Someone smiled a big, toothy smile at me as I followed the man, and I reached for his shoulder.
“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked with a shaky voice, but the moment my fingers connected with his shirt, he turned around in a rush, grabbed my hand and twisted it painfully behind my back. I cried out like a wounded animal, and he pressed a knee to my back, forcing me to a submissive position in front of everyone in that room. My eyes burned with unshed tears, and my cheeks flamed with shame.
“Don’t you speak to me without being spoken to,” he barked at me. “And you don’t fucking touch me without being told to do so, little bitch. Ever.”
I nodded, biting back my tears and trying to apologize with my eyes because my mouth wasn’t working. He stared at me for a long time before letting go of me roughly and giving me another brilliant smile.
“You’ll do well to remember that,” he said, and I merely nodded. “My name is Silovan. But you won’t be calling me that, so you didn’t need to know.”
He motioned for me to follow him. I pushed back to my feet and fell into step behind him meekly. I knew better than to argue anymore. But I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to Beau. Why wasn’t he watching my back? That guy could have hurt me, and Beau hadn’t done a thing to stop it. I didn’t want to, but I resented him for it. I wanted him to protect me like he’d promised he would.
The man, Silovan, didn’t stop talking until we came out into a side alley. He walked a few steps forward, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag on it. He turned around to stare at me and my skin prickled beneath his gaze. He looked at me weirdly, like I was a piece of meat he was going to enjoy for dinner.
“Come closer,” he said in a voice I didn’t really care for. I knew this was going to be trouble, the trembling of my legs told me as much.
“You don’t look like the kind of girl that usually comes to these things,” he said in his heavily accented, but otherwise perfect English. “Why are you in debt, whore?”
“I… I have to take care of my sister,” I lied, hoping it sounded convincing. “She’s spent her whole life taking care of me and I’m just trying to return the favor.”
Was this how Charli felt when she had to give Grigori a reason? It fucking felt terrible.
“I see,” Silovan replied. “I can get you money. You’ll have to work for it first.”
He threw the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out with the heel of his shoe.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice shaky. Where the hell was Beau?
“I want you to take off that nice designer top,” he said in a syrupy sweet voice. “Show me your tits so I can decide if you’re worth helping.”
I didn’t want to, but scanning the area around us, I realized I didn’t exactly have a choice. Slowly, I lowered my fingers to the hem of my top and raised it until my bra was exposed.
“Not good enough,” Silovan said with a wicked grin. “Nipples. I want to see your nipples. Want to see if they’re the same shade as your lips.”
I reached up with one hand while the other held my top up. Slowly, I let my breasts fall from the cups of my bra, and my nipples hardened at the bite of the cool night air.
“Pretty,” he told me, his eyes fixed on my tits. “Will look prettier bruised.”
I let my top down and looked away, blushing. Beau should’ve stopped this. Now I felt used and horrible, and I could barely hold back the tears anymore. I didn’t feel like a strong, badass girl at all. I felt like a failure. Like I was letting everyone down, mostly my sister, who was stuck God knows where with a man she barely knew.
“Now, don’t be sad,” Silovan growled, approaching me slowly. Suddenly his fingers were in my hair and he pulled my head back roughly. “Pretty girls like you shouldn’t be sad. We’re going to put a smile on that face.”
“Okay,” I whispered, and he offered me a grin.
“You’re young,” he said thoughtfully. “How old are you? Are you under eighteen?”
I shook my head no. “I just turned eighteen a few weeks ago.”
“What a shame,” he replied, and I gave him a surprised glance. “See, I could get a much better price for you if you were younger. Sweet and young little sluts get the best price.”
My stomach turned and I was thankful I didn’t retch in front of him.
“Girls?” I asked him. “How old are the ones tonight? The ones being sold?”
“Between twelve and nineteen,” he said, and this time, I did retch.
This made Silovan laugh out loud.
“I’m sorry,” I said shakily. “I guess I’m just not feeling too well. I think I’ll just…”
I made a move to get away, but his fingers wrapped firmly around my wrist.
“You’ll just what?” he asked me gently, pulling me against him. There was something hard against my thigh, and it wasn’t his cock. It was metal, sharp and I knew it was a knife.
“N-nothing,” I whispered. “Nothing, I’ll do whatever you want…”
The knife in his hand grazed my thigh. It was so sharp I felt it cutting into me, leaving nicks all along my skin. I could only whimper, terrified out of my mind. This wasn’t going according to plan at fucking all.
“Why are you really here, little whore?” Silovan asked me roughly. “Tell the truth or I’ll leave you in a puddle of your own sweet blood.”
“M-my sister,” I choked out, hating myself for submitting so easily. For giving up, and putting myself in even more danger. “She borrowed some money from a man name Grigori. I was told he might be here today. That I could speak to him, about where she is.”
“I already told you he’s not here,” the man replied pointedly. “But I am. And I’m thinking you’ll make a really nice fucking decoration for a man who likes his dick sucked by a pretty bitch like you. Bit old, but you’ll do.”
