Chapter Twenty-Two
ROXANNE
I was scared. More scared than I had been when he had strangled me behind the club. This guy didn’t seem to care at all that he was hurting me, he actually seemed to want me to die or something. I didn’t know what it was he had against me, but I knew enough to try and make things better. I had to apologize, that was all I could do. I couldn’t wait to get out of Stephano’s house.
I didn’t take the pill like I was supposed to, but I tucked it under my tongue while the security guard was strangling me. When he let go, I inhaled deeply and the pill slid right down my throat. I panicked at the thought of the methadone getting into my system.
When I had had a surgery a few years before, they tried to give me pain medication and it almost made me stop breathing. I really couldn’t risk the methadone getting into my system. If I stopped breathing at Stephano’s house, no one was going to call 911. Stephano would just let me die.
“Fuck, I swallowed it,” I whispered to PJ after the guard left.
“Can you vomit?” she whispered back.
“I’ll try, but there’s cameras in here. I can’t stick my finger down my throat.”
“I could do it for you, pretend like we are fighting?” PJ said.
It was pretty incredible that even after the way I had been treating her, she was still willing to help me out. I really didn’t want to feel the effects of the methadone on my body. I hated to take pills and I knew it would make things very difficult for me once the pill was running through my veins.
“It’s all right. Why don’t you get in the shower and I’ll look around to see if there are cameras in the rooms, too. I’ll find a place.”
We didn’t have much time, and I couldn’t waste the little bit of time that I had by trying to find a place to puke. While PJ got into the shower, I looked in each of the rooms to see if any of them were camera free. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much luck. All of the rooms had cameras in them. I had to think of a new plan.
While the rest of the girls were getting cleaned up for dinner, I made my way to the stairs. The guard that was over there was much nicer than the other one. I had seen him around the club before and although I couldn’t trust any of Stephano’s people, this guard was one that I thought I could manipulate a little bit.
“I need to go up and talk to Stephano, I’m not feeling well. I think I’m going to be sick,” I said to the guard.
“Use the intercom if you want to talk to him. He doesn’t allow any of the girls upstairs.”
“This is something I need to say in person and I think he will allow me upstairs. I’m just helping with the girls. I’m not one of them,” I said sweetly.
I liked this guard much better than the guy standing by the back door. He seemed like he wouldn’t hurt us unless we were about to hurt him. I made a mental note to try and get the two guards to switch spots if we could. It would be much easier for us to get out the back door and into the yard than it was going to be to get upstairs.
“Use the intercom,” he said again.
“Never mind, I am feeling sick. I think I need to go lie down.”
I made my way to the bed that they had assigned me and crawled under the covers. I was about to do something absolutely disgusting, but there was no way around it. It was disgusting and I really hoped I wouldn’t have to sleep there that night after I did what I was about to do. But I had the privacy I needed to try and vomit.
With two fingers gagging myself, I vomited into one of my hands and then let it drop into the garbage can. It was absolutely disgusting. I quickly tied the top of the garbage bag and pulled a new one out and threw it in there. I had to hope that there was just too much going on downstairs and no one had actually seen what I did.
As I made my way back out into the main room I tried to find Ana. I wanted to talk to her so she knew what to do when we saw the guys break in to the house. We were going to need to act fast and with all the drugs in her system, I didn’t know if she was going to be very much help to us.
“Ana, how are you?” I said as I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her.
Instantly, she pulled away from me and looked at me like I was crazy. Hugging wasn’t something I was known for, that was for sure. But I reached up and hugged her again.
“I met Jordan, she’s trying to rescue you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Jordan,” she said as she looked at me in her daze.
“Shhh, we can’t talk. Do you want to help me clean up the kitchen?”
I had to think of something that would allow us to talk but keep us as far away from the guards as possible. Cleaning the kitchen seemed like the best option. If we had gone into the back room to do laundry, I thought it would look too much like we were sneaking around.
“We can get plates for dinner,” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s a great idea, let’s get the dishes ready for dinner.”
It was hard to see Ana so drugged up after seeing her doing so much better earlier in the day. I could tell that the more she took the drugs, the harder it was for her to think clearly and I desperately needed her to think clearly if we were going to get out of there safely.
“You saw Jordan,” she said as we started to gather the dishes from the cabinets.
“Yes, she is here and hired some people to find you.”
“How did she know where I was?”
“She hired some good people. Jordan was lucky, she found a nice man in Atlanta who she married a few weeks ago.”
Suddenly, I saw something in her eyes that went totally wrong. Something I had said did not sit well with Ana and she was mad. I didn’t really know what it was that had set her off, but she totally freaked out on me.
