Words eluded her, and she felt her eyes moisten as she studied her boots. Uriel took a step toward her, closing the distance between them, and leaned into her, his unruly hair in his eyes. Hardly believing what was happening, she tilted her head and their lips met. A soft groan rose in her throat, and then his arm was around her as time stood still, the connection more intense than any she could remember.
When she finally pulled away, her heart was racing like a schoolgirl’s, her cheeks flushed, her breathing shallow. She stared deep into his eyes and the ground beneath her seemed to tilt, and for a brief instant was no longer an outcast, no longer a girl apart gazing into a room she could never enter filled with beautiful people living lives she could only dream of. For now, at least in this moment, she finally felt like she belonged.
And it felt good.
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Turn the page to read an excerpt from
A Girl Betrayed
Excerpt from A Girl Betrayed
Chapter 1
The living area of the stately Georgetown townhome glowed with amber light from a half dozen Tiffany lamps. The stern countenance of a gaunt French nobleman glared from a portrait on a Venetian plaster wall as though annoyed at being framed for eternity in weathered gold leaf. Techno jazz drifted from the bar at one end of the room, providing discreet cover for hushed conversations among heavyset men lounging on rococo couches – the lobbyists and bureaucrats who ran Washington. Young women in lingerie with impossibly long legs brought cocktails to the rarified clientele, rewarding their groping and inebriated proposals with polite giggles and the dazzling smiles of supermodels.
The townhome was a mainstay of the D.C. scene, its address well known to the city’s movers and shakers – as well as the police, who steered well clear of it. Brothels came and went in a town where power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, but Number Seven had provided dependable service for decades from the same location, an oasis of pleasure and possibility, its workers unmolested by prosecution and its owners far above the law. No debauchery was off limits for its customers – boys, girls, young, old, innocent as angels or shopworn as street whores. Whatever the fantasy or predilection, Number Seven had it on tap.
Upstairs, six suites were appointed as pleasure chambers, where the colors and finishes ran the gamut from understated elegance to lurid red velvet and black latex. In the second room from the rear stairwell, a man in his sixties with a florid complexion reclined on a divan, a brandy snifter half full of cognac on the marble coffee table before him, watching with rapt attention as a slender young woman with the lean curves of a teenager performed a slow striptease in front of a flat panel television playing hardcore porn, her unlined face placid as a mountain lake and her doe-like eyes vacant.
She swiveled her hips to the music emanating from concealed speakers with the practiced grace of a pole dancer, and pulled a white blouse over her pigtailed head, revealing rosebud nipples that glistened with a sheen of body oil. The man’s intake of breath at the sight was audible, and he leaned forward for his drink as the girl continued to dance, the muted film behind her reflecting off her creamy skin as she performed a slow turn.
“You like?” she asked in an Eastern European accent, her voice childlike and musical as a violin.
“Amazing,” the man replied, his words thick with alcohol and desire.
The girl continued her dance. The exaggerated mascara that ringed her eyes was smeared as though she’d been crying – exactly as the client had stipulated when he’d ordered her that morning. Free of tattoos or piercings, Annika was sixteen, a veteran of Russian and Argentine brothels; her specialty was posing as forbidden fruit, a schoolgirl whose appetites were insatiable around men of a certain age. The client was a high roller and an important figure in the government – that’s all she’d been told, which was more than sufficient, given the amount she would earn for a few hours of misery with the loathsome toad. For her it didn’t matter – after a thousand similar transactions, this was merely a mechanical chore that required every bit of her acting skill to keep convincing.
The man withdrew a small metal container from his jacket pocket and opened it as Annika absently massaged a buttock beneath her plaid schoolgirl skirt. He set it on the table, removed a steel tube, and dumped a mound of white powder on the marble top. Annika didn’t blink – drugs were a routine part of the job, and if they were offered, she would gladly join the client in consuming them. Anything that would numb what was to come was welcome, be it liquor or dope, although she’d already fortified herself chemically before the client had arrived and was already in a dreamy state of narcotic bliss that made the job easier for her.
The client slid a credit card from his pocket and crafted four lines from the pile, only tearing his eyes from Annika for the time necessary to attend to his task. When he finished, he held up the tube in invitation.
“You want some?” he asked.
“What is?” Annika replied, swaying to the music.
“Pharmaceutical grade coke and skag. My own special mixture. Just enough heroin to soften the buzz.”
“Mmm. I’ve never done this,” Annika lied.
