Trust in Me (7 page)

Maybe I could work in the underground as a make-up artist to the battered wives of the rich and famous. Blotting away bruises and covering up cuts was an art form, one I’d had plenty of opportunity to perfect. The messiest to fix were open wounds, where the skin gaped open, exposing bloody tissue or worse. Those were best left alone and explained away as an accident of some sort. Otherwise I was looking at putty or air-brushing, which got time consuming and expensive.

Not that it was my dime. As long as Carlos made the bruises, Carlos paid for them to be covered up. Besides, he was the one who insisted I go out looking like gold as soon as I could drag myself out of the pool of blood and other liquids. I would have preferred to curl up in my bed, the one that Tyler had been eyeing ever since he’d followed me into my room.

My bedroom was smaller than Carlos’s bedroom, even smaller than Tyler’s. Barely a bedroom at all, it fit my twin-size bed, a vanity, and a beat-up dresser for my clothes. Carlos used the tiny room as a reminder of my status, as if I actually needed one considering what I did. I never entertained men here so I didn’t need a big bed. I actually preferred it this way, to have a space I could keep to myself, no matter how small. Carlos would probably take it away if he realized that.

Tyler had invaded it today. I felt his presence, his intrusion, like a sharp pebble in my shoe.

“Does this get you hot?” I asked just to rile him up.

He drummed his fingers on his thighs, not taking the bait.

“I know you’re here for a reason. Just spit it out. Need me to take a few more licks? Want a blow job?”

That got him. He stiffened in his seat and glowered. His heart wasn’t in it though. Poor man was still freaked out over my injuries. He didn’t realize that I’d long ago become inured to them. The pain could touch my skin, but no deeper. And if that was because there wasn’t anything left inside, all the better.

With a last brush of powder, I turned and approached Tyler, using my best sexy walk.

“You’re so tense,” I cooed, not missing a beat at noticing a bulge rise from his pants. “I can kiss it better.”

“Stop it,” he snapped. “I know this isn’t you.”

I laughed. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know me at all.”

He shook his head, nostrils flaring. “You were forced into this. Men abused you. They hurt you.
I
hurt you.”

Of course. His mind didn’t want to think of sweet little Mia from next door as a dirty skank. So he was excusing it away. But I didn’t like it. For reasons I couldn’t begin to explain, I wanted him to see me. To know me, even if that knowledge disgusted him.

“Don’t pity me,” I said sharply. Then softer, “I wasn’t forced, baby. Maybe a few times, but they knew what I was good for.”

A small choked sound came out of him, but I pushed on.

“Most of the time…I chose to do it. I used to be cheap. Just to hear him tell me I was a good girl, that was the price of a blow job. Later I got a little more expensive, a few bucks so I could go get food for dinner or buy clothes that fit me when I grew out of my old ones. But Carlos, he turned me into what I am today. Fancy clothes, fancy make-up, fancy dates when he takes me out. A girl like me couldn’t ask for better.”

Sometime during my little speech I’d gotten angry. I was yelling, ranting, incensed that he could think good of me when there wasn’t any good to be found. “So if you’ve gotten it in your head that my father tied me down or that Carlos put a gun to my head to get me in here, you’re all wrong. Okay? You’re wrong.”

The vision of Tyler swam before my eyes like one of those swirly paintings, beautiful and morbid. I felt his breath in my hair, shushing me, telling me to stop, that it would be okay, and his hands on my arms, pulling me close, burning the cuts there. He probably didn’t remember I was bruised there too, not just my back, but I didn’t want him to stop. Whatever touch he had to offer me, I would take. Whatever pain he would give me, I deserved.

I choked out a sob against his chest, so warm, so solid.

“Mia,” he said. “Mia.”

Whatever he meant by that, it didn’t matter. He was here. I had to be grateful for that.

Don’t leave,
I wanted to beg.
Don’t ever leave.
But begging never worked. My cheeks dampened with impotent tears, as I mourned the loss of the man, of his comfort, before he’d even left.

“Shhh,” he said. “I’m going to fix this. I don’t know how yet, but I am.”

