Chapter 4

Latasha trembled. Sweat bloomed cold and clammy, acrid to the nose. Her heart raced and her breathing kept time, shallow and rapid. Terror accurately described her emotional state. Dear God, she wanted to avoid the abuse headed her way. No good deed goes unpunished, a nasty little voice whispered inside her brain.

In the way the mind protects itself, Latasha started to feel distant from her predicament, almost as though her consciousness hovered outside her body. The out-of-body disconnection manifested in an inappropriate bubble of laughter, which she recognized with clinical calculation as hysteria. She’d witnessed it in the emergency room often enough.

The two men who had stopped the hotel shuttle and abducted her conversed in Spanish as the car barreled down the two-lane highway. The man who had hauled her off the shuttle sat beside her, his hand painfully clamped around her upper arm. She’d have bruises from the cruel grip. The driver, the one who had shot the shuttle driver and pulled him from the vehicle, laughed at something the other man said. The rapid-fire spate of their conversation flowed too fast for her emergency room proficiency to catch beyond the odd word or phrase here and there. Latasha decided it prudent not to reveal any knowledge whatsoever that she understood so much as word of Spanish beyond “taco” and “enchilada.”

The man holding her arm gave her a violent little shake.

“Chica, I’m talking to you,” he snapped, dark eyes colder and sharper than icicles.

Slowly, too slowly, she turned her head to face him, green eyes wide and lips pressed tightly in fear. Her chin trembled with the effort not to cry, because once the tears let loose there’d be no stopping them.

The man’s gaze swept over her with offensive deliberation. Latasha’s skin crawled. She turned her head away.

“No, no hagas eso,” the driver warned as the other man raised his hand to strike her. In careful English, he added, “El Jefe does not want her damaged.”

“It’s bad business to take American women,” the man in the back seat muttered. “Even the colored ones.”

The driver chuckled. “The American newspapers will report it, but nothing will happen. The Americans cannot touch El Jefe, and he will not let them touch us.”

From the sour look on the other man’s face, Latasha rather thought that El Jefe wouldn’t protect these low-level thugs as the driver assumed. He’d be more likely to sacrifice them and count the loss as negligible. She knew that attitude, had seen it in the thugs who bossed the gangs to which her brothers belonged. Organizations like the Bratva appeared disciplined and caring by comparison.

She wondered if Maksim would send anyone to rescue her or whether he’d count her as a negligible loss, too. Would he recall Iosif to Cleveland? If so, would Iosif obey? She despised the questions and the doubts, but had no way of dismissing them.

Asphalt gave way to gravel, which gave way to dirt as the car penetrated more deeply into the rainforest. The men fell silent as though bowing beneath the oppression of their master’s influence.

Latasha wondered whether she ought to be grateful that she’d been retrieved for the boss. At least that meant she’d be spared being thrown to the rank and file for their entertainment. At least she hoped so.

She closed her eyes and sent silent, desperate prayers skyward for Iosif’s timely arrival. Again, questions and doubts assailed her. How would he know where to find her? If he did locate her, how would he liberate her without getting them both killed? Did she even want to live, knowing the torture she had to look forward to?

She’d lived through rape once. Wasn’t that more than enough?

Opening her eyes, she looked out the window. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that Iosif loved her. He would come for her. She would survive.

She only hoped that Iosif wouldn’t reject the fragile, damaged wreck she would become if left too long to the cartel’s less than tender mercies.

That she would not survive.

The car rolled to a stop in front of wrought iron gates. The hand clamped around her arm tightened. An armed guard approached and the driver’s side window rolled down. After a terse conversation with the guard, the driver rolled the window back up, put the vehicle in gear, and slowly drove through the gates as they swung open with ponderous grace. The tires crunched over white gravel, which had to have been imported at great expense, and carried the car toward a monolithic mansion. The edifice, incongruous against the lush background of the surrounding jungle, fulfilled every Hollywood stereotype of criminal kingpin excess.

She ruthlessly quelled another bout of hysteria that threatened to erupt from her throat.

