Page 22

They’d been too busy drinking.

They still were.

And she needed to pee.

Peeing was turning into the story of her life.

Wait. Wait! A bathroom break could save her.

The men had relieved themselves on the trail several times, not bothering to hide anything they were doing from her.

Earlier, she’d had to do the same thing. She’d gestured her need as best she could. The tall one had finally figured it out and he’d unbound her wrists and let out enough of the rope so she’d been able to step off the trail and go behind a bush, but he’d tied her hands together as soon as she’d reemerged.

What if she could get him to untie her hands and leave them loose?

The men were drinking hard. Soon, they’d pass out.

Alessandra began making sounds behind the gag. They didn’t react. After a while, though, they looked at her.

“Shut up,” Stubby snarled.

She didn’t and he stood up and came towards her.

“Wha’ you want?”

She raised her eyebrows. Made a wriggling motion. He scratched his head.

“She needs the bat’room,” Skinny said.

Alessandra jerked her head up and down.

Stubby rolled his eyes. Then he untied her ankles and unwound some of the rope from the tree. She staggered to her feet. The ground tilted a little; she knew it was lack of water and lack of food, and she fought against the moment of disorientation.

Who knew what they’d do if she passed out?

“Well? Go on, puta. Go behind the bush. No one wishes to see a woman squat.”

She held her hands out in front of her. He grunted and undid the knot at her wrists.

She went behind the bush. Did what had to be done. Finished just in time, because Stubby yanked hard on the rope leash and when she staggered toward him, he grabbed her hands—she felt her moment of hope dim—re-bound them, pushed her to the ground, wrapped the rope around the tree again and tied her ankles together.

Minutes later, he and his pal had been sprawled beside the fire, snoring.

She was trapped.

What would happen when they found out that there was no money to buy her freedom? Her father or her brothers could have paid a ransom for her, but nobody at the coalition knew she had a wealthy father, let alone wealthy brothers.

They didn’t know anything about her.

She’d wanted to succeed on her own.

In a family like hers, you had to prove yourself.

She’d studied design at FIT. She’d told her brothers that the Fashion Institute of Technology had awarded her a scholarship. Not true. She’d waitressed her way through school, won a much-desired internship at a high-end fashion house on graduation and went on waitressing because the internship didn’t pay enough to live on. Her designs were good. Outstanding, her boss said. One thing led to another, and six months later she had a dream job with a much ballyhooed young New York designer.

She’d sketched and pinned and sketched and pinned and tried not to think about the fact that her dream job had begun to seem, well, superficial.

After a few months, the designer called her into his office and told her, with a big smile, that he was moving her up.