by Stella Noir
I mean, I went to school with kids whose parents owned regular businesses or had legitimate government positions, but to be honest, I always felt sorry for them. They didn’t have the advantages that I had, they didn’t have the skills that I had, they didn’t have the experiences that I had.
By the time I was twelve years old I could bring any man twice my size to the ground within seconds. I never really used many of the fighting skills I had been taught as I was growing up, but with the knowledge I had I wasn’t afraid of anyone. No one but my father, that is.
We were so immersed in the business as we grew up that my brother and I didn’t even need to ask a single question when we started the training on the girls. We knew exactly what to do, and we thought we were the luckiest guys in the world. None of our friends, not a single one, had an underground wine cavern filled with sex slaves. Who the hell would ever imagine that something like that even existed?
But slowly over the last few years, a feeling of unease started spreading through me. None of it was satisfying in any way anymore. Yes, I still fucked the girls regularly, but it was more a release than anything. I was just fucking a hole to get off. And it was hard to say no to an unlimited number of warm holes that were just a few hundred feet away and would do anything I wanted any way that I wanted it.
At one point my father seemed to notice that I was starting to become antsy and disinterested in that part of the business and he started actually setting me up with daughters from appropriate families that I could marry. Apparently there was something special about these families because Brooklyn Pierce didn’t seem to be on the list.
I was pretty sure it had to do with connections and who had the most power. I’m sure that whoever my father chose for me to marry was somehow connected with one of the higher powered mafia families. I imagined it was his way of ensuring our good standing in the community. I wasn’t even remotely interested in any of the girls my father suggested so I tried to feign a little more interest in the business just to get him off my back.
My father had no idea of the extent of my unhappiness with this lifestyle, though. And I had no intention of ever telling him. I figured this was my lot in life. I had no choice but to keep up the traditions and the honor of this family. It was my responsibility because I was the oldest son.
But now Brooklyn had thrown a wrench the size of a house into the whole operation. Not only was her presence making it impossible for me to move forward with my orders, but she was making me question everything. I had been pretty happy not caring one iota about what happened to the trainees after they moved on to their new home. But now ….
I walked over to the monitors. I didn’t want to spy on her I just wanted to make sure that she was doing okay, but when I flipped on the monitor for my personal training room where I had left her the first thing I heard were the sobs. Then I saw what he was doing to her.
“That mother fucking bastard!”
I unlocked the door and pushed it open then walked across the room, grabbed Lucas by the shirt and threw him up against the wall. Brooklyn was still sobbing and screaming for Lucas to stop over and over. I wanted to cover her and put my arms around her but all I could think about just then was smearing my brother’s smug face all over the stone floor.
He started to get up on his knees after he bounced off the wall and hit the floor but I was right on top of him. I flipped him over so that he was lying on the ground and looking up at me and I was furious to see that he had a goddamn smile on his face. I don’t know why I didn’t expect it, I guess I still wanted to believe that there was a shred of decency in him. But I was wrong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Lucas? Why couldn’t you just keep your hands off of her? What the hell are you trying to prove?”
With every question that I shouted at him, I slammed his head into the ground and wrapped my hands tighter around his throat, but with every question and every slam he just laughed harder and harder. I finally let go of his throat and punched him in the face until he stopped that infernal laughter and the only thing coming out of his mouth was a stream of blood.
“I don’t know what you thought you were doing, but it’s over, Lucas. As far as I’m concerned I don’t have a brother. You’re a sick piece of shit and you belong in a goddamn cage. I’m going to take Brooklyn back up to my house and I’m going to train her up there, and as far as I’m concerned you can go to hell. If you set foot in my house or you talk to Dad about any of my business behind my back, I will kill you.”
“You don’t have the guts,” Lucas said as he spit some blood out of his mouth.
“Just try me,” I said, my whole body shaking with fury.
“It looks like there’s only one man around here with any guts. I just made your girlfriend come all over the floor over there and I have a feeling I’m the only one of us that is ever going to be able to make that claim,” he said as he started laughing again. “You can’t even touch the goddamned princess!”
I kicked him in the side and he grabbed his stomach and rolled over, and then just laid there.
I turned back to where Brooklyn was on the bed and a whole new wave of anger flooded my veins. I walked over to the bed where she was still crying and shaking and I unbuckled the cuffs on her legs, then lowered them down to the floor. Then I cut the ties on her wrists and grabbed a blanket from one of the antique cabinets and wrapped it around her.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” she said with a quiver in her voice.
“Shhh, Brooklyn, it’s okay. I’m taking you back up to the house,” I said as I turned her over and brushed the hair out of her face. She wouldn’t look me in the eye and I could tell that she was beyond humiliated and furious.
“Get away from me, Adrian. Just leave me alone.”
