The Masterful Russian
Cordelia Gregory
Published by Blushing Books
An Imprint of
ABCD Graphics and Design, Inc.
A Virginia Corporation
977 Seminole Trail #233
Charlottesville, VA 22901
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©2020
All rights reserved.
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No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The trademark Blushing Books is pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
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Cordelia Gregory
The Masterful Russian
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Amazon ISBN: 978-1-64563-529-1
B&N ISBN: 978-1-64563-599-4
Kobo ISBN: 978-1-64563-600-7
Apple ISBN: 978-1-64563-601-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-64563-530-7
Audio ISBN: 978-1-64563-531-4
v2
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Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
Contents
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
Cordelia Gregory
Blushing Books
Blushing Books Newsletter
ARC EDITION
For Review Purposes Only
May not be shared or disseminated in any way
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The Masterful Russian
By
Cordelia Gregory
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©2020 by Blushing Books® and Cordelia Gregory
Chapter 1
Refugee Camp, Marzello, Southern Coast of Italy
Adalina Morelli shook her head and stood up from the long thin camp bed in the tent. She stared at the young woman sitting on the opposite bed dressed in a Burqa holding a small five-year-old girl who was crying in her arms. Next to her was a quiet thirteen-year-old girl with a black hijab around her head. There were tears locked in her dark brown eyes but she did not shed any of them. The young woman removed her arm from around the small child and put it around the teenager’s shoulders and squeezed them to give comfort.
Adalina put her hands on her hips feeling pity swell inside her for the two girls. No matter how many times she saw children and the people in the refugee camp suffering, she couldn’t become hard to it. She had tried to place her feeling of hopelessness at a distance but it always reared its head and threatened to interfere with her aid work. Now it was affecting her better judgment and penetrating the cold armour she had placed around herself to get the job done. What the undercover journalist was asking to be able to do was either an act of courage or perhaps on reflection, stupidity. Either way, Adalina couldn’t help but admire her bravery and determination. She genuinely wanted to help the woman succeed in her quest but the danger was immense. It could kill them both. The journalist needed to understand sacrifices had to be made so others could be saved.
She threw her hands up in the air in defeat when she looked at the faces of the girls and made every effort to harden her heart but it was getting harder and harder to do. She said to the young journalist, “You shouldn’t be here. I can’t protect you. If they find out who you really are, they will kill you. They don’t call this refugee camp ‘The Hole’ for nothing. All forms of low life exist here among the innocent. There is even talk about IS operatives in here. People get swallowed up and disappear. They won’t take kindly to a journalist living among them and reporting what they see. I shouldn’t be letting you do this but, damn it, I need people to know what is going on here.”
Adalina rubbed her tired face. The young woman stared back at her with sparkling green eyes but said nothing. The only communication she received in return was a nod. There was no moving her stubbornness and resolve to put her life at risk. She was going to stay in the camp to protect the two girls she had befriended and to get the story she wanted to tell the world about the refugees.
“You still have the number I gave you to contact me if you need anything?” Adalina checked trying to ease her fear for the woman. “Good. I could lose my job for this. Don’t use the toilets in the wash block. They are overflowing. Use the field. And for God’s sake don’t drink water from the tap here. I will get you some more bottled water. Yesterday the camp amenity workers were checking the outside taps and found traces of E-coli and Coliform present. If the men in this camp don’t get you, the water will.”
If anything happened to the journalist it would be on Adalina’s head as manager of the camp. It hadn’t been her idea to let her in but the aid team she worked with encouraged it. They needed all the help they could get in exposing the truth of what went on in the camp and Adalina’s hand had been forced. There had been too many deaths and this one could be avoided. She was turning her mind back to marching the woman out of the camp but those two girls kept staring at her pleading with her sympathy, her humanity. If the journalist left they would be unprotected as orphans. Their fate would be unknown. Adalina would never sleep at night again.
“I will check in on you in another couple of days. By then you might have all the time you needed to find the lead on all these missing women refugees your source spoke to you about. You have been in here a week already. I dare not risk any more than another couple of days. You have already been attacked. I don’t want your rape or death on my conscience. So many women in here live in fear of being attacked as it has happened so many times. I cannot guarantee your safety…”
“I understand,” the English journalist’s voice was calm and even when she spoke. “When this is over I need…”
Adalina thrust her hand up to halt her speech and nodded.
“I will help you get the girls out when you leave.” Adalina meant it. They wouldn’t survive if she didn’t. “Just be careful.”
