“Dear merciful Lord. You’ve got a shiner the size of Kalamazoo, girlfriend. And that rag must be wretched. Let me—”

“No.” Rayna grabbed the woman’s wrist. Red Mini’s heart was in the right place in wanting to dislodge the gag from Sage, but Rayna set the woman straight in a somber tone. “The bastard is using it as punishment. Take it off, and he’ll give her worse.”

“Who is he?” A curvy chestnut brunette trembled hard as she curled against the wall. King’s magical makeover team had dressed her in a black tube top and a cheetah-print skirt that wasn’t much bigger. “Wh-What’s going on?” Tears coursed down her face, taking trails of her makeup with them. “Why is this happening? We came here to help people! We were on our way to Myanmar. We just wanted to serve. Now wh-what’s going to happen to us?”

“He said ‘renting.’” The matter-of-fact statement was given by a woman in a royal-blue version of Red Mini’s outfit. Aside from the dresses, the women were literally twins. “I think we can draw the logical conclusions from that term.”

“Oh my God!” The brunette sobbed harder. “I-I can’t! I can’t!”

Another woman, black-haired and in a lemon-yellow halter with pink shorts, crawled over to her. “Yes, you can, Mandy. Listen to me. You do whatever it takes to survive, you hear me? Just do whatever they say. Don’t make them upset.”

“You d-don’t understand,” the brunette rasped back. “I’m…I’m a…virgin.”

One of the guards sidled in closer. “In that case, waan jai, maybe I’ll bid on you myself.”

“Hell yeah, baby.” His friend cracked an oily grin. “Teo will be good to you, honey. He’s popped the plug on three virgins this year alone.”

The first guard shrugged. “Eh, it’s almost getting boring, ya know?” He slid a sideways glance down at Sage. “If I was making the big baht, I’d wanna buy something like that to take home and tie up for myself.” After looking to make sure King was still in the other section of the hut, he grabbed Sage’s hair and grinded her face against his crotch. “I have a million ideas for how to break a tiger like you, gorgeous. Again and again and again…”

Sage instinctively tried to yank away, but she was crouched, bound, and about half the henchman’s size. Teo grunted and kept her locked against his burgeoning bulge, rolling her nose along the khaki fabric that smelled like sweat and urine. Okay, this was not where a single one of her bondage fantasies had ever led.

Think of home. Think of home. He’ll get bored in a minute and stop. Think of—

“Oh yeah, baby. You’re a sweet little e-raan. Nice little slut. Open your mouth for me. Suck those balls right through my pants. Yeeaahh…”

Behind her, Rayna remained thankfully silent, but the other five women let out gasps of horror and protest. Sage knew they meant well, but the louder they sobbed, the harder the bastard toyed with her. She reached inside, frantically scrounging for her mental disconnect button.

Think of Garrett. Think of home. Think of the egrets on the water.

Who the hell was she kidding?

She’d never see home again.

Once King had haggled the highest price for her, life as Sage Weston wouldn’t exist any longer. She’d have a new name, if her owner decided to call her anything at all. The tracks of her life would be erased by the ocean of anonymity. Of slavery.

She and Rayna had discussed this a thousand times over the last two weeks, yet she realized some fortress in her brain had been holding back the reality of it. This helpless, humiliating instant blew those walls to dust. In the wake of the explosion, her mind screamed in grief and her heart floundered in despair. The effort of both sapped the strength from her body. She was a shell, numb and senseless. When the other guards hissed that King was on approach again and Teo tossed her back to the ground, she barely felt the impact.

The curious thing was, King’s approach now seemed more the charge of a crazed rodeo bull. His features matched the mien, his mouth bared in a grimace, the whites of his eyes like crazed flashlights.

“The auction is off,” he snapped. “Get the bitches out of here.”

“Off?” Teo’s buddy didn’t have such a snarky tone now.

“Take them back to the cave,” King fired as if the guy hadn’t spoken. “Then wait for my instructions. Reaw-khao! Hurry!”

“The cave?” echoed another henchman. “All of them?”

King rammed the heel of his palm up that guy’s nose. “Imbecile! Isn’t that what I just said?”