“I’m not going to just leave you down here, Brooklyn. Please don’t argue with me,” I said as I wrapped the blanket all the way around her and picked her up. Another sob came out of her throat like she knew that she was defeated and she curled up into a ball in my arms.
When we got up to her room, I kicked the door shut and locked it, then set her down on the bed and crawled in next to her.
“Get the hell out of here, Adrian. I don’t want you in here. I don’t want you anywhere near me. Just leave me alone,” she said as she turned over so that her back was to me.
“No. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to leave you alone. It’s my fault that this happened. I should’ve never put you back down there.”
I wrapped my arms around Brooklyn and held her as she sobbed. I couldn’t just leave her. I knew I was someone that deserved her hatred and that I was probably the last person that should be attempting to comfort her, but I just couldn’t leave her alone after all she had been through.
I brought her tissues and let her cry until she was exhausted and her body had stopped heaving with sobs. Then I combed her hair with my fingers and buried my face in its softness while I gently kissed her head. Eventually, her breathing became normal again and she started to talk to me.
“Adrian … I just don’t understand,” she said as she turned around to face me. “How can you do this? What your brother did to me … It was horrible. I was so humiliated and felt so violated. He just took what he wanted without any regard for me at all. And you do that too. How?”
“Yes, I’ve done it before. All of it. For years I thought … well, I thought I was carrying out a family tradition. It’s one of the ways we’ve recouped potential losses in my family for generations.”
“Abusing women and then selling them for men to use as sex slaves? That’s your family’s tradition?”
“Collecting on debts is my family’s tradition. Loaning money, making money, collecting … those are the things that have made my family what it is.”
“So your family is part of the mafia?”
“No … my family … my father is very gifted. He was taught by his father and grandfather how to take money and make it into more money then you c
ould even imagine. We don’t steal money, we don’t blackmail people, we don’t threaten anyone for protection. We don’t do any of those things that the mafia is known for.
What we do is take money that other people have made and we invest it in incredibly creative and lucrative ways. And because of that, we have always worked very closely with a lot of organized crime. But not just the mafia and not just in the Western world. My family does business all over the world, with all types of businesses and organizations and governments.
What makes us different is that we have enough connections and constant cash flow that we’re able to lend larger amounts of money than most mobsters. So when someone with special needs comes to us we’re able to accommodate just about any request. But because we’re dealing with some pretty dangerous clientele, we have to be competitive. We have to make sure that they know that we’re serious. We can’t let any debt slide.
I’ve talked to my father about you and he has absolutely no interest in making an exception. He sees you as part of a transaction and that’s it. If your father can’t get us the money that he owes within six months then you will be sold in lieu of that money.
And, I am sorry to have to tell you this, Brooklyn, but it doesn’t look very good at all. Your father is still requesting the same amount from us for this next month. So if he’s still borrowing, chances are he has no way of paying it back.”
“And I have no say in this whatsoever. It’s as if this isn’t even my life. All this time I thought that I was me, this person with my own thoughts and feelings and free will and now I come to find that that’s not true at all. I’m just a possession of my father’s that your family is taking and selling so that I become a possession of some stranger. That’s insane, Adrian. I’m a person! You can’t do this to me!”
“I’m going to get you out of here, Brooklyn. I promise you, I won’t put you back in the training grounds and I won’t let my father complete the transaction. I stupidly thought I could keep you from my brother but now I know that I was wrong. He’s beyond fucked-up. He has no soul left and I know if I stay here I’m headed down that same path.”
“Are you going to leave too?”
“I don’t know. I probably will have to disappear if I get you out of here.”
“Why? Your father won’t just let you leave the business?”
“No, that’s not an option.”
“He won’t let you go?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure if I were to tell him that I wanted to leave the family business I’d be in the same boat as you.”
“What makes you say that? Do you think your father would hurt you?”
“He killed his own brother for doing the same thing that I’m talking about doing.”
“His brother tried to set a girl free?”
“Yes, in fact, it was almost the exact same situation as with Lucas and me. My uncle was in love with one of the girls that had been brought in and when he tried to make arrangements to have her moved to a hidden location, my father killed him and eventually married the girl.”
“So, wait, that girl was your mother?”
“Yes.”
“But, that doesn’t make sense. That means that she did wind up going free. So why did your dad kill his own brother?”
“I didn’t say what he did made sense, Brooklyn. I’m saying, I don’t think my father would let me get away with it. My father is very shrewd and relentless. When he makes his mind up about something he doesn’t back down.
For a long time, I didn’t understand where Lucas got his sadistic nature and his lust for torture because I hadn’t actually seen what my father was really capable of. I think I was just blindly wanting to believe that my father was an honorable man. That he was following in his family’s footsteps and carrying on the tradition the way I was. I guess it’s the only way that I could justify my own involvement. But for a while now I’ve started to think they’re both a couple of psychopaths.
