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  “Where do you want me to dance?” I asked, in my most innocent voice.

  Yes, this was the Jessica I’d been before. The good girl. Always ready to please. Ready to do anything you wanted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a knife at the edge of the table. A small blade, glinting shiny and sharp. If I got the chance—

  “There,” he said, pointing toward a couch. I went over and sat obediently on the arm of the couch, my legs crossed. Good girl.

  El Alfa pressed a button at the bar. Music started up, an intense pounding beat like the one that had been playing at his club. He poured himself a drink. I stood up and began to sway.

  How the hell had I danced before? I didn’t remember a single move. But if he was starting to drink again, hopefully that wouldn’t matter.

  He came over and I started dancing, gyrating my hips smoothly. My hands came up my sides, dragging along my curves. I didn’t know exactly what you were supposed to do with your hands while dancing, and I wasn’t confident enough to wave them around wildly.

  “Come here,” I said, and took his hand, leading him to the couch and gesturing for him to sit down. I don’t know if it was because he was still somewhat drunk, but he let me push him down on the couch.

  “Yes, dance,” El Alfa said, taking a sip of his drink and putting it down on the arm of the couch. I let him touch my hips as I dipped down, swaying over his lap. Christ, I wish I had learned how to dance before this.

  El Alfa didn’t seem disappointed with my dancing, though. He slapped at my ass with a lazy hand and watched with mild interest as I squirmed and spun in front of him. Whenever his attention seemed to wane, I turned around and ground my hips against his lap. I didn’t want him to get bored with watching, because then he’d want to do more. At the same time, I didn’t want to keep him awake. It was an impossible situation.

  The couch was facing away from the door, and every once in a while, I let my eyes drift over. If only he would fall asleep… I could kill him and escape out of the door.

  His eyelids looked like they were drooping, but his cock wasn’t. His obvious arousal was going to keep him awake until he was able to get more from me. He slapped my ass again, and the sound echoed. He stretched in his seat.

  I was bending over in front of him when I heard the zip of his pants. I froze.

  “Now take off those panties,” he growled.

  Fear dripped down the back of my spine. I forced myself to take a deep breath and stand back up slowly.

  “But…but I’m a virgin,” I said, turning around and putting on a pouting face. I didn’t have to work to make my lip tremble. “Don’t you want to keep me pure?”

  The table was only a few feet away. I could leap over him and maybe, maybe, I would be able to get to the knives before he did. Even then, how was I supposed to know how to fight?

  “Is that what you think?” he said. He moistened his lips.

  “Well… maybe?” I was playing dumb.

  “Come here,” he said. “Lean closer.”

  I leaned closer, letting my breasts swing out in front of me. I thought of Vale and how I’d felt his length between my breasts. Would El Alfa do that? I shuddered to think about it.

  And then my mind went back further, to what Vale had said about knives.

  About the best way to kill someone.

  El Alfa slapped me. The sting of the slap ratcheted through my head and I recoiled instinctively. His fingers, though, hooked under my collar, and he pulled me close. My eyes burned with stinging tears from the slap, but I blinked them away.

  “Stupid bitch,” he hissed.

  My first thought was that he was reading my mind, but I realized that I’d already offended him.

  “Your job isn’t to think, girl,” he spat at me. “This is my house. I can do what I want to. Understand?”

  I nodded my head. He shook me by the collar harder, making my teeth knock together.

  “Understand?”

  “Yes!” I cried out, shaken by the blow. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Now. Take off your panties.”

  I swallowed as El Alfa let go of my collar, sending me reeling backwards. I struggled to stand, and slipped my fingers under my panties. My hands were trembling.

  This. This was how I was going to lose my virginity. Here, in the bedroom of a sex slaver, without any dignity left. All of my skin turned cold, numb, and I started to pull my panties down.

  Then my eyes lifted, and I saw him. The door was open, and Vale was standing right there.

  With a gun in his hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Vale

  I circled the compound, heading towards El Alfa’s room. The perimeter guards were all outside; I wasn’t sure when their shifts would end. I had to assume that someone would raise the alarm sooner rather than later, but I had no way of knowing. And Valentina was the only one standing watch. It was against my nature to trust anyone, let alone a woman I knew was capable of lying, and lying well.

  But there was no way around it.

  There was one guard standing outside El Alfa’s room. I raised a hand in a short wave. Before the man could wave back, my hand had turned into a fist across his jaw. He went down cold, and I caught him before he could hit the floor.

  I looked around for a place to put his unconscious body. There was nothing around. I tugged him next to one of the square planters near El Alfa’s room and took his pistol, tucking it into the back of my pants.

  Now I had two guns.

  I pushed open El Alfa’s door quickly but quietly. I knew that if he was going to see the door open, it was better off doing it fast. But he didn’t see me.

  Jessica did.

  I froze as her eyes lifted up and fixed on the machine gun in my hand. Her collar was still on, but she wasn’t chained up. No, she was nearly naked, straddling El Alfa, her hands pulling down at her panties.

