Natalia

 

I was going down the street as fast as I could without drawing unnecessary attention. I kept my head down and my footsteps quick, one after the other, focusing only on the next step.

 

My plan was to make it to the bus station. I could beg the cashier at the ticket counter for some help with the fare, or, if worse came to worse, I’d just try to sneak my way on. For right now, it didn’t make a difference where I went, as long as it was somewhere away from the city.

 

The sky was gray and foreboding. I snuck a glance overhead. It always struck me as funny how the weather seemed to reflect what I was feeling. Gray day, gray sky. A perfect fucking match.

 

I kept moving. That was the only way to keep the thoughts at bay. If I paused for even a second, I didn’t think I’d ever get started again. Nicholas’s voice was ringing in the back of my head. Stay put, Natalia. You’re mine. I felt a visceral twinge every time I closed my eyes and pictured him, his hand resting on my throat, as he looked at me and slid his fingers down between my legs. I could sense myself growing wet at the mere thought.

 

What was I leaving behind? An unbelievable amount of pain and misery, that was for certain. If I never saw my father’s restaurant ever again, if I never heard the name Esposito, that would be just fine with me. Preferable, even. There was nothing but darkness and sadness associated with the places where I’d spent the vast majority of my unfortunate life.

 

But for the first time since I could remember, there was something in that life that might just be worthwhile. What a twisted way for me to stumble into it. A man bought me from an auction block, and I fell for him? That couldn’t be real. The world didn’t work that way. And, yet, it had worked that way. I’d been purchased like a stock animal, like a horse being sent off to the glue factory, and instead of being fed through the machinery of whatever torture might have been waiting for me in another scenario, I tumbled straight into the arms of a walking, talking, sexy as hell enigma. One with a name that could, all by itself, send heat racing through my thighs and a chill down my spine.

 

I reached a crosswalk. The blinking red hand told me to stay in place as cars whizzed past in front of me. All these people had such normal lives. They were accountants and dentists, housewives, children headed off to school, and none of them had ever even heard of something like a sex slave auction, much less been aware that it took place right under their noses. What a thing it was to be so blissfully ignorant. I’d never had that kind of luck.

 

Too impatient to stand still and wait for the signal to change, I decided to cross to the other side of the street. Keep moving, keep moving—that was the mantra. Let my legs work and my brain stay silent. I hurried across the street, barely glancing to make sure no one had chosen to barrel through the red light and mow me down. Although, to be fair, that might not have been the worst thing in the world.

 

There was a white van idling on the corner. I walked in front of it and turned my attention to the sidewalk unfolding ahead of me. I was three or four blocks away from the bus station. Mexico, here I come, I thought to myself.

 

That was when the hands grabbed me.

 

The door to the van slid open as four men leaped out of the vehicle towards me, picking me up and covering my mouth to stop me from screaming. I thrashed wildly like a trapped animal, but I never had a chance.

 

“No, no!” I screamed when they had thrown me on the floor of the van and shut the door. I felt a lurch as the driver pressed hard on the gas, sending it careening down the street, straight through the red light. Horns blared and angry drivers protested, but the van didn’t stop. We kept on moving.

 

In the back, I was throwing elbows and knees around like flails. I connected with the temple of one of the men. He cursed and threw all his weight against my leg, trapping it against the floor. The other three did the same.

 

Behind me, someone stuffed a rag in my mouth to silence me. The man holding my right arm shoved up the sleeve of the shirt of Nicholas’s that I’d stolen and yanked my wrist towards him so the underside of my arm was exposed.

 

“Shh,” said a voice that was sickeningly familiar. Alessandra emerged from the back row with a glistening needle in her hand. “Don’t worry, hon.” She smiled coldly. “Everything is going to be just fine.” She jabbed the needle into one of the green veins wending along the crook of my elbow. Sleep slugged through me immediately. I fought it hard. But my body could only hold out for a few seconds.

 

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Alessandra’s face. “It will all be over soon,” she told me. “Very soon.”