“Who are you?” she asked me loudly.
I noticed both of the guards look over at us, and I tried to calm her down. But I suspected the drugs were clouding her mind and making it very difficult for her to think straight. It was probably hard for her to understand what I was saying because Jordan was last in their home country and Ana didn’t know that she had actually come to the United States.
“I’m Roxanne. Remember? You stayed at my apartment before.”
“Why are you talking to me? What do you want from me?” she continued to say loudly.
I wanted to keep talking with her, I wanted to explain everything so she knew we were trying to help her. But her mood swings were out of control and I couldn’t risk talking with her any longer.
“Never mind,” I said as I started to walk away.
Dealing with drug addicts had never been something I was good at. They were nice to you one minute and then when they realized you weren’t going to help them with more drugs, they became belligerent. I had to assume that was what was going on with Ana. In all the days she had stayed at my house, she hadn’t once gotten angry. I didn’t even think she was capable of being angry.
I walked away and made my way back down the hall to see how PJ was doing. She was in a difficult spot and Stephano was going to send for her after dinner, so we did need to find a moment to try and talk about her plan. Going upstairs with Stephano could be a good thing, but it was very likely that PJ would get stuck with him in his room and then she’d have to sleep with him or he’d beat her.
“If you stand over there, I don’t think the cameras can see you talking to me,” I said as I peeked my head into the bathroom.
“All right, but you will still be talking.”
“I know. But that’s all right. I have to get you ready for your big night with Stephano. Remember?”
“Should I just pretend to be sick or something? What do you think? When do you think the guys are going to come in here? My best bet is in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. So, that means I’m going to have to deal with Stephano.”
She was muttering and talking quickly and seemed really nervous. I would have been nervous too if Stephano said he wanted to sleep with me. I couldn’t imagine what PJ was thinking as we got ready to eat dinner.
“I think you should dissolve some of those pills into a drink and bring it upstairs with you. Try and pour it into his drink so he gets all drugged up and passes out,” I said as I thought about what easy access we had to all the drugs.
PJ didn’t seem to like that idea at all and I saw the wheels spinning in her head as she tried to decide a better plan. This was new territory for the both of us, but I really had thought PJ would have had a better idea than mine. She was the one who worked for the CIA. She had all the training.
“I really wish I had some guys,” she said as she held her glasses out and looked right into them.
“Can they see us through those?” I asked although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“Yep, they can see us and hear us, but I have no way of hearing them.”
“Is Jackson mad at me? Tell him I’m sorry, I was just trying to help.”
“It’s not that helpful if I can’t talk to them. We still have no idea what is going on. But they can hear you as long as they still have the feed. But being on this island probably isn’t helping too much. I don’t know if they can even hear or see us right now. Hopefully, by nightfall, they will have a boat or something to get them close enough to see the video feed.”
PJ was right. They could see us, but we had no way of hearing them so it was pretty useless. I did feel a little more at ease knowing that Jackson was on the other end of those glasses. I knew that he would do whatever was necessary to keep us safe and that he was planning our escape as we stood there.
“Okay, so there are two guards, one at the back door and one at the stairs. We can see the water from the back door. If you send us a signal at night we should be able to see it,” I said as I tried to think of what Jackson needed to know from us.
PJ just looked at me and smiled. She seemed a little impressed by my thinking.
“There are eleven girls down here and most will be really drugged up so we will need time to get them out,” she added.
“Good, yes, I just had it out with Ana. She’s all hyped up and angry on her drugs. I’m not sure why they thought making the girls angry was a good idea.”
“They are probably only angry when they have to talk. If you leave them alone and just let them zone out, they should be all right,” PJ added.
“Dinner,” I heard the guard by the stairs yell out.
PJ and I looked at each other as we tried to think if there was anything else we needed to say to Jackson and the guys before we left the bathroom. I knew there was probably a lot more that he wanted to know, but I just couldn’t think of what else we should tell him.
“Is the food safe?” PJ asked as we opened the door.
“No idea,” I said quietly.
“Ilsa, you can come sit over here,” Stephano said as he pointed to a chair next to him.
I was surprised to see him downstairs and eating with us, but I figured he was doing it to try and butter Ilsa up so she would want to go upstairs with him. I still had no idea what PJ was going to do if she got brought upstairs, though. It scared me to think of what would happen if she was alone with Stephano.
After we sat down, I saw Stephano’s hands move under the table as he started to rub on PJ’s legs. He was laughing and being nice to her, I could see how a young girl would fall for him.
I remembered back to when I first met Stephano, he had acted exactly the same way and I had fallen for it. I had fallen right into his trap. It was funny that he still used all the same lines almost five years later.
