“It’s just a meet and greet.” She angled her head to see his sharp expression. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Muscles contracted in his arms as he tried to pull his hands from his chest. “I can’t repeat those words to you, Liv. Not when I can’t use my arms.”

“You don’t need your arms. Focus on the requirements and remember to hate me.”

He reclined in the seat and stared at the roof. “Right.”

An hour later, she stopped a mile outside the GPS destination on a vacant gravel road. “Bathroom break.”

She released her nervous bladder into the dust-covered weeds. Then she pushed down his jeans and held his cock so he could do the same. No words were uttered when he returned to his seat in the van, when she unlaced and removed his boots, or when she stripped his jeans and left him bare.

With a tremble in her hands and an ache in her chest, she covered his trusting eyes with a black hood. “This is for both of us.” An accidental glance between them could be fatal if the buyer was perceptive.

As she stepped back to close the door, she hesitated for one heart-clenching second. She didn’t deserve him, but goddammit, Joshua Carter was hers.

The black shroud of night held still and patient, coaxing her to risk a stolen moment. She climbed onto his naked thighs and lifted the hood just enough to expose his lips.

The first kiss was for him. A brushing of lips, a promise of protection. The second kiss was for her. A deep-reaching dance of her selfish tongue, a curl of love with a man who deserved so much more.

She lowered the hood, slid off his lap, and left him panting.

“Liv?”

“The requirements begin now. Who am I? Say it.”

“Mistress.”

She shut the door on the hiss of his breath through his teeth, wrapped her hair, nose, and mouth in a long scarf, and drove to the red dot on the GPS.

A single story building squatted, tired and alone, beside overgrown railroad tracks. Surrounded by shadowed fields and woods, no one would stumble by this end-of-the-road depot. A black sedan parked in the empty lot. No license plates. It looked outrageously sleek and out of place beneath the sagging gloom of the unkempt property.

She checked the handgun’s concealment in her boot, tucked her phone in the other boot, and guided Josh to the door. Her strides glided over the crumbling sidewalk with precision, shoulders cut back, lungs regulated, her thoughts beating to the seditious hymns of “Ghostflowers” by OTEP. She was a deliverer, a killer, a soulless captor. She shoved through the door.

Chapter 29

Over the years, the intro meetings had instilled certain expectations in Liv’s mind. The buyers were paranoid, often armed and protected by bodyguards, and always masked. As Liv led Josh inside with a hand behind her, gripping the chain at his waist, her sphere of preconceptions evaporated, along with the air from her lungs.

The door creaked closed, and she tried and failed to shield his too-large frame with her smaller one. He bumped into her back, his head hooded and his body tight with tension.

A man reclined in a dusty chair at the center of the room, seemingly unconcerned with the grime rubbing onto his expensive suit. He wore no mask, and there were no obvious bulges marking concealed weapons. Even more unnerving, there were no bodyguards. He was either stupid, confident, or planning to kill her. Maybe all three.

Fifty extra pounds lolled over his belt and tested the button threads on his shirt. Late-forties, round nose, bald head, his oily gaze greased through the air, slicked past her, and clung to Josh’s nude body.

But what made the hairs on her neck bristle was the naked woman restrained to the ceiling. She stood off to the side, in the shadowed edge of the room, staring out of twitchy, unfocused eyes. Her arms stretched over her head, tethered to the rafters, her feet weighted to the floor with chunks of broken sidewalk.

Thank fuck for the hood over Josh’s head. He was temporarily oblivious to the depravity she’d led him into.

A ring gag held the woman’s jaw open, secured in place with straps around her tangled black hair. Her tongue rolled in her mouth, pushing saliva through the ring and down her chin. A reflective orange collar cinched her throat. Belts fitted around her waist and upper thighs, connecting a wide strap that covered her vaginal and anal entry points. To fuck her, he would have to remove the three padlocks dangling between her legs.

If he hated women, why did he have a female slave? Most likely, misogyny was the reason he kept the woman confined in a chastity belt. So why did he want Josh?

Her stomach tightened painfully, but she forced her most dominant voice through the scarf on her mouth. “This is an introduction only. You will view what I’ve brought. If you approve, your down payment is required in the form of a phone number. As you know, we operate on referrals only. Call me Deliverer. What do I call you?”

“Traquero.” His accent slithered with his gaze, his neck arching so he could steal a better look at Josh.

A yellow bulb drenched the wood floors and plaster walls in a dirty glow. At the perimeter of the light, the bound woman began to writhe. A moment later, she shrieked, muscles convulsing, drool stringing from her gaping mouth. Behind Liv, Josh’s breath hitched. She tightened her grip on his chain, a silent command to remember his role.

The woman’s chin fell upon on her chest, and she drooped in her restraints. Traquero held up a remote, pushed a button, and the woman screamed again.

As Liv made the connection to the shock collar, images assaulted her. Josh collared under the hands of this man, his beautiful face shattering in agony, his faith in humanity shredding with each press of the button. No fucking way. Not while she still sucked air. She jutted out her hip, creased her eyes with a calloused smile, and laughed. “Who the fuck is she?”

“My wife.” His nostrils flared. “She used to be my life. Until I found out she was just a fucking whore.” He stood, yanking the tie loose at his neck, his accent clotting with long i’s. “Fucking all my colleagues. Making me a goddamned laughingstock, the filthy fucking bitch.” He strode toward his wife, rolling up his sleeves, and backhanded her face.

A normal person would’ve regretted asking the question. Hell, a kind person would’ve ran for help. But she was neither. She needed Traquero’s commitment to the deal to ensure her family’s safety, and she couldn’t leave without it.

Marketing 101. Know the customer’s needs and use the information to influence him. “You want a lover who won’t” —can’t— “undermine the dominion you’ve worked so hard to establish?” Fucking lowlife.

“Yes.” He folded his hands behind his back and swaggered toward her. “Move. Let me see him.”

She didn’t want that motherfucker anywhere near Josh. The thought alone spindled around her lungs, tightening its oxygen-depriving tendrils. But she couldn’t shove her gun down his throat and pull the trigger. She could not. She could not. She breathed through it, focusing on the reason she’d stripped Josh of his clothes. He was there to be viewed. Seal the deal.

She stepped aside and exposed Josh to the man’s sickening gaze.

“At last, I see you, mi belleza,” he said, and she knew he was referring to Josh’s cock. Traquero’s attention was fixated and slack-jawed. “Out of the way, whore.” He shooed her with a hand, his voice thick with spit.

“It’s Deliverer, you sexist cunt.” Her lashing tone was a pitiful attempt at maintaining her position. Didn’t matter who she was. She had a vagina. He considered her no more important than the woman he strung up and electrocuted, and he glared at Liv now like he might hit her.

She backed up, hands at her sides, fingers resting on the edges of her thigh-high boots.