When I was halfway through my breakfast,Darren finally stood.
“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” hesaid, putting on his suit jacket.
“Do I have to stay in my room until you comeback?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the table.
“Every day until I say otherwise,” hereplied, buttoning his jacket.
“How am I supposed to work out then?” Iasked, turning my gaze up to him. I was jonesing for a heavy bagand some gloves.
“I think you’ll manage until I figure out aproper routine for you.”
“Proper routine? I don’t need a routine. Ican formulate my own daily activities.”
“Are you trying to argue with me again?” healmost growled.
Okay, yeah, I was pushing him a little bit,but it was hard to back down when he was trying to exertcontrol.
“No, Darren, I’m not trying to argue, merelytrying to negotiate.”
“There are no negotiations. When I leave thehouse, you will remain in your room until I feel I can trust you toroam around the house. That’s final,” he said and turned toleave.
“But what am I supposed to do all day?” Isaid, standing from my chair now.
God, did I sound like a whiny ass child orwhat?
Darren stopped in his tracks and turned tolook at me, an intense glare emanating from his eyes. I just had tokeep pushing. Why the fuck would he care if I was bored allday?
He practically stormed back toward me, andmy hands came up to my chest in my defense, but he just grabbed myface with both hands and kissed me hard. By the time he was done, Iwas breathless and confused.
“I don’t care what you do, as long as youfollow my rules and do what you’re told. Your freedoms in thishouseare privilegesyou mustearn. Remember that, Jaden, and stop arguing,” he said, kissed meone final time and then walked out the door.
I stood there with my hands balled intofists until my nails bit into my palms and my knuckles turnedwhite. Taking a deepbreath, Itried to calm myself down enough to return to my seat and finish mybreakfast. I was too pissed to finish the oatmeal so I polished offthe fruit and quickly headed back to my room to do nothing for thenext several hours.
ChapterThirteen
System
She was really starting to piss me off. Ididn’t have time for this shit; I had too much I needed to do. Igot in the backseat of the custom,armor-platedBMW while my temporary driver, Bernard,drove us out of the estate. Normally, Scott traveled with meeverywhere I went, but I needed him to keep an eye on Jaden until Ifound her a permanentbodyguardIcould trust.
I had a meeting with my accountant/assistantin half an hour. Ronald Lessner was a measly fuck of a man, but hewas damn good at his job and had plenty of noteworthy connections,which was the only reason I kept him alive. Outside of my brothers,he was a ghost. Not even my closest business partners knew abouthim. I made sure he had protection 24/7 because if someone ever gotto him, I was pretty sure his loyalty to me would be sliced rightout of him. But in this line of work, everything was a risk; therisk just had to be worth it, and Ron definitely was, especiallysince he was also one hell of an attorney.
Bernard drove us to the warehouse and Ichecked in on the new shipment of girls through the two-way glasswall by the door. There were five of them so far, and as usual,they all looked the same to me. Half the time, I didn’t even botherto learn who they were or where they came from. I had others tomake those decisions for me.
We had scouts set up all over the country,prowlingin thepoverty-strickencities for optimal targets. Theweak, the vulnerable, the naïve—they were so easy to find it wasridiculous. A lot of them ended up being runaways living on thestreet. They were the easiest to obtain.Theyhardly even needed to be taken; we just had toconvince them with an easy white lie. And with that, my supply wasendless. Some stupid rebellious teenage girl was always on thestreet somewhere, just waiting to be found.
It helped that I owned a small privateaviation company with dozens of small planes that carried ourshipments from all over the country to the warehouse or whereverelse we needed them to go. It was the perfect setup, and with allthe business dealings and connections I had, no one suspected athing. With the right amount ofmoney,you could buy anything and everything … includingsilence. Once the girls were in custody, they were drugged andshipped away in cargo boxes with padding inside to prevent bruisingduring the transport. Once delivered to the warehouse, it was justbuy and sell from there. And business was booming.
The girls who didn’t sell at the auctionwere usually the ones who liked to act up during their captivity.If the girls had too many bruises on them, they wouldn’t sell thesame way as the others who had behaved. They usually were sold at adiscounted price to the brothels in Mexico where they were smuggledacross by the Coyotes and never seen or heard from again. Everyonereceives the same warning at orientation, but of course, noteveryone listens.
We had a good business relationship with thebrothel chains in Mexico, receiving a nice percentage from theirprofits while supporting their supply of the heavily requestedblond American girl. Everyone in Mexico had dark hair and tan skin.Thejohnsdown there liked tochange things up every now and then. Though I couldn’t understandwhy they would want to fuck a drugged out American idiotanyway. They weren’t nearly asresponsive and were a bore to play with. But that was how some ofthe brothels liked to work. Keeping their slaves as drug addictsensured their obedience; otherwise, they were denied their next fixuntil they did their job. Another reason why many of them diedafter a few months. If thejohnsdidn’t accidentally kill them, the drugs certainly would. Butthat’s what keeps the demand so high and the revenuenever-ending.
The higher ups were usually pretty good totheir slaves, as far as good can be described. We used to train thegirls in sexual obedience, but most of my clients preferred totrain their slaves themselves anyway, so we stopped bothering. Asfar as what their training methods were, from what I had been toldby them, some were worse than others were, some more sadistic andsome more compassionate. The only rule we all had was that the onlyway a slave could be released from their captivity was throughdeath. I couldn’t have freed slaves running around, trying toundermine my business. So far, no one had broken the rules …yet.
I headed down to give the girls theirorientation, all of them staring up at me from their cages,covering themselves as they shivered with fear. Most of themscreamed and cried, begging to be released, but I felt nothing.Even the looks in their eyes barely exhilarated me; it just wasn’tthe same anymore. I realized I hadn’t even analyzed for the feistyone in the group. Now that I had Jaden in my life, the thought ofbreaking another slave just didn’t appeal to me anymore. She wasthe only one whose fire I wanted to taste.
Our next auction would be in two weeks, andI needed someone to handle this shit. I didn’t have the time tokeep coming back here to ensure the job was done properly. That waswhy I needed Ron. He was helping me find my replacement, plus wehad numbers to review.
Iwaswalkingaway from the holdingroomwhen my phone started to ring, my youngest brotheron the other line.
