Page 6 of Her Mercenary

But then, something deep inside me surged to life. A desire to survive. This is what kept me alive during those days.

A sudden bang startled me, pulling my attention to the rickety wood door.

The brunette shot up to a seated position. She glanced at me, her red-rimmed eyes wild with fear.

I steeled my spine and stared back, sending her a subliminal message of strength.

Don’t let them see you cry, I internally begged her, knowing that the bastards got off on this.

Don’t let them see you cry.

Don’t let them see you cry.

The click of the locks turning and unlocking echoed like gunshots in the room. One after the other, the click, click, click ratcheting up the tension like the slow, haunting music in a scary movie right before the slaying.

Despite my subliminal message not to scream, the brunette did just that. She scrambled backward, pressing herself against the back of the cage. I felt a sudden urge to slap her—to slap sense into her like a mother might her troublemaking teenager.

The door opened and a harsh, violent beam of light sliced through the dark room. In the beginning, I would turn away and close my eyes from the light. Now I stared into it, a part of me wishing the light would steal my vision. Blind me from the horrors around me.

The man they called Capitán descended the small staircase. As usual, his pace was slow and threatening as he scanned his slaves with his one good eye. The other was covered by a black eye patch, which somehow made him even more terrifying. Despite an unimpressive daily uniform of faded army fatigues and scuffed black combat boots, Capitán carried an air of arrogance and authority that the other men didn’t own.

I looked down. I’m ashamed to admit this.

Eye contact with the guards was forbidden.

My heart pounded in time with each step of Capitán’s boots. I didn’t know his real name. Although I spoke little to no Spanish, I tried to pick up what I could in the conversations around me. But I never got his name.

Two guards followed him into the basement, neither of whom I recognized.

Over the course of my captivity, I gathered that something big was happening soon. That we were going to be taken somewhere, for something. And the time was ticking down, the movement around me becoming more frequent and frantic.

Capitán approached my cage first.

I kept my gaze down but held my shoulders back, a ridiculous thing I did to appear strong and unafraid. Unaffected by him. Or perhaps to convince myself of this.

I waited, focusing on the sound of the fan. The whirl, the tap, the whirl, tap, tap, tap.

With a dismissive sniff, Capitán turned away from me and approached the brunette, who was now whimpering like an abused puppy. The guards followed in his wake.

The lock was released and the cage door creaked open. The girl was dragged out. Her scream raised every single hair on my arms as the guards subdued her.

Finally, silence.

I closed my eyes as she was carried upstairs, as if that somehow erased what was happening around me.

For the hundredth time, I asked myself, Why not me? Why had I not been mercilessly beaten or raped? Why was I being spared?

What did they have planned for me? The knowing that I was somehow different from the others, the anticipation of figuring out why and eventually what was to come, was worse than being raped.

I’d convinced myself that I was a sacrifice of sorts. Soon to be nailed to a cross and gutted like a pig in some satanic ritual.

Little did I know at the time, I was nothing more than bait. A pawn in a dangerous game between two ruthless, savage men.

ROMAN

Mexico City, Mexico

I glanced at my watch as I stepped off the elevator and into an air-conditioned wall of air scented with tropical perfume and pheromones. It was 12:17 a.m.