Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 170747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 683(@250wpm)___ 569(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 683(@250wpm)___ 569(@300wpm)
I don’t know how long we’re travelling for, but the trailer bumps uncomfortably over the road until I have a pounding headache. The smell of horse sweat and dung fills the air, making breathing almost unbearable.
Eventually, we stop, and I instantly go on alert. There’s the slamming of car doors and voices talking about getting water for the horse. I rush to the door and open it a crack. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so I slip out and move around the back of the trailer. I can literally taste freedom when a hand snags the back of my shirt from behind. A yelp of surprise escapes me, and I’m thrown against the side of the trailer. An older man in a cowboy hat glares at me.
“What have we got here then? A stowaway?” His leathery skin wrinkles as he glares at me.
“No, I…please.” I don’t know what else to say. “Just let me go. I’ll be on my way.”
He shakes his head. “Oh no. I’m calling the authorities.” The police? Shit. They’re going to arrest me for…for what? For being sold, several times over? For escaping a captor? Maybe they’ll help me, and send me home. But I have no home, not anymore.
A man sits across a table from me, a cup of coffee in front of him and a serious expression on his face. He’s clutching a pen in his hand, tapping the end of it rhythmically over his notebook. I’ve been in this tiny room for over an hour.
“Miss Vasiliev, there is no record of you ever entering the country. All I can find in your name is a birth certificate. No passport. Nothing.”
I sigh, pressing my elbows against the cool metal surface of the table in front of me. “I told you. I was sold.”
He leans back in his chair and raps his knuckles over the table. “And you won’t tell me who you ran from?” I shake my head. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to give them Rafael’s name. Of all the people I’ve had dealings with, in the last ten years, he’s the only one that ever made me feel like a person rather than an object—even if it was all lies and pretense... I can’t help but feel a sense of loyalty to him because whatever his reasons, he dragged me from hell. He saved me, even if it was only to serve his own gains. I could tell them that I was with the Sinaloa cartel, but I know how these things work. I utter their name to the police, and I’m signing my own death warrant. The man across from me releases a heavy breath. “Well, then I have no choice but to arrest you for being in the country illegally.”
I blanch. “What?”
He shrugs. “You can’t give me any names or tell me where you’ve been for the last ten years.”
“I told you…”
“Without names, I can’t take your story as anything more than that…a story you made up to get out of a bad spot.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say. What can I say? I bow my head, and my eyes prickle with tears. “Okay,” I say, accepting whatever comes next because whatever it is, I’ve had worse. That I know.
20
Rafael
“Where’s Anna?” Carlos asks as he steps into my office.
I lean back in my chair and take out a cigarette. “How the fuck would I know?” I haven’t spoken to her or seen her since that night.
He lifts a brow. “Yeah, well, I just got a call from my guy down at the La Cantos station. They have a girl called Anna Vasiliev in custody. Some guy picked up a horse from the stables and found her in the back of his trailer…”
“Fuck’s sake.” I push to my feet and storm from the office. Carlos trails behind me as I walk to the car. I get in the passenger side, and he jumps behind the wheel, pulling away from the house.
That fucking girl. How the hell did she even get out without being seen? “What the fuck were the guys on the gate doing? They didn’t even check the damn trailer?”
“Boss, they’re more accustomed to keeping people out than in.”
“That’s no excuse!” I snap. This is a shit show. Where the hell would she even go? She has no one. When I get my hands on Anna, she’ll be lucky if I don’t chain her to my bed and spank her ass.
We drive out into the desert until we reach a small town full of nothing but farmers. Carlos pulls the car into the lot of the small police station, and I’m out of the car before it’s even stopped. The acrid heat soaks through my suit until my skin is coated in a sheen of sweat. A whirlwind of sand rises in front of me as I reach the steps. I’ve been out here for only seconds, and I already feel dirty.