As soon as I heard the knock at the door, I rushed to the window and peered down. From the vantage point, I could see my doorstep and the street in front of my house. The car that was parked there, a black SUV, had no markings and the two figures standing at the door weren’t in uniform, but you don’t last as long as I have in the slaving business without learning to spot a cop and I knew right away there were two plainclothes police officers at my front door.

As you can well imagine, when you’ve got eight women and girls trussed up and gagged in your bedroom, the last thing you want showing up on your doorstep are a couple of cops. But even as my heart raced and sweat began forming on my brow, I started thinking things over. This was bad, sure, but not as bad as it might have been. These two were here to scout things out, scare me into making a wrong move, something they could use against me. If they were really sure I was their woman, they wouldn’t have sent just two plainclothes detectives and they wouldn’t have been nice enough to announce their presence by knocking on the door. They’d have SWAT teams kicking in the door.

If that were the case, I could just go down, ask to see their warrant and tell them to piss off. In a couple hours, I’d be long gone from here and it wouldn’t matter much how suspicious this current identity had been. But almost as quickly as I thought that, I realized it wouldn’t work. Sure, I could kick them off my porch, but odds were good they’d just go a ways up the road and park somewhere they could keep an eye on the house. My sales agent, Steve, was coming in just a couple hours with the truck to pick up the other ladies and he was as good at spotting cops as I was. As soon as he saw the house was being watched, he’d just keep driving on past, leaving me high and dry and out of options. No, whatever happened, I needed to deal with these two cops right now.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one who’d heard the knock and guessed its meaning. The rest of the women had as well and the thought that rescue might be imminent made them instantly forget all fear of punishment. They began to struggle harder against their ropes, filling the room with their muffled cries. I could only hope they wouldn’t carry outside the house and catch the ears of the waiting officers. Somehow, through a combination of threats, shouts and some well placed kicks, I got them somewhat settled down again, at least temporarily. With little time to spare, I rushed downstairs to answer the door.

“Sorry about that.” I said, as I opened the door. “You caught me while I was in the bathroom. How can I help you, Miss…”

Standing in front of me was a tall, stern looking woman, in her early 30s perhaps. She had dark brown hair, pulled back in a tight bun and her sharp features: high, well defined cheekbones, narrow chin and long, aquiline nose combined with her sour expression gave her a mean, though still rather pretty look. The black windbreaker she wore, not quite concealing the sidearm she wore in a shoulder holster and dark khaki pants didn’t show much of her figure, but what I could tell, with a well practiced eye, was her body was more on the trim, athletic side then the curvy, sexy one, but nice none the less.

“Smith.” The woman said, in a brusque-businesslike tone. “Detective Smith.” She added, flashing her badge. “And this is Detective Rodriguez.” She nodded over her shoulder at the young woman behind her. Her partner was dressed the same, though her jacket revealed some more obvious curved. Her dark hair was tied in a long braid folded over her brow.

“We’ve got a few questions we’d like to ask you, Miss Michael.” Detective Smith held up a photograph of a smiling young woman, likely a prom photo judging from the dress she wore. “Do you know this woman?” I did. It was Miss Polly Stewart, the erstwhile shop girl whose botched abduction had started this whole mess.

“No.” I lied easily enough. Probably my greatest strength as a slaver was my ability to lie convincingly. Few would suspect a woman of catching and selling other women and girls as slaves and with my ability to project the appropriate persona and emotions at the right moment, I never had trouble convincing my victims to obliviously walk right into their capture and enslavement, as plenty of women and girls had discovered in the past and the eight ladies upstairs would soon find out. Hopefully, it would work on these two as well.

“Her name is Polly Stewart. She went missing a couple days ago.”

I recognized the detective’s strategy right away. By confronting me directly with the face of my victim, she was intentionally letting me know they knew or strongly suspected it was me. Someone with less experience, less self-control, would start to get nervous, panic and would inadvertently confirm their suspicions. I kept my face a mask of blank confusion, tinged with mild concern.

