Page 42 of Tame Me

“Uhm… The man who raped me a while back,” she says, staying focused on me. “What do you mean? Is this why you asked me to come over?”

“Ayla and her childhood best friend, Giovanni, left here to go get some cleaning supplies and food. Reid and I got here, and the door was unlocked, but Ayla swore she locked it. Gio’s parents lived across the road until they died. He has a camera up that sees the front drive and door. Three men in black masks got out and came in here. They were here for maybe five minutes and left.”

“How do you know it’s the same? It could be anyone,” Tabitha bargains.

“One of the men has the barbed wire and snake tattoo on his forearm, Tabby,” I tell her. I can see in her face that there are only so many reasons a family gets something like that together.

“You got assaulted by someone in the mafia, and now they’re after Ayla?” Reid asks..

“No,” I say. “I murdered someone in the mafia for raping Tabby, and now they are after Ayla.”

“What?” Ayla says from the staircase landing. “They were here to hurt me?”

“Ah… I’m not sure,” I say. “I don’t know why else they would have come here. I’m not even sure how they know you are connected to me… I just recognized the tattoo.”

“Can I see it?” Tabitha asks.

“Yeah,” Giovanni says from behind Ayla on the stairs. He gets his phone from his pocket and finds the video before handing it to Tabitha. We all watch her stare at his phone. The tattoo itself isn’t nefarious, but the fact that it’s often used to symbolize control and ownership is honestly terrifying. I am no saint, but these men… We just have to make sure they cannot get to her.

Tabitha’s breath catches for a moment, and it confirms what I’m already suspecting.

Human traffickers are targeting Ayla.

“So?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Tabitha says after a moment. “That’s the same tattoo.”

“So… Here’s the problem,” Thane says cautiously. “That type of tattoo—a barbed wire and snake tattoo—it’s basically a label.”

“What does the label say, Thane?” I ask impatiently.

“They’re human traffickers, Ayla,” Thane says honestly. I appreciate him being direct about it, but I think I would rather live in blissful ignorance.

“You mean… They want to sell me because you killed the man who raped Tabitha?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, slowly stepping closer to me.

“And if they get me…”

“Do you want me to be blunt?” he asks, cupping my face. I nod because talking might lead to me crying. “You’ll be raped by God knows how many people and eventually be sold. Best case scenario, it’s some lonely billionaire who is too lazy to find a wife on his own, so he buys one.”

“Worst case?” I ask, nearly whispering.

“You die,” he says honestly, but his tone is so soft that I can almost forget that his words don’t feel like the end of the world for me. “But we won’t let that happen. Okay?”

“How?” I ask, sniffing back tears.

“If something happens and someone manages to take you, I swear to you right now, we will find you,” Thane says. “We will do everything within our power to make sure that doesn’t happen, though.”

“Ayla, I am so sorry,” Tabitha says tearfully.

“Don’t apologize for getting raped, Tabitha,” I say. “I’d love to blame this on y’all, but this is Joe’s fault for putting his hands on you.”

“Let’s get this place cleared out fast because they will likely come back to look for her then,” Giovanni says.

“Is Tabitha safe?” I ask.

“I’d say that likely what’s happening is they know that Thane killed him, so they want revenge by taking someone he cares about,” Giovanni says.