Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
I don’t think Gabriel or Christopher tried to fight either because while I heard some grunting and cursing—mostly in Spanish—there were no gunshots. And when they pushed me into the back of a strange vehicle that smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke, there were two big male bodies on either side of me.
Even with a hood on my head, I could tell it was my stepbrothers. I felt the familiar tingle I always got when I was between them and then I heard Christopher murmur,
“Zoe? Are you okay?”
“Shut the fuck up, cabron, unless you want me to blow out your kneecap!” a rough voice said.
There was a low growl from my other side but nothing more and Christopher abruptly fell silent. I pressed my leg against his, trying to let him know I was all right. I had been extremely angry at both him and Gabriel just a few minutes before and I hadn’t forgotten that anger. But now the three of us were all in the same sticky situation and I wanted some human contact—I was scared stiff!
I didn’t know which direction they were taking us, but it was a rough road. We were jouncing around like crazy in the back seat for what felt like at least an hour. Then, finally, we came to a halt and the doors were opened.
“Get out. And don’t make any false moves if you don’t want to die,” a male voice said in heavily accented English. “The only reason you’re not dead already is because Don Diego wants to watch your execution.”
I felt cold all over. Had they driven us all this way just to kill us? Like just about everybody else in the US, I had seen scary stories on the news about people getting carjacked and the horrible things that the drug cartels did to their prisoners. I wondered if we were somewhere in Mexico now and if so, how we would ever find our way home—if we could manage to get free, which I doubted.
I couldn’t see anything since I still had a hood over my head. It was stifling hot inside, especially with the desert sun beating down and for a moment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Then a rough hand grabbed my arm and guided me over what felt like sand and pebbles until we reached an indoor space.
I could tell we were going indoors because of the echoing of the footsteps around us and the way the sun was no longer beating down on my head. It was blessedly cool inside, just because it was out of the sunlight.
We were pushed along for several more meters until we came to an empty sounding space. At least, there were a lot of echoes as we were herded inside. Then the man holding my arm pushed me down.
“On your knees, chica,” he snarled at me.
Clumsily, I stumbled and went down, the hard, cold floor bruising my knees. On either side of me, I could hear my stepbrothers grunting and protesting as they were pushed down as well.
I felt numb with fear. I had never been so sure I was going to die before—not even back when Esteban and his thugs had come to my house and shot my Dad right in front of me.
My short life flashed before my eyes—my happy childhood, despite my stunted growth and then all the time spent in my stepfather’s mansion. But most of all, I thought of those few happy days and nights when I had slept between Christopher and Gabriel, the three of us loving and caring for each other and both of them touching and pleasuring me. If I could go back and relive any part of my life, that would be it, I thought. If only—
“All right, boss? Can you see them okay?” a male voice said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yes, yes—very good,” another male voice replied. It had a tinny quality, making me think the speaker was talking over a phone or perhaps a laptop. “Bien—now let me see their faces,” he said.
The hood was ripped off my head, causing my long silver-blonde hair to swirl and float around my head in a cloud of static electricity. I blinked, trying to get used to the light.
The three of us were all on our knees in a row—I was between my brothers with Gabriel on my left and Christopher on my right. The guys had their hands zip tied behind their backs, which was slightly worse than my own predicament of having my hands tied in front. We were surrounded by men with guns pointed at our heads.
The room we were in had a filthy white tile floor and grimy walls which might once have been painted pale yellow but were now a dirty gray. But it wasn’t the décor—or lack thereof—that drew my attention. No, my eyes were almost immediately fixed on the open laptop being held by the man who was dressed as a policeman. He was holding it so we could view the screen and I could see a middle-aged man with thinning black hair watching us from it. He had a jowly face with cheeks like a bulldog and a small, cold, brown eyes.