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Washed, collared, and leashed, but he hadn’t attached me to the bed. I was free to roam this room.

My wet hair swayed before my eyes as I studied the shadowy room for the tenth time. There definitely was no-one else here. I dare not stand in case someone on the deck noticed me. The doors were open and Isak had gone somewhere unknown. Vitor might be out there, though.

He hadn’t bothered banning me from many things, too confident for his own good. I guess I had looked exhausted. I was. Even on hands and knees I trembled with fatigue.

Awake and reasoning, and I saw my chance.

The capsules tempted me beyond all possibility of resistance. I crawled to the desk and slid out the drawer he kept them in. By feel, I punched out a few then sneaked back to the bed and hid them underneath. If he found out they were missing or someone vacuumed the room, I’d lose my opportunity, maybe forever. Chances must be taken or I’d never escape. Whatever, whoever he meant to sell me to, they’d be no better than him.

And I knew he meant to. He’d said it, in the other room.

“The cartel I sold her to only cares she’s CIA. They like the idea of playing with her.”

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“Thought you wanted her?”

“I do but she’s a key I can’t afford to keep.”

“A key?”

“A dangerous one.”

Those voices had spoken above me. That must’ve been after, while I lay on the floor in a slutty heap. No, not a slut. I hadn’t volunteered. That’d been their label, not mine.

Not my fault. Any of this.

There’d been whispers too, ones I’d lost the meaning of. Those whispers of his haunted my dreams like spiders spinning webs in the dark.

Chapter 10

Was he completely mad? I eyed him over the rim of my champagne glass. He laughed, sharing some joke. I didn’t think I would ever know for sure what he was. The mesmer infection affected him but was that true insanity?

He’d danced around me like some petite ballerina then ordered his men to fuck everything, including me. Not being able to stop myself coming when he...arranged it to be so, was what hammered home the depravity. To find joy when others suffered. Vile.

Not my fault, I kept telling myself.

And I’d suffered as much as the others.

Maybe I’d finally weaseled my fingers into that crack, that weakness in his psyche?

I’d palmed the capsules and brought them to this table. All around me men and women ate and drank. A banquet of food that I was too sick with anxiety to enjoy. His overbearing will only touched me lightly and he sat beside me, facing the other long table. So many people all seemingly happy and scoffing down food and wine. Why were we here? What was he celebrating?

His wine held more than wine. It had been my goblet but I’d held it below the table, opened my palm above. Praying no one would see what I did, I’d let the powder sprinkle onto the liquid and sift into the bubbles. Then I’d switched the glasses. Three capsules were dissolved in there.

If he found out, I might be dead soon.

If the drug worked, after all these years, what would it do to him? Would a normal Isak be kind to me, free me, before the drug wore off? It was my hope.

I didn’t even know if the drug was past expiry, or the correct dose. My stomach roiled with nausea. I swallowed bile when Vitor eyed me, as he forked meat into his mouth. Sometimes that man, who was supposed to be Isak’s conscience, and what the fuck was that, scared me more than Isak.

The people around me seemed almost normal. I hadn’t spotted any of the zombie girls he routinely fucked. If they were normal people, unrelated to Isak’s sexual perversity, I still couldn’t say anything about being his captive, about being held here immorally, if not illegally. I’d tried over the years, many times, my brain would not allow my tongue to say it.

That was one of the most mind-wrecking influences he had on me – that I couldn’t discuss anything with others. A psychiatrist would have fun with what was inside my head.

Isak turned, and took my hand, caressing it as he liked to. The radiating warmth of his body was enough to make me cringe internally. He wore a casual, tan shirt, and dark pants. I found myself staring at the small, ivory-colored buttons.

His fingers clicked. “Up here. Eyes, Red.”