  My heart rose into my throat. Would she scream? Would she give me away? I had no idea if she understood what it was I was doing. There had been no time to tell her—

  Her eyes flashed back down to El Alfa. He must have seen something in her eyes, a flash of fear. He sat up on the couch and started to turn his head. She ran both of her hands through his hair, pressing her breasts into his face to distract him.

  I could have shot him right then and there, but I would be giving everything away with the noise. My best chance was a knife, but I’d left my knife with Valentina.

  The table between us was covered in instruments of torture. Some of them were knives.

  I knew I had to move quickly. I stepped forward with the gun, hoping to grab a knife so that the kill would be quiet.

  He had some instinct, though. As I moved toward him, I knew why he called himself invincible. He couldn’t have seen me, or heard me. It was another sense that made him jump up suddenly, spinning up from the couch before I could reach him.

  “Stop.”

  “Ahhhh!”

  He had Jessica in front of him. His hand yanked her collar hard, and twisted. She put both hands up to her neck, but it was useless. He had her dangling by the throat right in front of him. She choked on her scream.

  “Let her go,” I said.

  “Why? So you can get a clear view to shoot me?”

  He tugged at her collar harder. Her face was red. The temples on her veins throbbed.

  “Put down the gun,” El Alfa said. “Put down the gun or she dies.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Really? I thought you were a better man than this. To kill a girl—”

  “Let her go.”

  He smiled. All the while, Jessica’s arms tugged uselessly at his arm. He continued to choke her. I trembled. I had my orders—

  —Kill El Alfa—

  —and I wasn’t about to give up this chance, no matter what happened to me or Jessica. I cocked the gun. Sweat tickled the back of my neck.

  “One last chance,” I said.

  “Put it down.”

  The vo
ice came from behind me. I felt the muzzle of a gun against my temple first, and then the man came into view.

  Shit.

  David.

  “Vale, you’ve made a very bad mistake.”

  “David,” I said, casting around for a way to get out of this situation, “don’t do this.”

  “A very, very bad mistake,” he repeated.

  My glance fell on Jessica. She was still choking under El Alfa’s grip.

  “I’m taking over,” I said. I would bluster my way through this. It was the last thing I could do. “I’m taking over this whole place. You can join me, David. We can be partners—”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Wait. Think about it,” I said. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. I hoped he didn’t see it. I was always in control. Always. And now, because of Jessica, I wasn’t.

  “I don’t need to think about it, Vale,” David said. I felt the gun press into the back of my head harder.

  My eyes went wide as I took in everything in front of me. This—this awful scene—would be the last thing I ever saw. The electric torches on the wall. The disheveled bed. The chains hanging from the ceiling above El Alfa and Jessica. And the table, full of whips and knives and—

  The knives. I frowned. There was something different about the way the knives were placed. When I’d come in, they had been lined up almost to the edge. I tilted my head. No. There wasn’t anything different. I was going crazy.

  David was still speaking behind me.

  “There’s no reason to go against El Alfa. I have thought about it. Put the gun down, Vale. You’re not going to shoot anyway. Not with the girl in the way.”

  “Once he’s dead,” I said, my voice belying my lack of confidence. “David, if you join me—”

  “You don’t understand.”

  David walked around me. The muzzle of the gun trailed along my temple up to my forehead, where it rested. A grin crept across David’s face. I looked at him, and then El Alfa. Then back to him.

  And now I saw the resemblance. It came like a jolt to my system. They had the same nose, the same facial structure. If David hadn’t been so sunburned, I might have seen it right away.

  “He’s…he’s your father?” My arm trembled.

  David nodded, his eyes seething.

  “There is no takeover. You’re an idiot to try. Put the gun down.”

  Then it was over. I was outnumbered, and David was right. I couldn’t shoot El Alfa, not when a twitch of his arm would mean shooting Jessica instead.

  “Okay,” I said, racking my brain for another plan. There was nothing. “Okay.”

  I put the gun down slowly, letting it click to the tile floor. David kicked it away to El Alfa, who picked it up. And then I stood back up, raising my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.

  The mission was over.

  I had failed.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jessica

  David kicked Vale’s gun away from him, and I saw him wince as he raised his hands in the air. My breath hitched even as El Alfa tugged on my collar, straining forward. He picked Vale’s gun off the ground and hefted it in his meaty hands.

  Surrender? No. He couldn’t surrender! Vale was the one who was supposed to rescue me. He was the one who had promised that I wouldn’t be a prisoner forever. He couldn’t surrender. He couldn’t!

  There was only one way I could think to escape now. I hoped that it would work. If not, I would die trying.

  El Alfa let his hand open up, and I gasped hot air. David grinned, his free hand scratching at the side of his neck.

  I couldn’t believe the truth—that David was El Alfa’s son from one of the slaves in this house. How could anyone live with that family history behind them? How could he still keep doing this to girls when his own mother had been one of the prisoners?

  “Son, you have done well. Let me give you a present.”

  El Alfa shoved me forward, and I stumbled halfway across the room, dropping to my knees with a hoarse cry.

  “What, one of the whores?”

  “This one’s a virgin.”

