Because in nine days she would be forced to marry Henry Thomas Ellington IV, a marriage Eliza had known about nearly all her life. Henry Thomas was a dangerous young man, one her father had only recently identified as Eliza’s future husband. The son of a friend of her father’s. A man none of them had ever met.
But all that was about to change.
Henry Thomas was flying in from the States to meet her. “He wants to spend an evening with his bride,” her father had told her this morning. “Before he signs off on the marriage.”
The whole arrangement was sickening. Her forced marriage would join two drug and sex-trafficking dynasties—her father’s and that of Henry Thomas’s father. According to her dad, the senior Ellington was a lawyer who secretly ran a longtime trafficking ring that worked both Florida and southern Belize. By combining their illegal activities, the men believed they would make far more money and be nearly impossible to bring down.
Eliza understood the situation. She was merely a pawn in her father’s dirty game of greed and power. She let her gaze drift twenty yards down the beach to a pair of men walking her way. Their laughter and cigar smoke carried in the wind, and Eliza stiffened. She’d seen them before. Eliza wasn’t a little girl anymore. She knew the business her father was about at the Palace.
One of the men was a redhead, and the other, balding. Pasty white skin and champagne bellies. Trust fund parasites, casting shame on their fathers’ old money. Or following in their footsteps. The men were members of a private yacht club with longtime privileges at the Palace. One of them looked her way and stopped. He motioned to the others and all three gawked at her. Like lions sizing up a wounded gazelle. Eliza pulled her gauzy cover-up tight around her body and turned the other way.
She wasn’t for sale. Not until next week, when Henry Thomas Ellington IV, came to visit.
“Hey, Princess, come for a swim!” It was the bald head. “The water’s nice.”
I’m not for sale, she wanted to shout at him. But then, the men already knew that. Everyone knew Eliza wasn’t for sale. Not like the other sixteen girls at the Palace. Eliza refused to look up. If her father heard the men he’d turn his guards on them and they’d never be seen again. No one messed with Eliza. No one.
Not until the wedding on her twentieth birthday. The day she would leave the Palace in the arms of another evil man, a stranger she already hated.
The other girls would leave the Palace on their twentieth birthdays, too, the days when her father would set them free. The promise was part of the deal. Her father and his team would keep the girls till they turned twenty. Then they were free to go. Her father would give each of them a year’s wages, a passport, and a suitcase of clothes. And that would be that.
“Come on, Eliza. You know you want to swim with us.” The bald man was yelling at her now. Scratchy voice, thick guttural laugh. The same laugh that had echoed through the Palace the last three nights, just outside the door of one of the teenage girls.
No. She squeezed her eyes shut. Make it stop. Please. Eliza glanced up the hillside. The two armed bodyguards took a step forward. Customers or not, no one had the right to bother Eliza when she was on the beach.
Not while she still belonged to Anders McMillan.
Eventually the men gave up. They lit another round of cigars, and headed back down the beach. What was the point of harassing her, they probably figured. Eliza really wasn’t for sale. Tonight, no doubt, they would be at the Palace in one of the other girls’ rooms.
And Eliza would be forced to fall asleep knowing what was happening down the hall. But not for long. The wedding would be a grand affair and then Eliza would leave this place forever. Her next home was bound to be just as dark and dangerous. But at least she’d be away from her evil father.
A fresh breeze cleared the cigar smoke. Eliza breathed deep and wondered. Where would she live? In Florida with the rest of the Ellington family? Or would all of them move here? Like everything else about her life, she had no say in her future. Not like the other Palace girls.
She remembered one of them—Alexa. The girl had been a true and dear friend to Eliza. When they were twelve and ten, Alexa had thought Anders McMillan a good man. The one who kept the strange men from hurting them too badly.
“The customers are terrible,” Alexa had told Eliza back then. “But your father cares about us. He buys us fine clothes and sweets whenever we want them.” Her expression had grown fearful. “The world is dangerous, Eliza. Your father protects us.”
“He does?” All Eliza had been able to think was that she wanted her mama and brother.
Alexa had been adamant. “Yes. Anders watches out for us girls.”
Eliza had been so young, so innocent. “What does that mean? He takes care of you?”
“Hmm.” The question had seemed to stump Alexa. “I think he gets mad at those men.” She shrugged. “All I know is Anders takes care of it. We need him. That’s what the oldest girls say.”
Eventually, though, Alexa had become one of the older girls. She wasn’t supposed to tell Eliza, but she had, anyway, and the story haunted Eliza still. Alexa had told her that on her fourteenth birthday, Eliza’s father had pushed her into a dark-lit room. Not her usual bedroom. “The mattress smelled like stinky men and strong bleach,” Alexa said. “Then one of the guards stepped into the room.”
Eliza didn’t like to think about the details. But what had remained of her friend’s childhood had clearly died that day. Before the guard had left her, before housemaids
