Slave Girl - Sam Crescent Page 0,19
an eternity, the door was opened and Raphael helped her out of the tight, cramped space. He picked her up this time and placed her on the edge of his bed. He rubbed her thighs and legs. “I know you’ve spent the better part of a day in there, and I don’t want you hurting.” He was careful with her wound.
“Thank you. What did your father say?”
“He claimed not to know him or any of his associations. I’ve got men working on an identification. I’ll know soon.”
“Will your father be stopping by more often?”
“Probably not. I passed two of his fucked-up tests today.”
“This was the second?”
“Yes.”
“What was the first?
“You don’t want to know.”
“I don’t want to know or you don’t want me to know?”
“Both, Elenore. You know I’m not a good man.”
“Girls?” she asked.
Raphael frowned.
“It was more girls, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It doesn’t stop you from being a good man.”
“No, a good man would have taken them to the nearest police station or found someone who could help locate their parents. Instead, they are chained to my father’s bed.”
“So long as they make him happy, it won’t be too bad.”
“And you, did you make him happy?”
“I have the scars to prove it.” She reached around to touch her back. Tears filled her eyes. “Giavanni isn’t a good man.”
“One day, I’m going to make him pay for what he did to you. Every single scar, he will come to regret.”
“I don’t want to lose you in the process.” He took her hand that she’d placed against his cheek.
“Never. You won’t lose me. I’ll do what needs to be done. It’s getting late. I’m going to give you something to eat and then I think it’s time for you to go to bed.”
“I don’t want to sleep alone.” She looked at his bed. “Could I sleep here with you?” She expected him to say no.
He hesitated but suddenly, he nodded his head. “Yes, you can stay here with me.”
Chapter Six
Raphael was no stranger when it came to women.
He’d fucked his fair share of them. He used to love to use them for his own pleasure, for his own gain. Early in his life, he’d been told until his father found the right woman for him, he wasn’t to get attached to women. They were to be used and discarded like toys.
His father always knew how to play the game. To many of his soldiers, like Antonio, he was a man to be feared, loved, revered. Raphael knew the truth. He’d seen the darkness up close and personal.
Staring down at the woman in his bed, something shifted inside him. He’d fallen for this girl years ago, and now, she was a woman.
She didn’t know her age. The blood tests and X-ray rests that had come back from Timothy, which he had on his cell phone, indicated she was in her early twenties. Modern technology never failed to surprise him.
She was also clean. Used and abused by his father, but he’d not given her any infections or diseases. She was clean.
He stroked some of her long, glorious hair back from her body. The blanket had pulled off her, and the shirt she wore rode up, showing off the curve of her buttock and the base of her back.
Welts in a cross pattern marred her skin. He traced a finger over each welt, knowing his father wasn’t the only person to have marked her pretty skin. Some of these scars were old.
She moved a little and he glanced down to see one of her eyes open. The other pressed against the bed.
“I broke a plate,” she said. “My master, she got so mad, and she hurt me.”
“A woman did this?”
“Yes.”
He listened as she told him she didn’t even get the worse punishment. How a woman got her hand boiled and she had to stand and watch. “It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“If I hadn’t broken a plate, she wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.”
“Elenore, slavery is illegal. No one should force people into this life. Your birth should have been registered, your name joining all of the millions and billions of people on this planet. You’re not no one.” He rolled her over and placed a hand over her heart. “I feel that. It’s beating because you’re alive. You’re a living, breathing person, and no one can take that away from you.” He reached down and kissed her lips. “You’re real. You and the people you’ve worked with, they’re not to