Trey - Shandi Boyes Page 0,5
pressure than the shower in my bathroom.
Confident I’ve caught the gist of what’s happening, Vladimir smirks a smug grin. “Get her washed up now. I’m feeling generous enough tonight to share her with the men unable to bid… once she’s finished serving the ones stupid enough to pay for her.”
As my throat works hard to swallow, my eyes rocket to Vladimir in silent pleading. He’s dressed to the nines, which reveals his guests tonight are more aristocrats than the bottom-dwelling mobsters he usually caters for, but still, I’m worried. Vladimir only ever gives away his whores when he has no intention to sell them next week.
This isn’t an industry you leave alive. If I’m done being sold, I am done. The lights once in my eyes will be permanently extinguished, never to be relit.
“Do you have something you want to say, little girl?” Vladimir asks when he spots my pleading stare, his tone mocking.
Pleas sit on the tip of my tongue, but no matter how hard I try to relinquish them, I can’t. I’d rather die silently than speak a ton of words I can’t take back.
“Ah, such fight,” Vladimir croons like he’s four decades younger than he is. “If only the men could see that via a video lens.”
After clicking his fingers two times, he exits the room. Not even two seconds later, I’m blasted with icy-cold water. The pain is horrific. It feels like my skin is being scraped off with a cheese grater. The sting ripping through my body has screams roaring up my throat and whizzing out of my nostrils with breathy gasps, but not a peep escapes my lips.
I won’t give these brutes the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I could. The only good thing about being hit with enough water to fill a lake is the ability to deny the salty blobs wanting to slide down my cheeks, but I won’t because I told myself I’d never cry in this room. I made a promise to remain strong no matter what, and although this shouldn’t count because it hurts more than I could ever explain, it does.
I will not cry for these men.
I will not break.
I will win, even if it kills me.
By the time the unnamed man turns off the hose, my clothes are shredded off my body, my bedding is drenched through, and the silver tray my dinner was delivered on is wrapped around the pipe I was cuffed to my first five days here.
When the hose’s nozzle drops to the concrete ground with a clang, I collapse against the chains holding me hostage, incapable of balancing on my tippy toes for a second longer. Although I’m sparkling with the cleanliness I haven’t experienced in weeks, every inch of my body is aching. I feel like I’ve run a marathon, but there will be no reprieve for my tired muscles. That isn’t the way these men work.
Another silent scream pops into my head when the brute fists my hair to yank my head back. His evil eyes glide over my face, down my neck, and across my collarbone before he stops on my breasts. Compliments to good genes I got from my mother, that’s the only part of my body with any meat left on it, and even then, it isn’t much. It would be barely enough to fill a hand.
“You scrub up good,” the goon grunts, half laughing, half moaning. “Let’s hope your line of visitors isn’t too long this evening. I’m not into necrophilia.”
I’m so dead on my feet, I fall into his arms when he releases my wrists from the contraption bolted to the ceiling. I am anticipating for him to carry me back to my bed, so the parade of men he mentioned can commence getting their money’s worth, so you can imagine my shock when he heads for the door Vladimir exited minutes ago.
The air outside of my room isn’t any less stuffy, but I suck it in like it’s full of the nutrients I’ve been lacking the past ten weeks. Once I have my lungs as revitalized as my determination to live, I ram my palm into the brute’s nose, kick out of his arms with a grunt, then hightail it down a corridor lined with padlocked doors.
I should bolt straight for the closest exit, but since that would make the torment of the last ten weeks utterly worthless, I shout one name on repeat before bobbing down to peer through the keyholes on a handful