The driver directed the car along a long, curved lane that took it around the back of the mansion. When it stopped, an armed guard darted forward to open the back door on the passenger side. The man who held her slid from the seat, pulling Latasha along with him. When she did not follow along swiftly enough, he gave her arm a hard jerk that sent her sprawling to the ground with a yelp of pain.

“Si le haces daño, El Jefe tendrá su cabeza, estúpido,” the driver snapped, enunciating every syllable as he exited the car. If you hurt her, the boss will have your head, stupid, Latasha silently translated. He walked around and took Latasha’s other arm, raising her to her feet with almost exaggerated care. He gave her a thin smile that deepened the narrow scar that ran from his right temple down to his chin. In a low voice and speaking carefully, he whispered in Spanish, “You understand more than we thought.”

“Be smart and don’t irritate El Jefe,” said the other man in heavily accented English. “Or maybe you should. You’re skinny for my taste, but I’d enjoy fucking you.”

Latasha thought she couldn’t turn pale, but apparently she could if the guard’s rude laughter were any indication. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from either screaming or vomiting.

“Venir también,” the man ordered with a tug on her arm that obviously meant something along the lines of “follow me.”

Latasha followed. She had no other choice. Another bubble of hysteria gurgled in her throat as the infamous Borg motto reverberated in her mind: Resistance is futile. With that weird disassociation, she wondered if Iosif would find the Star Trek reference amusing. Did he even know about Star Trek? The man tugged on her arm again and she stumbled after him.

The men escorted her into the sprawling mansion. Their footsteps on the gleaming marble tile echoed off the white walls. Niches held statuary and bouquets of flowers. Darkly stained wooden doors blocked a view into the rooms beyond. Latasha’s escorts stopped in front of one of those many doors. The man holding her arm rapped his knuckles on the glossy wood.

“Puedes entrar,” came the response, muffled by the thick wood.

The other man opened the door which swung into the room on silent hinges. The hand clamped around Latasha’s upper arm let go and another hand shoved her between the shoulders. She stumbled forward and damned near fell to her knees before righting herself. She clenched her jaws and looked nervously at the man sitting behind an acre of gleaming desktop.

Rising slowly to his feet, his eyes gleamed. He demanded to see her: “Déjame verla.”

Feigning ignorance of his command, Latasha just stood there. She wasn’t sure her knees wouldn’t buckle if she tried to move, anyway.

“Turn around, puta,” one of her escorts growled, “so El Jefe can see you.”

Latasha thought her molars would shatter from the pressure of her clenched jaws as she slowly shuffled in a small circle.

“Ah, bien. Es tan bonita como las fotos,” the cartel leader murmured with satisfaction as he walked around his desk and approached to look at her more closely. He reached out to take her chin in a tight grip, turning her head so that he could better see her unusual green eyes. His full lips split in a smile.

Latasha’s stomach churned with terror. Her captor didn’t match the stereotypical fat, sloppy looking, middle-aged despot, but neither did he conform to the romanticized version found in silly romance novels. The ease with which he moved showed he was no stranger to physical exercise. His pale linen suit and bright silk shirt hugged a trim figure. He kept his dark hair slicked back and wore a goatee lightly sprinkled with gray hairs. A thin scar highlighted the line of his right cheekbone.

His dark gaze slowly swept over her, noticing the rapid, shallow breathing and the sheen of perspiration on her skin. He inhaled and wrinkled his nose against the sour smell of fear.

“¿Habla español?” he asked.

The man who was not the driver answered in careful English, “No, Jefe, she does not speak Spanish.”

The driver opened his mouth to speak, then decided against it. Really, there wasn’t a good way to force the girl to admit she understood Spanish without hurting her. He wasn’t particularly opposed to hurting her, but the boss would likely take offense at an underling’s presumption. If El Jefe discovered the girl understood Spanish and wanted to punish her, then that was his prerogative.

“You have something to say?” the boss asked.

“No, sir,” he replied.

