Once Upon a Masquerade by Tamara Hughes

the smooth glass, swinging the bottle at her attacker with all her strength. It broke over his head. Her assailant groaned and fell onto the stairs.
    She dropped her burden and burst through the doorway where she collided with a solid chest, nearly falling to the ground from the impact. Muscular arms pinned her elbows to her sides.
    Her hood fell back, and she stared up into cold gray eyes. The man from the saloon.
    Frantically, she peered down the street. She struggled against his hold, wondering if anyone would come if she shouted for help, and if she’d want the kind of help she might get.
    Rebecca kicked at his shins, and his embrace cinched tighter, squeezing until she could no longer breathe. Tiny points of light blurred her vision as a man with oily hair and a stubbly beard emerged from the doorway, rubbing a gash over his left temple. She remembered him. One of the men who’d threatened her father. Staggering toward them, he let out a curse when he lowered his hand and saw blood smeared there. He narrowed his black eyes. “Give her to me, Frank. She’s mine, dammit.”
    Frank tossed her over to the man who’d first attacked her. “Sure you can handle her?”
    “Shut up.” The portly man gripped her arm and dragged her behind him as he strode across the street. In a daze, she gulped in air and stumbled behind him, spotting a grimy gun wedged into the waistband at the back of his trousers. She reached out for the weapon, but he jerked her forward and yanked her wrists behind her back. “Hey Harvey, I’ve got her.”
    Harvey’s clean-shaven face and neatly parted gray hair could have belonged to any respectable gentleman, although his threadbare suit bespoke of a harder, more desperate existence.
    He stepped out of the shadows to meet them as they drew closer. “Well I’ll be damned. Good going, Otto. I was beginning to think she wouldn’t show.” Harvey seized her chin, assessing her with calculating eyes. “Just where have you been hiding? We’ve been looking for you, girl. Do you have the money Daddy owes?”
    Her heart pumping wildly in her chest, she tamped down her panic. Twisting her face out of his grip, she glared back at him. “We have two more days.”
    Otto lifted a lock of her hair and rubbed the strands between his fingers. “Well, aren’t you a sassy little thing?”
    Harvey scowled. “A few hours isn’t going make any difference, now is it, cherry?” He pointed to her father’s building. “It doesn’t look like Daddy can pay up. Lucky for you, we decided to wait before we killed him, to give you the chance to do right by him.”
    “Do you think she has the money on her?” Otto asked, leaning in and rubbing his face along her neck. “I could check her over if it would help.”
    She cringed, unable to move from him with her wrists pinned behind her. Lifting her shoulder, she nudged his face away. The stench of rotting teeth and cheap liquor turned her stomach as he slid his hand down the length of her side.
    “Leave the bitch, Otto,” Harvey commanded in a steely tone. “I need her full attention.”
    Undeterred, Otto brushed his hand over her chest, stopping to cup her breast through her thin cloak. “I’m only having a little fun. No sense in wasting such a pretty thing.”
    With a growl, Harvey grabbed Otto’s wrist, pulling it away. “I said, leave her.”
    Otto snatched his arm from Harvey’s hold. “I caught her, and I’m taking what I’m due.”
    As their argument heated, Frank ambled to a light post and leaned against the sturdy support as if bored.
    Fear prickled down her neck at the odds she now faced.
    “Awfully quiet, girl,” Harvey mocked, his attention turned back to her. “Do you have what I want?” Taking a corner of her ragged cloak, he raised the fabric wide. “Or do we need to look for ourselves?”
    Her body trembled, and her mind raced. How could she get free?
    Harvey stood so close, his face hovered inches from hers. The scent of lye soap