steeling her backbone, she changed gears without segue and launched into her experience as Van’s captive.
“He locked me in a coffin-like box for the first twenty-four hours, wearing only rope around my hands and feet and a ring gag in my mouth.”
Her cheeks twinged in memory at the godawful stretching, and sweat beaded between her breasts. With a waver in her voice, she told them how Van fucked that ring gag over and over in the days that followed, how he beat her, spit on her, and stripped her of every ounce of hope and courage, all while refusing to speak to her beyond the bark of his commands. Kneel, open, suck, cry…
“I was there a week before Liv stepped in.” Camila folded her trembling hands on her lap. “She introduced herself as a deliverer and said I was to be trained as a slave and sold as a piece of property.”
She rushed on, giving voice to the worst of her time there. The whips, the rules, the stifling loneliness, each harrowing memory blooming heat behind her eyelids. “You can’t comprehend the depths of human depravity until you experience it on your knees, in the dark, your body broken and throbbing, your mind pulling away in an attempt to protect, to endure. But no matter where your thoughts go, there is nothing or no one to cling to. It makes you question the very reason for life, like what the fuck are we even doing here and why are we the cruelest to our own kind?”