by Zoey Parker
It would represent a major setback in the case, certainly, and it might take months or even years for another agent to get this close to the Mancinis again after they'd uncovered two agents hiding in their ranks in one year. But the FBI valued its people too much to leave them in danger once they were at risk of discovery.
What's more, Carla doubted Gio's claim that he'd find a way to make her photo go viral without somehow implicating himself as a made guy who knew about a rat in the Mancinis' midst and didn't report it to his father.
But she found that no matter how much she doubted it, she was still terrified of it. What if he had some plan she couldn't guess at because she wasn't thinking clearly? What if there were angles she wasn't considering, and they ended up with her as a meme while Gio got away with it?
Her thoughts kept returning to Patricia Kurtz. Patty'd once had a moment just like this one, when she had to decide between compromising her own values—and the strict policies of the Bureau—or leaving her job undone. Carla tried to think of what it must have been like for Patty to climb into the filthy bed of a pickup truck with that sweaty coyote and submit to him when every fiber of her being must have screamed for her to just walk away and let someone else bring down her intended target.
But instead, all Carla could think of was how good it must have felt to bring down such a vile and far-reaching human trafficking operation—one that had resulted in hundreds of immigrants baking to death, suffocating, or dying of starvation and thirst while locked in the backs of trucks during their trips across the border. Carla thought about how triumphant Patty must have felt, knowing that no matter what happened to her after that, she was personally responsible for ridding the world of a monster who preyed on the weak and desperate.
It was a rotten choice: Risk humiliation and degradation among her peers by not showing up at 11:00 tomorrow, or do it and risk the same things anyway if she managed to bring Gio down and people found out she'd done it by giving in to his violent perversions.
So if both options put her at risk, she reasoned, why not at least try to see this mission through to the end? Why not do what she could to bring down Gio and the rest of the Mancinis in the process?
If this blackmail scenario Gio cooked up had demonstrated anything, it was that he had a tremendous amount of pride. Instead of just telling Mario about her, he felt like he could somehow control this situation to get what he wanted from her. Carla knew she might be able to find a way to exploit that.
Maybe I can even find a way to make sure this ends with Gio dead, she thought. If I manage to take down the whole Mancini family and I have to claim Gio's death was a clear case of “him or me,” who'd question that?
But she'd have to go along with it at first.
And she knew that based on Gio's probable plans for her, there'd be no place for her to hide a gun, at least in the beginning.
Carla thought about how it would feel to be tied up or handcuffed by Gio and forced to cater to his every desire. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen, tempted to pick up the phone and tell Don to call the whole thing off.
Then she thought about how it would feel to return to her desk at the field office in disgrace, feeling her male co-workers' eyes judging her and hearing them whisper to each other about how she'd failed when a man would have succeeded.
She left the phone where it was.
As the first pale rays of sunlight crept in through the windows, Carla went to the closet, and started looking at her pantsuits as she considered the best one to wear tonight.
This one's for you, Patty, she thought. Because no matter what happened or where you ended up, you're still a hero in my book and you always will be. If the men you worked with were too stupid to see that you did the right thing and reward you for it, well, then it's up to gals like us to save the world in spite of them.
Chapter 15
Carla
Carla parked her car in front of Gio's house and checked the time on her cell phone with a trembling hand.
It was exactly three minutes to eleven.
Carla had left early to make sure she arrived on time. She didn't necessarily think that Gio would pull the lever on his plan to publicly humiliate her exactly at eleven—she was fairly certain that his overconfidence and his need to possess her would make him wait a while longer, certain that she'd show up anyway.
She also knew she couldn't be sure of his behavior, which meant she couldn't afford to take that chance. She'd spent enough time with Gio to see that he had the quick temper and whims of a spoiled child, and now that he had the upper hand, it would be a mistake to provoke him.
But despite Carla's careful preparation, she still managed to hit unexpected traffic on Lake Shore thanks to a five-car accident. The police and emergency vehicles had blocked off all but two lanes of the expressway, and they were conducting cars through at a maddeningly slow pace. As Carla edged her car forward a few inches at a time, she felt her nerves being shredded with each passing minute and cursed herself for not leaving even earlier.
Now she was at Gio's place with minutes to spare, and she still had to will her hand to open the car door.
In all the months she'd spent listening to the Mancinis' taped conversations, she'd heard many rumors and wild speculations about the things Gio did with his women, but nothing solid or confirmed. Earlier that evening, she'd visited dozens of websites about S&M dungeons and practices to try to determine what she should expect, but each one seemed completely different from the others in terms of rules and fetishes and equipment.
