My nipples pebbled, and the urge to shiver became unbearable. But shivering was a tell, just like hate was, and I wouldn’t let these men see any reaction from me.

None.

Collecting a bar of soap from the feet of a girl sobbing hysterically, I touched her forearm gently. Her dark eyes latched onto mine, frantic and painfully lost. I wanted to shelter and shield her, but instead, all I could do was take her hand, press the soap into her palm, and squeeze her fingers gently.

Turning my back on her, I grabbed another lonely soap and scrubbed away the degradation and dirt from the past few days of living in a black hovel, rinsed out my mouth from the rancid aftertaste of no toothbrush, and ensured I was clinically sterile before the man barked for us to stop.

I was the first to step free from the chilly shower, heading toward the bench where a pile of threadbare towels waited haphazardly. They didn’t look laundered. They smelled musky with a whiff of mould. I schooled my features to show no disgust and wrapped one around my nakedness.

I bent to reach for another to cocoon my dripping hair, but a man stepped behind me. A thick twine slipped over my head. A noose yanked tight against my throat.

Down the line of towel-adorned women, some struggled against their new imprisonment as ropes cinched tight. Some cried out. Some begged.

I just breathed.

And hated.

A man with black hair popping out the nostrils of his crooked nose leaned in to lick a droplet from my cheek.

I shivered involuntarily.

I stopped it immediately.

My muscles locked. My eyes focused on a place they could not ruin. My ears rang with his nasty promise.

“You not like the others.” Spinning me to face him, jerking the rope so it choked me, he looked me up and down with a leer. “Too good for us, puta? Why you don’t fight? Why you don’t cry? You think you safe? That we don’t do pain to you just because you stay quiet?”

The others vanished as I stared deep into his black eyes. He was taller, yet I felt as if I looked down upon him. And in his stare, I said goodbye to everything. I said farewell to the world travel Scott and I had planned—how we’d only just begun our journey by backpacking through America before flying to Mexico.

We’d met five months ago at a local travel show where tour companies and airlines came together and offered one-of-a-kind discounts. We were in the line waiting for a veggie burger from one of the food trucks. Before we’d even covered the basic get-to-know-you questions, we knew enough that we would get on. We were both vegetarians and seeking to explore the planet before forging a career path in whatever would grant us our dreams.

His parents lived in California. My mother lived in London after remarrying an Englishman after my father divorced her for reasons I wasn’t privy to seven years ago.

We clicked enough that we agreed to book two tickets on an adventure instead of one.

Funny how I saw all of that in the eyes of a heartless trafficker. I saw my past, I mourned my loss, and I fortified myself for whatever came next.

When I didn’t reply, the guy cursed under his breath and yanked the leash around my throat. The other women had already been dragged from the shower block. I followed as if I was a wayward stray, trotting as he jerked me to move quicker to the shuffling crowd up ahead.

The corridor seemed to squeeze around us, giving the sense of being inside a giant snake. We were its prey, cracked and devoured by overwhelming force.

A slur sounded in front. A female shout followed by sharp refusal.

I side-stepped to get a better view just as the guy wearing a leather jacket threw Tess to the ground and relentlessly kicked her. He kicked and kicked until I was sure I witnessed a murder. She couldn’t survive such abuse.

It happened so fast. So viciously.

The man bent to grab the rope around her throat, tugging it like he expected her to heel. “Get up.”

A feminine groan sounded, barely heard amongst the other cries and moans of the girls who’d witnessed such brutality.

I waited for Tess to stay down. To accept defeat.

But slowly, she stood.

Blood smeared her freshly scrubbed skin, and her eyes blazed with such loathing it licked at my own, encouraging my temper to snarl and claw, desperate to let loose and fight.

But now was not the time to choose carnage over careful obedience.

This was no longer a waiting game to see what would happen. We knew what was happening. We were being trafficked. We’d been stolen from different lives, stored in darkness, fed by beasts, and now we’d been washed and prepared for sale.

They’d kept us alive this long.

There was a reason.

A reason that came with a fat wallet to buy us and perversions to hurt us.

That was the moment to fear, not this one. That was the time to fight…when the end had finally arrived. These were just the middlemen, and we were worth more to them alive than in pieces.

With my heart pounding beneath the layers of control I clung to, I didn’t say a word as a door was opened and a shove between my shoulder blades pushed me into the depths.

Other doors were opened.

Girls disappeared one by one.

We didn’t say goodbye, and I doubted we’d ever see each other again.

A lock snapped into place behind me.

A man stood beside a chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s surgery.

I waited for what came next.

Chapter Two

I STOOD ON THE rocky ledge, overlooking the pristine waters and silky white sand of my beach.

I might as well have been seated on a throne within a seven-story cathedral.

Enter my shores, and I wasn’t just the owner of this establishment…

I was god.

And my women were goddesses.

Goddesses to touch and worship and debase to the point of brutality.

But hurt them past our contract, and I took lives as easily as I gave pleasure.

Men came here for what I could offer. For the indulgences I promised.

But not one of them was allowed entry until I agreed.

That was my power.

Piss me off, you’re evicted.

Hurt my goddesses, you die.

Simple.

A warm breeze wrapped around me as the helicopter wound down, and the man who hoped he was my next guest climbed gingerly out of it. The helipad was built on a small circle surrounded by basalt rock, signature orchids of my island, and crystal blue water of the sea.

It was a welcoming entry point into paradise.

But it was also the gates of hell if you didn’t behave.

I waited with my hands in pinstripe pockets, eyeing him up, assessing who he was.

The investigation into his background showed a financial broker who’d struck it lucky in his early twenties, invested well, and turned one million into five by property developing. Sexual health clean. No physical or mental illnesses. One older brother. Father alive. Mother deceased. Name? Ricky Danrea. For thirty-nine-years old, he’d done okay by success standards but didn’t seem to have any luck with a wife.

My staff ushered him up the small bamboo jetty, gave him a welcome drink with yet another orchid, and presented him directly to me.

They all came to me.

No one stayed on my island and played with my women without first being approved.

A piece of paper could only tell you so much about a person.

The eyes were where the truth lay.

Smiling pleasantly, I held out my hand. “Welcome.”