Page 92 of Kyle

“No one found me,” she sneered and hugged her knees close to her body before she lowered her head on her knees, cutting off any further conversation.

Emerson looked at me and motioned for me to stand.

That didn’t go well.

We met Jeremy in the kitchen and he, too, had a scowl on his face.

“She’s gonna be tough to crack,” he whispered. “She doesn’t respond to kindness. As a matter of fact, it has the opposite reaction than you want. The only way I can get her to eat or go to her room is if I demand it. And I can’t be nice about it either.”

That didn’t sound good.

“Makes sense.” Emerson shrugged. “For ten years she’s been abused, she doesn’t know how to respond to kindness. She probably doesn’t even remember what it is.”

“We’ll try again after lunch?” I asked.

“Yep. Next time we talk to her, we’ll go about it differently. Brace yourself, Anaya; it’s gonna get ugly but we have to get her mad.”

* * *

I hadn’t fully understood what Emerson had been saying until a few hours later when we were sitting in front of Monica again.

“How many women do you think you brought to the stable?” Emerson inquired. “That’s what you did, right? You recruited.”

Monica’s body jerked with the new line of questioning.

“How hard was it for you to get those innocent women to join you?” I took over. “Bet it was hard to convince them that being a prostitute was easy. Was it the money? Is that what—”

“Innocent?” Monica growled. “They were already whores walking the street.”

“Right. So that made it easier?”

“Easier than you think. At least we had protection. At least they wouldn’t be walking the streets.”

“So, what? You did them a favor?” Emerson spit out. “Is that what you’ve convinced yourself you were doing? Helping them?”

“They went for sucking dick in alleyways to fifteen-hundred thread count sheets. So you tell me, was it a step up?”

“Is there a difference?” I grumbled.

“One way you walk away with scabbed-over knees and the other you get luxury,” Monica informed me.

“And again, is that better? You’re still sucking a man you don’t like’s dick.”

Monica sat back and uncurled her legs, now sitting Indian style. “Didn’t take either of you for naïve bitches. You know the way this works.”

“No,” I told her. “Tell me how does it work?”

“He owns me. I do what he says when he says. I’m his to loan out, rent out, sell, fuck, slap around, whatever he feels like he gets to do because I am nothing.”

“And who does he loan you out to?” Emerson asked.

“Anyone he wants. And I get that while I’m getting fucked, at least it’s on luxury.”

I was speechless. Seriously, I had nothing to say because what was there to say? Monica had spent ten years being treated like a walking, talking sex doll.

“So you recruited others so they’d get luxury, too?” Emerson inquired.

“No. I did it because I was told to do it. And I learned not to be stupid and just do what I was told.”