Chapter 3

He was caught off guard and tumbled to the ground. Lily was vicious—she immediately sank her teeth into Marcus's freshly bandaged, injured hand. I didn't waste a second, raising my legs and stomping violently on his back.

The whipped woman joined the fray, quickly tearing at the ropes around my wrists.

Once my hands were free, I pinned Marcus to the dirt and began raining heavy punches down on his face.

The girl with the "X" scar on her cheek, triggered by the chaos, crawled over and bit hard into his thigh.

This was the plan Lily and I had hastily whispered about.

To survive, we had to fight dirty.

But I hadn't expected the other two women to join in so fiercely.

With our combined forces, we quickly subdued Marcus.

"If he hadn't been injured already, we never would have pulled this off!" I gasped, using my own ropes to tie him up tightly.

"What do we do now?" Lily asked, trembling.

I pointed toward the back of the estate. "There are cars parked out there. We take one and run."

Leo was right about one thing—the mountain road was brutal. If we tried to run on foot, they would catch us in minutes.

Our only shot was to steal a car.

Fortunately, most of Leo's men were out searching the mountain. I quickly found an SUV with the keys left in the ignition. I waved the three women inside, jumped into the driver's seat, and slammed the car into reverse to turn around.

Suddenly, a blinding light cut through the darkness.

Before I could react, another vehicle rammed into us at full speed.

*Crash!*

The violent impact flipped our SUV onto its side.

Because we were rushing, none of us had buckled our seatbelts. My head slammed hard against the window, and darkness claimed me once again.

***

When I woke up the next day, I was back in the filthy concrete pen.

Marcus was sitting on the low concrete wall, staring down at me with pure hatred.

He had fresh gauze wrapped around his head, his hand was heavily bandaged, and he was holding a black stun baton.

"Look who's awake," he sneered.

Without another word, he stepped down and began beating me with the heavy baton.

I tried to shield myself, but the cold metal rods bruised my ribs and back.

I wanted to fight back, but I knew that if I did, he would kill me on the spot.

Thankfully, my abusive, alcoholic father had given me a high tolerance for beatings when I was a kid. Otherwise, I would have broken.

I swore to myself right then: if I ever got the chance, I would kill this bastard.

"Hey, stop hitting him. We need to deal with this one first."

Leo appeared, flanked by a few of his henchmen.

Two of them were carrying a semi-conscious woman between them.

My eyes widened.

It was the pale-faced woman from the storm—the undercover who had scared me in my van!

Leo patted Marcus's cheek with a cold smile. "We have some big-paying clients coming tonight. Victoria has prepped a new batch of cargo."

"You're driving tonight, Marcus."

Then, Leo turned his gaze to me and the other women in the pen. "As for these... it'd be a waste to feed them to the dogs. Let's sell them off to the buyers."

...

The courtyard fell quiet after they left. Marcus had gone down the mountain to meet Victoria at the warehouse.

According to Leo, we were going to be sold tonight.

The "ghost" woman was tossed into the pen with us.

It was almost funny. In my twenty-odd years of life, I had never been in a small room with four women. The only girlfriend I ever had left me because I was broke.

Now, I was surrounded by four beautiful women, and we were all about to die.

About ten minutes later, the new woman groaned and woke up.

I crawled over to her. "Are you the one who scared the shit out of me last night?"

She rolled her eyes and mouthed a single word: *Idiot.*

I bristled, instantly losing interest in talking to her.

But after a moment, she leaned in and whispered, "My name is Audrey. I’m an undercover cop."

A cop?

A female cop?

"Then why the hell did you try to scare me last night?" I whispered back.

Audrey sighed. "When they were unloading, I slipped into the back of your van while Marcus was distracted. I thought you were one of them. When I realized you thought I was a ghost, I tried to play along to keep you quiet. How was I supposed to know you'd faint and the engine would die?"

That explained everything.

After I fainted, she had to run on foot. But the mountain was pitch black and surrounded by dense jungle. Afraid of getting lost, she had to stick to the road, which made her an easy target for Leo's patrol.

"If we can hold out until this afternoon, backup will be here," Audrey whispered. "But I need all of you to cooperate with me."

Hearing that we had a chance to live, my eyes lit up.

"What do we do?" Lily asked.

Audrey looked at her. "We play dead. Here's what we're going to do..."

...

A few minutes later, Lily and I started screaming at each other.

She called me a piece of trash, getting angrier by the second, until she flew at me like a feral beast, sinking her teeth into my shoulder.

"Whoa, easy! Are you for real?" I hissed.

Her teeth dug deep into my collarbone, making me wince in pain.

I shoved her off, raising my fist. But looking at her slightly swollen belly, I hesitated.

"Do it!" Lily hissed under her breath. "It's a cartel bastard's kid anyway, I don't care! Hit me!"

I gritted my teeth and threw a punch.

But at the last second, I couldn't bring myself to hit her stomach. My fist landed on her collarbone instead.

"You coward!" Lily yelled, throwing herself on top of me and punching me square in the eye.

My vision went black for a second, and a dull throb bloomed across my right eye.

The commotion brought one of the guards running over. "Hey! What the hell is going on in there?"

Lily sat on chest, pointing at me. "This animal tried to touch me!"

The guard sneered. "Do you think I'm stupid? You're acting. I don't see any blood."

"Stop wasting your breath. You're all getting shipped out in an hour anyway."

My heart hammered against my ribs. Audrey had warned us that once they moved us, we'd be as good as dead.

Lily gritted her teeth, grabbed my arm, and bit down with everything she had.