“Don’t,” I whispered, on the edge of hysteria, as his knife cut into the leather of my skirt.
“Don’t what?” he laughed at me. “I could fuck you with the handle of this knife and no one would bat a fucking eyelid. Or maybe…”
His knife slipped between my legs, toying with my panties. I gasped out loud and begged with my eyes.
“Maybe I should make things more interesting,” he said with a grin, and I closed my eyes tightly and wished it wasn’t true. “Cut up your pussy like it’s a piece of fucking meat. Would you like that, slut?”
“Tell me where my sister is,” I bit out, trying to hold my tongue. He laughed at me.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Charli. Charlotte Rousseau,” I said.
And as soon as my sister’s name was out, his vision darkened. He grabbed me by my throat, his knife momentarily forgotten as he choked the breath right out of me.
“What do you know about her?” he barked at me. “The company she worked for.”
“E-Empire Sin?” I managed to get out, and he nodded.
“Tell me everything you know,” he said. “And maybe, if I’m feeling extra fucking nice, I might even spare you.”
“I don’t know,” I stuttered. “She worked for them for a short while, and then she disappeared.”
“Whoring?” he asked.
I blushed deeply before I replied.
“It was… consensual,” I finally admitted. “Not like what you do here.”
He laughed at me again.
“Same fucking difference, whore,” he spat. “You don’t need to concern yourself with your sister. But you’ll be a fine fucking asset for us. You walked right into this set-up, little whore. And you’re going to do everything I say right now, starting by turning around, putting your hands on the wall and showing me your filthy cunt.”
He turned me around and I gasped as he did the work for me. My ass was in the air and I felt miserably exposed.
And then he cut into my panties with his knife.
I tried to scream, but he placed his strong palm firmly over my mouth so I couldn’t ma
ke a damn sound.
“No one to help you,” he said in my ear. “No one to come and save you, whore. All mine now.”
His knife was cutting into the silky fabric of my panties and I shivered under his touch. I didn’t dare bite down on his palm. Where the fuck was Beau?
“You want help?” He laughed. “I doubt it. You walked into this one, slut. Now you’ll have to take your punishment.”
He ripped the rest of my panties off and I screamed against his palm.
A feeling came over me then, and I realized we weren’t alone in the alley anymore.
He must’ve realized it too, as his palm went slack against my mouth, and I bit down on it as fiercely as I could. He cursed and as he let go and his blade dropped to the ground I darted for the shadows. But the second I did, I bumped into a smaller body, and I looked down to find a girl of about thirteen.
She paid no attention to me. Her eyes were focused on the man who had tried to hurt me.
She muttered something in a language I didn’t understand, and I stared, mesmerized, as she pounced on Silovan.
He screamed his head off as her teeth dug into his skin. The girl bit him savagely, her teeth digging into flesh. He tried to kick her off but she was sly and fast. And it was then that I realized we were still not alone.
There were over a dozen girls in the alley, of varying ages, but mostly younger than me. None of them paid me any mind. Their gazes were focused solely on Silovan and the girl he was struggling to pull off himself. And the second his fist hit her face as he punched her, they descended upon him like wild dogs.
I’d never seen anything like it. A crowd of girls devouring this man with their mouths, fists and legs. They kicked him. They scratched. They were tearing at his flesh with everything they had and I started screaming as they did it. Screaming my fucking head off at the sight of the savage children delivering justice to the man who held them captive.
And then a pair of well-known arms wrapped around me, and someone placed a finger on my lips. I heard sirens in the distance and I sank into Beau’s body with my whole weight.
“They’re going to kill him,” I whispered as Beau held me. “We have to help.”
“We have to walk away, babydoll,” Beau told me as the sirens neared us. “I found where they were holding them. A fucking truck, the back loaded with half-starved girls. They were all stuffed in there, practically out of air. I gave one of them my information. Told them we can help.”
The girls looked feral as they attacked Silovan. I was grateful that I couldn’t see anything apart from them descending on his body. The sirens drew nearer and the girls raised their heads like wild animals expecting to be attacked. The faces and their hands were streaked with blood.
Justice had been served.
The girl I saw first, the young one, muttered something to the rest of them in Georgian. In seconds, they scattered around the alley, hiding, running, until I couldn’t point out even one of them for the life of me.
They were gone, just like that. And suddenly, we were alone in the alley with a fucking dead body. Because there was no doubt about – the unmoving heap of flesh and bones on the ground that used to be Silovan was no longer.
I stifled a scream as Beau dragged me from the alley. And I struggled to stay conscious as we disappeared, just like the group of murderous, half-starved girls. On our way to the car, I saw one of them, just her eyes glinting in the darkness as she hid in the shadows.
She smiled at me, and I hoped to God I never got on those girls’ bad side.
19 Beau
I had to half-drag her to the car. The moment I put her on the passenger seat, her whole body crumbled and she crawled against the seat, her eyes wide after what she had witnessed.
“You’re going to be okay, babydoll,” I told her, and her eyes locked on mine, trying to make me promise I wasn’t lying.