Some had been oddly compelling, while others were downright nightmarish. Some spoke of trust and boundaries, while others seemed focused on pushing things as far as they could go short of committing actual rape and/or murder.
And for all she knew, Gio's style of “play” would conform to none of these. It could be a macabre symphony of torture and mutilation that followed no rules but his own.
She forced herself to get out of the car. When she commanded her legs to walk toward the front door, they seemed stiff and numb beneath her, as though they belonged to someone else. Each time one of her high heels came down on the driveway, the sound seemed as loud as a cannon blast, echoing and ringing in her ears.
Halfway up the driveway, her legs suddenly stopped, and she felt like she might throw up, run away, or both. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed these feelings out of her. Then she opened them, took a deep breath, and kept walking.
When she got to the door, she rapped on it gently, almost hoping Gio wouldn't hear her. But a moment later, he opened the door, frowning at her. He wore a black silk shirt with light gray trousers, and he was in the process of tying his tie.
“You're early,” Gio observed testily. “By almost a whole minute.”
Carla's mouth fell open. That was the last thing she'd expected him to say. She stammered, “Uh, I didn't think...”
“Don't talk back to me,” Gio snapped, finishing his tie. “Get in here.”
Carla walked in and Gio stepped around her, slamming the door hard. Carla found herself wondering whether it would be one of the last sounds she'd ever hear, and a deep shiver overtook her body.
This is stupid, her frightened mind yammered. This is so stupid. I can't believe I've put myself in this position. This isn't a game. He's murdered people. He'll probably murder me when he's done cutting and electrocuting and violating me. I'm going to spend the final moments of my life begging for death and I walked myself right into it, stupid, stupid, stupid...
“And no, you did try to think, which is the problem,” Gio continued coldly. “You thought that even though I said eleven, you could get here before then and everything would be fine. But when I say eleven, I mean eleven. Not a minute before. Not a minute after. From now on, you don't get to think for yourself. You simply do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, period. No hesitation, no interpretation. My word is your law. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Carla said, looking int
o his brown eyes with what she hoped was an expression of submission and awe.
“Yes what?” he prompted, his body tensing.
Carla instinctively knew that he was getting ready to hit her, and she felt her gut clench. The websites she'd visited had no consistency when it came to what subs were supposed to call their Doms. Even though he'd just commanded her not to think for herself, she knew she had to come up with the right name to call him. “Sir?” No, that seemed too formal and businesslike for someone like Gio. “Daddy?” Somehow, given his issues with his father, she felt certain it would turn him off. Which only left...
“Yes, Master,” Carla said in a low voice.
Gio nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now lower your eyes, and keep them low. You're not allowed to look me in the eyes until I tell you to.”
“Yes, Master,” she said again, her eyes flicking downward.
“I like your suit,” Gio said. “You look like a birthday present just waiting to be unwrapped. Go to the stairs and walk up ahead of me.”
“Yes, Master,” she said a third time. The words had been almost comically strange to her at first, but she found that they were already starting to come to her more easily. They almost seemed like a mantra—their meaning was less important than their sound.
Carla walked up the stairs. She hurried at first, assuming he'd punish her if she dawdled. But after the first few steps, she suddenly felt the palm of his hand smack against her bottom hard, the sound ringing out like the crack of a whip.
She gasped, more from surprise than pain, though a warm ache was already starting to spread across her buttock.
“Slowly,” Gio said loudly. “And move your hips from side to side as you do it. I want to watch your tight little ass as we go up.”
Carla obeyed him, sashaying her hips back and forth with each step like the swinging pendulum of a clock. It wasn't the first time she'd been able to feel his eyes on her ass, but now his gaze was so intense that it almost seemed to burn into her.
She reached the second floor and stopped at the landing. As she did, she tried to sneak a look around her, to see if she could see into any rooms or observe any details that might give her an advantage over Gio. But all the doors were closed, except for one with another set of stairs beyond it.
Carla felt Gio's hand smack against the other side of her bottom this time, and she gasped again. Thin red lines of pain branched across her buttocks like creeping ivy.
“I didn't say you could stop,” Gio snarled. “Up those steps. Now.”
And if I had just gone for that second set of steps, he'd punish me for doing it before he told me to, Carla thought to herself grimly. He's going to find reasons to hurt me no matter what I do or how much I try to follow his rules.
She shuddered, again contemplating the possibility that she might die in this place.
“Yes, Master,” Carla said, walking up the second set of stairs.
When she got to the top and stole a glance around, she saw that she was in a dimly-lit attic. Many pieces of mysterious-looking furniture stood around her, and there were wall-mounted racks and standing glass cases filled with sex toys. She recognized a few of the implements from her research online earlier, but others were unfamiliar, and she could only imagine their sinister purposes.
