I’m suddenly very aware that I’m the only one in the usually bustling locker room.
The waitressing night shift is about the begin, but the day waitresses haven’t yet left the floor. It’s turnover time and there’s no sound, save the dripping of a leaky shower nozzle.
I’ve been so wrapped up in Locke and growing accustomed to my new life in Vegas that I’ve barely spared a worry that my father would come and find me. I’m a legal adult. Yes, he has made a practice out of controlling me my whole life, but searching for me? Dragging me home when I’m old enough to be out on my own? That would be kidnapping-
I’ve barely managed to finish the thought when a familiar, calloused hand claps over my mouth and I’m dragged toward the rear emergency exit, the metal door banging off the wall at being shoved open so hard. Horror is like quicksilver in my veins, shock stopping me from reacting right away and then it’s too late, I’m outside.
Being pulled toward the parked car he’s owned since I was a child.
No. Oh my God, please. No.
Locke.
I start to fight, kicking backward to strike his shins. It surprises him, because I’ve never fought back before, but I’m not letting him take me. Not letting him steal my newfound happiness. Not happening.
“You want to tango, bitch?” His hands close around my throat and tighten, cutting off my air passage, but I struggle mightily, refusing to give up.
At least until I feel the muzzle of a gun pressing to my temple.
“Yeah, that’s right. Who’s in charge now?” He digs the metal into the side of my forehead. “Thought I’d just walk in here and demand you get your ass in the car, so I could bring you back home to work, like you were meant to do. To serve this family. But then I saw that big fella you’ve been rutting with. So I went and picked up a little ammunition.”
Tears cloud my vision. “I’ll run away again. I’ll keep running away again and again for the rest of my life. And that’s the best case scenario for you, because I pity what will happen to you if my future husband tracks you down.”
“Future husband,” he sneers, spitting on the ground. “He’s just making promises to get those legs to open sesame. Every man I’ve ever brought to the farm tried to buy you off me. They wanted to get you married and breeding as soon as you hit eighteen. At first I was annoyed over their weak flesh, but I came around to the idea. You’re my property, ain’t you? And you ran off before I could make a good deal.”
Shock renders me momentarily still. “You…you wanted to sell me?”
“No. I am going to sell you. Might get a little less cash for you now that you’ve tarnished yourself with that bull, but I’ll still come away with enough to live comfortably for the rest of my days.”
A wrench turns in my sternum. “Does my mother know?”
“She goes along with the decisions I make.” He continues dragging me backward toward the car, ignoring my cries to stop. “You could learn a thing or two from her, you unruly brat.”
“Stop!” I cling to the edge of the car, but he’s stronger and manages to push me into the back seat. “Please. Just let me live my life.”
He ignores me. “There’s a pen and paper down there in the footwell. You’re going to write your fiance a letter breaking off the relationship, so he doesn’t come looking.” He points his gun at the diamond on my finger. “Give me that. We’ll leave it with the letter to make it convincing.”
“I’m not writing it.”
“Oh yes you will.” My father cocks the gun, murder in his eyes. He’s gone mad. Perhaps he wants to bring me back to Nebraska to make him money, but after scoring his pride, I think he’d be just as satisfied knowing I’m dead. Unable to shame him any further. Maybe he was always a little crazy and me running away pushed him over the edge. Whatever the reason, I can’t be positive he won’t pull the trigger. Better to placate him now and wait for an opportunity to run while we’re on the road back to Nebraska.
With tears rolling down my cheeks, I pick up the pen and paper, crying while I write the words he demands of me, verbatim. As soon as I sign the bottom of the page, I’m being knocked out with the blow from the butt of his gun, cutting off my scream and turning it into a choked whisper of Locke’s name.
Locke
When Sissy doesn’t emerge from the women’s lounge at the time we agreed upon, I know something is wrong right away. She’s never late. She knows I worry. And there is fire crackling in my bones that I haven’t experienced before. It’s not just panic, it’s the sense that I’ve missed something important. I’ve neglected to cover a base.
