Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Who the hell was he talking to? Matias stared at the floor. Frizz’s threaded grin was aimed at no one in particular. The three women behind her sniveled and shook in their chains.
Camila returned her attention to Nico, her pulse beating a frantic tattoo.
“I need to sell one of you.” Nico cocked his head, his gaze flat, dead, as it rested on Camila. “I really don’t care who, so you tell me. Which one?”
Her mind spun, trying to make sense of his question. He wanted her to choose a girl to sell. A tremor bowled through her, rocking her body. No fucking way.
Nico snapped his fingers, and Frizz stepped forward.
Dread swelled in her gut as Frizz’s emaciated frame ambled through the room. He twirled a finger through his crazy hair and—with the stitches just loose enough to pucker his lips—he whistled something eerily cheerful.
“You’re not getting it, niñita.” Matias lifted his head and met her eyes. “If Nico tells you to do something and you ignore him, he simply cannot let that slide.”
The brown-nosing hijo de puta! How could he not see this as anything but horrifically fucked up?
She twisted around, her heart lodged in her stomach as she followed Frizz’s movements. What’s he going to do? Oh God, what is he whistling?
When he crouched next to the blonde behind her, his creepy tune cut off. With a sick stomach, she suddenly recognized the melody as the Kill Bill whistle.
Frizz wrenched the blonde off the floor by her hair and hauled her over his knee, face up. In the next breath, he held a curved surgeon’s needle above her frozen nude body. Black string threaded through the needle’s eyehole and ended at a knot that pulled tight against her lower eyelid, which he held pinched between his fingers and pulled away from her eye.
The woman screamed against her gag, her eyes bulging and her lashes batting against the taut thread.
Camila’s stomach turned, and saliva flooded her mouth. How the hell had he pierced and threaded her skin that fast?
“Stop!” She swung back toward Nico, hands jerking against the cuffs as she grappled for a way to stall them. “If you…you disfigure her, you can’t sell her.”
Nico lowered into an armchair against the back wall and lit a cigarette, scratching his trim beard.
“Lucky for us…” Matias approached her, his lean, arrogant stride twisting the hatred inside her. “Mr. Bald-fat-and-committed isn’t a picky guy. He only requested tight holes. We can close up the slits he won’t be fucking.”
All three women burst into pleading, wailing sobs. She wanted to join them, to give in to the hopelessness burning up the back of her throat. But she couldn’t. She refused to surrender.
“We’d love to keep all of you.” Matias circled behind her.
She shifted to her knees, following him with her eyes.
“But we can’t run a business without profits, can we?” Matias ruffled the hair on the women he passed and returned to stand before Camila. “Times are hard, and to stay competitive, we have to sell the merchandise. It’s basic economics. Supply and demand. I don’t make the rules.”
Every word he said fractured something inside her. The demon in front of her wore a Matias-shaped mask, but beneath it lay the soulless reflection of pure evil.
She searched his eyes for a phantom echo of the boy she once knew and found no remorse. Not a hint of goodness in the fiendish smirk he so easily donned on his too-attractive face. It left her feeling more cold and alone than her darkest nights in Van’s attic.
This wasn’t him. Matias was gone.
Unbidden, a trail of fire crawled up her throat, and her eyes blurred with tears.
“Deciding someone’s fate can be taxing.” He gripped her chin, squeezing painfully. “All those messy emotions get in the way. It sucks. But it’s time to woman up and choose.”
Her skin crawled where he touched her, and she jerked her head away.
Frizz held the blonde over his bent knee, his hand poised to finish the stitch over her eye. Fuck him to hell and back.
“Ir a la mierda.” Camila angrily rubbed her cheek on her shoulder, trying to erase the fallen tears.
“You need to shut down that hormonal shit.” Matias rocked on his heels, seemingly at home in his despicable skin. “Like your papá used to say”—he laughed in a deep voice—“I’ll give you something to choke on.”
Her papá never said that, but it didn’t stop the smoke from billowing through her chest and strangling her airway. She seethed with the vicious need to wash the floors with his blood.
Nico rose from the chair and strolled over to Frizz. He drew a long drag on the cigarette and, without a whisper of emotion on his face, stubbed it out on the blonde’s stomach.
The piercing sound of her howls slammed Camila’s heart against her ribs, and the aroma of singed flesh pervaded her inhales.