What scared her the most, though, was the thick gray corrugated padding on the walls. It looked like a series of egg boxes, and with a sinking feeling, she realized the room was soundproofed.
She heard Gio approaching the top of the steps behind her and she stepped forward so he'd be able to enter the room.
“You can scream as loud as you want in here,” Gio sneered, as though he'd noticed her looking at the walls. “No one's going to hear you.”
As she listened to Gio's voice, Carla realized that ever since she'd arrived at his house, he'd been speaking in a tone that was quite different from his usual one. In the normal context of their relationship—a young mobster and his lawyer—he tended to affect a more traditional Italian-American patter like tough guys in gangster movies, littered with “gonnas,” “ain'ts,” and double-negatives. But now that he was in his own private space, his speech patterns were more clipped and precise. She wondered if this was subconscious on his part, or if he knew that he had to show different personas based on who he was around and what was expected of him.
She thought about how many versions of himself Gio felt he had to show the world, and whether any of them even came close to resembling his true self, or if he even knew what that was. If she hadn't been so immediately fearful for her own life, Carla thought she might have pitied him again in this moment.
“There are rules that have to be followed in this room,” Gio said. “First, no woman is allowed to be clothed in here, so strip down. Take everything off.”
Carla unbuttoned her jacket and took it off. As she did, she was careful to keep her movements slow and deliberate, knowing that Gio wanted to savor the show. She dropped the jacket and undid the buttons on her white silk blouse, letting it slide down her arms and onto the floor behind her. She reached behind her back, unclasped her white bra, and likewise let it slip down her arms and onto the floor in front of her feet.
She felt the embarrassment of sudden exposure breeze over her like a chill, and even though the room was warm, her nipples hardened until they hurt.
Carla stepped out of her high heels, then undid her pants. She hooked her thumbs into the sides and slid them all the way down her legs, along with her white cotton panties. Now she stood before him fully nude, her eyes on the floorboards as she listened to his slow and steady breathing behind her.
She heard Gio step forward, taking something from a peg on the wall just out of her peripheral line of vision. His hands lifted over her head and lowered something long and thin in front of her face, and for a terrible moment, she was sure he was going to strangle her to death right then.
But his hands held a black leather collar decorated with small metal studs. He put it around her neck, fastening it at the back and clipping a chain leash to it. It was snug, but Carla was still able to breathe normally.
For now.
“The second rule is that no women are allowed in here without a collar and leash.” When he spoke again, Carla could hear the smug gangster tone creeping back into his voice. “Otherwise, the dogcatcher might come by an' haul you off to the pound, heh.
“The third rule,” he continued, “is that every time we're together here, you'll have a yellow word and a red word. You will say the yellow word when you feel like you're reaching the edge of what you can take...when you want me to keep going, but you don't want me to escalate it any further. When you say the red word, it will mean you want me to stop completely.”
Carla almost couldn't believe her ears. Was he really going to treat this like an actual Dom-sub relationship, and give her a chance to control what she endured?
Or was he just fucking with her by laying out boundaries that he had no intention of respecting at all?
“I will choose your yellow and red words for you,” Gio said. “Because whenever you're with me, you'll be free from the burden of making any choices for yourself at all. Isn't that nice?”
“Yes, Master,” Carla replied.
“I knew you'd agree,” Gio said smugly. “Tonight, your yellow word will be 'earth,' and your red word will be 'fire.'
“The fourth rule,” he finished, “is that no women are allowed on two feet in this room. Whenever you're here, you get down on all fours and you crawl like a bitch. So do it. Now.”
Carla lowered herself to her hands and knees.
“That's it,” Gio smirked encouragingly. “That's a good girl. You're going to be a good little pet, I can tell. Nice and obedient. Now, do you see that post in the center of the room?”
Carla raised her eyes and saw a short, thick post made of polished black wood just a few feet away. There was a large metal ring attached to its base.
“Yes, Master,” Carla said.
“Crawl over to it,” Gio ordered.
Carla crawled forward to the post, breathing hard. Her heart was pounding like a drum and her skin prickled with hot humiliation. She'd never even thought about letting anyone treat her like this before.
“Now wait there with your head down,” Gio said. He went to one of the shelves, took something down, and returned, kneeling next to her. When Carla saw what he had, she felt the sweat on her skin turn cold.
He was holding a set of handcuffs.
Gio snapped the cuffs around one of her wrists, threaded it through the metal ring, and then snapped them onto her other wrist, binding her to the base of the post. Then he stood and positioned himself behind her again.
“Put your ass in the air,” Gio said. “Offer yourself to me like an animal in heat.”