Lost & Bound
Lost & Bound
by Tara Hart
Lost & Bound
Copyright
©
2016
by Tara Hart
Cover design by OtherSide Design
This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental
All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced, downloaded, distributed or transmitted, in any
form,
or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
without prior written permission from the
author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Table of Contents
Leila
2 years
38 weeks
4 days
That’s how long I've been here.
Captive.
Frightened.
Alone.
The little human contact I receive is not
what I crave. It's not a friend’s comforting arm or my mother’s swift kiss.
It's rough contact—forced, and familiar for all the wrong reasons. I
don’t want him
there
, but I’m powerless to stop him. He says that he
owns me and that I am his.
“Emmy,”
he
calls me. That’s not my name, but as more time passes I’m starting to forget
things. What is my name? Where am I from? Who was I before I came here?
I abandoned all plans of escaping and have
given up on being saved. And just when I thought there was no way out, that
this is how my story will end, something miraculous happened. Someone came into
my life and just like that, once again, I have hope.
1
Callum
I turn the key and push open the door. Part
of me is surprised that the key still fits, but then again, Dad has always been
opposed to change. I flick the door closed with my foot and look around the
entry foyer.
Nothing’s changed. Paintings still hang
where they were years ago, antique pieces of furniture remain in their
carefully chosen places and the smell—after all these years how can the
house still smell the same? It’s strange and comforting at the same time.
The house is eerily quiet. Dad isn’t home,
which is no surprise. Maybe I should have called to let him know I’m back, at
least then he could have prepared himself for our reunion. It’s been three
years since we last saw one another, but I would never expect a welcoming
party. Dad has been a recluse since my mom died. He's become emotionally
distant, as if he wasn’t already.
I walk into the sitting room, a room we
never used and no one ever sat in, leaving the name somewhat trivial. Again,
nothing has changed and it makes me wonder what I’m doing back here. I feel
like I am taking ten steps back by returning to this town.
My stomach grumbles, as if on cue,
reminding me that I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I dump my bag on the sofa
and make my way to the kitchen. If there's one thing that’s certain it's that
the fridge will be fully stocked.
The kitchen too, hasn’t changed in all
these years, and apart from a mug on the sink, the place is impeccably tidy. I
wonder if Rosa is still working for my dad. One look in the fridge tells me she
is. I take what looks like beef stroganoff from the top shelf and grab a spoon
from the canister near the sink. My hand grazes the coffee mug, the one thing
that looks out of place in the whole room. On touch it feels warm, hot even,
and it takes my brain a moment to process what this actually means.
I’m not alone.
I can feel her presence before I see her. I
hear her short gasps for breath as if she’s been running.
I spin around and am surprised by what I
see. A young woman, who can’t be much older than twenty
.
She’s dressed in a silk pink bathrobe that barely covers her thighs. The air
wheezes out of her slightly parted lips as she eyes me cautiously.
I offer her a smile as my eyes travel down
her body, stopping at the knife she holds in front of her, the sharp tip
pointed toward me.
“What the
fuck are
you doing?” I yell.
“Quem é você??” she utters in a language
that I can’t quite place. Spanish maybe.
“Wha—What?”
“I have a knife,” she chokes out, her words
coated by a heavy accent.
There’s fear in her intense brown eyes that
keep flicking around the room as if she’s ready to run at any moment. I take a
step toward her and she extends her arm, pointing the knife directly at my
heart. Crazy bitch.
“You're fucking crazy! Put the knife down
and get the hell out of my house.”
Her face changes, her eyebrows reach up to
her forehead as she tries to process my words.
“Your house.” She immediately withdraws the
knife and repeats the words as if she doesn’t understand their meaning. “Your
house?”
“Are you the new maid or something?” I eye
her.
“Maid?” she repeats.
She looks dazed, like I caught her in the
middle of a nap or something and she keeps repeating everything I say as if
she’s a parrot.
“I won’t tell my father you were
slacking
,” I say, placing the
container of stroganoff on the counter.
“
Slacking
,”
she repeats the word and I realize she doesn’t know the meaning.
I wonder if this hot looking chick is my
father’s new girlfriend, but quickly shake the thought from my mind. There is
no way this girl would fall for a man like my father, unless she’s a gold
digger, and even then, the prospect is unlikely.
She lets out a gasp, as her eyes turn wide.
It’s as if she’s just woken up.
“Your father,” she whispers. “He is your
father?”
I hold out my hand to her. “Nice to meet
you.”