It was easy to see how he wrapped the girls into his world. He was giving them drugs and feeding them. It was probably pretty easy for the girls to get wrapped up in the life that he was giving them. The idea of leaving seemed too hard when they had all the drugs in their system, plus they were addicted to the drugs.
I had to focus, though, the first thing I needed to do was get rid of that asshole who had strangled me. If I could get him out of the picture, I was almost positive we could get past the other guard. The only problem was I had to think of something really good to get him to leave or Stephano to make him leave.
“Girls, I’m so excited to have you all here and I can’t wait to find your forever homes. I know you all will be very happy with the men I give you to. They are rich and can’t wait to have a beautiful woman like you girls by their side.”
Stephano reached over and grabbed PJ’s hand and brought it up to his lips and kissed it. She did a perfect impersonation of a shy foreign girl as she giggled and looked down at the table. I still had no idea what we were going to do when he decided to bring her upstairs, but I hoped PJ was coming up with an idea while she was over there flirting.
“Stephano, I’d like to propose a toast,” I said as I held up my cup. “To one of the best men I know. You are always looking out for us girls and we truly are so lucky to have you on our side. To Stephano!” I said as I raise my cup up into the air and motioned for the other girls to join me.
I knew my effort to butter him up was successful when he smiled at me and raised his glass in return. He was so vain that it was easy to build him up by simply working on his ego.
As dinner progressed, I noticed some of the girls talking and whispering to each other. Most of them spoke different languages, so I couldn’t figure out what they were saying. At first, I worried that Stephano would get angry because he couldn’t understand them, but he seemed really laid back and was enjoying himself with PJ.
The two of them were snuggled together and having a great time while they fed each other pieces of their dinner and took turns drinking each other’s wine. In fact, the more I watched them, the more I realized that PJ wasn’t drinking her wine at all. She was drinking all of Stephano’s wine and hogging his glass and then he would grab hers and drink her wine.
She was good! PJ just have decided to grab a few of the pills and dissolve them into her own drink, and then get Stephano to drink it by flirting with him. I was beyond impressed.
Now, I just had to do my part. I needed to get rid of that damn guard.
Slowly, I got up and made my way over to Stephano and PJ. I kneeled down next to them and let my hands touch each of their thighs as they turned to look at me.
“Stephano, you know, Ilsa is a beautiful girl. Maybe the three of us should play together tonight?” I said in my sweetest voice possible.
Stephano looked shocked at my offer and I could tell right away that he was into it. He had been trying to get me to sleep with him for years and I hadn’t. It was probably beyond what he thought would ever happen and it was just enough to sweeten him up to right where I needed him to be.
“Well, I think we could arrange that. Perhaps tomorrow, though. Tonight, I’d like to have Ilsa all to myself.”
“Of course,” I said. I leaned in and then leaned in close to his ears. “You know that one by the back door was in the bathroom stealing your pills earlier.”
“Really?” he said as he pulled back away from me.
I pointed to the guard and then tapped PJ on the arm and pointed to him, as well.
“He was stealing pills, wasn’t he?” I said to her.
She just nodded her head yes and then giggled and continued to flirt with Stephano.
“There was something else. I’m not sure if I should say it, though, but since she doesn’t understand much, I think it is safe,” I said as I looked at PJ.
“He was looking in on Ilsa in the shower and said he wanted to fuck her and take her virginity before you had a chance. I know Ilsa didn’t understand anything he said and she shooed him out of the bathroom right away, but I just thought you would want to know.”
Stephano instantly stood up and walked over to the guard by the back door. He had already seen that I had pointed to him and he knew something was wrong when Stephano came his way.
“Whatever she said, it isn’t true. Stephano, I didn’t do it. You know I wouldn’t do anything against you,” the man pleaded with him.
“You are done,” he said as he got up in the guy’s face. “I’ve had enough of you trying to have your way with my girls. I’m done with you.” He motioned for the other guard to come over there. “Out back, we will take care of the rest later.”
The guard from the stairs pulled his gun out and pressed it up to the other guard as they opened the back door and walked out.
“Stephano, no. Please no,” the guard continued while they walked out back.
I expected to hear a gunshot or something like that, but we didn’t hear anything. The nice guard was gone for a few minutes and then returned and stood right back in his same position.
“Thank you, Roxy. You’re a good girl. I knew there was a reason I liked you. Tomorrow, we will make sure your dreams come true.”
I just smiled at Stephano and made sure to look as alluring as possible. I couldn’t help but have a bit of a smile on my face knowing that we had gotten rid of the worst of the guards. There was a real possibility we were going to be able to make it out of his house that night.