Chapter 3 Jessica
Jessica
The door opened and she spun around.
He walked in and scowled the moment he saw her on her feet. She kept her back against the wall, chin raised, both hands wrapped around the broken glass behind her back. Her pulse was slamming in her temples but her face was not going to show him that. She stared straight at him and did not move.
He was tall. Broader than she expected up close. Dark suit, jaw tight with blaring eyes. She stared back at him even though she had no idea how she was going to handle this man but she was going to find a way regardless.
“You’re up,” he said.
“Who are you and what are you going to do to me!”
He arched an eyebrow. “Relax. You don’t even know where you are.”
“I don’t want to know.” She stepped forward and her grip tightened on the glass behind her back.
"You're no longer in danger, you're safe" he assured but she wasn't sure how true that statement was.
“Just let me go. If I am no longer in danger then why am I here? Why is this door locked? What are you going to do with me?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “The least you can say is thank you. I rescued you from that cage you were in.”
Her throat tightened. “Thank you?” She let out a short scoff and took a step toward him. “You want a thank you? Why should I say thank you to a man I do not know who just brought me to a place I do not know?” Her voice rose. “Another locked room. Another prison. Did you buy me? Is that it, they sold me off to you and now I should be grateful?” She took another step although her chest was burning. “You want me to prostrate in front of you and say thank you? Just let me go.”
He took one step toward her and she pulled her hand from behind her back and flung the glass straight at his face.
He jerked to the side but the edge caught his jaw and a thin line of blood opened up along the bone immediately. He pressed two fingers to it and glared at her, blood smearing across his fingertips, eyes locked hard onto hers.
He lunged across the room. His hands locked around her wrists and her back hit the mattress so hard her teeth knocked together and both arms were pinned above her head before she could pull in a full breath. The weight of him held her flat to the bed. She screamed and drove both knees up hard, kicking with her feet, her heels connecting with his thigh, his hip, the side of his leg, anywhere they could reach. Her wrists were locked tight and useless above her no matter how hard she yanked and she thrashed sideways and twisted her whole body. She pushed up off the mattress with everything she had and still got nowhere.
He said nothing. Not one word. Just held her there staring deep into her eyes.
“Let me go!” She drove her heels down and pushed up harder. “Get off me! Let me go right now!”
He barked at her and the sound cracked through the room. Her body went rigid, just for one second, her breath jamming in her chest. Her face burned with it. She started kicking again immediately, kept twisting, kept wrenching her wrists against his grip, kept pushing up with her feet until her arms ached all the way up to her shoulders. Her breathing came out ragged and her whole body sagged flat against the mattress.
He looked down at her and smirked.
One corner of his mouth pulled up and he just looked at her like she had done something that interested him and he was in no hurry to stop looking.
“Are you always this stubborn?”
She glowered up at him and pressed her lips together.
He held her wrists a moment longer then let go. He stood up and stepped back. She sat up immediately, pulled her knees to her chest and stared at him from the middle of the bed. He stared back. Her jaw was clenched so hard it ached and her chest was still heaving and she was not going to be the first one to look away.
He was not either.
The blood on his jaw had slowed down. He had not wiped it. It sat there drying on his skin and he did not seem to care.
He pulled the chair from the wall, turned it around and sat with his arms resting across the back of it, like they had not just been fighting thirty seconds ago, like he had not just pinned her to a mattress and like there was not blood on his face from a glass she threw at him.
“Last night my men and I raided a Rivera cartel warehouse,” he began. “We found over thirty girls locked in cages in the basement. You were alone on the ground floor with a collapsed beam on top of you. I pulled you out before the building came down.”
Her throat constricted painfully. She swallowed against it and kept her face still.
“Rivera’s men are still outside right now,” he said. “They are hunting every girl that came out of that raid. Every single one. You walk out that door right now and you will not make it to the end of the street.”
She said nothing. The ache in her wrists had spread up both arms and her ribs hurt from the mattress and her chest was tight but she kept all of it off her face and just stared at him.
“You are safe in this house,” he said. “But I am not letting you go yet.”
“This is still a cage,” she retorted.
“It is not safe outside yet.” He held her gaze. “A few days. When things settle out there you can go wherever you want and I will not stop you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is your right.”
She stared at him and he stared back. Her wrists were throbbing and her ribs ached. She was fuming and she had nothing left to throw at him.
“What is your name.”
She almost did not answer. Every part of her bristled at giving him anything at all. But his eyes were blaring at her so the word came out before she made the decision to let it.
“Jessica.”
He nodded. She was expecting a follow up question or even an introduction from him too but he offered her nothing. He just stood up, walked to the door, wrapped his hand around the handle and pulled it open. The light came through from the other side and he was almost out when it pushed up through her chest before she could catch it.
“Thank you,” she said.
He stopped, then turned and smirked.
