Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dev opened her eyes to a brand-new day, her head finally clear of murk and shadows. Her stomach growled, and she desperately needed another sip of that delicious coconut water, but she wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t all been part of a dream.

Lifting to her elbows, she surveyed the tidy but cramped quarters she found herself in. This was the heaven she’d imagined? Ah-uh. Looked more like a cheap hotel room complete with a hint of gray on the ceiling from painted-over mold. Not what she expected at all. Where was the priest, doctor, or the guy with a good heart who’d rescued her?

It was dark. The curtains were drawn tight and the only light in the place glimmered from beneath the bathroom door. Lying under a sheet on a lumpy mattress, Dev smoothed one hand down her thigh. Thank God, her shorts and shirt were still where they belonged.

“You’re safe. Are you hungry?” her benefactor asked, still keeping to the farthest shadows of the room. She knew he wasn’t Sly or that rat bastard Bagani by the definite Spanish accent, not like that made Dev feel much better. This place wasn’t a hospital where an injured woman found alongside the road should’ve been taken, and any guy who lurked in the corner like a vampire was no Good Samaritan out to do a good deed. Definitely not a priest.

“Where am I?” she asked quietly. And who the hell are you?

A grunt came back to her. That he hadn’t answered her simple question was alarming enough, but instead of whimpering, Dev swallowed her fear and firmly projected her intentions. “I’m leaving.”

Adding credence to that statement, she tossed the bed cover aside, set both feet to a matted carpet and said, “Thank you for helping me. I appreciate all you’ve done. Really, I do, but I’m going now.” And you can’t stop me.

“You’re not going anywhere.” His tone shifted from feigned kindness to grim, yet still he wasn’t brave enough to face her. The coward. What was that all about?

Dev stood, instantly gauging the running distance to the door. She could make it. Opening the door would cost her precious seconds. It might be locked, but all she needed was enough time to scream for help.

“Sit,” he snapped.

Pissed that he thought he could threaten her, she turned on him. “I said I’m leaving and—”

And damn he was fast, one moment hidden, the next looming over her on the mattress where he’d shoved her like a bear with a kitten, his knees on both sides of her hips and his breath in her face. The rank odor of sweat mixed with beer stifled her as long, golden-red hair draped off his shoulders and fell onto her cheeks and into her opened mouth.

Huffing, she blew the oily stands away and sealed her lips, her heart jackhammering up so high in her throat, surely he could hear it. Yet he said nothing, just studied her with an intensity so fierce she could feel the desperation in it.

“I am not most men,” he growled. Whatever that meant.

‘No, you’re an ass,’ she thought but asked, “Who… who are you then? A kidnapper?”

“Joachim,” he said as his nose dipped into the crook of her neck and he nuzzled her like the dog he was. “Just Joachim. That’s all you need to know.”

First names only, how cliché? God, give me strength, she prayed as she stared at the mottled ceiling. “H-how’d you find me?”

“I’m never far from the man I serve,” he muttered, his breath as rank as a dog’s.

“And that would be?” She hated to ask.

He just grunted, the scrape from the scruff on his ugly face on her tender skin unbearable.

“M-my name is Devereaux Shepherd,” she breathed, hating the hitch in her voice as much as the heat rolling off his body. But the more this creep knew about her, the better her chances of surviving whatever he had in mind, right? That was what other survivors all said. “B-but m-my friends call me—”

“Angelique,” he hissed, his breath warm and thick as he tongued a line up her neck to her ear. “From now on, you will be Angelique. It will be my pet name for you, and no one else shall call you that but me. Only me.”

This fruitcake was seriously off his rocker.

“Angelique and Joachim will go down in history as the most famous lovers of all time, even more famous than Bonnie and Clyde.”

Okay, that came way out of left field. What was this guy, c-c-crazy? “No, Joachim, I’m Devereaux Shepherd, and I have a little boy waiting for me at home, and he needs me, and I—”

Joachim reared back, his dark blue eyes bright with anger as the rest of his hard body shifted against her belly. “You are not a virgin?”

Dev would’ve lied if it would’ve gotten her away from the steel rod in his pants poking her belly, but she’d already blown that option. Shaking her head, she determined to undermine whatever lies he’d been told. “No, Joachim, I’m a single mom with a minimum wage job and right now, my rent’s overdue. If you don’t let me go home soon, my four-year-old son will be scared, and I’ll lose my home.” Really soon! “Who told you I was a virgin? Sly Valentine?”

His nostrils flared as his eyes scrolled over her face, over her chin, and down her neck to her non-existent cleavage. “Santa Madre de Dios. Four-years-old, eh?”

Dev nodded, hoping that light in his eyes meant enlightenment instead of—that. Gooseflesh shivered up the back of her neck and over her shoulders. “Yes, and I’m in a committed relationship now. Want my fiancée’s name and number?”

Joachim rolled one shoulder as if he were weighing his options. The tip of his tongue ran one lap around his lips before his teeth snared his bottom lip. “But I paid for a virgin,” he murmured as he ran a hand over his hair, pulling it over one shoulder. “That dirtbag lied to me.”

Yeah, had to be Sly, but what the hell made him think he could sell her? The ass! This was lower than low. Feverishly grasping at straws, Dev nodded to get Joachim off of her and out the door. “Who… who lied to you? Sly? Was it him?”

“Yes, my friend, Sylvester,” he replied, his tone filled with amazement as if he couldn’t believe Sly would ever lie. Give me a break. That was what Sly did best, which explained a lot.

Dev said the first thing that came to her mind. “He’s not the most honest man.” Talk about an understatement. “Sly sold me to you? How much did you give him?”

Instead of answering, Joachim leaned over the side of the bed, reaching for something beneath it. Unexpectedly, he grabbed her wrist, and—

Snap. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. A metal cuff now graced her wrist. She swallowed hard as Joachim lifted to his knees and climbed off the bed.

“Stay,” he bit out. “In a little while, I will deal with that liar, and when I come back, I will deal with you. Now I’ll ask you one last time, Angelique. Are you hungry?”

Dev shook her head, afraid to meet his eyes. “No. I just want to go home.”

That earned her a snort. “Not happening. I paid good money for you, and you will serve until I’m through with you.”

When pigs fly…