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“Why would someone do this to us?” the woman next to her cried. She had no answer for her again, but she wished that she did. Amelia looked around the truck again and realized that all the women in there with her were of a certain age—young, and attractive. It crossed her mind that whoever took them was going to do something unspeakable with all of them, but how could that be? She had heard of things like this happening to other women but never imagined that it would happen to her. Things like this didn’t happen to women like her.
Amelia was a lowly personal assistant at a local law firm. Her life was quite boring compared to other women she knew. Hell, she spent most of her free nights at home, in her pajamas, watching some lame television show until she was tired enough to go to bed. She was the most boring twenty-two-year-old that she knew. The only time she really broke out of her shell was when she and Sandy would go to the club to let off some steam.
The truck stopped and the woman next to her whimpered. Amelia reached for her hand and held it in her own, trying to silently let her know that everything was going to be okay, even if she had a sick feeling that it wasn’t. The back doors of the truck swung open to reveal three big men, all mean-looking and pointing guns at the women.
“Let’s go, ladies,” one of the men shouted at them.
“Where are we?” someone from the back of the truck asked.
“You keep your fucking mouths shut, and no one will get hurt,” another man warned. Amelia didn’t quite believe him that their silence would guarantee their safety, but she also knew when to keep her mouth shut. It was a skill that she learned at an early age.
Her father wasn’t the easiest man to get along with. He drank too much and when he did, he was mean. He liked to slap her mother around, and when she finally took off, leaving Amelia and her younger sister with their alcoholic father, he decided that they’d do in a pinch. She became a punching bag for her old man and took most of the punishment so that her sister could be spared. That was when she learned that silence was golden, even if it didn’t always stop her father from hitting her.
“Now, I’m going to say this one more time, ladies,” the first man spat. “Let’s go.” She stood, knowing that he wasn’t going to give her or any of the other women another chance to comply.
Another truck pulled up next to the men holding guns at the women, and two more men jumped out. The one driving looked to be the one in charge. He started barking orders as soon as he got out of the old truck. The second guy looked the women in the truck over and seemed a little bit green by the whole scene. If she wasn’t mistaken, she noted a hint of pity in his dark eyes and that surprised the hell out of her. None of the other men looked at the women that way. They seemed to look straight through them, not really even seeing them. Maybe it was easier for the men that way. They wouldn’t have to think of the women as human beings, but as objects that needed to be moved at any cost.
“Where are you taking us?” another woman asked as she stepped down from the truck. One of the guards backhanded her and she yelped, falling to the concrete ground.
“Anyone else have a question?” he asked the group. Of course, no one else spoke up. No one dared after the woman was helped up from the floor, holding her jaw, whimpering in pain. The other women were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
“Good, let’s move,” another guard shouted. The women filed into a single line and walked into the warehouse silently. Wherever they were going, Amelia was pretty sure that none of them were going to like their final destination.
They lined up the women in front of cages and she was sure that she had correctly guessed how much she was going to hate what came next. “In,” the third guard shouted. Some of the women cried and shook their heads, but Amelia knew that none of that would help save her from the inevitable. She was going to have to get into the disgusting cage behind her, just like all the others.
Amelia stepped into the cage and the guard with kind eyes looked in at her and nodded, as if actually thanking her for her compliance. She shrugged, “No use in fighting,” she whispered more to herself than to him. “You do have a gun.” She nodded to the semi-automatic he was holding, pointed in her direction.
“Smart girl,” the guy drawled, walking over to the next woman in line, and demanding her compliance. She didn’t give it as willingly as Amelia had. He forced her into the cage next to Amelia’s and she fell to the dirty concrete floor. He shouted at the woman that she needed to learn her place as she scooted across the floor to the back corner of the cage. Amelia wasn’t sure how they had all landed in this hell, but she was sure of one thing—it was going to get worse, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, things probably wouldn’t get better—ever.
Caught in Spider’s Web (A Halloween Novella Royal Bastards MC Book 11) Coming in September 2023!
What’s releasing next from K.L.? Here’s a sneak peek! Be the first to get your hands on Beach Rules (Summer Lovin’ Series Book 1) coming June 2023!
Savannah
Savannah Higgins honked the horn of her Jeep again and shouted for Norah and Ginger to hurry the hell up. They were supposed to be on the road to the beach over an hour ago and at this rate, they wouldn’t make it to Georgia before sunset. She was hoping to get to at least watch the sun go down over the ocean tonight before settling into their summer rental, but her two best friends were dashing all her hopes of doing so.
“You’re the most impatient woman on the planet, you do know that, right?” Norah asked.
“And you two are the slowest women on the damn planet. Can you please hurry the hell up? We still need to pick up the keys to the house before the rental agency closes at nine tonight. At this rate, we’re going to miss them and have to sleep in my Jeep.”
“I call backseat,” Ginger grumbled as she loaded her two suitcases into the trunk. “And why does Norah get to bring three suitcases? I thought that we all agreed to two each.”
“Right, but then the two of you kept asking me to bring stuff for you to borrow—like my strappy heals and my hair straightener. You two practically filled that suitcase with all your requests, so don’t look at me like that,” Norah insisted. She hopped into the front passenger seat next to Savannah and flashed her smile. “Ready,” she announced.
“Well, hallelujah,” Savannah shouted. “Get your ass in the backseat, Ging, before I leave you here.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Ginger sassed, sliding in the backseat as Savannah ordered. She had always been the ringleader of their little motley crew. They had all been the best of friends since being tossed together in the first grade. Savannah was always the bossy one of the three. The girls liked to tease that she had the biggest mouth and could yell the loudest, and that was why they all blindly followed her, but she also knew that they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ginger ran a close second as the group’s mouthpiece and she was sure that if anything ever happened to her, Ging would happily take up the reins. And Norah had always been the brains of the operation as she was literally a rocket scientist.
After high school, they had all gone their separate ways to college but always met back at home to talk about their adventures and share their summers together. After they graduated from college, Ginger went off to New York to do her internship in fashion design and Savannah and Norah were sure that she’d never come home, but she had. After Ginger’s mother passed, leaving her house to her only daughter, she decided to move back home. Ginger still spent fashion week in New York and Paris, living the glamorous life, but they were both happy to have her home, for the most part.
While Ginger was off in New York for her internship, Norah had gone off to earn her master’s degree and ended up back at home working for NASA in Washington, DC It was a bit of a commute from the outskirts of Maryland, where their little town was located, but Norah made it work by taking the train to work most days. She had to stay in DC some nights, but they always ended up back at home for the weekends, just the three of them. Savannah felt lucky to still have them both in her life. She knew that most of their high school friends had lost touch with each other, but she knew that would never happen to the three of them.
As for her, she had ended up doing exactly what she had always planned. She got her degree in journalism and was working for the little local paper. Sure, she had dreams of working for one of the bigger DC papers and Norah and Ginger pushed her to do so, but that would mean leaving her ailing father and she just wasn’t ready to let anyone else take care of him yet. She made enough to pay the bills and still lived with him in the house that she grew up in. Savannah didn’t want to move her father out of his comfort zone when they found out that he had dementia. The doctors said that it was good for him to have familiar surroundings, and she planned on keeping things that way for as long as possible. For now, she was thankful for the live-in nurse that she was able to hire to help care for her dad while she spent the summer at the beach with her best friends. It was a trip that they had always wanted to take and none of them was getting any younger. They were just lucky enough to get off work for part of the summer and work from their beach rental the rest of the time. Plus, she could be back home in half a day if her father needed her.
“Why are you in such a hurry to get to the beach?” Ginger asked. “You seem a little more bossy than usual.”