“Very well,” he said, dismissing the man. He directed his attention to the other man, “Take her to Señora Perez to be cleaned up.” His eyes flickered over her. “And fed. She’s skinny.”

Latasha carefully kept her expression neutral, not wanting to allow any hint to show that she understood most of the conversation.

The well-dressed man finally looked at her straight in the eye, rather than at her boobs, and said in thickly accented English, “I own you now. You will call me ‘master.’”

Not entirely sure whether she was supposed to respond, Latasha held her silence. With a quickness she never expected, the man’s hand whipped out and struck her across the face. She cried out. Her hand automatically went up to cradle her stinging cheek.

“When I address you, girl, you say either ‘yes, master,’ or ‘no, master.’ Do you understand me?” he hissed.

“Yes, master,” she whimpered and lowered her eyes, because she could not bear to see the pleasure her owner took in her pain and fear.

“Llévala ahora,” El Jefe commanded.

The two thugs obeyed and hauled her from the room. She stumbled alongside them, her arms held in their bruising grips until they stopped at another door somewhere in the depths of the huge mansion. One of them pounded on the door. It opened to reveal a matronly woman whose face looked frozen in an expression of dull resentment beneath iron gray hair pulled tightly back into a bun at that nape of her neck. A rapid-fire conversation ensued and the two men transferred Latasha to the woman’s care.

With a surprisingly strong yank, the woman pulled Latasha into the room. Latasha’s eyes widened. Sofas and overstuffed chairs scattered about the room bore the weight of several naked or mostly naked women and the men they serviced. A whine escaped Latasha’s throat as the woman pulled her through the room. Her escorts swaggered to a woman who lay dull and disinterested on a sofa and gave her a slap. She whimpered and immediately sank to her knees, unfastening the belt and fly of one man while the other took her place on the sofa and reached around to squeeze her breast.

Latasha gurgled as a new wave of gorge rose to her throat.

She needed no one to tell her that this was what happened to El Jefe’s women when he got bored with them. She supposed that those who managed to survive the attentions of the more privileged thugs were then thrown to the foot soldiers for their entertainment and use.

The prospect made her dizzy with terror. She stumbled. Señora Perez swiveled on her heel, slapped Latasha’s other cheek, and snapped a command to get a hold of herself and follow, or else she’d not enjoy the master’s attentions.

Enjoy. Hah.

With growing difficulty, Latasha quelled another bubble of hysteria.

The madam pushed her into a bathroom and ordered her to strip. Seeing no recourse, Latasha stripped. The woman gestured toward the shower and then to a cabinet, which she opened to show clean towels. She closed the bathroom door and folded her arms under her ample bosom. Latasha understood that she’d be given no privacy while the faintest spark of rebellion or hope of escape yet lingered. Her bowels tightened painfully and she raced to the toilet.

While Latasha scrubbed herself in the shower, Señora Perez disposed of her clothing. Latasha meekly accepted the satin bathrobe the woman handed to her. The woman took hold of her arm and dragged her from the bathroom to another room that too closely resembled a medical exam room.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Latasha mumbled and began to struggle.

Señora Perez barked a sharp command and two men answered her summons. They took hold of Latasha and forced her onto the examination table, efficiently lashing her arms down and her feet into the stirrups. With hard hands, they held her legs open even though she arched and struggled against their brute strength. Screaming in panic, she did not hear the snap of an exam glove, did not realize El Jefe’s personal physician had entered the room until the speculum slid into her body. Then her wails rose in pitch and her struggles strengthened. The physician pulled a syringe from his pocket and deftly injected it into the soft skin of her inner thigh. Latasha felt blackness overcome her as the physician began to examine her.

Once he finished, he nodded wordlessly to Señora Perez and left the room without a backward glance. The madam barked out a command and the two medical assistants applied hot wax to all the areas of the new whore’s body that El Jefe preferred devoid of hair. Only the madam’s stern presence prevented them from violating the whore further as they worked.

Until El Jefe tired of her, no other man would have the pleasure of her body.