As he drove, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding the gun still trained on her, she tried to figure out why he’d grabbed her.
She’d heard stories about girls being nabbed off busy streets and sold to creepy rich guys in foreign countries, but she couldn’t believe anyone would want her to be a sex slave. Not right now, anyway, with her jeans soaked and muddy from the thighs down and her hair practically in dreads for want of a good hot shower and some of that expensive conditioner Dianna always put in the bathroom.
Then again, maybe this guy—and any rich clients he might have—had strange tastes.
What else did she have to offer him but her body, she wondered helplessly. She wasn’t rich, didn’t have any jewelry on that he could steal and sell off. And then it hit her. Dianna had all of those things. Her sister wasn’t a big shopper, but the money was definitely there. April couldn’t believe the number she’d seen on her sister’s latest contract when she’d been snooping around her home office last year.
“My sister’s rich,” she blurted, praying that money might be a good trade for sex with her. When he didn’t reply, she added, “She’s a big star. I swear I can get the money from her. And I know she won’t want to tell the cops or anyone about this, not if it means getting her name in the papers.”
Stopping at a light, the man turned to her, his gray eyes frighteningly cold. “I don’t need your sister’s money.”
He pointed the gun square in the middle of her face. She imagined him pulling the trigger, blowing a hole right through.
Gulping hard, she scooted as far away from him as she could, pressing herself against the passenger door. Bile rose in her throat and she barely managed to swallow it down.
“Now shut up or I’ll make you shut up.”
He was pretty average sized, but his grip on her in the parking lot had been surprisingly strong. Considering she was about ten pounds underweight at the moment, April knew she’d be no match for him if he decided to pull over and force himself on her in the car.
Her stomach continued to churn. She wasn’t a virgin, but the number of guys she’d slept with didn’t matter anymore.
She knew she needed to stop being such a cowering baby and get the hell out of his car. But as she waited for her opportunity to escape, the minutes only ticked by faster and faster, bringing her another step closer to ending up his prisoner.
Each minute that clicked by on the digital clock on the dashboard felt like an hour and she prayed that something would happen, that they’d get in an accident or a cop would drive by and see the gun. Of course, none of those things happened.
But just when she thought she was permanently out of luck, the traffic picked up and the rain started falling harder. April shot the man a surreptitious glance. He was focusing more on driving than on keeping his gun trained on her.
This was her chance.
Quickly unlocking the door, she threw herself out of the moving car onto the street. Her kneecaps and elbows and shoulders all hurt like hell as she rolled on the blacktop, but she barely noticed as she got back on her feet and started running. She needed to go somewhere crowded.
He wouldn’t try to grab her again if there were people around, would he?
Sighting a gas station across the street, she ran as fast as she could through the rain on the slippery four-lane road. People were filling up their tanks and didn’t seem to take much notice of her as she slid to a stop in front of the mini-mart.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she called Dianna, not remembering until the last second that her sister was in the hospital and might not have access to her cell phone.
Amazingly, Dianna picked up and April’s words all ran together. “Some guy grabbed me. I need help. I got away from him and I’m at a gas station.”
April was frantically scanning the front of the building for any street numbers on it that she could give, when she felt the familiar pressure of a gun shoved into her ribs.
“Stop talking and give me the phone or I’ll kill you right here, right now,” he whispered.
She hesitated for a moment and he cocked his gun.
“Trust me, little girl, I don’t have a damn thing to live for. I’ll shoot you first, then I’ll shoot myself. It’d be just as easy to do it here as it is somewhere else. But if you do what I say, you just might get to live.”
April’s hand shook as she handed him her phone and watched him shut it, then followed his instructions to get back in the car without making a sound or looking like he was forcing her.
“Who did you call?”
“I couldn’t get through,” she lied, but he had already flipped open her phone. DIANNA was at the top of her call list.
He slammed the gun into her jaw and she was stunned by the flash of blinding pain that ran through her.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing,” she moaned around the blood in her mouth.
He hit her with the gun again, harder this time across the forehead, and the pain was so ferocious she barely heard him say, “You stupid bitch, you better not have ruined everything for me. Does she know where you are?”
She was in too much pain to lie and the “no” escaped her before she could pull it back. Even as she waited for his next blow, the sunlight seemed to dim. The last thing she heard was a muffled, “Fuck,” before she passed out.
Hours later, finding herself bound and gagged in a closet, she couldn’t help but wonder, Why does bad shit always happen to me?
Three months ago, she’d thought leaving San Francisco was the best thing for everyone. Especially after she’d overheard Dianna’s public relations team tell her she’d better “rein April in before she does something to make headlines.” She hadn’t stayed to hear Dianna’s response.
Sure, April knew she was a screwup that no one wanted, but it killed her to hear the words come out of someone’s mouth.
Clearly, the whole sister-as-guardian thing was a nice gesture on Dianna’s part, but it hadn’t worked out. So when April’s new boyfriend, Kevin, asked her to come with him to Colorado, she didn’t even have to think about it, she just packed a bag and got on the bus.
The two-day ride gave her plenty of time to think. All her life, she’d been angry with Dianna for getting to stay with their mother while April had been sent off to live with strangers. At the same time, when Dianna finally pulled her out of the system, she hadn’t known how to respond to Dianna’s overwhelming affection, to the way she wanted to hang out all the time and do girl stuff like go to the mall and get makeovers.