Curious, I ask, “Could Katie have been placed into the baby-farming trade before being sold?”
Dimitri shakes his head. “We had considered that, but Kirill only ever purchases virgins, and he doesn’t take anyone’s word for it, either.”
I’m glad Dimitri pulled over to make his call. It saves the leather interior of his new ride being coated in my vomit.
“Is she all right?” I hear Smith ask while Dimitri’s hand circles my back in a soothing motion. I told Estelle eggs aren’t supposed to smell fishy. She didn’t believe me.
Dimitri’s eyes flick between me and the minute bit of vomit on the edge of the road surface for several long seconds before he mutters, “She will be.” After switching off the speaker feature on his phone, he squashes it against his ear. “Send Rocco to correspond with Megan’s release. I need you to share the information Maddox disclosed with Rico before looking more closely at Katie’s sale.” His eyes float to me before he says, “We’ll find DemiafterI’ve ensured Roxanne has eaten.”
“I’ve eaten,” I mumble, denying the accusation in his eyes with words. “Not a lot, but enough.” My last comment is barely a whisper, but Dimitri still hears them. His jaw stiffens a mere second before it works through a stern grind.
He has no right to be angry. He dumped me in a house with groceries older than dirt, and his goons weren’t overly friendly when we suggested for them to get us supplies. They thought we were trying to play them. In reality, we were endeavoring not to starve to death.
When I say that to Dimitri, his face reddens to the color of my favorite crayon when I was a kid—blistering red. “Send Clover extermination orders for Roxanne’s ranch.” He waits for panic to make itself known with my face before he adds, “Warn him if he so much as rustles a hair on Ms. Armstead’s head, the next rodent I exterminate will be him.”
I don’t know whether to be turned on by his threat or spooked. I love that he’s protecting Estelle as fiercely as he protected me weeks ago, but not only is it after he put her life at risk, so it’s a little too late to act chivalrous, his reply exposes he knows Estelle’s last name. That can only mean one thing. He’s been looking into her past as much as he did mine at the start of our arrangement. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Estelle has always been the more attractive one of our duo. That’s why I bring the spunk. I thought it would even things between us. I’m not so confident now, though.
I’m so deep in my pitiful thought process, I don’t realize Dimitri ended his call and recommenced our trip until he asks, “When was the last time you ate?”
“Other than regurgitated slop I just threw up?” I relish his lowered lids for a second before putting him out of his misery. “I ate last night.” I cringe, hating my inability to lie. “If you class three in the afternoon as nighttime.”
“You last ate yesterday afternoon?” When I nod, his eyes lock with the dashboard of his swanky new ride. “It’s now ten in the morning.” I can’t work out a single thing he says after this. It’s all grumbled and spaced by a heap of swear words. They make me smile until he says more clearly, “You won’t be smiling when I tan your ass for thinking this is funny.”
Once again, I don’t know how to respond. Should I be turned on or scared by his threat?
I lose the chance to deliberate when Dimitri pulls into the first gas station he finds. It’s skanky, stinky, and looks like it hasn’t been updated since the nineties. “I’d rather drink water out of a toilet bowl than eat here.”
Ignoring me, he throws open his door, clambers out, then locks his eyes with mine. Not a word seeps from his lips. He doesn’t need to voice his commands when his eyes can take up the slack. I either follow him inside willingly, or he’ll drag me in there and tie me to my seat.
“Considering you released me from our contract…” I stop my climb out of his car to air quote my last word, “… you’re a little too possessive for my liking.”
The brutal closure of my door should gobble up his reply. It doesn’t. I hear every painstaking word. “Uncaging a bird doesn’t mean you’re done with her. It can be quite the opposite, actually. What’s that saying?Set her free. If she comes back, she’s yours. If she doesn’t, she never was.”
On that note, he enters the restaurant, leaving me standing in the dusty lot with my jaw hanging open and my heart in tatters.
I thought he let me go to save me from the madness. I had no clue he did it to save himself from a lunacy not even someone as strong as him can survive.
Twenty-Three
Dimitri
My hand stops creeping for my gun when Roxanne soundlessly begs for me not to respond to an insolent man’s overfriendly approach. Things have been different between us the past hour and a half—I fucked up by speaking before thinking—but one thing hasn’t changed. Roxanne’s ability to look a madman in the eyes and see the good in them.
This beggar has been watching her from afar since we arrived. He doesn’t want the money I tossed at his feet, nor the scraps of our meals. He wants Roxanne to dance with him, knowing having her in his arms for a second will make up for a lifetime of injustices.
I’d rather he fuck off, but Roxanne is refusing to let me send him away. She finds him endearing. Why? I have no fucking clue. He stinks, his clothes are four sizes too big, and his toes are peeking out of his shoes, yet Roxanne looks at him as if he’s a man who’s just a little down on his luck.
My jaw almost cracks when Roxanne holds her index finger in the air. “One dance.”
“Roxanne.”
The gravelly deliverance of her name snaps her eyes to mine in an instant. Even though she’s panicked, she holds her ground. “It’s one dance.” I’m about to tell her I don’t give a fuck if he was going to pay her a million dollars for thirty seconds worth of work but lose the chance when her next comment stuns me as much as my earlier one did her. “If you let me go this one last time, I promise I’ll come back.”
I’m too shocked to talk. This has never happened before. Usually, I go in guns blazing. I don’t want to do that this time around. So instead, I let her stretch her wings.
With a smile that makes me regret every decision I’ve ever made, Roxanne mouths, “Thank you,” before she accepts the hand the man is holding out in offering.
While he whizzes her around a shoddy restaurant, I watch them like a hawk, uncaring if I look like a deranged stalker. If his hands move within an inch of an area I deem unacceptable, the guests at this establishment will be eating mutton for the next six months.