A watery laugh trickled out of me. I thought of that nursery rhyme, the one about Humpty Dumpty.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

“You can’t fix me,” I whispered, the tears catching on my lips. “No one can.”

“No,” he said fiercely. “This is my fault. I should have known. I think…maybe I did know, but I was too fucking stupid to know what to do about it. If I would have done something back then, got you out of there…”

The image rose up in my mind, like a specter from the grave. Me, without shame. Without fear. It was a laughable thought, but somehow…somehow hopeful. Somehow heartbreaking.

“God, don’t do this,” I told him. “Don’t make me think impossible things.”

“Listen. Let’s just get through this. We’ll get through this thing with Carlos together, you and me. And when it’s all over, we’ll work on fixing this together. I don’t know exactly how it will go. A lot of that will depend on you and what you want to do. But sure as hell you’re not going to be anyone’s whore, not ever again.”

He sounded so sure, so confident. So much the fresh-faced young man about to set off on his adventure. Like maybe he’d sit down next to me on an old, dirty tire and say, “It can’t be as bad as all that.” Just as optimistic, just as wrong.

I didn’t want to tell him that I probably wouldn’t survive
this
, this thing we were doing with Carlos. I could feel myself weakening after each session with him. Each time it took me a little longer to recover, more time to heal. And Carlos was getting more brutal, not less, even though I was mostly obedient.

I didn’t want to tell him that even if by some miracle I made it out of this alive, that I had nothing and nowhere to go. And if Tyler ended up helping me in exchange for sex, I had no doubt that I would be
his
prostitute. He might be a gentler master, but that didn’t make me any less a whore.

I didn’t want to say any of that because it would ruin this moment, this moment where Tyler acted like he cared about me. Hell, in this moment, he probably did care about me. So I just leaned into him, letting my make-up smudge, letting my aches and bruises cry out for respite, because this feeling was worth a million lashes.

When my tears dried, I looked up at him. Some of the fierceness in his expression was now explained away. He felt some responsibility for what happened to me. But he wasn’t my knight in shining armor, no matter how much I might have wished him to be.

“Tell me what you need me to do,” I said.

His mouth firmed in refusal, which told me that he did, in fact, have something he needed me to do.

“Come on,” I cajoled, with a soft rock of my breasts into his chest. It was almost instinctual at this point, not something mapped out or planned, using my body to get on a guy’s good side. Even broken and battered, it worked.

“I don’t want you to do this.” But despite his words, his tone held resignation. “We can get the girls to safety once we’re inside the safe house. The problem is there’s a master key for the alarm system that is only released by Carlos’s fingerprint.”

I watched him, waiting.

“He won’t exactly be cooperative with us,” Tyler continued. “In fact, if all goes according to plan, he won’t even be there when we’re extracting the women. So there’s this—” He held up a small rectangular box, black plastic with a shiny metal strip on one side. “That has the capability to record not only the form of the fingerprint, but also the heat patterns. Using this we’ll be able to replicate it and unlock the system without his presence. You need to press his right thumbprint to the metal surface for five seconds. Without him noticing.”

“Yeah.” An incredulous laugh escaped me. No blow job was good enough for Carlos to miss me taking his fingerprint with a device. I wondered if Tyler saw the irony, that he was using my body for his own purposes. I almost hoped he didn’t, since at least that way it would be accidental.

Tyler paused as if biting his tongue.

“There’s more,” I said.

“You’ll need to get out. There are a few different ways this might play out, but no matter what he’ll suspect you had something to do with it.”

I scoffed. “Carlos thinks of me like a dog. Animals can’t be informants.”

He ignored me. “They’ll set you up with a new name, a new life, the whole bit. All you have to do is cut out when Carlos leaves for the drop. Just get the hell out of here and drive to the station. Zachary will be waiting for you.”

That wasn’t the plan at all. The plan was to free the girls and then let Carlos do his worst. I had no doubts that it would be painful, nor did I have any doubts about how it would end. With the sweet release of death. I couldn’t tell Tyler that. He wouldn’t understand.

“Okay,” I said. “Get his fingerprint. Get out when shit goes down. No problem.”