“Do you know her current whereabouts?”

In a packing crate, aboard a cargo ship, somewhere between here and Tripoli, was the best answer I could give, but guessing it wouldn’t go well for me if I said so, I lied again. “No, should I?” Had I wanted to, I could probably have made myself convincing enough to, maybe not convince them I was innocent, but at least persuade them this approach wouldn’t yield results and they should give up and try another angle.

But given that angle would likely be: “put the house under surveillance” and I was anxious to keep that from happening, I made sure to put just enough of a waver in the answer to convince them it was working, tempt them into pushing a little harder, in the hopes I might crack.

“May we come in?” Detective Smith asked, another attempt at rattling me, I think. I had every right to tell her no, without a warrant, they couldn’t come in without permission or clear evidence of a crime in progress, by many criminals and common people for that matter, get the idea from crime dramas and movies that refusing to let the police in could be taken as a tacit admission of guilt.

But, as I’d thought through my options, I knew my best shot at getting out of this was getting the two inside, where they’d lose some of the advantage their guns gave, would have a harder time getting away if things went wrong and, if I was lucky, I might be able to split them up, deal with them one at a time. So I simply nodded and said, “Of course…” as if I had nothing to hide, while putting just enough hesitation and nervousness in the back of my voice to suggest I did. Which wasn’t hard considering I most definitely did.

I stepped back and led the two towards the living room. The two followed, not necessarily searching the house, since, invitation or not, they still didn’t have a warrant, but definitely keeping their eyes peeled for any clues I might have been generous enough to leave around the house for them to find.

For my own part, I did my best to spin things out, evading their questions about the missing shop girl with noncommittal answers while giving just enough of a hint here and there to keep them interested, all the while waiting and hoping for some sort of opportunity to change the circumstances. It came maybe three or four minutes after the two detectives had come in.

I imagine the captives upstairs had been rather confused when the arrival of the police hadn’t resulted in doors being kicked down, me being arrested and them being saved. What snatches of muffled conversation they heard further puzzled them. Maybe it wasn’t the police who were here, but someone else? But finally, one of the ladies realized that it was the police, as yet unaware they were upstairs and it was in her best interest to try and get their attention. And once one of them got it into her head to start screaming, the rest soon joined in.

The two detectives realized what was up straight away. Detective Smith immediately sprang to her feet and took off for the stairs, leaving her partner to cover me. But fortunately for me, Detective Rodriguez was a bit slower on the uptake. She turned to look at her partner as she went, taking her eyes off me for one, crucial second. I didn’t waste my opportunity. Since we’d sat down, my hand had been resting on the small bottle of pepper spray I’d taken off Hannah earlier that morning and as Rodriguez turned back to me, reaching for her gun or handcuffs, I’m not sure which, I had it out in a flash and gave her nearly half the bottle, directly into the other woman’s face.

That gave Detective Rodriguez enough pause to let me get in close and try to wrestle away the gun from her. The detective didn’t make it easy, she’d obviously gone through a course on self defense, either as part of her police training or on her own initiative, but I had surprise and plenty of experience subduing other women who had taken those same self defense courses. Blinded and coughing from the mace, she was a distinct disadvantage and soon I had the gun away from her.

“Ok…” I growled. “Hands up!” Miss Rodriguez knew any further resistance would only leave her with a bullet in her gut, so she glumly complied. I frisked her, quickly, and found her handcuffs along with the key and her cellphone. Tossing that last one out the door, I cuffed the policewoman’s hands together, with the chain wrapped around part of the couch, as the heaviest piece of furniture in the room.

To keep her from shouting a warning to her partner the moment I left the room, I removed her boots, peeled her socks off and stuffed them in her mouth. Without something to hold the gag in, she’d eventually spit them out, but at least I’d have a few moments of surprise to deal with the other detective. Leaving Miss Rodriguez to struggle and grunt angrily, I hurried up the stairs, as fast as I could manage, without giving myself away.