“It’s like heaven,” the client assured her, and leaned over the table to snort two of the lines.
The powder disappeared up the tube, and he leaned back and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing from the effort. After a few moments he sighed contentedly and then motioned to Annika. “Come on. You’ll love it. It’s smooth – like velvet.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don’t do the drugs.”
The client gave her a wolfish grin and nodded. “Then I’m corrupting you.”
Annika knew better than to push her act past the point of credibility, and offered him a smile of her own as she teetered over to the table on cartoonishly high heels, her unsteadiness as contrived as her hair color. A gymnast who lacked the talent to be competitive, Annika had been recruited by a criminal syndicate in the Ukraine and shipped to Moscow. She owed her appetite for drugs and freedom to a stepfather who’d molested her regularly from the ripe age of thirteen. Her awkwardness with her outfit was part of the performance the client was paying for; wanting a healthy tip, she would pretend to be right off the boat and unfamiliar with the trappings of her trade.
She sat on a cushion beside the client, accepted the tube, and hesitantly inhaled one of the lines. Her eyes teared almost immediately as the heroin burned her sinuses, and she set the tube down on the table and shook her head.
“That’s…that’s strong. One is enough for my size,” she said. “I am only little girl.”
The client nodded and smiled, his eyes skittish. “More for me,” he said, and did the final line.
Annika dabbed at her nose with her fingers, waiting for the burn to subside. She knew from smoking heroin what to expect, and hoped that the mixture was light enough that she wouldn’t vomit. The discomfort in her nose began to fade as the buzz of the cocaine hit, energizing her with a burst of euphoric adrenaline, and she giggled and gave the client a shy smile.
The man put a clammy hand on one of her bare thighs and leaned into her, his breath heavy with cognac. “Daddy hears you’ve been very bad, lil’ darlin’.”
Annika affected a pout. “Oh, I have. But I’m sorry. I can’t help the way I get.”
“I’m going to have to teach you a lesson,” he said, fondling her leg.
“I promise I won’t do it again,” Annika protested, staying in character.
The client looked over at the four-poster bed, silk ties already cinched into place at the corners. “But you must be disciplined. Punished for your thoughts.”
Annika batted her eyes and nodded mutely. From here it would be straightforward bondage, she knew. The client would insist on tying her up, Annika would comply, he would tease her with the toys she had placed on the nightstand, and then he would consummate. When they were done, he might or might not have the will to go another round, typically with the roles reversed, where he was bound and she tempted him to the point of no return. It was a common fantasy with her clients: where she was entirely powerless and subjugated by them, the scenario all the more compelling because of her tender years.
The man struggled to his feet and led Annika to the bed, where she dutifully unbuckled his belt and dropped his slacks, all the while maintaining the expression of innocent fear she’d rehearsed in the mirror for hours in order to convey just the right level of subjugation.
The client groaned and tilted his head back as the drugs kicked in, and Annika went to work. After three minutes of fruitless effort, she paused and eyed him. “Is problem with me?” she asked.
He shook his head and retrieved a small vial from his shirt pocket. He unscrewed the top and inhaled deeply, eyes closed as the amyl nitrate fumes dilated his circulatory system, enabling blood to flow where required. After a long final huff, he replaced the top and motioned for Annika to resume her ministrations, his face a mask of tense anticipation.
The drug worked its magic and soon he was rigid, eyes hungry as he bound Annika spread-eagle to the bedposts. She pretended to struggle, but only a little, to add to the illusion that she was being restrained against her will.
When he finished lashing her wrists, she whispered in a small voice, “Don’t hurt me too much.”
He gave her a cruel grin and stripped off his suit. Annika closed her eyes, the sight of his corpulent form repellent to her even though she’d serviced far worse. He set his clothes on the divan and lumbered to the bed, and then he was on top of her, grunting like a rooting hog as she gritted her teeth and moaned appropriately.
The first slap rang out like a rifle shot and snapped her head to the side. A red welt blossomed on her cheek, and her eyes popped open, nothing fake about the fear in them. “No,” she cried, but another blow silenced her and the client resumed his labor, his breathing a rasp in her ear.
Annika debated screaming, which would bring help, but decided against it due to the client’s power and prestige. She could take a few blows if the money was right. As long as he wasn’t using his fists, she’d endured worse for far less. Only when his hands wrapped around her neck and his pace increased did her instinct to cry out win over her greed. She tried to scream, but because he was choking her, all Annika managed was a muted groan.
