Chapter Two

Tamatha

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I knew men like him, and turning my back wasn’t smart. I didn’t have my rail spike as a weapon anymore, and I knew I’d need one against him. Dark, wrapped in designer wear, and with classic good looks with midnight hair and even darker eyes, he should have been an easy mark. But those eyes were dead, and that was dangerous.

“Ten million,” he called after me.

My stomach grumbled loudly in the piss-scented alleyway. Lots of the local escorts met in pretty hotel lobbies and flats. Some got extra pay to walk through filth like this to make their John feel like he was truly trolling. Me? I lived it. I slept in crawl spaces, ate food out of the dumpsters behind restaurants, found water in drain pipes, and hoped I wouldn’t get too sick to defend myself. It felt like home here. But just being near the crisp, clean scents wafting from him, and the leather interior of his ride, made me feel like a speck of dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. I hadn’t bathed in weeks, and the whore’s baths at the local convenience shops only went so far. Hell, the last time I got a decent meal was in jail. Ten million could do a lot.

But what would I have to do to get all that? Take the pain and humiliation like the girl who’d escaped had to? Likely, and more. But … I needed the money.

I turned slowly. “What you want for that much?”

“I believe I’ve already told you.”

“Me covers a lot of territory.”

“Quite,” he agreed.

I plucked at my lip, pulling the skin until it stung.

“Stop that.”

His hard tone shocked me, stilling my motion as I blinked. My fingers hovered just over my lip, needing to pull, but I couldn’t. My limbs were locked as he stared at me, breathing in and out in smooth breaths. He got out of the car, never breaking eye-contact, and I was amazed at his height. He had to be well over six feet tall, and I wouldn’t come much past his chest. Warning signs flickered in my head, loud and clanging, but still my fingers were stiff in the air.

“I don’t like that disgusting habit. Put your arm down,” he told me.

I scowled and dropped my arm. “What does it matter to you?”

“I already told you.” He cocked his head to one side, studying me.

I took a hesitant step back. “Look, I’m not on the menu tonight. Find someone else.”

“No.”

A single word. It rang between us and held me rooted to the spot. He stepped forward, dwarfing me, and I cringed. I was filthy, a dirty slut from the wrong side of the tracks, and he stood before me in finery. He couldn’t want anything more than to humiliate and destroy me. That’s what men like him did. I knew all about it. I was here because of someone just like him.

“Three months,” he said. “I want three months. If you want to leave after that, you can go with ten million dollars, a condo anywhere you’d like, and any items I’ve bought for you during your time with me.”

“And if I want to leave before three months?” How was I even entertaining this? Ten million reasons. Make that ten million and one, and that singular one mattered most of all. But he could be lying. I scoffed. Of course he was. He could take me and strangle me before I’d be able to get away.

He shrugged, fixing one of his cufflinks before he took another menacing step forward. I stood taller, straightening my back, and lifted my chin. I was small but scrappy. Pimps, fiends, and even the cops tried to get grabby with me ever since I ended up on the streets. In my line of work, you learned to fight dirty and run faster than lightning. If you got caught, you took what was coming and fought tooth and nail because you might die trying anyway.

“Take the deal, or I make my own rules,” he warned.

I swallowed my fear and shook my head. “First, I wanna know how I’ll get my money.”

The man smiled, a saccharine mockery of what it should have been, and chills raced down my spine. He took another step, and before I could move, he wrapped his arm around me and jerked me hard against his chest. Here I was, dirtying up his pretty, clean clothing and fouling up his crisp scent, and he didn’t even twitch his nose. His minty breath swept over my lips as he lowered his head to bring our faces closer together.

He. Was. Beautiful.

This close, held in his iron-clad grip, I couldn’t deny his looks and strength. So much like Alec, with his suave good looks, confidence, and have-what-I-want ways. It sickened me to be close to wealth like this again. The scars on my stomach burned, but a deeper flame smoldered within me. It twisted and pulsed through me, ripping apart my insides. I wanted this man, despite my fear and loathing. I never learned. After everything I’d suffered, I still wished for things that would never be, wanted things I didn’t deserve.

I struggled to get away from him, pressing my palms against his chest, but he only clenched his arms tighter until my ribs could barely expand to catch my breath. There was a misconception in the world that evil was ugly. That it was covered in disgusting muck and shit and easily recognizable if you simply looked. The man in the white van who’ll steal your children will have rotting teeth and sweaty skin. When you’re jacked at gunpoint for your car, it’ll be gang members with brightly-colored flags covering their face, and you are destined to die. But it was all a lie—a beautiful lie we told ourselves to sleep soundly in our beds. Evil was wrapped in high-dollar clothing with a mega-watt smile to lure you into the trap.

He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger, so I couldn’t look away from him, and curled his fingers into the skin over my hipbone. “Ten million in three months or …”

He let his voice trail off, but he didn’t need to finish his threat. I could feel it, taste it over my tongue. I knew how to survive, how to give men like him what they wanted. So I let my body go lax in his hold and lowered my eyelids to look at him through my lashes.