And now that my father has Lucas to do all of his killing for him he doesn’t have to get his own hands dirty. I honestly don’t think my life would be worth a single cent to him if I went against his orders. And I really wouldn’t want to stick around to find out.”
I stared into Brooklyn’s eyes for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. I wanted so badly to touch her, to have my arms around her, but I was afraid of what that would mean for both of us. I was no good for her and so far all I had brought her was pain.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. My father is away for quite a while. He’s doing business in multiple countries and traveling with my mother along the way.”
“Then why don’t we just leave now. Why don’t we just walk out the front door and drive away?”
“Well, for one thing, this villa is surrounded by armed guards. And I need to get some money together if I’m going to get you out of here. I can’t charge your escape on the family credit cards.”
“But you said your family has tons of money.”
“We do, but the money is all in different accounts. Hundreds of them all over the world. My name is on most of them but I can’t just make a multi-million dollar withdrawal without raising suspicion. I have some money stashed away in the safe in my office, but I’m going to need a hell of a lot more if we’re both going to need it to survive. I’m going to start moving smaller increments to a new account tomorrow. It’ll take some time, but it’s the only way I can think of to get the kind of money we both need.”
“So do you think he’ll stay away long enough?”
“He should be gone for at least another month. I just have to hope that Lucas is smart enough to leave this alone.”
“I heard you tell him that you would kill him if he said anything.”
“I know. What he did was wrong and unforgivable, but I never want to be in a position where I would have to threaten my own family again. I don’t like the person I’ve become. I want to be free of all this, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”
“Of course, it will,” Brooklyn said as she looked into my eyes and reached up and touched my face. Her eyes looked so kind and in that moment I felt my body relax. I could see that she didn’t completely hate me, that maybe she even trusted me a little bit and I was incredibly relieved.
Brooklyn
I woke up with sunlight streaming through the window and into my eyes. I was surprised to still find Adrian in my bed, his arms wrapped around the blanket that covered my naked body. I turned toward him and realized that he was still asleep. He was still in his clothes with the bedspread pulled over him, and he had his arm over me like he was protecting me, even while we slept.
I watched his face as he continued to sleep. He looked so sweet and peaceful and I couldn’t understand how the man in front of me - the one I had fallen in love with on the beach so many years ago - was the same man that kept women prisoner below his house.
I didn’t understand how he could do what he did to all of those girls. For years, he did to many girls what his brother did to me last night. Not caring about the screaming and crying and the pain that was being inflicted. I can’t even fathom what those girls went through at his hands.
I looked at his sleeping face and wanted to feel anger but all I felt was sadness and I just couldn’t hate him. I hated what he had done but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling the feelings that had been inside me all these years. And while he slept it seemed like the real Adrian was right in front of me. The face that I was staring at was not that of an evil man. He looked almost as innocent as a child.
Lucas was another story, though. The thought of what he did to me made me sick and I hated him for violating me like that while I begged him to stop. But more than anything, I hated that he made me come.
I had never experienced anything like that before. I’d had orgasms while I was with different guys that I had dated and I had made myself gush by using a vibrator when I was by myself, but I had never
experienced both of those things together with a man before.
I thought it was something special and personal and that when I found the right guy we would experience it together. I was so angry that Lucas had taken that experience away from me. Now I would always have the memory of that horrible time, tied to the bed with him penetrating me with his fingers against my will.
But what I also found disturbing were my thoughts about Adrian while I was with Lucas. I kept thinking to myself that if it had been Adrian doing those things to me it would have been okay. That was the only thing that helped me get through it. It scared me to think that I might love him that much, still, after everything I knew about him.
I reached up and touched Adrian’s stubbly cheek and ran my fingers along his jawline. I watched his eyes flutter open and happiness spread over them, and then a smile moved across the rest of his face.
“Brooklyn,” he said as he reached up and touched my cheek. We stayed like that for a while, just staring into each other’s eyes and touching each other. I think that neither one of us could believe what was happening. It was like we were back on the beach.
When we were together that summer we spent a lot of time like this. Even though we had grown very close, we never kissed back then and I always wondered what it would be like to be with him.
Actually, that’s not true. I always believed that everything would be perfect with Adrian. That our bodies would move together in absolute synchronicity. That every touch of his would melt me to my core until it felt like there was no separation between us at all.
I ran my fingers over the sharp edges of his perfectly defined lips, then I slowly touched them with mine. At first, I was afraid of what he was thinking of me and of my own feelings. He watched me like he couldn’t believe what I was doing. But maybe he was as scared as I was about what all this would mean for the two of us.
I wondered what it was like for him to shut himself off as he was training the girls. I couldn’t imagine not wanting this feeling of intimacy. I hadn’t had it very much myself, especially since I was always comparing every guy that I dated with my idealized version of Adrian. And now that I had it back again I didn’t want it to go away. Even though Adrian wasn’t the perfect picture I had painted of him in my mind, I didn’t want him to go away.