Page 56 of Unwritten Vows

I feel sick to my stomach, wondering what the fuck would have happened if I hadn’t come here with a plan. Knowing that her father wouldn’t be able to get out of jail until tomorrow, and wouldn’t have been able to do much about this before she was likely sold to this shitbag, oceans away.

Lucky for all of us, I am here, I haven’t been arrested, and I plan to hunt down every last man who helped this fucker get her here. But for now, I need to play my part.

“You could have done this any time though. Why not do it months ago?”

“We have special help. The Wraith.” He wriggles his brows. “We’re his closest ally. Before Edoardo got chucked in jail, he was planning a large-scale takeover. Your father would have been a part of it weeks ago, but then he had to go and fucking die.”

We both laugh like he’s made a joke about a drunken night out.

Like we’re just old fucking friends. But I don’t have time to worry about promises that were made, or his large-scale takeover.

My girl is in there. I’m sure something has happened to her.

I’m sure I’m going to get her back. I’m just not sure what we’ll both face once I do.

“Okay, well, I appreciate your plan to protect yourself and fuck me over at the same time, but as you can see, we’re on the same side.

And I have an assload of land and money to offer once she’s mine again.

Doesn’t sound like this Wraith guy is super communicative right now, and why not go for a sure thing?

Plus, I have a shitload of money and power myself.

If things fall through with him, no harm done giving the girl to me so I can give you guys a piece once I kill off her father. ”

He stares at me for a long moment, trying to suss something out, but I suppose decides to proceed to the next step, at least. “Come on in. Let’s talk.”

I know what he’s about to show me. It has to be something disturbing.

It’s the only way to gauge my reaction. And I’m glad I can brace myself, because as soon as we walk into the tiny bedroom they’re keeping her in on a white, stained sheet, I see something that will haunt my dreams forever.

Liza is spread out as they mill around taking pictures of different parts of her unmoving body, pinching and plucking.

She’s completely out of it, with an angry red mark on her shoulder where they must have stuck her with a needle multiple times.

I need to do something with my face so that my uncontrollable rage won’t show—so that I won’t ruin everything by sneering as I tear his fucking head off his body and throw it through the glass like a bowling ball.

I need to stay calm for just a few more minutes.

I need to wait. Then I’ll kill them all.

He must not see the disquiet in my expression that I’m working as hard as I ever have to hide, thank goodness, because he opens the door to Liza’s glass cage.

“Quite the production you’ve got going on here.

The fucking lighting. The real cameras.” This is where the best girls get taken, most likely.

Where the ones they want to make a lot of money from get posed and sold, then shipped off to the highest bidder.

It’s making me sick that I didn’t think about it all before now.

It’s making me sick that my father was in on it, and that I unwittingly helped him do business with these animals.

“Yeah, well, that’s what a good pussy factory does.

” He lights up a cigarette and flicks it onto Liza’s pale thigh.

She doesn’t even flinch. The need to kill him burns like molten lava.

I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never known with such certainty that the man before me would be dead by my own bare hands or I’d die trying.

“Well, I’m not sure it’ll be worth it to pay these guys for their time. I gave you a good deal. You gonna take it, or not?”

He leans back against the glass wall. “I don’t know about you, man,” he says, and flicks his cigarette onto Liza again. I bite my back teeth to keep my temper down, but the fury rises to an unbearable place in my chest, sizzling through me. “Hey man, you wanna burn the fucking place down or what?”

He looks down at the ash on Liza’s bed. “That shit’s not gonna set the place on fire.

Wanna see if she’ll squirm, though?” He takes the butt of the cigarette suddenly and presses it to the skin of her hip.

She finally shows a sign of life by giving a weak, high pitched moan and moving her head away.

“ Fuck .” I grab his hand, probably too hard in mine, and he looks at me like I’m crazy.

I come up with something quickly because it’s not time yet.

If I do this before it’s time, we’re both dead.

But keeping a straight face has never been this difficult.

I swallow down all my misgivings and say as profane a thing as I can imagine about this beautiful woman that I love. “You’re ruining the goods.”