“All of me, for three months and ten million dollars,” I agreed.

He smiled again, but it was different. This one scared me more than the last. It was full of triumph and promises. But I was steel, forged between a shitty life and even worse cards dealt to me. I’d find a way to live through the next three months, belonging to him, owned by the same class I hated. And if I didn’t walk away as one of them?

He’d find a blade between his ribs.

He released me long enough to direct me toward his Phantom, a mockery of a gentleman’s gallant move. A pity the move was perfection with his elegant limbs. I straightened my shoulders and did as he bid, my heels clicking loud on the pavement. With each step, the funk of my corner was overtaken by the swelling cleanliness of his. It only made me more aware of myself. By the time the warmed leather seats cradled my bare thighs, I could barely breathe.

“Remove your clothing,” he ordered as he closed the door behind him. He leaned back and watched me.

I knew the drill and didn’t argue as I stripped. There wasn’t a point in shimmying my ass for him. Men are visual creatures, but I never saw one turn down tits and ass in favor of a little bit of a show instead. My bikini top and skirt rested on the floor when I was finished, and I left my heels on. Bracing my feet flat on the floor, I gripped the back of the seat and spread my thighs wide.

“This what you want?” I asked.

“You haven’t finished doing what I told you.” He gave a pointed look to my shoes.

I sat forward, thrown by the lack of transparent desire in his gaze.

You gave in. You aren’t fun anymore. Be fucking fun, you cunt.

I ignored the thought in my head and took off my shoes. Before I could assume my position again, he spoke.

“Hand me all of it.”

With shaking hands, I grabbed the only clothes I owned and put them in his outstretched hand. Slowly, he used his free hand to press the window mechanism and then throw my stuff out of the Phantom. Finished, he rolled the window back up and tapped the roof before dusting his hands. I fell back against the seat as the Phantom pulled away, not sure what to do.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Whatever you want it to be, b—”

“Answer me like that again and I’ll fuck that mouth. It’ll be much more useful that way.”

Tremors raced with goose bumps over my arms and I only nodded my head.

“Let’s try this once more. What is your name?”

“Tamatha,” I whispered.

I hadn’t heard that name is so long. It was attached to a different woman, one who didn’t climb into the back of cars with unknown men, who didn’t have scraped knees from quickies in the alley and split lips after blowjobs. Tamatha didn’t turn tricks. She was a person, with a life, a heart, and—she thought—love. She had something to fight for, and I was the whore who made it happen.

“I am Benecio. I’ve purchased your body and your time, but I lied.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“If you clean up well enough and pass the drug exam, I will keep you for much longer than three months. If you don’t …” He shrugged, and my heart galloped.

A sudden urge to flee blazed through me, and I lunged for the door with a scream.

And he let me.

The door was locked when I reached it, and I clawed at the gleaming silver handled while he watched me, stoic and composed. I pounded my small fists against the window, but it didn’t break. I shuffled to the other side and was met with the same resistance. Through it all—my screams and scratching, the banging and cursing—Benecio watched me and said nothing. So I jumped at him next, and with a single, well-placed slap, he sent me sprawling on the floor at his feet. My cheek throbbed from the sting, but I’d had worse. It was the death in his gaze that made me freeze.

“Are you done with your temper tantrum, Tamatha?” He quirked his eyebrow at me, and I hissed at him.

He made me feel like an ill-trained dog, naked and open to him, and he chastised me like I’d pissed on the floor.

“Men like you are all the same,” I threw at him.

“And have you met many? Men like me, that is.”

I looked away from him, and only then did he move. Lightning-fast, he gripped me by the back of my hair and forced my head around to face him.

“If I ask you a question, you will answer,” he demanded.

I spat in his face.

An unholy fire filled his gaze; it was the first time desire morphed his features. It softened the angular lines of his face, and the slumberous set of his eyelids made my heart skip a beat. My mouth went dry and liquid mercury filled my veins, toxic and beautiful.

My spittle dribbled down his cheek as he used his grip on my hair to jerk my face closer. “Clean it off, inferna.”

I clenched my lips, refusing to do what he said as his accent rolled over the name he called me. I couldn’t hope to know what it meant but thought maybe he likened me to Dante’s Inferno. Hell seemed an apt comparison. I wasn’t some fucking animal, and he’d lied to me. He already told me. It didn’t matter what I did, he owned me, and I wouldn’t make it easy for him.

Benecio’s fingers clenched in my hair, ripping through the strands and sending shafts of pain over my scalp as he gripped my jaw with his free hand. I moaned as he pressed in, digging against a pressure point until my mouth opened. As he pressed my open mouth against the saliva I’d tossed on him, I wanted to wound him, to fight back against the hell I’d suffered at the hands of the rich.

I bit down. Fuck them all.