MASTER DON'S LITTLE PREY

RACHEL'S POV “Argh….fuck!” "Ughh…..make it harder! Moans. Money changing hands. A stripper cornering some drunk businessman near the bar, demanding her cut. This was a normal night at Aurelio's club. My feet were killing me. Six hours on heels, and I still had three more to go before I could count my tips and pray they added up to enough for rent. Every naira mattered. I was saving for a life that didn't feel this heavy, and nights like this were the only way there. I balanced the tray of vintage wine against my hip, weaving past bodies that didn't care who they touched. I pushed the VIP curtain aside and stepped into a different world. Cigars. Cologne. Money that smelled like danger. Five men sat around the table, leather jackets, watches worth more than my rent, rings that could break a jaw. I poured, careful, silent, invisible. That was the job. Be invisible. "Rachel. Table twenty-three." "Yes, sir. I'll be there." I turned to leave and my stomach dropped. The vintage. I'd forgotten to pour it for the man at the head of the table. I went back. The curtain was still open with a little crack. I lifted my hand to knock and froze. "....cut the coke out of her stomach before the cops get there…" "...bullet's still in her, we need it gone…" "Ahh Alejandro, she only has fifteen billion drugs in her stomach…we need to cut it open." "What if she loses her life, how can we dig more drugs in her body?" "Who cares, we can always have another body to pass the airport, three diamonds…three, Vincent." "....the mafia wants this clean, no loose ends…" "Shut up Robert, I work for no one…one gold bar mine, and two yours." “I will take one to Colombia, and the rest to California and Italy. Marvel would request them to even buy it for a higher price. My fingers went numb. The tray tilted. The glass hit the floor and shattered. Everywhere and everything went silent. I pressed my lips hard. Goosebumps popped on my skin, my body shivering, my legs numb. My mind screamed at me to move, to run, but my feet had turned to stone. I could hear my own pulse in my ears louder than the silence around me. I was just about to run when one of the men stepped out. A hand wrapped around my throat and yanked me inside. I gasped, air gone, the room spinning. "How much did you hear?" I waved my hands, shook my head, tried to say nothing, tried to say anything. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would break through. A blade pressed against my throat. Cold. Then it wasn't cold anymore, it was wet, sharp pain spread through before I felt my blood sliding down my collarbone. Cold sweat rolled down my forehead, my heart pounding hard against my rib. "No…no Alex, you'll implicate us if we kill her here." The blade left my skin as soon as one of them said that, and the others agreed. Someone shoved a trash bag over my head. My neck was finally released. "Please…please, I really didn't hear anything." "Please spare me…I'm just a waitress." Tears tracked down my face under the black trash bag that barely let in air. I was screaming, begging, my voice swallowed by plastic. Hands grabbed my legs, my body rolled on the floor, my heels long gone. A few moments later my body slammed against the trunk. I was tossed in despite my endless pleading. Then gunfire. I tore a hole in the bag with my nails, just enough to see. Bodies. Blood pooling on concrete. Men screaming orders, some falling mid-sentence. The smell of gunpowder thick enough to choke on. I didn't know whose side I should be praying for, I just knew that either way, I might not make it out of that trunk alive. A man walked through the chaos like the bullets didn't matter, blood soaking through the left side of his shirt, his own chest wound, and he didn't stop. He didn't rush. Didn't duck. He walked through gunfire like it was rain he'd decided not to acknowledge, like death itself had already been warned to step aside for him. He found me in the trunk. Pointed a gun at my head. His eyes were the only calm thing in that entire bloodbath. Empty. Like he'd done this so many times it bored him. "Please…please, I was taken, I didn't do anything, please…" He lowered the gun. He stood there for a moment. Then turned to walk away. And that was when it hit me. The men who'd taken me were still out there. They'd come back. They'd cut me open, fill my body with drugs and make me transport them from countries to countries. I ran. I grabbed his arm before his bodyguards could stop me. "You need me. I'm useful. Take me with you." He looked down at my hand on his arm like it was something he could remove with two fingers. "How useful?" So I told him. Everything. The coke, the bullet, the mafia, the location mentioned, the body, the cleanup. Word for word, fast, desperate. "Get in." The car pulled away from the wreckage of Aurelio's before the sirens even started. He pulled the mask off his face somewhere on the highway, and I made the mistake of looking. Sharp jaw. Ink crawling up his neck. A silver ring through his bottom lip that caught the streetlights. Thin peach heart-shaped lips. Hair tied into a small ponytail at his back. I hated that my breath caught. I hated it more than I noticed at all, not after everything that just happened. "Where are we going?" I asked nervously, my mind already spiraling to my salary, how much they'd deduct if I was noticed missing. I was saving hard. A deduction would hurt. He didn't answer. The car went faster. Until it reached a mansion, the gate clicking open with a remote. The mansion swallowed the estate before I was ready for it. Marble stretched too far in every direction, the kind of cold that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Nobody made eye contact. Not out of respect. Out of fear that he might notice them at all. Guards nodded as he passed without a word. Nobody looked at me twice, like a bleeding, terrified woman being dragged through the halls was completely normal here. He barked something at a maid without looking at me twice. "Clean her up, and bring her to the study room in ten minutes." He left immediately. The maid stripped me quickly, scrubbed me hard like there were pieces of dirt that wouldn't come off, not like I was a person. Ten minutes wasn't enough time to breathe, let alone process the last hour of my life, and then I was being pushed through a door before I could ask a single question. The study was dark wood and low light. Books nobody had touched in years. A desk too clean for a man who looked like he dealt in blood. I heard him before I saw him, on the phone, voice flat. "A bait is enough." He hung up. Turned around. I stood there in the silk pajamas the maid had forced on me, arms wrapped around myself, and his eyes moved over me once, slowly, like he was pricing something. He said nothing. He walked to the desk. Picked up a folder and threw it across the table and it landed at my feet. "Sign it." My hands shook as I opened it. Marriage certificate. My name was already typed in the blank. I looked up at him, chest heaving. "Why should I marry you? I don't want to marry you. I have a fiancé.”