Adam by Teresa Gabelman, Hot Tree Editing

his eyes never leaving Caroline. “Gladiator was a glorified name by emperors.” His voice was hard with an edge of violence. “Slaves are what we were: nothing more, nothing less. Now, leave us.”
    Shock made Lana look at S id, who refused to look her way. “Sid?”
    “You need to leave , Lana.” Sid’s voice had also taken a hard turn. “We will call you and Caroline as soon as Sloan gets here.”
    “But…” Lana began, but was stopped when Sid turned to glare at her , a look in his eyes she had never seen before.
    “Leave!” he yelled, his eyes turning black as night.
    Lana ’s head snapped back in shock. Saying nothing, she turned to help Caroline, who was still shaky, head toward the door. When Sid tried to help, she pushed his hands away. “I got this.” Lana growled.
    “Lana…” Sid started, but stopped when Lana glared at him.
    “Fuck you, Sid.” Lana’s voice was not raised, but firm with conviction that she was done with the situation. She’d be damned if she was talked to that way, even if it was by the man she loved more than her own life. She turned with her head held high, leading her sister out of the room.
    “Son of a bitch!” Sid turned , putting his hand through the wall.

Chapter 6
    Angelina walked to the door like she did every single time he left to check the knob, locked. Next, just like she had done before, she walked to the window to look out. Her eyes focusing on the spot she had last seen Adam. For as long as she lived, the shadow of betrayal in his beautiful eyes would haunt her; a betrayal she threw in his face like he was nothing to her. Hatred for the man who kept her locked upstairs burned through her body. Hatred for herself burned even deeper.
    The night Adam had showed up at the door had been the worst night of her life, even worse than being kidnapped. Panic and threats ran freely through the house she was being held in. As she opened the door that night, a gun was being held to a young girl’s head with the threat of messing up in any way would cause the young girl to die. It was as if she herself held the trigger.
    Guilt , still fresh, soaked into her emotions. For just a few seconds of looking into Adam’s eyes, she had wanted to grab him and run, no matter what happened to anyone else, not even the young girl whose life was held in the balance of life and death by the bastard’s henchmen in the next room. Shaking her head, Angelina closed her eyes. She knew she had made the right decision. Being free from this horror, however desperately she wanted it, would not have been worth knowing her freedom had caused the death of an innocent girl.
    A faint tapping from the wall behind her barely reached her ears. Turning her he ad, she looked first to the wall, then to the door. The bastard who kept her and the others locked away was good with tricks and little mind games. When three more fast taps followed by two slower ones, she knew it wasn’t him.
    Taking her time , she made her way across the floor, carefully missing the floorboards she knew squeaked. The quieter they were, the less they were bothered, even the squeak of the floorboard could bring the bastard bursting into the room. Angelina never knew she could hate someone as much as she hated him, but she did. She made an oath she would kill the son of a bitch one day.
    Climbing up on the bed and one last look at the door, she removed the ugly painting , revealing a tiny hole she had made in the wall. Once she had gotten to a certain point and couldn’t go any further, Anne, the girl in the next room, had finished from her side. The bastard had caught Anne talking to her from under the door of their connecting rooms where they had laid on the floor, night after night, talking with their faces pressed to the dirty carpet.
    Looking through the small hole , a brown eye stared back at her. Angelina couldn’t help but smile. Putting her mouth up to the hole Angelina whispered just enough that Anne could hear her.