She convulsed as consciousness slipped away, her thrashing at her bindings no longer an act as her lungs burned for air. The last thing Annika registered before her vision starburst and then faded to black was the painting of a bucolic landscape on the far wall, the faces of the peasants jolly as they went about their harvest.
Two minutes later the man’s back arched as he climaxed, and then he rolled from Annika, sweating and spent. He gasped for breath as he lay on his back, his chest rising and falling enough to shake the entire bed. Eventually he rolled toward her, wisps of silver hair askew, his body covered in perspiration from exertion and the rush of the drugs.
“That was amazing,” he said, eyelids clamped shut. When Annika didn’t answer, he glanced at her, his gaze unfocused. He blinked away sweat and squinted to better make her out, and recoiled in horror at her cyanotic complexion, blue lips, and eyes staring into eternity, the blood vessels ruptured to the point that her blue irises appeared to be floating in crimson.
He slapped her face, and when there was no reaction, tried pumping her chest in a clumsy attempt at CPR, but after thirty seconds he gave up and rolled off the bed. He cursed when he stubbed his toe on the way to the divan, and hurriedly donned his clothes. When he was dressed, he called out in a loud voice.
“Help! There’s been an accident. Help!”
When nobody came, he crossed the room, unlocked the door, and stuck his head into the hall. “Get somebody in here. There’s…there’s a problem,” he called to the woman seated beneath a painting at the far end of the corridor.
“Problem? What kind of problem?” the woman asked, rising and hurrying toward him.
“I…she’s not breathing,” he whispered, his eyes wild.
The woman raised a tiny radio to her lips and murmured into it. Footsteps sounded from the stairs at a run, and a tall man in a black windbreaker appeared. They pushed past the client into the room and froze. After a long beat, the man moved to Annika and felt for a pulse, his face impassive as he took in the contusions on her neck. He looked up at the woman and shook his head. Her lips hardened into a thin line and she turned to the customer with a flinty stare.
The client’s mouth worked like a beached fish. “I…we were…she wanted to be…she begged to be…but…I didn’t think…I didn’t mean…”
The woman nodded to the man in the windbreaker and addressed the client. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of everything.” She looked to the man. “Get him out of here.”
The client appeared to be in shock. “I…I’ll pay whatever it takes…” he sputtered.
She considered him, her face a blank. “We’ll be in touch with a bill. Now please, get going. We have work to do.”
The man escorted the client from the room, and the woman eyed Annika with a grim expression. “Jesus…” she whispered, shaking her head.
After checking her watch, she moved to the painting and spoke directly to it. “You got all of that, I presume?”
Her radio crackled. “Yes.”
“Get someone here to clean this up,” she snapped, and then moved to the door, feeling for her cell phone in her pocket.
Down the hall, a pair of men sat in front of a bank of monitors, their complexions pale and drawn. The one nearest the door looked to his companion and shook his head. “What a nightmare. Although talk about getting leverage…”
“He frigging murdered her on camera, dude,” the other said, his voice tight. “He killed her, and we just sat here and watched.”
“Our job isn’t to interrupt. It’s to capture activity. You don’t like the gig, talk to the boss.”
“But he –”
“What he did or didn’t do is none of our business. We’re just the hired help. The less we have to say about it, the better.”
His partner nodded slowly. Neither of them had ever seen someone die in one of the rooms, and it had shocked them, even though they’d watched every imaginable sort of depravity on a daily basis.
The radio crackled to life on the console in front of them. “Shut off the camera,” the woman ordered.
“10-4,” the first man said.
“I’ll be in for the footage in a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Roger that.”
The men exchanged a glance, and the first rose and moved to a hard disk recording system, his face hard. The other rose and stood by the door, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps while the first went to work, every passing second increasing their risk.
A minute later the woman burst through the door to find both technicians seated at the console. She eyed the bank of monitors, where a variety of sexual acts were in progress, and tapped a worried finger on her cell. “A cleaning crew will be here within the hour. Until then, I want you to stay on the premises. I’m locking this place down as of now.” She exhaled in frustration and fixed the men with a hard stare. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if a word of this leaks, do I?”
They shook their heads in unison. She nodded slowly, her eyes slits.
“Good. Now go to the kitchen and get yourselves some drinks. I’d say you’ve earned it.”
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Table of Contents
Books by Russell Blake
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Excerpt from A Girl Betrayed
A Girl Apart Page 28