I nodded.
“She doesn’t know what the fuck is about to happen to her, does she?”
I shook my head. “Sure as hell didn’t look like it.”
Colt swore. “Fuck this shit, man. This ain’t what we signed up for.”
“Funny, I don’t remembersigning upfor shit.”
Because we hadn’t. Our “employment” by Jedidiah Pike was less “employment” and more “indentured servitude.” We worked because we’d been in a hole with the wrong people. And since those people had business ties with Jeb and his operations, a deal was struck. We worked for him in exchange for our debt getting paid off.
Slowly.
We knew what the “operations” were when we’d walked into this, of course, but it’d been a little different when we’d started. Jeb’s business was girls — specifically,traininggirls to be the perfect playthings for the rich and powerful. Now, that’s a sordid business no matter how you shake it, but when we’d first come on as help, the girls came willingly. These were failed actresses, models, and all manner of pretty young women who needed cash and were willing to be matched with men of a certain means who were looking for a companion. It wasn’thooking— I mean, not really. Jeb paid the girls, the men paid Jeb, and if a client and a girl hit it off, that was that. They’d leave Jeb’s ranch here in Montana to go off and live the life of luxury as arm candy to the elite at European casinos, and lavish Caribbean resorts, and wherever the fuck else rich guys brought hot girls they paid to fuck them.
Then things changed.
The clientele got shadier, and more interested in certaindarkertastes. To some of these fucking guys, it wasn’t enough to have some girl under their employ to spread their legs on their yachts, they needed more of a challenge — more of a power status. I guess maybe the thinking was thatanyrich guy could buy a pretty girl, but it took a man of power tomakeone his.
Fuck that.
That wasn’t power, not to me. That was cowardice and weakness, and it’d rubbed Colt and Irawwhen we’d found out the new direction Jeb was taking things. We’d wanted to walk away right then and there, but a debt was a debt, and ours wasn’t the kind you walked away from.
At least, not if you wanted to keep your fucking head attached to your neck.
The girl that day, out at that farm, was exactly the sort of shit I hated.
She wasn’t coming to Jeb knowingly, and willingly accepting what this was going to be. She was a bargaining chip. I wasn’t sure if her uncle knew what the fuck was in store for her, but I knew enough about how Jeb operated to know the guy couldn’t have beentotallyclueless. At the end of the day, the man was selling his niece to Jeb and a life of sexual servitude so he could keep his piddly little farm.
That’s some cold shit right there.
I knew something was up the second we pulled up that long dusty drive to that farm. And Idefinitelyknew it the second she walked around the corner of the barn.
Fuck.
She was too innocent. Too young, too pure, to unsullied to be the kind of girl who wentlookingfor high-paying sugar daddies. Nope, this was the other side of things — the shadier, darker, fucked up side. Jeb hadn’t told Colt or I the details when we’d ridden with him that day, but I know we both knew what was up the second we saw her.
She was about to besold, and she had no idea what was coming her way. She had no idea the ways Jeb would try and break her, and use her, and twist her into this perfect little fuck-toy for some fat old guy with more money than charm.
“Whoa, easy.”
I blinked away the red mist clouding my eyes as I turned to see Colt looking at me sharply. He nodded at the half-crushed beer can in my head, and I blinked.
“Sorry.”
I unclenched, beer froth dripping down my wrist.
“It’s her, isn’t it?”
I looked down.
Her, as in the girl on the farm that day. The fresh-faced, totally innocent, totallyknockoutgirl standing there in her jeans and plaid shirt. I mean she was dressed for mucking out a fucking barn and shestilllooked stunning. Chestnut hair, full, pouty lips, legs for days and those crystal blue eyes. She looked scared, and sheltered, and like the kind of girl who had no fuckingcluethe effect she had on men around her.
Hell, she made a man want to layclaimis what she did. She made a man — this man, for sure — want to take that innocence and make it his own. I turned to look at my friend, seeing the same shadowed, faraway musing look in his own eyes, and I knew damn well he was thinking the same thing.
“Fuck, she’s a pretty one,” Colt murmured, sipping his beer.
“Perfect.”