For one full extra minute, I stare at the door waiting for her to walk through with her bright, optimistic smile and that secret look in her eye. The one she only gives me. It says she’s counting the hours until she can be in my arms. Until she can be underneath me. Or kneeling in front of me, as she did earlier today, her innocent mouth sucking my cock so eagerly and reacting as if my come was nectar from the Gods. It was so mind-blowing, I got hard again immediately afterward and stayed stiff as nails until now.
Until now when she fails to walk out the door.
Finally, the entrance swings open, but someone I don’t recognize walks out-a waitress, according to her attire-gasping when she sees my expression, which is growing more and more panicked by the second. “Where is my fiancee?” I growl.
I don’t have to explain further. Everyone in this casino knows Sissy. There is only one employee who incited a riot by wearing a short skirt-and she’s mine.
The waitress glances back at the door, then at me. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her in there.”
“Is anyone else in there?”
“No, the shift change just ended. The night crew is out on the floor-”
I don’t wait for her to finish that sentence. I lunge through the door into the locker room, storming toward the final row where Sissy told me her locker is located. It’s closed. She’s not there. She’s not anywhere. I can smell her scent in the fucking air, but she is not in front of me and I’m-
There is an envelope sticking out of the bottom of her locker.
My stomach gurgles ominously as I stoop down to pick it up, opening the sealed tab with a stab and rip of my finger. Her engagement ring slides out into my hand and the world stops existing around me. In a blinding flash, I’m in a cold, desolate place and ice has replaced my blood. My heart is in my mouth when I begin to read the letter, but it drops into my stomach almost immediately, then ceases to beat altogether.
Dear Locke,
I made a mistake leaving home.
The engagement is off.
Please don’t come after me.
Sissy
I stumble sideways and slam into the row of lockers, sliding down to the floor with the piece of paper clutched in my fist. She left me. She left me. Why?
How can I ask why?
I’m sixteen years her senior. She’s exquisite-and let’s face it, I’m heavy and hairy and grumpy. I tried to tell her in the beginning that she was too far out of my league, didn’t I? She must have finally realized it herself. Either that or…or she never got over the hurt I caused her by praying for God to forgive me for touching her. As if she was a sin.
Has she been hiding more pain from me than I realized?
I bash the back of my head against the locker once, twice, agony erupting inside of my chest. I read the letter once more time, searching for some hidden clue as to what I did to lose her, but there is nothing. There’s nothing. I tilt my head back and roar at the ceiling, scalding hot moisture rushing in behind my eyes.
Her voice comes back to me, dreamlike and echoing from yesterday. When we were standing on the balcony of the restaurant where I proposed to her.
I wish we had a thousand years to spend together.
She said those words to me with stars in her eyes-and I believed her.
Several seconds tick by, my heart slowly reviving itself.
I believed Sissy, because…she was telling the truth. She loves me. She is happy with me. How many times has she told me that?
How quickly I doubted her. How quickly I doubted myself.
Once again, I look down at the letter and notice the hasty scrawl where normally her handwriting is careful and feminine. Neat. The sheet of notebook paper has been ripped out without finesse. It’s unlike her in every way.
And she wouldn’t do this to me. She wouldn’t send me to hell by walking away, leaving me nothing but three measly lines. Which means…
Someone else made her write them.
Rage bubbles up inside of me and consumes every limb, every inch of my brain. I’m seeing bright red as I gain my footing and jog from the locker room, already whipping my phone out of my suit jacket pocket to call security. Ten minutes later, when the footage is pulled up, I come very close to destroying the room full of monitors. My bellow of denial nearly shatters them, the rage climbing to an almost unmanageable height. But I rope it in and I’m moving. I’m ordering the security cam operator to call the police and give them the license plate number of the car that abducted my fiance. I’m running for the parking garage and peeling out in my own vehicle, a pulse beating like a drum in my head.