She immediately draws the knife between us
again. I hold up my hands in protest. “What the fuck!”
Psycho is either tripping or has some
serious trust issues.
“Is he here?” she whispers.
“Who?” I ask, my patience wearing thin with
the games. “My father?”
“Is he with you?” She swallows loudly.
I scrunch up my face. “No.”
“What is your name?” she asks.
“I’m Callum, Callum Mathers.” She bites the
corner of her lip as she takes a step back.
“And your father lives here?”
“Yes,” I bite out angrily.
My tone startles her. She takes another step
back and the knife drops from her hand. We both stare at the silver blade as it
bounces on the floor once, the sound echoing throughout the room. Her eyes
flash to mine and we both scramble to the floor, racing to see who can reach
the knife first. We both lunge forward as if our lives depend on it. Who knows,
maybe mine does.
I reach for the handle first. My hand
covers it, but can’t get a good grip. Her hand wraps around mine.
“Stop it.” She claws at the back of my hand
with sharp red fingernails that pierce my skin with little effort.
We struggle for a moment longer before I
safely grasp the knife by the handle and shuffle to my feet.
Psycho remains on the floor, her legs
splayed beneath her as she cries hopelessly. I hold the knife in front of me as
I move toward the counter, not once taking my eyes off her. That's when I
notice her ankles. They are red and swollen. Thick gouges mar her skin as if
she’s been tied up. She catches me staring and her chin drops. She looks
ashamed.
Who would have tied her up and for what
reason? A million thoughts race through my mind, including the mental wellbeing
of the girl sitting before me.
I feel around clumsily in my pocket for my
phone, my heart now hammering in my chest.
“I have a phone.” I show her like it’s a
threat. “I’m calling the police.”
I press the first digit when her plea fills
my ears.
“Please,” she yells as she scrambles to her
feet. “Please call them.”
Her response catches me off guard. My
eyebrows knit together as I wait for her explanation.
“You want me to call the police?” I ask,
trying to call her bluff.
“Yes.”
Tears pool in the corners of her eyes
making them even more intense as they glaze over.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Moments later, I regret ever asking that
question.
2
Leila
This isn’t normal. It has to be a setup. For
all these years, no one has ever come to the house during the day. Apart from
the maid and
him
. He told me he’s my captor’s son. The son I never knew
existed.
Callum he calls himself.
Callum
, I repeat the name in my mind. A
name I’ve never heard before. It suits him. It’s soft and rolls off the tongue
with little effort.
Yet, I still don’t know whether I can
believe him, or trust him, even though he seems different to the others. He’s
shocked to find me here and he genuinely seems confused. Something deep inside
tells me I can trust him, but experience tells me not to.
If this is a test, I know I’m in trouble. I
shouldn’t have spoken to him, but I was afraid. He caught me when I was having
my afternoon coffee. I hid in the pantry like a scared mouse. I had no way
of
getting out, no way of escaping to the sanctuary of my
room. I knew I had to do something. Sure, pulling a knife on him wasn’t the
best idea, but I was afraid for my own safety.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he asks,
one hand still holding the knife that I pulled on him.
He swears a lot, like his father.
“I live here.”
“In this house?” he asks.
I nod once.
“Are you my dad’s girlfriend or something?”
I notice his dubious tone, as if he’s
disgusted by the prospect. I don’t know how to answer his question. Am I, in
fact, his girlfriend?
“I don’t—I don’t know,” I whisper.
He scoffs loudly. “You don’t know?”
His eyes fix on my face as he tries to read
my expression, as if knowing what I’m thinking will reveal the truth.
The truth about who I am and why I’m in his home.
If he wants the truth, I’ll tell him, I’ll
tell him everything. “Your father put this on me.” I point to the bracelet
around my wrist. The thin white
bracelet that to the
untrained eye looks like
an ordinary watch.
“What is it?” He raises his eyebrows in
question. I stand up and stretch my arm between us offering him a closer look.
“It’s a tracking device, he uses it to
track me. As long as this is attached to my wrist I cannot leave this house.”
He takes a closer look at my wrist without
touching me. I’m thankful he doesn’t touch me, although the thought doesn’t
repulse me.
He’s an attractive man. He’s much taller
than me and his shoulders are broad. I can see beneath the fabric of his
sweater that his muscles are well defined.
He definitely takes care of himself.
His hair is a light shade of brown and his
eyes—those haunting eyes. They are the most pure shade of blue I’ve ever
seen. Even when he narrows his gaze on me, their clear blue depths shine
through.
