Page 30 of Blind Devotion

“You have a tattoo on your calf. A constrictor’s knot tied around a burning rose.”

I did? Did it look bad? “So?”

“Means you were property.”

I scoffed. He took me for an idiot. “I might not remember much, but I know people aren’t property.”

“When you have no choices, when everything you do or say is controlled by another, and you live at their whim, then you are property.”

“Does that mean you consider meyourproperty?” I mocked.

He snorted. “Odd creature.”

I imagined him shaking his head with irritation, and my lips tipped up.

“I wouldn’t smile if I were you,” he said gravely. “There was a yacht that sailed along the Mediterranean from Turkey to Morocco and back six months of the year. On that boat were women of every color, every shape, every type.”

Chills ran down my spine, and it wasn’t from his flat tone.

“And these women were not there by choice. That tattoo says that you”—he drew out the word—“were one of them. A trafficked woman, in the stable of a man named Xhafer Bogdani, known as the Albanian Dreq.”

My mouth ran dry because somewhere in the recesses of my mind, that name meant something dark and unforgiving. My hands trembled, and my palms turned clammy.

“Is he…”

“Dead? Yes.”

The relief that brought was instantaneous, my shoulders drooping. I wasn’t quite sure how to process that.

“You see, my team is very good at what they do. They never fail.”

“And that is?”

“They kill.”

“Assassins?”

“Smart girl.”

My cheeks heated, and I licked my lips. Those whispered words did something to me.

“But they didn’t kill me.”

“No.”

“The bullet…” The one they retrieved from my side. The bodies I crawled over as I escaped that boat. The lack of screams. The flames. “Is anyone else…”

“No, you’re the only one still alive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The contract stated no survivors.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Why?”

He huffed. Again, the paper rustled before another scratch filled the void. “It was the job.”

“Why didIsurvive?”