  I saw the glint in his eye as he caught me by the arm and pulled me up to examine my body. I bit my lip, letting the fear show in my expression. My hands pressed tight against the sides of my body. Desire flared across his face.

  “Kneel.”

  I bent down. He was unzipping his fly already, pulling down his pants. So eager.

  So eager, in fact, that he didn’t see the knife I was holding until it was too late.

  Vale’s lesson hadn’t gone unheard. I remembered everything he had said about the easiest way to kill. And right now, there was one place that was accessible.

  The femoral artery.

  With a quick motion, I slid my blade into his leg and out. For a horrible second, I thought that it hadn’t worked. David gripped my shoulder. He gasped, taking in a scraggly breath of air.

  “Father—” he whispered.

  Then the blood seemed to be everywhere, a flood of it, coating my legs even as I pulled away. He looked down at me, as though astonished I could have done such a thing. I was equally shocked. Then his face went pale, pale white, and he fell forward.

  “David?”

  El Alfa’s voice boomed out from behind me.

  “David!”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Vale

  I got to El Alfa just as he was aiming the gun. My hand came down on his arm and the shot rang out. I felt the bone break under my fist and I thought I had gotten to him in time. His hand opened and the gun began to fall.

  “Ah!” he cried.

  I caught the gun in mid-air and whipped it across El Alfa’s jaw. He spun away, falling down onto the ground. His palms were slick with blood as he pushed himself up to look at me.

  “Kneel,” I said.

  His arms trembled, and he glared at me with hatred burning in his eyes.

  “You can’t—”

  Those were his last words. Then his face exploded with the shot. The gun was so close that I bet he smelled the gunpowder before his nose got blown off of his skull.

  The shot echoed in my ears. But there wasn’t even a hint of darkness when I killed him. No. This was a clean kill, the cleanest kill I’d ever had.

  Emotionally, anyway.

  Physically, his head was nothing but a mangled mess of blood and bone.

  He slumped over, his neck still gushing blood onto the elegant tile floor. I straightened up, tucking the gun into my waistband.

  “Vale.”

  I turned to see Jessica falling forward. She stumbled onto the ground, clutching at her side.

  My heart went cold. No.

  “Jessica!”

  I was at her side in an instant. There was a bullet hole in her side. I hadn’t gotten to him in time. He had shot her.

  The bastard. I wanted to kill him all over again. Anger and fear splintered through my body.

  “Jessica, are you alright?”

  She was pale.

  “I—I don’t know. I think so.”

  The bullet had hit her in the side. I saw the exit wound at the front, seeping blood. I put my hand over it. Her eyes fixed on something behind me.

  “The door!”

  The door banged open. I twisted my arm back and pulled out the gun, ready to shoot, but it was only Valentina. There was blood on the hem of her gauze dress. She stared past me, at El Alfa, agog.

  “He’s… he’s dead?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. My attention was on Jessica’s side, where the wound under my hand was still leaking blood. I applied pressure, and she winced but didn’t cry out. “We have to go.”

  “We heard the shot downstairs,” Valentina said.

  “Are the girls ready?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “They’re here.”

  “We’ll have to hurry. Jessica—” I motioned to her wound. Emotion choked my throat. I’d never been one to have my feelings get in the way of words, but thi
s time was different. I couldn’t believe that I had let her get shot.

  “Go,” Valentina said.

  I set my shoulders square and swallowed back all of my anger and fear. Control. Focus. Immediately the plan came back into my mind. The door. Then escape.

  I had a mission. It wasn’t over. I could do this. I had to do this.

  I set Jessica down and went back to El Alfa. I pulled his now-faceless body across the room.

  “What are you doing?” Jessica asked.

  “Getting us out of here.”

  I yanked El Alfa’s arm up and pushed his thumb against the keypad. The metal door slid open.

  Valentina reappeared in the doorway.

  “Hurry,” I yelled. It was too late to avoid raising an alarm. The guards would be here soon. The only chance we had was to disappear before they could figure out what had happened.

  The girls were already running across the room to the open door. Valentina was hurrying them through. There were so many of them—fourteen girls in total. One of them stopped and stared at me. Jessica’s friend, I realized.

  “Go!” I cried. She ran through the open door and into the tunnel after the line of girls. Valentina followed, and then only Jessica and I were left.

  I knelt down to Jessica’s side, handing her the pistol.

  “Take the gun,” I said.

  “What?” she asked weakly. “What are you—”

  “Just take it.”

  I could hear the sounds of footsteps. The perimeter guards, coming back inside. We had to get out of there.

  I picked up Jessica with both arms. She was bleeding from her back, the blood making her slippery to hold.

  “It’s alright,” I said. “You’re going to be alright.”

  She nodded her head, a slow weak nod.

  “Let’s go.”

  I crossed the room to the open door. Valentina was shooing the last of the girls through the tunnel. I didn’t ask if any of them had been left behind. I knew that we had lost some of them. Some of them would have chosen to stay. Brainwashed, maybe, or just helpless. But we would get out of here. We would be okay. I stepped through the doorway into the dim corridor.