Adalina turned and unzipped the tent. She didn’t look back. The sight of the two pitiful girls was too haunting an image to keep returning to. Outside she straightened her slightly bent form to stand next to her armed male companion, grimacing when a long black shape scuttled over her booted foot.
“The rats are running free in here,” her companion moaned. “I have been watching them.”
Adalina sighed feeling the overwhelming hopelessness of the situation. The situation was out of control and the camp overrun. They were drowning and something had to be done. A pungent smell of decaying sweat clung to the warm air amidst the burning of the small camp fires between the lines a thousand dirty white tents covered in wet washing vainly trying to dry in the damp humid atmosphere. A group of men were smoking and drinking lying around one of the fires on the camp beds they had dragged out from inside their tents. Adalina frowned.
“She still won’t leave?” her companion asked gesturing his head towards the tent.
Adalina shook her head. The man sighed and took another puff of his cigarette.
“On her own head be it then,” he said dropping the butt and stubbing it out with his foot.
They star
ted to walk away, back to the safety of the outside world when they stopped dead in their tracks hearing the terror of a woman’s scream echoing loudly through the camp. It was accompanied by the wailing of children and the shouting of men. Horrified they both stared at each other and took off in the direction of the terrified howl of pain. Adalina called for security on her mobile.
After what seemed like an age they finally reached the source of the scream. A group of men and women were shouting for help and clearly distressed.
“They have taken my wife and our older daughter. They are taking the women. Help us, help us,” a man frantically shook Adalina’s arm.
Adalina’s eyes widened. This was what the journalist had requested her permission to investigate. The numerous disappearances of women in the camp who she believed were being trafficked into Europe and to the IS for slavery and brides
At the end of the row of tents she saw the young journalist standing quietly watching with her narrowed green eyes. She must have followed them. Strangely, Adalina felt comforted by her presence. Someone from the outside was finally seeing what was happening in these camps, in her camp. Europe and the rest of the world needed to know the horror they were dealing with and the appalling conditions the refugees were being forced to live in. She let out the angry tense breath she had been holding. The burden wouldn’t just be hers alone to bear anymore. The whole world would be forced to take responsibility for these people along with her and understand the action she had been forced to take to help as many people as she could.
She looked back at the English journalist knowing she would have heard every word. The young woman tilted her head in acknowledgement and stepped back into the shadows to continue her investigation.
Chapter 2
Underground United Global Defence Detention Centre, Docklands, London, UK
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Handsome Russian born, Gabriel Malinov, secret agent for United Global Defence, softly closed the door of the detention room behind him and replaced his surgeon’s mask over his mouth. The confined space in the windowless room was filled with the breathless sounds of a handcuffed woman mewling against her leather ball gag as two suited men also wearing surgeon’s masks cut her summer dress away from her body.
Malinov’s tall figure was dressed immaculately in an expensive dark grey designer suit that clung to his lean athletic muscled body demonstrating its perfection. He dominated the small room with his presence as he folded his arms and stood watching the men finish the task he had set them when he had brought the woman in for questioning. He glanced at the long window on the back wall disguised as a mirror knowing his work was being viewed and nodded to those on the other side who could not be seen.
He watched one of the men slip the blade of the knife up underneath the strap of her flimsy white bra and cut it away with force before turning his attention to the straps over her shoulders. It was not the agent’s intention to frighten the woman into giving him the essential information he needed to save lives, it was more to persuade her. He knew she was no stranger to male dominance. Her terrorist boyfriend ensured she lived in a strict domestic discipline relationship and she was more than happy to be the obedient woman he needed both in the privacy of his bedroom and in front of his men. The scene of being stripped naked and punished during her interrogation was careful, safe, and well planned. She would not be hurt or experience anything she had not already been party to with her boyfriend. Instead, the interrogation would walk the boundaries between pleasure, pain and embarrassment and provoke an unexpected arousal and humiliation that would unravel his captive. Therein lay the chance she would betray the information while at the mercy of a more powerful dominant than her murderous boyfriend. Gabriel detested torture and didn’t find it an effective tool especially where female suspects were concerned. There were much better methods of getting what he wanted from them.