I drove us home in complete silence, my hand coming to rest on Lucy’s knee and holding her tight. She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable in that moment, I was convinced anything could have broken her.
We pulled up in the parking lot, and I managed to get her out. She was struggling to stand on her own feet, and I had to practically carry her upstairs to my apartment. Her body was sinking against mine. Whatever happened in that bar really fucked her up, and I had no one to blame but myself.
When we arrived at the bar, I had to leave Lucy for a while, and I hated myself for every second that she spent there alone. Something awful could have happened – for all I knew it actually had. But I had something else to deal with, and I would’ve never been able to forgive myself if I hadn’t done it.
I’d been told what the auction was about, and I knew the girls who were being sold weren’t there voluntarily. I needed to make sure they were alright, and I knew the responsibility for that lay on my shoulders.
It didn’t take me long to find a truck parked in a back alley, and hear the desperate cries of the girls locked inside it. I had a crowbar in my car, for which I’d never been more thankful. After some attempts, I finally managed to pry the lock of the truck, and break it open.
I was faced with a sight I knew I’d never be able to forget. A dozen or more girls, sitting in absolute darkness and filth, the air filled with the scent of sweaty bodies. They stared at me, most of them much younger than Lucy, most of them with faces that spoke of pain my girl never got to experience. And I hoped, and vowed, that she never would either.
I rushed those girls out of the truck, but before I could give them any instructions, they had scattered through the alley, looking for a way out like wild cats. Only one girl stayed behind, a pretty, but ragged little thing who must have been about thirteen or fourteen years old. She stared at me with those bewildered eyes, and I hated myself for what men like me had done to her. Because her eyes spoke of things much, much worse than anything I’d ever wanted to do to Lucy.
She muttered something to me in Georgian and I signaled that I didn’t understand. Then, she took a step closer, her hand coming to rest on mine.
In the most broken English, she said, “Thank you.”
I managed to hand her a piece of paper with my phone number. She crumpled it in her hand, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a sign that she would use it or not. But I was more than willing to help her, help all of them.
And then she disappeared into the shadows with the rest of them.
My next mission was to find Lucy and make sure she was alright, but the scene that unfolded in front of both our eyes made me uneasy. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to feel sorry for the girls or the man they were all attacking, but one thing was for sure – he was gone, and the girls were finally free.
I helped Lucy into the apartment, and she held onto me so tightly her nails dug into my skin. I sat her down on the couch in the living room and her eyes swam with all the things she’d seen that night.
“Lucy,” I said gently. “What happened?”
In broken little whispers, she told me about the man who had accosted her, Silovan. The man who was no more after the fury of those girls descended upon him and tore him to shreds. I couldn’t help but think he got what was coming to him, and I didn’t even feel sorry for the way his life ended. But I felt horrible about leaving Lucy behind, and I needed to make it up to her.
“Let me take care of you,” I said. “Let me get you in the shower, get you cleaned off. Let me make sure you’re alright, babydoll.”
She simply nodded and I gathered her in my arms, carrying her into the bathroom. Her body sank against mine as I took off her clothes until she was naked before me, her skin glistening with sweat. There were smudges of dirt from the alley all over her clothes, and I rolled them up in a ball and tossed them in the trash can. I’d never make her wear that outfit again.
I took off my own clothes, and led her into the shower. I sat her down on the cold tiles, feeling guilty as fuck as I turned on the warm water and slowly began to wash her.
Her body respo
nded to the warm stream of the shower head, and she turned to get more of it all over her body. I washed her slowly but diligently, soaping her up with body wash and gently washing her hair with apple scented shampoo. She leaned into my touch, and I was grateful she didn’t blame me for what happened back there. But I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
“You’re going to be alright,” I muttered against her ear, sitting down behind her and letting her settle in my lap. “It’s all going to be okay, babydoll. I’m so sorry you had to witness that. So sorry you had to go through it. But you’ll be fine, I promise you that much. I promise, Lucy. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”
She nodded again and again against my chest as I washed out the product from her hair and body.
And then she turned towards me, her naked body against mine so fucking warm and inviting my dick hardened. I tried to hide it from her, but Lucy’s small hands reached for me, and she stroked my length with her fingers.
“Please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about what happened. Or talk about it. Just make me forget for a little while. I want to be with you.”
I took hold of her wrist, wondering silently whether I should let her do it or not. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, but maybe it was exactly what she needed.
“Lucy,” I said roughly. “Are you sure you want this? We don’t have to do anything, babydoll.”
“Please,” she begged. “Just kiss me. Let’s just pretend we’re a normal couple and everything’s okay. Please.”
I nodded, but before I could reach out for her, her mouth latched onto mine and she kissed me with so much need and desperation her whole body shook with it. She crawled onto my lap, straddling me with her pussy so fucking close I could just thrust my hips out and I’d be inside that pretty wet slit. But I made myself stop. I made myself stay put and let her lead me, let her do what she needed to make her feel better.
Envy: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Empire Sin) Page 15