Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
I couldn’t forget this dock if I tried.
When the SUV stops near a cargo ship that appears as if it was recently loaded, my eyes scan my surroundings. There isn’t a shipworker in sight. Women, though, they’re in abundance. They pile out of the SUVs tailing mine before being forcefully walked to the gangway of the ship without words needed.
Guns strapped to chests are demanding enough, not to mention our training. Most walk the same zombie walk I’ve seen many times during the past eight years. Their expressions are lifeless, and their shoulders are slumped. I can’t tell if they’re drugged or have merely lost the will to live.
Then there’s the handful who haven’t been taught the consequences of not following the rules yet. The ones who will enter the cargo ship with the blood of their friend splattered on their face because they were the slower of the two when they endeavored to make an escape.
There are no warning shots today.
No cruel tugs on their dirty locks.
Only cold-blooded murders.
As we enter the ship, most girls are directed to the lower levels of the deck. I’m grabbed and pulled to the left by the man who killed Master Rudd.
“You’re a special order, and the swine down there can’t be trusted.”
The silence in this area of the ship is unusual. It is eerie yet thought-provoking at the same time. Offices sprout off the hallway in all directions, and every one of them is occupied by men in various stages of undress. Some have women sprawled out in front of them, others have their faces hidden between a pair of legs, and the rest have their backsides hanging out for the world to see.
It appears as if Master Rudd was right. The Bobrovs have plenty of women at their disposal, so what could they want with me?
My heart rate kicks up a beat when I’m yanked to a stop at the front of a door marked ‘Captain’s Hull.’ Unlike the other doors in this corridor, this one is shut.
That doesn’t mean the man who killed Master Rudd will knock before entering, though. He twists open the knob, shoves me into the room, and grunts, “Special order,” before slamming the door shut behind him.
I’m half a second from spinning and fleeing before I recall how it ended for the women out on the docks.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t think.
Instead of sprinting how I really want, I dig my nails into my palms before slowly raising my eyes. At first, I think my new owner is sleeping. His head is flopped back, and his eyes are closed.
My assumption only lasts as long as it takes for me to recognize the gagging slurps coming from underneath his desk. Master Rudd’s first wife made similar noises when she was forced to give him head while I sat across from them with my legs at the width of my shoulders and my undergarments removed. I wasn’t allowed to look down—supposedly that was against the rules—but I was ordered to maintain eye contact with Master Rudd until his eyes eventually fluttered shut.
The ‘game’ was over not long after that.
Unsure of my new owner’s rules, I try to get his attention without lowering my eyes past the partially exposed skin peeking out from beneath his crisp black dress shirt. It is undone to the third button and shows a light splattering of hairs across a scarred chest.
My faint cough alerts him to my presence. Not enough for one of his hands balled on his desk to stop his female companion’s movements, but enough that he lowers his chin until it balances a couple of inches above his thrusting chest.
I choke on my spit when I recognize his face. He’s the man from the auction, the one who nudged his head to the exit, except his eyes are no longer playful and calm. They’re glassy and unhinged, like the white powder lines on his desk are the cause of their dilation instead of the woman kneeling between his splayed thighs.
While my eyes drink in the new scars covering a majority of the right side of his face, his lower to my dowdy and stained nightgown. It is white like the one I wore when I was auctioned but sullied and dirty—unlike my virtue.
Doubt seeps in that he isn’t the knight I’m seeking when he un-suctions the woman kneeling in front of him, then dismisses her from the room like an unwanted toy. His cruelty doesn’t surprise me. I’ve experienced it thousands of times in the past eight years, but it is the way he doesn’t balk while exposing himself to me that has me stunned.
Master Rudd said he didn’t want his penis cut off, hence his request for me to keep my eyes locked on his face. That is also why I’ve never seen a penis that doesn’t belong to my father. Unlike the men holding me captive, my father is a kind, gentle man. He didn’t flash himself at me. Our horror-filled three seconds was when I raced into my parents’ bedroom Christmas Eve many years ago.