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He shrugged again. “No, this is not how it should work,” he says. “I don't disagree with you. Unfortunately, I acted rashly. I admit that. Now, we're left with the fallout of that rash decision.”
“It doesn't have to be this way,” I said. “You can still make this right though. Let me go and we'll call it even. I swear it. Untie me and let me out of here and –”
He shook his head again. “We both know that's not true, so let's not waste time insulting each other's intelligence. For better or for worse, we're going to have to let this situation play out.”
The blood in my veins turned to icy slush as I looked at him. What in the hell could he have meant by, “for better or for worse?” I was growing more nervous by the second, the righteous anger that had been lighting me up from the inside slowly started to fade, giving way to fear once more. Tears welled in my eyes and slipped down my cheeks. I tried to blink them away, but it only seemed to make more of them fall.
“Please, Charles,” I said. “Please don't hurt me. Just let me go. I won't tell anybody. I swear it.”
He nodded, and his lips compressed into a tight line. The cold certainty in his face made me nervous and I thrashed again at my bonds, hoping to break free. But, they held me fast.
“Charles, you don't have to do this,” I said. “You don't have to do anything else that's rash or crazy. You can make this all right again by just letting me go.”
“The die has been cast, Avery,” he said. “I still want to woo you. I think in time, you'll come to appreciate me and all I have to offer you. If only you'll open your mind and your heart to me.”
“I'm not opening anything to you if you don't untie me, Charles,” I growled.
He sighed, and a look of sadness crossed his features. “I can't do that, Avery,” he said. “You know I can't, so please, stop asking.”
“Charles.”
A voice, speaking French, sounded in the hallway. Lucky for me I could understand every word the newcomer was saying. It was a voice I didn't recognize though, but one that made Charles' eyes widen and a look of dread cross his face. Something I found interesting.
“Charles, come,” the voice, deep and rumbling, came again.
Charles turned without another word to me and walked out into the hallway. I heard two pairs of footsteps walking away, but then they stopped abruptly. Then I heard the whispered conversation between the two. Their voices – Charles and apparently his father's as he’d called him Papa – echoed off the walls of the corridor and drifted down to me.
Though they'd walked away from the room a bit, believing they were keeping me from overhearing them, I could hear them every bit as clearly as if they'd been standing next to the bed I was tied to.
What I heard them discussing though, made the already cold blood in my veins grow even colder. An icy fist of fear reached into my chest, grabbed hold of my heart, and squeezed it tight. As I listened to them speaking, the fear in me rose up, overcoming the anger that had been fueling me before.
They were talking about getting rid of me. Disposing of me. Permanently.
His father argued that I couldn't be allowed to leave the house. He argued that I would go to the cops – he was right about that – and if I did, they would bring down the entire family. Their entire operation. If I got the cops involved with their lives, they would be left in ruins. Utterly destroyed.
Their voices were growing a little more heated – Charles wanted to keep me as his plaything, but, his father was overruling him, imposing his will upon his son. Neither scenario was good for me. I was either going to end up a sex slave or dead.
I struggled hard against my bonds, trying to break free. But, it felt like the harder I struggled, the tighter the ropes that were holding me got. I was trapped with nowhere to go.
The conversation in the hall stopped and I heard Charles' footsteps coming toward the bedroom again. He leaned against the jam as he looked at me. It wasn't the vacant expression, or the dead look in his eyes that bothered me the most, though. It was the fact that he was holding a syringe filled with an amber colored fluid in his hands.
“I am sorry Avery,” he said. “I truly wish it didn't have to be this way.”
“It doesn't, Charles. Please –”
He stepped forward, slipping the cap off the syringe. I felt a slight pinch as he slipped the needle softly into my skin. I then watched as he pressed the plunger all the way down. He looked at me with an expression of complete sorrow and loss.
“Stop fighting,” Charles said. “This will all be over soon enough, and you'll have nothing more to worry about.”
His tone was ominous, leaving me overcome with outright terror and doubts about my safety. Nobody knew where I was. Nobody had a way to contact me. To any of my friends, it would probably look like I'd just dropped off the grid. But, I feared that they'd never find me once Charles and his father had made up their minds about what to do with me.
The tears came harder and faster, rolling down my face. I couldn't have stopped them if I'd wanted to. I had no idea what was going on or what came next. The only thought that reverberated through my mind was that nobody was going to be able to find me.
I was beyond terrified.
CHAPTER NINE
SPENCER
