Page 115 of Rum & Coke

She didn’t need to clarify. I knew she understood Sebastian was raping me. “Almost every night.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can.”

“When?” I wanted to crumple to the floor and cry. When I gave Autumn my note, I expected the cavalry to come in. Now help was here, but Joss wasn’t taking Colton and me away. She was leaving us here to continue our misery.

“I’ve actually thought about this a lot in the last three months since Vinny told me.”

“You’ve talked to Vinny?”

“Of course.”

“How is he?”

“Not so good, but I can’t get into that right now. I’m certain they’ve called Sebastian, and he’s on his way. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Okay, so what have you thought about?”

“We need a way to bring down all his men with him.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“When is his next party?”

I shrugged. “I don’t think he will ever have one again since I’m locked up here. He doesn’t want me talking to anyone. I can’t even leave the house. My doctor’s appointment was the first time.”

“Does Sebastian think the baby is his?”

“Yes. He’s already turned a room into a nursery. Colton doesn’t even have his own room with toys.”

“We need to get all of his men in one room. That will be for the best.” Joss thought for a moment. “This may be because I’m a newlywed, but do you think you can convince him to have a wedding?”

My eyes widened, and I hissed, low, “You want me to marry the guy?”

“No,” she corrected. “I want you topretendyou’re going to marry him. We’ll stop it.”

“How will you know when it is?”

“We will. Trust me.”

Before we could go any further, Sebastian stormed in through the doors. Everything stopped as he stalked toward us, anger radiating off of him. Mateo wasn’t far behind him. “You have no right coming into my home when I’m not here. Now, get out.”

Joss held up her hands. “Please, Mr. Delarosa, we’re just here about Tony Martinez.”

Sebastian stopped short, and I moved to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, hoping he would think that I was on his side. “What about him? He’s dead.” His hand tightened on my waist.

“If you’d like, may we step into another room?” Joss asked.

Sebastian looked down at me, and then back to Joss. “Fine. We can go up to my office.”

Sebastian kissed the top of my head, and then we broke apart before he started to walk. Joss turned to follow him, but I stopped her with a quick touch of my hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Tell Vinny I love him.”

“You can tell him yourself soon enough.” She winked.

As she walked up the curved staircase with her partner and Sebastian, I hoped she was right. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen in Sebastian’s office because that was where I assumed he took all the people to kill them.

While I waited for them to talk to Sebastian, Valentina questioned me about what I’d said. I stuck to what Joss had told me to say and only spoke of Red Diamond. Thirty minutes later, Joss and her partner returned down the stairs with Sebastian and Mateo following them. I didn’t know what was said, of course, but Joss knew the truth about me being here, and now we had a plan.

I just had to figure out how to get Sebastian to want to marry me and plan a wedding. A wedding I wanted to hold tomorrow if it meant I could be rescued sooner. I’d always thought that when I was engaged, I’d do the standard planning that took a year. But that wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t survive another year pretending I was okay with everything Sebastian was doing. Someone would end up dead.