Detective Smith had, unsurprisingly, gone straight for the bedroom, the door was left open. As I snuck up to the open door and looked in, I saw her bent over the Parker sisters, since they were the closest to the door. She’d gotten the girls’ gags and blindfolds off and was working on untying them. This was lucky for me. Had she reported in as soon as she’d found the captives, I’d have been in real trouble, but it seems she’d decided to free the other women first, no doubt confident her partner had me secured downstairs at the moment.

“It was terrible…” Sara was saying, in a bewildered tone. “She put something in our drinks...it made us pass out. And when we came to she had us tied up and gagged…”

At about that moment, her sister Megan spotted me peeping into the room, holding the pistol and screamed. “Don’t move, detective! I have a gun aimed at you!” I barked, seeing the other woman start to turn, reaching for her gun. She hesitated and for a second seemed likely to try anyway, but with her gun holstered and her back turned, while my gun was in my hand, pointed straight at her at a close enough range I could hardly miss, even the detective could see it was futile.

“Take it out, nice and slowly and toss it over here.” I ordered. “Then get those hands up! And you two, shut up!” This last bit was directed at the Parker sisters who’d taken advantage of their current, ungagged state, to start screaming.

“You won’t get away with this!” Detective Smith said, sourly, as she tossed her gun across the floor towards me and raised her hands. “More police will be here soon!” That was my worry, but I figured since neither Detective had gotten a call off, the rest of the police would be none the wiser until these two failed to report in. I hoped, with good reason, to be well away from here, by the time that happened. As would all of the captives, though they didn’t know it yet.

So I said nothing, aside from ordering Detective Smith to lie down on her belly and cross her wrists so I could secure her with her own handcuffs. Her socks served as adequate muffling and, after taping her lips shut, I wrapped a couple turns around her ankles to keep her from going anywhere quickly. A final strip across the eyes served as a blindfold. As with Detective Rodriguez, I grabbed the handcuff key and found her cellphone. I took a second and verified that, as I’d hoped, she hadn’t reported in yet, which meant I should have time to finish up here and get away.

“And time for you two to be quiet again.” I growled, turning to the Parker sisters, scooping up the soggy wadded panties off the ground where Smith had dropped them. The girls pleaded and begged, but in moments, both had their mouths packed full and taped shut once more. They moaned in despair, joined by the other woman who, trussed and blindfolded, couldn’t see what happened, but now realized their best, and likely only hope of rescue, was now a bound and gagged captive like them.

While they worked through that, I got to me feet and hurried downstairs, gun in one hand, duct tape in the other. While I had been upstairs, dealing with her partner, Detective Rodriguez had managed to shift the couch a few feet forward, denting up the hardwood flooring enough to make me glad I was abandoning this house, but she hadn’t gotten any closer to getting free. She’d also managed to spit out the socks and began furiously cursing in English and Spanish as I approached and stuffed the socks back in, taping her mouth shut for good measure. I also went and blindfolded her, as a precaution, before undoing one of the cuffs to release her from the couch. She put up a bit of a fight never the less, but I managed to get her hands shackled behind her back again without too much trouble.

“This way!” I barked, jabbing her in the back with the pistol and led the blind, stumbling captive back through the house, to the stairs and up to the bedroom. A couple minutes later, she lay on the floor beside her partner, grunting angrily into into her reinforced gag as I went to work securing them.

This wasn’t as easy as you might think. I hadn’t counted on two extra captives, much less four and by now I was completely out of rope and even the duct tape was starting to run short. Undoing Kate’s crotch rope and chest harness, much to the poor girl’s relief, let me tie the two detective’s feet together.

After a moment, I hit on an idea. Ignoring their grunts of indignation, I removed both women’s belts. Placing them together, back to back, I strapped them together with the belts. Rough, but I hoped it would be effective enough to hold the two until Steve got here. And speaking of my agent, I decided to give him a call. Things had changed, with the two detectives here, now trussed up with the other captives. We needed to get the captive women out of here as soon as possible…