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After a stilted pause, she asks, “And why are you here?”

“My uncle’s hip deep in organised crime, and this is the logical place.” She doesn’t ask, but I offer the information, anyway. “Lance Tana. You’ve heard of him?”

“I haven’t heard of anybody.”

A believable enough lie, not that it matters. I don’t need my uncle’s name to fight my battles. I’ve long been big enough to win my own.

“And what did you do to make Alice so angry?”

Her mouth twists. “If I tell you, will you let me go?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe isn’t good enough.” She folds her arms. “You know damn well I wasn’t in here to spy on naked athletes. You have no right to hold me here. It’s kidnap.”

“Kidnap.”

Her chin juts even higher. “That’s right.”

“Sounds serious,” I say in a mocking voice. “Better call the police. Or you could just answer the question, Frances—”

“That’s not…” When she swallows her throat clicks. “I prefer to be called Chess.”

“Your name is whatever I want to call you, Freckles. Answer my question.”

Her face collapses until I’m almost sorry for her. But it’s becoming harder to feel anything over the rapacious need growing inside my body.

The silence elongates, the pressure to speak growing more uncomfortable with each passing second. Her expression remains stubborn, but when I rub myself with the heel of my palm, it fractures into panic.

“There’s a noticeboard, and I had an ad auctioning my virginity,” she blurts. “Ezra answered… and I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”

“An ad?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a prostitute?”

She bares her teeth at me. “A sex-worker and no. I couldn’t do any of it.” Her voice softens until she sounds broken, and a new rush of hatred for my cousin whips through me.

I saw her first. If anyone is going to break her, it should be me.

A muscle in my chest pinches and I rub at my sternum, then dig into it with my knuckle.

“I don’t…” She shakes her head, blinking furiously. “I think I’m asexual. It was a dumb idea.”

I snort with amusement. I’m still irritated my cousin put his grubby hands on her but to find she hated his touch enough to believe she has an aversion to sex?

That delights me.

“But you sucked him off.”

Her body tenses, voice wary as she asks, “He told you that?”

“Ezra doesn’t talk to me at all if he can help it. What’s your number?” She tells me, and I send her a link. “He didn’t have to. You’re quite the movie star.”

Her hand trembles as she takes out her phone and tilts the screen to click play. A few seconds later, the device slips from her fingers, clattering on the floor.

I pick it up, wincing at the crack on the screen as I hand it to her. She shoves it back into her pocket, her breathing heavier, more erratic.