He narrows his eyes on me, extremely suspicious now. “What do you care? It’s either gonna be you or the sadist across the sea.”

I let his hand go, throwing it back to his side.

“First of all, once you talk to your boss, it’ll be me.

There’s no way he’ll pass this up if he hasn’t heard from the Wraith and he’s still in fucking jail.

So, yeah, me. And you think I want my woman all marked up by some other guy?

She was a fucking virgin before me and she’ll die before someone else gets in there. There’s something called STDs, man.”

“Who says no one’s gotten in?” He raises an eyebrow.

I don’t think he has, but I gauge his reaction to my next statement anyway. “Most of the big men don’t want their toys to come in pre-terrorized. Especially the best ones. They want a good, pure one, who hasn’t been tainted yet. They want to ruin them on their own.”

He throws the cigarette down on the cement floor and puts it out with his shoe. “Whatever man. I don’t trust one word you say.”

I’m saved from having to continue to respond when a voice calls out from another room. “Fabrizio! “He’s on the line for you!”

He looks at me once more, still suspicious as all hell. But he’s had me checked out and patted down. I have no gun and everyone thinks I’m just a harmless kid playing at being a mafioso. So he walks away to take the call.

I look back at Liza again, bruised along her cheekbone, on display like she’s a cut of meat at the grocery store.

Her fire and stubbornness has been stomped out for the moment, but I can take over for her now.

She helped me just weeks ago, saved me from being killed by her father or worse.

Now I can repay the favor. Now I can get her out of this mess I’ve put her in and get her back to that snarky, sweet girl she was before I fucking knew her.

There are still other men milling around, starting to close up shop.

I guess the fun is over. The pictures have been taken.

None of them will be uploaded. None of them will see the light of day.

All of these men, along with their hardware and devices, will be demolished after today. But I need to get Liza safe first.

I approach her, looking down, and think immediately of Mara lying on the small cot in the panic room my father shoved her into, dying from loss of blood and a gunshot wound. The similarity of the situations hit me. I’ve done this before and I can do it better this time.

“When you shoot someone up with anesthetics, you have to cover them so they don’t get hypothermia.

Jesus Christ.” I say loudly to no one, since none of these guys give a shit about their victim’s comfort.

The comment gives me a good reason to cover Liza and pack the sheet tightly around her, however, and jostle her around to see if she moves.

Her eyelids are fluttering, which is a better sign than before when she was limp as a noodle, limbs being thrown every which way, but I doubt it’ll be enough.

She’s not going to be getting up and walking out of here. I’ll need to remove her myself.

I desperately want to pick her up and reassure her, even if she can’t hear me, but I need to let this play out. Once she’s wrapped tight in the dirty white sheet, Fabrizio comes back in.

“Well, fuck me. The boss says no problem; I can’t believe it! Only, we need a little insurance.”

I’m grabbed roughly from both sides, but I don’t even react. There’s nothing I can do anyway. As much as I want to go crazy and kill everyone here, I have to keep up appearances until the right moment, otherwise Liza and I are dead.

Instead I look at the hands touching me as if they’re offending me. “What kind of insurance?”

“We want to make sure you’re serious. A little token of your sincerity.” He takes out his knife. “I thought it’d be funny if yours looked like mine, just bigger and more obscene.” He traces his fish hook scar with the knife in his hand, grinning like a cat.

“You’re kidding right? How is that insurance?”

“Well, I can tell you from experience that you won’t be able to make pretty social media posts with it.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you even talking about? I don’t give a shit about my social media posts. I’ve made two in the past three weeks.”

“It takes your charm. It takes your pretty, pretty face. It shows everyone that someone gave you an intentional mark, because I’m going to curve it just right.”

“All right, fucker, do not put that thing in my face.” Now I’m starting to get angry, and the knife is closer and closer every second. He wouldn’t do it. No one would dare to scar my face.

But he does. He sinks his jagged knife into my lip and presses down. The tip is sharp as a scalpel. I nearly lose my shit and ruin everything, but I hear her slow, raspy voice at that moment.

“Derrick?”