The agent pulled the bra away from her body allowing her small pert breasts to bounce and quiver free onto her chest. Paying them no admiring glances, the second agent moved his own knife up under the sides of her bikini panties, snapping the thin straps so that they dropped to the ground around her red and white sandal stilettos. With a loud horrified groan against the gag, she bent her head to stare at the tantalising neatly shaven triangle between her legs, her bright hazel eyes wide with shock. She struggled furiously to free her hands from behind her back so she could cover herself. The futile action and her reaction made Gabriel’s lips curl in a devilish smile. He had the woman right where he wanted her. Now to persuade her to reveal the truth.
He approached the men standing on either side of her, each holding one of her arms appearing unimpressed by her nakedness. They were handpicked for the task and gay.
“Remove the handcuffs and the gag. Hold her arms above her head,” he ordered in a firm voice betraying his Russian accent.
He stood before the woman’s smaller form as she fought the men the moment her hands were freed.
“Struggling will do you no good, Lana. Tell me where your boyfriend and the rest of the group are and where they are planning the attack. Then this will all be over,” he spoke in English.
Lana cursed and twisted her pretty features with disgust before spitting at him. Raising one dark eyebrow, Gabriel stepped out of the way to avoid it.
“Now. Now. That temper will not get you anywhere,” he told her in mocking tones while wagging his finger.
“Don’t talk to me like I am a child,” she shouted at him prompting Gabriel to roughly grip her chin and lean in close to her face. The agent lowered his surgeon’s mask.
“Why not when you behave like one.”
The Russian twisted Lana’s face roughly to one side and whispered in her ear.
“I know exactly how to persuade you to reveal the truth, kotyonok. I am very skilled at it.”
He felt her shiver as his breath caressed her ear. She closed her eyes, tightening her features for a second and then opened them again carving them with determination.
“You can torture me all you like, but I will not tell you anything.”
Malinov gave a small chuckle making her naked body visibly tremble. He moved even closer to her so this time, the neatly trimmed facial hair around his mouth and jawline seductively brushed against her pale cheek. He smiled triumphantly when he heard her gasp as they made physical contact.
“Oh, I think you will. I never give up.”
Gabriel swept his eyes over her body appreciating its female form and shape, the gentle slope of her hips and the swell of each breast. Simply because he could, he lightly brushed the backs of his fingers down the side of her body enjoying the softness of her pale skin. He heard her whimper and moan with surprised pleasure as he bent his head watching the progress of his hand along the curve of one breast and down the side of her stomach, allowing it to come to a rest on her hip.
“I think we should get started,” he said. “We will begin with an intimate examination to see what methods of persuasion will be most suitable for you. Then I will whip you and we can see how you feel after that,” he smiled, roughly letting go of her chin so her face jerked further to the side.
Gabriel replaced his mask around his mouth and walked to the side of the room to a medical trolley. He picked up some cream-colored latex gloves from it
“Lift her onto the table and hold her down,” he instructed.
“No. No. You can’t do this.”
The two men dragged Lana to a long table in the middle of the room and lifted her up onto it with her back resting on the cold, hard, shiny black surface. Gabriel snapped on the latex gloves and approached. The two men said nothing as they held Lana down by her shoulders, pinning her arms above her head on the table.
Gabriel bent over her and brushed her cheek with his latex covered finger while watching her struggle.
“Are you ready to tell me where Save the Planet are planning their terrorist attack? We know it is going to be today, here in London at the start of the E
nvironmental conference but we don’t know where or exactly when. You are going to help us with that.”
“No fucking way. We are going to make a statement to the world about climate change. People will really sit up and listen after this.”
He continued stroking her cheek.
“I find it interesting you talk about Saving the Planet and how noble you are but you don’t care about anyone on it. Are you really prepared to kill innocent people just to get your message across? It seems to defeat your purpose and your cause. No one is going to support you after this.”
“They will. We have no choice. No one is listening to us. The planet is dying. Drastic measures are needed to make the world sit up and listen before it is too late. We plan to…”
“Yes, go on.”
“No way. I won’t fall for your tricks. I have said enough. You won’t get anything else out of me. Do your fucking worst.”
The Russian grinned down at her underneath his surgeon’s mask.
“So be it. But I guarantee you will be wanting to give me the information very soon.”
He turned his head to look down at her chest rising and falling quickly with anxiety and removed his finger from her cheek. The agent swept his eyes over her breasts and cupped both of them. He tightened his grip around them and painfully squeezed them hard, lifting them to force the globes back up her chest. Lana gave a small squeal that was quickly followed by a breathless moan when he repeated the action then clamped her mouth shut tight.
The Masterful Russian (The Masterful Series) Page 1