He gave me a lopsided smile, heartbreaking with its hopefulness. “Just two more days, and then it will all be over.”

An answering smile, more pathetic than anything, flickered on my face. Because I was desperate for the same thing, just not in the way Tyler was. The day I stopped being a whore was the day I died. And I really needed to dissuade him of the notion that everything would end with sunshine and roses. It would only make the inevitable let-down harder. So I used my best whore’s smile. The plastic-looking one. “Really? So you and your men are going to carry me off into the sunset, with not a single thank-you blowjob in sight?”

His smile died a quick death.

I was a little too exposed, a little too raw, but I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t be strong anymore. “Or, wait, will I even see you again once I meet up with Zachary? Or are you going to be too busy with the operation to even say goodbye?”

“God, Mia. Give me a little credit.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, somehow immediately contrite. It was a practiced thing, apologies, demurring to a man, but in this case I meant it. He’d given me no indication not to trust him, not counting the bulge in his pants whenever he looked at me.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said tightly. “I don’t deserve any credit. Let’s just get this over with.”

He stalked from the room, all angry male pride. I’d have been lying if I said I didn’t look at his ass as he went. I didn’t lust after men’s bodies. They’d brought me way too much pain to ever make me
want
them, to desire them. But I could appreciate Tyler’s body in a remote kind of way. Like if I had to lie with a man—and women, we did have to—his wouldn’t be such a bad one to do it with. If a body had to hurt me, I wouldn’t mind as much if it were his.

Only it seemed he didn’t want me. Not back then and not now. But it didn’t matter, because no matter what happened with those girls, no matter what happened with Tyler, I wasn’t getting out of this alive.

Chapter Seven

Carlos was surprised to see me in his study bright and early. Most times, if I got a beating, I spent the next few days making myself scarce, slinking around like a kicked stray dog. It helped to make sure my wounds were healed before he got another go at me. And the extra time meant he could work out whatever anger was left on other people.

But there I was, dressed in my sluttiest clothes, and that was saying something. A bikini probably would have been more conservative, but Carlos would recognize it for what it was: an apology. Groveling.

Appreciation filled his gaze as he studied me. Not appreciation for my curves, which he’d seen clothed and naked and every which way, but for the blush of shame tinting my skin. It was a long walk from my small room to his study, and I’d passed more than a few suggestive leers and pinching fingers on the way.

He didn’t open his arms to me or pat his knee. He didn’t even open his fly to make me suck his cock. Never a good sign.

“What do you want?” he asked with the indulgent amusement of a man sure in his victory.

“I’m sorry I bothered you yesterday. I want to make it up to you. Please, Carlos.” I didn’t have to make my voice sultry, it was already hoarse from screaming. I wasn’t a good enough actor to feign the fearful tremor or submissive posture, but I didn’t have to be.

This small action, approaching Carlos this way, was about the ballsiest thing I’d ever done. Maybe no one else would see it that way, but I didn’t think too many other people had an appreciation for just how badly this could go for me. It was like approaching a rabid dog. All the caution in the world wouldn’t protect you if you stuck your hand in its mouth.

“You want to make it up to me?” he asked.

“Yes, Carlos.”

“You want to be my whore?”

“Yes, Carlos.”

“You want to be my pet?”

A lump caught in my throat.

I’d told Tyler that Carlos thought of me as a dog. His pet. Tyler had thought it was an analogy, a play on words. He’d been wrong.

About six months ago, I’d gotten the idea to leave. Well, I’d had it sooner than that, but I finally decided to act on it. I’d looked up a shelter and packed a few things. I made it a few blocks over before Leo caught up to me. Carlos had him beat the shit out of me, again and again, but that was the punishment phase. The first phase.

Then there was atonement.

I had to get myself out of the doghouse, figuratively and literally. He made me his puppy, his bitch. I crawled around on the hard concrete, only allowed to bark or whimper. At least he put a dog bed on the cold floor for me.

I thought I’d ingratiated myself to Carlos within the first couple of days, but he kept me at it for almost a week just because it amused him so much. The worst part of it, to me, was that on the floor, anyone was allowed to touch me. Anyone could fuck me. Hurt me.