More Than a Hotline Fling

-38-

The door clicked, creaked, and then opened. My legs shot out and I scuttled back. With rushed, bumped movements, my butt slid across the floor until my back slammed against the wall.

Three men entered and my stomach sank when I recognized two of them. Evil's actors returned, identically dressed in black tank tops and baggy black pants. My eyes averted from Luca and Luiz, if that was their real names.

The third, unfamiliar man, glared down at me. His broad nose was crooked and decorated with a pierced septum. A dark, sinister evil pooled in his dark brown eyes as he studied me. Unblinking, he tipped his chin to one side.

His bronzed forearms were sleeved with black ink, which also snaked up the sides of his neck. My eyes traced the script 'M' and 'S' over his jugular, framing his throat column.

I wished I didn't know what they meant.

One of his knuckles hooked under my chin and guided my gaze upward. I couldn't look higher than his chin. His tongue flicked between his lips. He shook his shaved head with a soft clicking sound.

"Muy hermoso," he murmured in a thick accent. His fingers pinched my chin, separating my lips in a silent gasp. "Fucking shame."

I hated his eyes on me and his touch. It itched my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up. My pulse raced up the sides of my neck, thudding in my ears. I was dirty, scrutinized, exposed, devalued, and vulnerable in one visual inspection. I wanted to burn my skin off.

"Any idea how much I could get for you, puta policía? Wanna guess?"

Leaning against the wall, Luiz smirked at the open-ended question. Under the pressure the man exerted on my windpipe, my eyes bulged.

"No bueno, huh? You fuck a cop, don't you?" His eyes circled around my face as his palm choked my throat. "We've been watching you, him, waiting. He didn't listen when we warned him. He will now. They all will."

My eyes closed as his free hand raised, the slap of his palm delivering the first blow to my left cheek. Pain erupted, followed by the flow of metallic warmth over my tongue. My head sank, choking more pressure into his palm.

Before the first taping, Luiz took what little jewelry I wore and my work ID and mailed them to the 34th precinct. For a third time, I was forced to kneel on the floor. The plywood gouged my knees, the rough texture snagging the thin fabric of my scrubs. Luca stepped behind the camera while the unknown man clutched my throat.

The fact it was for show, taped for what I assumed were Damian's eyes, was as cruel as the reminders they marked on my body.

"I could get triple for a puta policía."

With a yank of his hand, he pulled my pants down to my thighs, exposing the same pair of black lace underwear I'd worn for days. Goosebumps erupted on my exposed skin. It crawled under the pads of his fingers, skimming up between my thighs before he pinched the tender, abused skin.

Darkness hung in his eyes. The flickers of heat stalled my breath in my lungs. His breath was the bottom of a used ashtray, thick menthol matching his yellowed teeth.

"I toy with you..." With a flash of silver, a pinch erupted in my right inner thigh. "But right here, I mark my girls. Forty-sixth's property."

As my mind clicked at the possibility, my heart hurt too much to believe it.

Forty-six... Bronx? Is that where I am?

The squeeze of his fingers in my throat compressed my windpipe. My thigh flinched, driving the knife deeper. Warm trickles ran down my leg. "So whoever's fucking them knows they're mine."