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“A while” being less than an hour, I thought grimly, but I made the sort of shocked-scared sound a different girl might make at the terrifying vagueness of his statement.
Jerry drove for a few more minutes before pulling to a stop. “Sit tight,” Sonny told me. “I’ll be back in a couple.” With that he opened the door and departed, taking the palpable sense of calm with him. Damn, that was a hell of a skill.
Jerry certainly didn’t exude calm of any sort. Out of curiosity, I let out a low whimper to see how the hard-faced man would respond.
I heard him shift in his seat. “You got it good, honey,” he said with a low snort of rude amusement.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I stiffened. “What do you mean?”
Fabric slid across leather and, judging from the sounds, I figured he’d turned and laid his arm across the back of the seat to look at me. “Because if you’d been my mark, I’d be having some fun pretty soon,” he said, ugly smile in his voice. “Can’t say the same for you though.”
Shrinking back, I took a few seconds to control the fury. Had he taunted Amber like this during the trip to Austin? “D-don’t you dare touch me!”
He let out a dry chuckle. “You get turned over to me, and I’ll touch you all right. You’ll be begging me to stop, but I won’t.”
Teeth clenched, I seethed but let out another whimper to stay in character. The rape of Amber had been part of his goddamn job. How many other women had he been allowed to use simply because they were available? Even one was too many, and I knew damn well the number was far higher.
“Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I’ll have some fun with you when they’re done playing around.”
“Kara,” Paul murmured in my ear. “Please wait until after you do your thing in the server room to feed this asshole his balls.”
I smothered a laugh and had to quickly turn it into something that sounded like a frightened sob. But if Sonny doesn’t return soon I probably will blow my cover and commit violence against this worthless piece of shit.
As if my thoughts summoned him, the door beside me opened. “Come on out,” Sonny said. I did so, weirdly relieved as the calm descended again and hideously glad to get away from Jerry. Sonny took my arm, then paused. “Goddammit, Jerry,” he said, voice tight with anger. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Interesting, I thought as he led me away. He’d sensed that Jerry had fucked with me. Jaw tight, I moved where Sonny guided me: gravel and then a sidewalk beneath my feet. I actively sank into the ease he projected, using it to center myself.
He paused long enough to open a door, then led me inside, closed it behind us, then pulled my hood off. “No surveillance in here unless I turn it on,” he told me, fatigue and stress coloring his voice. He took a folding knife from his pocket and sliced the zip tie on my wrists.
“Jerry’s a real prince,” I said. “I intend to castrate him with a dull knife, first chance I have.”
A muscle in his jaw leaped, and he nodded. “We need to wait about fifteen minutes before going to the house,” he told me. “It’ll be quieter then.”
“No
t a problem,” I said. “I trust your judgment.” I looked around. We were in an open-plan room with kitchen area, table with two chairs, sofa, bookshelves, TV, bed, and a door to a bathroom. All nicely appointed, like one would find in a decent hotel. “How long do the women you bring in for Rhyzkahl usually stay here?”
“Anywhere from a few days to seven or eight weeks,” he said. “And not only women. Three men so far. Ones the boss said deserved harsh punishment.”
I was pretty sure that if the men were sent for punishment, they were going to Kadir. The men were dead or worse by now, but the women were far more likely to still be alive. “Are there any others being held here now for Rhyzkahl?”
He shook his head. “Amaryllis was to be the first of two,” he told me, then looked away. “The ones for him weren’t the only ones—not the only grabs I’ve done.”
The heart-wrenching despondency in his words took me aback. I’d focused exclusively on the handful of recent abductions related to Rhyzkahl. Yet Sonny had been at this for a dozen years. How many more had he taken for reasons other than to be given to the qaztahl? Men and women wanted by Farouche for any number of nefarious purposes. “Sonny. I’m so sorry. No more.”
He looked back to me, face and eyes haunted. “I couldn’t even kill myself to make it stop,” he said, voice thick. “I tried. I tried, but Mr. Farouche . . .” He shook his head.
Though I hadn’t thought it possible, my loathing of Farouche ratcheted up another notch. Sonny paid for his crimes with his soul every waking moment, and I was willing to bet his dreams weren’t full of rainbows and unicorns. Let’s hope suicide isn’t still on Sonny’s agenda, I thought grimly.
Sonny returned his focus to me. “What happened to the ones who went with Mega-Fabio?”
“Most likely used for sex,” I told him frankly, doing my best to keep my voice level even though the topic induced white-hot rage in me. I forced calm and sifted back through my memory of snippets of information and conversations that made more sense now. “They’d be traded to other lords for favors, I’d imagine.” I angled a look at him. “If it helps, I believe that most of the lords would treat a woman well.” I grimaced sourly. “Even Rhyzkahl would take good care of a woman he desired.” I highly doubted Amkir would, and I didn’t think Jesral would be the picture of loving kindness either. And Kadir seemed pretty damn asexual. He got those men, I thought. And not for sex.
Sonny looked relieved. “I pretty much knew sex would be the purpose. Rhyzkahl seemed to like Janice a lot. He said he’d chosen her to live with him. It’s good to hear they’ll be okay.”
I clamped down hard on the No, they won’t be okay! response that leapt to my lips. This was human trafficking, plain and simple. But saying that wouldn’t accomplish anything and would only distress Sonny more. He knew what he’d done, and right now he scrambled for any shred of comfort he could find. Now wasn’t the time to yank that away from him.
“What’s your usual routine with a new acquisition?” I asked in a sharp change of subject. “I don’t want anyone wondering what’s going on if you’re supposed to be somewhere else.”
