Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
The guard moved his hand to the center of my back and pushed me into a large dressing room. Girls sat on stools in front of vanities as women fixed their hair and makeup. Alex was at the center of the room. I let out a sigh of relief when our eyes met in the mirror.
My guard forced me to sit at the vanity beside her, and we exchanged a quick look to acknowledge each other. She looked pretty beat up, despite all the makeup they layered on her face and body. The woman attempted to cover the marks on her arms with concealer. Alex hissed and shoved her hand away when the makeup got into her open cuts.
Other girls who were for sale at the auction surrounded us. Some of them sobbed while others wore expressions of pure fear. Despite my anxiety, I had faith we would get off the island alive. Hope was a scary thing. But, in times of extreme doubt, it was the only thing that kept me going. I had to believe in something. Because if I let the fear and anxiety take over, I was as good as dead.
No one spoke a word as strange women fixed our hair and makeup. I wasn’t sure if they were here against their will, forced to dress us up like dolls. The women were beautiful, a mixture of light and dark hair, all with varying skin tones. Dressed in short, low-cut dresses, they guided each of us to a rack of clothes. I didn’t have a choice as my girl held a red bandage dress in front of my body.
She flung out her hand and told me to strip down. Apprehensively, I glanced around the room at the guards, who watched us like hawks. I could feel their lecherous gazes searing my skin. The other girls in my position seemed equally uncomfortable as they bared themselves, and I followed their lead.
Alex glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. She blew out a deep breath, flicking her long blonde curls over her right shoulder. I held her gaze as they forced me to sit again. This time, the woman fixing my hair yanked so hard my scalp burned.
“Face forward,” she growled in a Russian accent.
She pulled my attention back to her, gathering my hair in her hands. Then, working in silence, she curled the ends of my hair and sprayed them with products. After my hair and makeup were complete, the girl dragged me across the room. Alex finished around the same time, but no one seemed to pay attention to her. Not like the guy who watched my ass like he had X-ray vision.
Alex wandered away from the group, inching toward the door. The man guarding it had his back turned to her, engaged in a conversation with someone in the hallway. I couldn’t see the other person from this vantage point. From the looks of it, they were yelling at one another. I almost laughed as Alex slipped from the dressing room and into the corridor.
The balls on this girl.
I could see why the Salvatores liked her. She wasn’t going down without a fight, and neither was I. There was no way in hell I was letting some rich monster take me home to do who the fuck knows what to my body and mind. No amount of money could ever make me subservient to a man. What I did with Marcello was different. We both got off on the power struggle. He needed to be in control at all times, and my patience rewarded me.
A man with slicked-back dark hair, dressed in a black suit and armed with a wicked grin, entered the room. The guards straightened their backs, stiff as a board, as the man’s eyes roamed around the space. He was in his late fifties, though still good-looking for a man his age. Oozing wealth and entitlement, he reminded me of all the rich assholes back in Devil’s Creek. With his looks, and the same deep brown irises as Arlo, he could have easily been a relative of the Salvatores.
“Where is their Queen?”
He inspected the faces of his men for malice, hands balled into fists at his sides. I knew he was talking about Alex. She was born to become the Queen of The Devil’s Knights. It was her birthright, as it was mine to marry into a cruel mob family.
With confused looks slapped on their worried faces, the men muttered Alex’s name, her whereabouts a whisper on their lips. They didn’t know that she’d snuck out of the room like a phantom in the night.
“Find her,” the man boomed, throwing his arms up in anger. “Now! If we lose the girl, we lose everything.”
As men rushed from the room as if it were on fire, I stepped backward, moving toward the windows. I pressed my back against the wall, slipping behind a thick velvet curtain. It was hard to see, but I gripped the window, using all of my strength to pry it open. I tried several times without success.