It was giving up my scarf that frightened me. I had so many mixed feelings about my scarf. It hid the only irrefutable evidence of what happened to me. It was a ball and chain, and to some degree my armor. For better or worse it isolated me from the other girls like a pariah enough that I could almost believe that I wasn’t one of them. It reminded me of the good I tried to do once upon a time and my biggest failure.
I was only able to keep firm until I extended my arm offering the garment to Patrick. The hope that he might not find what was hidden in there drained from me like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass. My time had finally run out.
He didn’t take it right away; instead he studied the marks on my neck. I swallowed hard under his stare, my eyes flitting back to the floor.
When he snapped the scarf away I sucked in a sharp violent breath as if bracing myself for a punch. It took him almost no time at all to find the memory stick I’d sewn into my scarf and to tear the threading enough to pull it out.
How? I was so, so careful! How did he find out?
“What?” Did you think I wouldn’t know about this?” Patrick could easily read my dread and disbelief.
What was the point of even trying to hide it now? My body shook with terrified little tremors. What was coming next would be far worse than any beating I’d ever received. The darkest part of me even looked forward to it. If he killed me then this would all at least end. Never a thought I would’ve had before coming to this place, before Patrick came into my life.
God… I had changed so much since then.
“Who do you think gave Monica the memory stick to give to you?” Patrick said. He exuded more confidence and control than anger at betrayal.
“Why?” I mouthed the word, hot tears rolling down my cold cheeks.
“I wasn’t stupid enough to think you weren’t going to try to escape, blackmail me or foolishly try to have me arrested again.” He chuckled darkly at the absurd thought, then pointed the memory stick at me accusingly. “Giving you this was a means to control your desperation, rage, idiotic hope that you could pull the wool over my eyes.”
He took out a lighter and burned the memory stick in front of me then dropped it and stomped the melted wreckage with his boot utterly destroying years worth of research and evidence. It might as well have been my heart.
“Kill me,” I signed.
“There might be time for that later.” He laughed without a care in the world, then swept his hand toward the floor where the memory stick bits were. “You’ll soon see that this… This was a good thing. A very good thing. It shows me you’re not broken yet. You still want your freedom even after all this time. You’d do anything to get it.
“Here.” He placed a cell phone on a countertop predominately used for folding clothes. “Familiarize yourself with the audio and video recording functionality.”
I took the phone hesitantly, having no idea what to expect anymore. He’d never allowed me anything like this in the past. My mind raced with questions. Squeezing the side of the phone and waking it up I was met with a pin lock screen. I put the phone back down for him to unlock it but he made no motion to grab it.
“The code is the first four digits of your brother’s birthday,” he said.
Patrick studied me to see how I’d react. My heart sank at the mention of Jeffy. Anger began to smolder within me and at this point I didn’t care to hide it anymore. Why not? What did I really have to lose now?
For the longest time I put up the façade that I was his broken, little slave. Nothing more. I needed him to think I was harmless then. But now that I’d been found out I realized he’d been playing me all this time, exploiting my emotions.
“Your boyfriend will be here in ten minutes. For now you won’t take on any other clients or sit for any meetings. You’re his property at least until I say otherwise. Do what he says. Please his every need.”
My boyfriend?
Did he mean Wreck? I made no attempt to hide the outright confusion on my face. What the hell was going on?
“For some twisted reason he’s taken a liking to you. Exploit that. Make him fall in love with you. I want him wrapped around your finger.” He took on a dismissive air about my betrayal and whatever this new game was that he was playing with me, then continued to type things out on his phone. He was always careful not to show me or anyone else what was on his screen so I could only guess what business could possibly be more important than this.
His indifference made me feel so insignificant, like I was nothing.
Then there was the nagging certainty that Patrick was always planning something that also worried me. My face twisted slightly. Despite how tough Wreck’s MC might have been I didn’t think they’d ever dealt with someone like Patrick before. They might see the ruthless, conniving, selfish, petty bastard Patrick was, but did they truly know just how dangerous he was?
My stomach knotted at the very real possibility that Wreck and his crew might not make it out of all this alive.
“You are going to get me every shred of data on Wreck and his MC. What each member is like personally, what their plans
