I fell in love with my kidnapper

Revenge, Alan reminded himself. That was the purpose of it all. Revenge, twelve years of planning and only a few months of execution.

As a slave trainer, he had trained at least a score of girls. Some were willing, offering themselves as pleasure slaves to escape destitution, sacrificing freedom for safety. Others came to him as the coerced daughters of impoverished farmers seeking to unload their burden in exchange for a dowry. Some were the fourth or fifth wives of sheikhs and bankers sent by their husbands to learn how to satisfy their various appetites. But this particular slave, whom I watched from across the busy street, was different. She was neither willing, nor had she been forced, nor had she been sent. She was pure conquest.

Alan had tried to convince Memphis that she could train any of the other types of girls. That they would be better prepared for such a serious and potentially dangerous task, but Memphis would not be moved. He too had waited a long time to get his revenge and refused to leave anything to chance. The girl had to be someone truly special. She had to be such a valuable gift that everyone would talk about her and her trainer.

After years of being Oliver Memphis' only apprentice, Alan's reputation had slowly been forged, establishing himself as an efficient and determined man in whatever task he was given. He had never failed. And now, all those years had been for this moment. The time had come to prove himself to a man to whom he owed everything as much as he owed himself. There was only one obstacle left between him and revenge. The last real test of his heartlessness: willingly stripping someone of their freedom.

He had trained so many that he could no longer remember their names. He could train this one too, for Memphis.

The plan was simple. Alan would search the United States for a candidate for an ostentatious exhibition, attended only by the wealthy and powerful. The auction would take place in Los Angeles, the city where he was born. It was sure to be full of beauties from typical male-ruled countries, where acquiring such women was limited only by supply and demand. But a girl from a first world country would be considered an accomplishment. Girls from Europe were highly coveted, although American girls were the crown jewels of the pleasure trade. Such a slave would cement Alan's position as a real player in the pleasure trade and give him access to the most powerful circle in the world.

His goal was to find someone similar to what he was used to, someone exquisitely beautiful, poor, probably inexperienced and predisposed to submit. Once his selection was made, Memphis would send four men to help Alan get the girl out of town and to Seattle, where they would be very comfortable in the den of pleasure. The place where Alan would make his new prey tremble with pleasure and lust.

From his vantage point across the street, Alan looked at the girl he had been watching for the past thirty minutes. She wore her hair away from her face and had a frown on her face as she stared at the ground. She shifted restlessly at times, alluding to a sense of unease that she was unable to hide. She wondered why she seemed so anxious.

Alan was close enough to see her, but hidden enough that all that could be seen was a dark, heavily tinted, but indescribable vehicle. It was almost as invisible as the girl was trying to be.

Could she feel her life hanging precariously by a thread? Could she feel his eyes boring into her? Did she have a sixth sense for monsters? Thinking about it made her smile. Perversely, there was a part of him that hoped the girl possessed a sixth sense for detecting monsters in broad daylight. But he had been watching her for weeks and she was completely oblivious to his presence. Alan let out a sigh. He was the monster no one thought to look for in daylight. It was a common misconception. People used to think they were safer in the light, thinking that monsters only came out at night.

But safety, like light, is a facade. Underneath, the whole world is steeped in darkness. Alan knew this. He also knew that the only way to be truly safe was to accept the darkness, to walk in it with eyes wide open, to become part of it. Keep your enemies close. And that's what Alan did. He kept his enemies close, very close, so that he could no longer discern where they ended and he began. Because there was no safety: monsters lurked everywhere.

He glanced at the clock and then back at the girl. The bus was running late. Seemingly frustrated, the girl sat on the ground with her backpack on her knees. If it had been a normal bus stop, there would be other people, meandering behind her or sitting by a bench, but it wasn't, so every day Alan could observe her sitting alone under the same tree near the busy street.

Her family was poor, the next most important factor after being pretty. It was easier for poor people to disappear, even in America. And especially when the missing person was old enough to have simply run away. It was the typical excuse given by the authorities when they couldn't find someone. They must have run away.

The girl made no move to leave the stop even though the bus was forty-five minutes late and Alan thought that, for some reason, it was interesting. Did she like school that much? Or did she hate home that much? If he hated home, that would make things easier. Maybe he would consider her kidnapping a ransom. She almost burst out laughing.

He looked at the girl's shapeless and unflattering outfit: baggy jeans, gray hoodie, headphones, and backpack. It was her usual attire, at least until she got to school. There she used to wear something more feminine, even flirty. But at the end of the day, she would change back. She thought again that she hated her home life. Did she dress this way because her home life was restrictive or unstable? Or to avoid the unwanted attention of a dangerous neighborhood on her way to and from school? He didn't know. But I wanted to know.

There was something interesting about her that made Alan want to conclude that she was the girl he had been looking for, someone with the ability to blend in. Someone with the sense to do what she was told when faced with authority, or to do what she should when faced with danger. A survivor.

Across the street, the girl fiddled with her headphones. Her eyes looked dispassionately at the ground. She was pretty, very pretty. He didn't want to do this to her, but what choice did he have? He had resigned himself to the fact that she was a means to an end. If it wasn't her, it would be someone else, either way his situation would be the same.

He continued to stare at this girl, his potential slave, wondering how he would lure the target in mind. Rumor had it that among the attendees at this year's auction would be Rikko Crusstrovich, one of the richest men in the world, and certainly one of the most dangerous. This man would be entrusted with the slave for as long as it took Alan to approach and destroy everything the man held dear. And then kill him.

Still, Alan wondered, not for the first time, why he was attracted to her. Possibly it was her eyes. Even from a distance he could see how dark, mysterious and sad they were. They looked old.