Those same eyes travel to my face, trying
to gauge if I’m telling the truth or not. All of a sudden his mouth lifts into
a grin.
“Nice try.” He laughs. “But sweetheart, my
father wouldn’t do that. He’s a powerful man, but he’s not into kidnapping and
holding people against their will. He’s the mayor of this town for
fuck’s sake.”
“Mayor?” I let the word play on my lips as
if it’s foreign to me.
I had no idea. I never pictured him as an
upstanding citizen. Business man, yes.
Lawyer, maybe.
Mafia, sure, but mayor?
I never would have guessed.
“Yes, sweetheart, the mayor.”
I try not to take his condescending tone to
heart. Instead I decide this guy needs to know the truth about his father, the
so-called mayor. Callum may be my last hope at getting out of this prison. I know
if I tell him everything there is a chance it could backfire. He could tell his
father and I will be punished for my actions, but after all this time it’s a
risk I’m willing to take.
“He owns me,” I whisper.
“He owns you?” Callum repeats.
I nod my head. “He tells me every day that
I am his.”
Callum shakes his head as if the concept is
absurd.
“I don’t understand.”
I lick my lips as I try to find the
appropriate words to explain my predicament and not scare this guy away.
“I am your father’s…” I mutter, leaving the
sentence unfinished.
“My father’s what?”
“Slave,” I whisper, embarrassed to even
utter the word.
“Slave. What do you mean, slave?”
He leaves the question hanging in the air,
but I suspect he already knows the truth. I lock my eyes with his, determined
to make him believe me, but the words won’t come out.
“What do you mean, slave?” he repeats and I
can hear the desperation in his voice.
I try to answer, but I swallow the words
back with each attempt at uttering them. I feel the tears brim in my eyes and I
plead with myself not to cry.
Do not let this stranger see you cry.
He inhales noisily, his patience wearing
thin. “Answer me, damn it.”
“I’m his sex slave, okay?” I say the words
louder than I intend. The words I’ve never said aloud before, not even to
myself.
Callum’s face changes, his lips turn down
at the sides and his eyes glare daggers at me. Then he surprises me when he
bursts out laughing. The laugh is rough and throaty and
reeks
of a man in denial.
I hadn’t thought about how absurd my confession
was, how impossibly made up it sounded. In the three years I’ve been in this
house, my perception and reality have merged into one and I can’t remember
what’s real and what is a figment of my imagination.
When I boarded the plane three years ago,
my new American life waiting for me, I thought it was the beginning of
something great. A family was willing to take me into their home as their nanny
and to me it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn away. I’d just turned
twenty-one and my life had barely begun, but it turned into something
else—a life that chose me instead of me choosing it.
“Just look in the basement,” I plead with
him. “That is where he keeps me.”
His eyes meet mine again, his eyebrows
raised as he considers my words. “You live in the basement?” he asks
skeptically.
I nod my head yes. “I am allowed out during
the day when he isn’t home, but I am to return there in the evenings.”
Callum stares at me, clearly shocked by
what I’ve told him. His face is painted by uncertainty and I know the next few
moments are the most important of my life. They will pave the way for my
future. I can tell this man everything, I can ask him to help me and beg him to
believe me in one last attempt at getting my life back.
Callum let’s out a loud exhale as he grips
the phone in front of him. “I’m calling my father.”
“No.” I take a step forward and his eyes
instantly snap up to mine. “Please he cannot know we spoke.”
Callum sends me a questioning look and I
feel the need to explain myself.
“He will be angry with me. He will punish
me.” My voice cracks from the weight of my confession.
“Punish you?”
“He doesn’t know I speak English,” I let
out.
He has no idea that I mastered the Rosetta
Stone
he gave me within a few weeks. He doesn’t know that I
watch television religiously, not because I'm bored and want some mind-numbing
entertainment, but because I'm studying the language. Knowledge is power and I
knew I would need lots of it if I were ever to escape this place.
Escape him.
“Callum, please,” I beg. “Please do not
tell him we spoke.”
I feel my body waning as my hopes diminish.
He’s going to tell his father. He will tell him everything and then he will tie
me up for days. My legs are like jelly beneath me. I slump onto the cold tiled
floor and Callum watches me fall, a look of concern on his face. This surprises
me.
For the first time in a long while it feels
like someone actually gives a shit about me. I kneel on the ground before him,
my hands clasped together as if begging for my life.
And that’s exactly what I feel I am doing.
“I beg you,” I utter.
His eyes meet mine, their icy blue depths
study my face, but he doesn’t say another word.