Unleashed by Jami Alden Read Free Book Online

unease traveled down her spine. Why did they need that many locks out here in the middle of nowhere, where there was no one around to steal your stuff?
    The door opened and she followed Ericka inside. A man opened the door, his stocky frame back lit by the light spilling from the hallway behind him. He had a gun tucked into the front of his pants and three teardrops tattooed under his left eye.
    Kaylee remembered reading somewhere that the tear tattoos were worn by gangbangers to show how many people they’d killed. Her throat went dry as the man looked her over with dark, hooded eyes. Ericka better finish up her errand fast, because this place was creeping her out.
    The guy motioned for Ericka to follow him inside, and Ericka grabbed Kaylee’s arm to make sure she followed. The inside of the house wasn’t much better than the outside. The wood floor of the entryway was scarred with deep gouges and scratches. Faded wallpaper flaked from the plaster. Kaylee half expected a bat to come flapping down the staircase.
    The muffled sobbing coming from somewhere upstairs didn’t do anything to reassure her.
    The guy walked halfway down a hallway and knocked on a closed door. A muffled voice said something in Spanish.
    The door opened and Kaylee saw two other gangster looking types sitting on chairs across from a battered wooden desk. A man sat behind the desk. Unlike the other guys, he wore a slick looking suit and didn’t have any visible ink. His dark hair was slicked back from a dark, angular face, and he regarded Kaylee with a cold yellow stare that made her skin crawl.
    “Very nice,” the man said in faintly accented English. “We can always use more blonds.”
    “How old is she?”
    “Tell him how old you are,” Ericka snapped.
    “Sixteen and a half,” she stuttered, panic rising as she felt the mens’ eyes crawling over her skin. What had Ericka gotten her into?
    The man shot Ericka a look. “The older ones do better.”
    Better? Better at what? Kaylee’s stomach started to sink. The creepy vibe was getting out of control.
    “I want my bonus this time,” Ericka snapped.
    The man’s lips tightened, his eyes narrowing behind hooded lids. “We need to check her out first.”
    “Why do you need to check me out?” Kaylee asked, though she was pretty sure she knew why.
    Ericka shook her head and flashed her a look and in that instant Kaylee knew she’d been duped. She started for the door, but only got two steps before two of the guys grabbed Kaylee by the arms. Her heart tried to beat through her ribcage as she thrashed to get away, but in a few minutes Ericka had stripped her to her bra and panties.
    She stood frozen, as the man walked a slow circle around her, coldly assessing her like she was a car he was thinking of buying.
    “Good,” was all the man said. Then he called out in rapid Spanish. A woman appeared dressed in nurse’s scrubs, and before Kaylee could react she felt a sharp stab and burn in the muscle of her upper arm. The men released her, and though deep down she knew it was futile, she made a staggering run for the door. She grabbed the doorknob as her legs noodled under her and she slid to the floor in a heap.
    “We’ll check her out, make sure everything’s okay to go, and you’ll get the rest in a week,” she heard the man say.
    Her vision tunneled but she held on to consciousness long enough to see her “friend” accept a fat wad of bills.
    Kaylee didn’t know how long she’d been out when the sound of crying finally woke her. Her eyelids felt like anvils as she dragged them open. The room was nearly dark. The only source of light was a strip of daylight shining weakly through the gap where the curtains didn’t quite meet over a window. It was several seconds before she could fully focus on the huddled form quietly sobbing on the bed across from her.
    Her stomach soured and her heart thudded as the details of the day slowly slipped into place. Ericka, offering her a shower and