Time crawls by. The van gets hotter. I fight to stay awake. I’m too worried about Riza to allow myself to drift off.
I don’t know how long we’ve been driving, but it feels like days have passed by the time the van comes to a stop. I hear voices, new voices. The lock on the door rattles and then it’s yanked open. I’m yanked along with the door. A sharp pain shoots up my arm and into my shoulder. “Riza!” I cry out as she’s yanked away from me. Her body hangs limply from the other door, out of my reach. She’s not waking up!
Fear floods me and even though I was dying of heat just a second ago, chills spread over me. “Riza!” I cry again. I look around frantically. Men! There are so many men and they’re all staring at us.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” I hear the familiar sneering voice of Warren. My eyes lock on him and I swallow hard on the terror clogging up my throat.
Justin unlocks the cuffs holding Riza up and catches her as she slumps into him. He lifts her up, handling her with more care than Garrett shows me. That’s a good thing, right? At least it seems that Justin has feelings for Riza. He’ll look after her then.
“She needs water. Please,” I beg on her behalf. Justin scowls at me, but then he nods, carrying her into a large warehouse.
Garrett unlocks the cuffs and grabs hold of the leash as I slump to the floor. He yanks at it, not as hard as the first few times. I’m too weak to fight and don’t want to draw more attention to me. I crawl behind him, the gravel digging into my palms and knees. My eyes are focused on the ground, so I can miss the rocks. A piercing pain slices through my side and I feel my body jerk to the right. Dizziness clouds my vision and I don’t know what caused the pain until I see Warren’s boot coming at me. Another violent kick robs me of my breath.
My vision starts to blur, but before the darkness drags me under I see Garrett swing a fist at Warren. Confused that Garrett would defend me, I let the darkness take me.
~*~
Chapter Seventeen
Garrett~
I feel the leash yank back and turn around to scold Kristine. Now is not the time to be stubborn. I turn just in time to see Warren kick her so hard her whole body lifts from the impact. I don’t think. I just react. I step over Kristine and throw a punch at the motherfucker. I deliver punch after punch, intent on giving him a facelift. As he sags to the floor I go down with him. I don’t stop until arms grab me from behind, dragging me away from the fucker’s unconscious body.
I swear I’ll kill him if he touches her again. She’s mine.
I yank my arms free and rush to Kristine where she’s lying in a small bundle. “Kris,” I whisper and when she doesn’t move, I start to worry. I quickly pick her up. Cradling her close, I leave the other men to deal with the asshole. I take her to the back where the empty containers are kept. That’s where they bring the idiots who default on their payments, to torture them. I pick a container that’s not too dirty and place Kristine on the floor. Staring down at her pale face I know I can’t show her any sympathy.
Justin comes in behind me. “I’ve got Riza in the container at the end. I gave her some water.” He peeks over my shoulder. “What happened to her?”
“Warren kicked her. Keep an eye on Riza. You don’t want to leave her alone with him around. He’ll kill her and we’re already down to two girls.”
I hear Bill’s thunderous voice coming from the front. He can be pissed all he wants, we didn’t have a choice.
“What are you doing here?” he shouts, red patches of anger forming on his chubby cheeks.
“The two idiots you hired fucked up. Eric killed the other girl so I put him out of his misery and Chase took off. He let the third girl go so we had to spilt, as well. We didn’t want to stick around for the cops to crash the party. We’re down to the two girls now.” Quick thinking lets me add, “Next time let me pick the men.” That way he’ll think I’m in it for the long run.
“Idiots! A man can’t even find decent men these days,” he huffs. “Except for the two of you. Knew you boys wouldn’t let me down.” He eyes Kristine, disgust making him look like one ugly fucker. “Is she any good?”
I force my stiff lips to smile. “Yeah. She’s going to bring in a few thousand dollars. She’s a fighter. I don’t want to kill that completely. I think the men will love the wildcat streak she has in her. Looks like a kitten,” I point to the scratch on my face, “and claws like a wildcat.”
“Just make sure to cut those nails. We don’t want her drawing blood,” Bill chuckles. Then his face goes all serious. “I was going to phone you boys. They’ve given the auction date. We don’t have a month like I thought at first. You have six days. The auction is Monday night.”