Rescuing Their Virgin Mate(3)

“Did you get the job?”

Her chin trembled. “No. There was no job. I am the dumbest person alive. I had the cab drop me off at a rundown building outside of town. I stupidly ignored the little person in my head who told me that no respectable law firm would have a building out there. When I arrived, there was this nice woman sitting at a desk in a decent enough office, so I thought my paranoia was due to nerves. She smiled and then escorted me to a back room, where I thought I’d meet the lawyer.” Cheryl shook her head. “All I felt was a prick to the back of my arm and then nothing.” She sniffled.

Elena’s heart ached. That was so unfair. “Your poor parents. They’ll be worried sick.” As would her own when she didn’t call.

Cheryl glanced down. “I’m not on the best terms with them. Only my landlord will be upset when he doesn’t receive his rent check in three weeks.”

Both girls looked exhausted, but if Elena could just figure out why they were taken and what they had in common, she might be able to bargain with these horrible men.

Elena wet her dry lips. “Barbie, where do you work?”

Her chuckle came out harsh. “I’m an exotic dancer at Mons Venus.” She jerked her shoulders forward as if ready for a fight.

Elena mentally crossed herself and schooled her features. “I was a secretary for Harvey Couch.” Given he was such a jerk, perhaps he’d visited her strip club.

Before they got a chance to figure out what to do about their confinement, the side door opened and the hulking figure she’d come to accept as part of her world trudged in. He had three food trays with him and mumbled something that sounded Russian.

He shoved the meal through the small door at the bottom of each cage, and she wrinkled her nose at the stench. When she lifted the lid, she nearly gagged. It was some kind of porridge that smelled like burnt shoes rather than a cousin of the wheat family.

Elena didn’t complain though. Barbie, however, shoved it back out. “What is this shit?”

The guard picked it up, walked across the room, and dumped it in the trash. Like her, Barbie would learn that complaining would gain her nothing but pain.

“Hey,” Barbie yelled at the retreating figure. “I need to take a piss.”

The man pivoted and returned. He unhooked the latch on the door and it swung open. Barbie crawled out and winced when she stood.

“Follow.”

So, the giant could speak English. He led her outside instead of to the bathroom at the back of the warehouse. Elena was about to protest and ask why she had to use the filthy restroom in here and Barbie didn’t, but thought better of it.

Cheryl sat up and looked around. “What’s going to happen to us?” Not only was her hair a mess, her clothes were dirty and torn.

“I don’t know.”

Cheryl leaned against the bars and closed her eyes. Poor thing. From the way she wound her fingers, she was working hard to keep it together.

She dropped her head against the cage. “I never should have come down here. I knew the offer was too good to be true. Fifty-five thousand dollars to be a paralegal. Right.”

Greed. It seemed to be all about greed.

After an hour, Barbie still hadn’t returned, and Elena’s heart grew heavy. Dear Mary, mother of God. The girl was never coming back.

The killing had begun.

#

General Armand handed Clay Demmers a suitcase full of cash. “There’s fifteen thousand in there. The going rate for one of Couch’s girls is eight thousand. When we spoke with Elena Sanchez’s mother in Costa Rica, she said her daughter had never been with a man.”

Clay whistled. “That sucks.”

His partner, Dirk Tilton, shot him a dirty glance.

Clay shrugged. “What? Just saying, if we don’t buy her first, there’s no telling what will happen to her. A girl like Elena may be emotionally damaged for life if the wrong man gets a hold of her.” He turned back to the general. “Is Elena from Costa Rica?” Neither he nor Dirk spoke Spanish. Perhaps the general should put someone in charge who did.

“No. She grew up in Florida. Her parents moved down there, recently.” The general gave them the details of the exchange. “I also included some names you can drop to prove you run a high end strip club in Miami. Our contacts will vouch for you.”

In other words, they’d lie. He hoped he didn’t have to name drop too much. Neither had been in Miami in over a year. They’d done undercover work many times before and understood it was a slippery slope. Having their backgrounds hack proof would make for a smoother transition. One slip up and Elena Sanchez might be subjected to unthinkable acts.

“Any other intel we should be aware of?”