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“Well, the dick didn’t know the name. All he said was you needed money to get in.”
Leo puts a pastry on my plate, then one on his. Staring at the pastry, I listen to them both talking about some website. Whatever they’re looking for they need that website.
“Hope,” Leo shouts my name a little louder to pull me away from my thoughts. “You’ve not even taken a bite.” He slides the plate closer to me.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
"Hope, you know you can talk in front of Jackson, right? He comes over all the time. I mean the fucker hasn't eaten at his own place since he bought it." I hear Leo laughing, and I try to record the sound in my mind as it's so beautiful.
"Now Hope is here, and she makes amazing food. Why would I eat at home?" Jackson says. I can hear the humor in his tone.
Leo grabs another pastry. “Get a cook.”
"Now that I've tasted the amazing cheesecake, I'm hoping to get some more of that, but before I get some more of the cheesecake, I'd like something else first."
"Yeah, what's that?" Leo asks, and I'm thinking the same thing. I mean I haven't said two words to him.
"To see those beautiful blue eyes that Leo keeps telling me about." Jackson leans closer to the table, and I feel his eyes on me. He doesn't say anything to him, and neither do I.
I feel Leo moving and I look up through my eyelashes as his hand reaches mine. "Hope, Jackson is like my brother, he would never hurt you." He places his hand on mine. I like his touch; it has a warmth to it.
Jackson throws his pen on the table. “So, this site, if we don’t know what it’s called, how are we meant to find it?”
Leaning forward, I pick the pen up, and Leo slides a piece of paper over to me. I write a word on the paper and slide it back to him.
“Underpleasure,” Leo reads it aloud and Jackson types. “Hope, you really need to start telling me something.” He reaches to touch my hand again, but I move it away from him.
“What are you going to do?” I ask. I get a feeling I know what he’s going to do and a part of me wants him to do it, but a part of me doesn’t all at the same time.
"I'm on the hunt for a man. For five years I've been hunting him. And when I do find him, I'll kill him." There's so much anger in the answer, so much rage. "After I kill him, I'm going to kill the man who had you. Jackson is working on finding your uncle—"
"No!" I interrupt him pushing my chair away from the table. He can't find him. Not even Leo can help me with him. He sold me, but he still came to the house to make sure I was behaving, and if I didn't it was bad, reallyreallybad for me. He always told me he would find me if I tried to run. I know one day he will.
I'm panicking. I can feel my lungs getting smaller. The air around me is thicker now. I can feel the sweat building, and I rub my forehead as I try to inhale, but it's not working.
Leo kneels in front of me. “Look at me, Hope… Hope, listen to my voice,lookat me.” His thumb moves along my cheek and wipes the tears away. “No one willevertouch you again. No one willevercome near you.” He brings his face closer to mine. “I promise.”
I shake my head. They don’t know him. He has people that work for him. He can andwillfind me.
“I know that a lot more happened and I want to know what that was, but you’ve got to trust me.” Leo puts his head down slightly to look at me, but I close my eyes.
"I can't go back there," I say quietly to myself. It took me years to find a way to escape, and I know that if they find me again, it will be the last thing I will ever do.
“You’re safe…”
I pull away from him. I can’t listen to promises that I know he can’t keep. I move back to the table. I just want the subject to change. I feel them both watching me and I quickly take a sip of my water.
"What did you find on the site?" Leo asks. His tone has changed a little, but I don't think it's because of me. I think it's more because he doesn't know what hold my past has on me.
“Nothing. It’s a porn site, asking me to log in.” Jackson takes another pastry off the plate. He can sure eat a lot; I think he’s had about four of them now.
"Username is password, and the password is username07," I tell them. I turn my head towards Leo but don't look at him. "I used to hear men talking about the website, so they gave them a username so that people could have a peak," I tell him. I heard so many different voices talking about the site; I could easily pick the voices out in a crowd.
“Leo, you might want to look at this,” I hear Jackson as he pushes the laptop over to him.
"Welcome to Underpleasure. You know why you're here. To enter the room, you need to pay $50,000—"
“Fifty thousand dollars just to enter the fucking site!” Jackson shouts.