The soldier didn’t get a chance to check his bloody nose. Before King was done, shouts erupted outside the hut. A door was bashed in somewhere. Another.

“Get them out of here!” King dictated. “No bitches in the buildings. They cannot be found. Hide them. Now!”

Teo and his friends hauled them to their feet. “You heard him, sluts. Move.”

Sage and Rayna struggled to get upright. “What’s going on?” her friend rasped.

Sage shook her head in a wordless I don’t know. Her heart pounded. Frantic wheezes erupted from her nose. Rayna and she stumbled behind the other women. They wouldn’t be sold tonight, but that didn’t mean the danger was over.

The next second, they were slammed back to the dirt. Sage’s head hit the floor. A curtain of silver spots crashed over her vision, yanked by pulleys screaming in terror. No. The screams were human. The Miniskirt Twins and Virgin Girl, accompanied by the women’s frenzied retreat from the door, barreled into Sage and Rayna. Their cries mixed with more voices from outside the hut, seeming to come from the direction of the village. They all sounded male—and pissed.

The women shrieked again. The reason for their panic was explosively clear. Just beyond the portal, rifle fire and explosives lit up the night. The air filled with thick smoke and acrid gunpowder.

The henchmen bellowed curses in three languages as they dropped the women in the middle of the room and then ran for cover behind some steel crates. Virgin Girl shrieked and sobbed, piercing deeper pain into Sage’s head. She blinked and tried to focus, but the world erupted in flashing lights and wild, confusing shadows. She half expected the Bon Jovi tune to get switched to an EDM beat. Welcome to Club Violence and Terror. She volunteered her brain as the spinning mirror ball.

“Stop,” she begged, her senses revolting against the sensory assault. “Oh God, please stop!”

Miraculously, the world obeyed.

As suddenly as it had started, the rifle fire went silent. Aside from the soft sobs of the women heaped on top of her, she couldn’t hear a thing. A gust of balmy wind blew over the clearing outside, rustling the tall grasses. Bon Jovi had become Linkin Park. The song was beautiful and passionate, ripping the air like an insane middle finger thrust at the violence that had just occurred.

“No matter how far we’ve come, I can’t wait to see tomorrow…”

One of the soldiers dared a harsh whisper. “Teo! You alive, man?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I dunno. But this is bullshit. I didn’t sign up for this. Let’s get out—”

“Freeze, assholes.”

The interjection was low, lethal, and pure liquid steel—yet it could’ve been another rifle shot for the shock it blazed into Sage. Maybe that was it. Maybe somebody really had taken more shots and she’d been hit this time. She was dead and finally in heaven. Yes. That had to be the explanation, because she couldn’t allow herself to believe the truth of it. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe. Dreams didn’t just come true like this, especially in her life.

“Drop your weapons, boys. Slow and gentle. You know the routine, don’t you? Lie flat on the ground with your hands where I can see them. Perfect. Now aren’t you two prettier’n a couple of hogs all fat and ready for the fair?”

In the end, it wasn’t all the words that finally convinced her. It wasn’t even the pig joke, which was so “him,” as well. It was his laugh. That little soft dry chuckle that she couldn’t ever remember right, even in her most vivid dreams. Oh God, that laugh. Yes. This really was happening.

Garrett.

She tried to get out some semblance of it around the gag, but her heartbeat was a dervish of delirium. She struggled just to get air in, meaning she started inhaling the dirt floor. The stink of it was a horrid contrast to the sheer beauty of hearing his voice again. Tears seeped, turning her cheeks into mud baths. Her brain raced. Her senses swam.

Desperately, she tried again. “G-Gahh—”

“Nice work, Hawk Man.” The soldier who spoke loomed in the doorway before entering, his huge strides eating up the space. A smile tugged at Sage’s lips. Zeke. They’d kept the A-Team together.

“Well, you didn’t bring me along for my pretty face.” This time, no laugh punctuated his dark tone. She watched him swing a leg over Teo and then wrench the henchman’s wrists back and fasten them in heavy plastic cuffs. His movements were precise and clean, even angry, which was oddly comforting to her right now. “I’ll take these fuckers outside. You see to the women.”