So then, what did he want? Why was she here?
A soft knock came, and Roni heard the lock click over. She straightened up to receive whoever was about to enter.
“Come in,” she said, as if she had the authority to say otherwise.
Roni expected her captor, but when the door opened, the young woman who had led her upstairs returned with satin-tied bundles of linens, her head of black hair bowed as she entered without a sound. The girl hadn’t said a word to Roni before and didn’t appear to want to talk now as she walked to the bathroom. With the main door wide, Roni stepped up to look down the hall, ready to make a run for it.
But just as she noticed the hall clear on one side, Gunn filled the doorway with his massive build and stopped her. The man was a boulder, sharp contours and all, and she would be going nowhere with him as her guard.
“Just checking the accommodations,” he said, looking beyond her into her room. “I see you even have your own maid.”
“There’s also no windows, so you don’t have to worry about me making a break for it,” she spouted back. “Has my family been notified about my ransom?”
“Not yet. Is there another exit from the room? Through the bathroom, maybe?”
“I already told you there’s no way out.” She crossed her arms at her front.
“I was thinking more along the lines of someone getting in. But just in case, I’ll be right outside your door. Count on it.” Then he leaned in, his clean-shaven jaw brushing her cheek, and she nearly jumped back from the shock he gave. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispered against her ear, but she barely registered his words. Frustrated with the light-headed response his closeness caused, she shoved him away from her.
“So you can take the ransom for yourself? I wouldn’t go anywhere with you.” Roni slammed the door closed on his face and took delight in having the last word. Then the lock clicked back over, taking even that away from her.
On a huff, she checked herself before she turned to face the young girl. The maid stood by the bed, her head still bowed, but the bedcovers had been pulled back.
“Hello,” Roni said, hoping the girl would engage.
She only nodded in reply. Her lashes blinked, a seemingly nervous reaction to Roni’s greeting.
“Did I say something wrong?” Roni asked.
A low reply came. “They don’t like us talking. Only working. I can help you get ready for bed now.”
“Who’s us? You and me?”
The girl shook her head. “Other girls. Please, senorita, let me help you. I can’t be gone too long.”
Roni ignored the plea in her voice. Something felt off in this already off place. “There’re more girls like you? How many?”
“My counting is not so good. And the number, it...it changes.”
“Changes? Because girls quit?” Roni would have to think the turnover was pretty high in this warped place.
The girl’s silky hair swished side to side with the shake of her head, but no answer came. Instead she peered out from behind her hair at the corner of the room as though someone watched. A wave of nausea swept over Roni. The picture of captivity this girl painted for her had all the details Roni needed to put two and two together—and what it meant for her. The owner’s earlier compliment of her beauty sickened her even more. Guerra and Gunn had paraded her in here like some horse to be put on the auction block. “They have no intention of ransoming me, do they?”
The girl shrugged again and lifted her chin a bit. Roni caught her first glimpse of her youthful face and too-sad eyes before she dropped them again.
The kind of business the owner of this place ran became evident.
Human trafficking.
“What’s your name?” Roni asked, fighting a surge of anger.
“You can call us sirvientas.”
“Servant girl? I don’t think so.” No big surprise the girl wouldn’t be called by her name. Her captors knew how to make her forget she was a person with an identity. “I’ll call you by your name only. So what is it?”
She tilted her head in uncertainty. “I used to be called Magdalena.”
“Then that is what I will call you.”
“No.” She raised her chin a little farther. “Magdalena is...gone.”
The young girl’s sad eyes had seen too much. Roni could spit nails, but that wouldn’t help this young woman and who knew how many more there were.
“Then how about I call you Maddie. Will that be all right?”
The girl nodded with a twitch of a smile. The smile quickly vanished.
“My name is Veronica, but my friends call me Roni. So you can call me Roni, too.”
Roni stepped up to the girl but dared not touch her. Her scars weren’t visible like Roni’s, but they were there just the same.
“Will you tell me how you got here? Were you taken like me?”
Maddie frowned. “I come from a village in Mexico. My mother, she was very sick, but we were too poor for medicine. A woman came and promised her I would marry a rich, handsome man if I go with her to work. She said she had a job for me. She was speaking our language. My mother trusted her. The woman paid my mother enough for medicine, and I went with her. We drove for a long time. A lot of hills went by. She brought me to a house and left me there. The man there, he pay her money before she go.” Maddie dropped her chin to her chest and finished, “After she left, I knew my mother made a bad choice.”
Silence ensued. “When was this, Maddie?”
“I’m nineteen now. I was sixteen.”
“So three years you have been held captive, forced to work for no money.” There was no sense asking her if that was true. It was obvious this wasn’t a job.
A knock on the door broke their conversation. The lock clicked, but when it swung wide, it wasn’t Gunn this time. It was the owner of this place. Roni curled her fingers into her palms. Never had she wanted to punch someone more. Not even Jared when he admitted to using her to spike his racing career. Not even when he checked to make sure her scarf covered her neck every time they entered the Winner’s Circle to be photographed.
“Sirvienta! What is taking so long? You should be gone by now.” The owner spoke fast, his skin taut over his clean-shaven cheeks, his black hair unmoved by his outburst.
Roni stepped in front of Maddie. “It’s my fault. I was being chatty.”
The man’s jaw ticked, but after a second of staring over Roni’s shoulder at Maddie’s dropped head, he nodded once and gave Roni his full attention. “There’s no chatting here. Don’t forget you are a prisoner.”
Maddie made her way to the exit, but Roni knew she couldn’t let her go. “Sirvienta, I really need your help with...with finding some things before... I go to sleep for the night.”
Maddie paused for direction from her master.
After a few seconds, he walked to the door, fury in his every step. “I’ll see you in the morning, Miss Spencer. In the light of day, you’ll see your future is really quite limited.”
The door shut and clicked over. One look at Maddie’s sad eyes and Roni knew she was just as trapped as this young woman.
She had to get out. Tonight, if possible.
Roni grabbed the chair to sit. Her hand grasped the Mulberry silk and the smooth material repulsed her. “I’m not going to bed, Maddie, but I do need your help.” She glanced around