by Black, Paula
“You need to speak with him, Mariya. Dante is manipulating all of us.”
“No need for words.” She shook her head, her bouncy blonde ponytail at odds with her hard expression. “I have no brother. Dante has made me rich. He will die soon, then this will all be over, and I will have the new life he promised me.”
“You’re wrong, Mariya. Your brother came back to Dante, because of you. He believed you were in danger.”
“You shut up now, slut. I have work to do. Don’t make me put the gag back in.”
I ground my molars. Why the hell was I even trying? Konstantyn had given me up to Dante, he’d abandoned the chance to rescue all the other suffering souls down here, and for what? This ungrateful bitch?
He’d given in so easily to his mentor. He’d kissed the son of a bitch, drunk vodka with him, asked to be in on my rape and torture. He’d betrayed Gracie without missing a heartbeat. I’d heard the muffled shots as he killed her.
Sure, he’d warned me Dante would make him choose, but that didn’t make it any less hard to stomach just how easily he’d cast me off. Maybe Mariya had the right of it. Perhaps he had abandoned his family, just as he abandoned me.
Faithful unto death.
Had he been planning to sell me out to Dante all along? In exchange for his life, perhaps? Or his sister’s?
I thought back to the audition, how he’d singled me out from all the other talent, chased me down the street, and lured me back to his apartment. That phone call he took. It had been Dante on the other end of the line. I knew it. Had my instincts been correct? Had they been plotting to take me even then? A trade, me for Mariya. Except I ran, and he pursued me, and only that I’d called the police… Christ, I’d bought right into that ‘dirty cop’ bullshit, when mild-mannered Oliver Dalton was the last person I could imagine dabbling in occult sadism. He’d come to try and help me, and I’d sent him away.
But what about Konstantyn’s injuries, and all the intimacies we’d shared? Not just physical either. He’d opened up about his past, and so had I. Some things were hard to fake, and even now, I couldn’t fit them as lies.
He’s trained to lie, you fool.
A horrible thought struck me. Had he been using me, all along, to get to Gracie? Dante had a weakness in his organisation, and I’d led Konstantyn right to her.
But he stopped Dante before he could beat the name from you. The others wanted to rape you, there and then. He stopped them. It was a familiar voice, the same second-chance persuasion that had seen me forgive my mother a thousand disappointments, when all along I’d known the truth.
I was a gullible fool.
Thinking about Konstantyn, and his part in all this, made me sick to my core, when I needed all my strength to survive what was coming.
Mariya gripped my ankle and used it to split my thighs, hauling me roughly and suddenly out of my scrunch against the wall. She wiped at me with the hot cloth in a place I hadn’t been expecting it.
I yelped and she sighed, avoiding my other leg when I kicked out in shocked mortification, but it didn’t deter her. Slathering on a white foam from a small aerosol can in her pack, Mariya had no qualms about touching me, and the more I thrashed, the more she basted me.
“Hold still,” she huffed, her fingers vising on my ankle as I squirmed.
Nothing was going to make me stay still. Whatever she was trying to do, I wanted no part of it. I wanted her hands off me and I wanted to be alone again.
She took out a straight razor.
“Hold still or I will cut you.”
My eyes peeled wide as everything clicked into place.
No. She wasn’t going to… she was. Finally, she had me completely immobile. She was going to shave me.
And she did, thoroughly and embarrassingly, and my face was flaming by the time she wiped the razor off in the bowl and dabbed a light oil between my thighs.
By then, I’d stopped fighting. There was no use. Whatever Mariya wanted to do to me, she was going to do, and I got the sense she’d done this enough times before to know how to subdue me by force, or worse. She could drug me, and I didn’t want to be roused mid-whatever-the-fuck-they-were-going-to-do-to-me. If I was to have any chance of escaping this nightmare, I had to stay conscious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I was an idiot and this was my reward.
Trusting someone who’d made my instincts roar from the first meeting had led me right into the heart of what killed my little brother. Now I was stuck in a cell that had seen death, awaiting my own, and thinking about the asshole who had delivered me to it. Konstantyn had a cruel mouth. I never should have let myself believe the lies that came from it.
And what do you know? I spoke of the devil and the Ukrainian bastard appeared, striding in, looking none the worse for wear and smirking, with a gleam in his eyes that made my core temperature drop below freezing.
“There you are.” Konstantyn laughed and snatched the chain linking my wrists, hauling me out of my ball and up onto my feet. He fit the length of my body against his chest, his eyes settling on my face as that stupid, beautiful, hard mouth twisted in a sneer. “Oh, you’re afraid of me now? Not long ago you had your lips around my cock.”
I flushed with shame at the memory and when I looked away he laughed, his strong fingers grabbing my face and forcing me back to look at him.
I hated the sight of him.
If he hadn’t been gripping my jaw so firmly, I’d have told him just what I thought of him.
Konstantyn’s thumb stroked down my cheek and I flinched. He didn’t do more than that, but the memory of him comforting me just the same way not days ago fuelled my disgust.
“Answer me this. Do you want to live?”
He loosened his hold on my jaw so I could answer, but I couldn’t speak through the vicious swell of anger surging inside me. Hurt and humiliation caught at my tongue and I swallowed the bile rising up my throat.
My silence angered him, and the slap that cut across my face was startling, but weirdly devoid of pain. A powerful guy like him, I’d have expected him to hit hard, and yet my cheek didn’t even sting. It was just warm from the contact with his hand.
“You hit like a girl,” I spat.
Odd. Something he’d said to me at Gracie’s apartment rose to the surface of my mind like a bubble. I don’t hit women. Right.
He hitched me up by the chain, closer to his face.
“I said, do you want to live.” Not a question this time, his accent punctuated the words with a harshness that jolted me to respond.
I nodded jerkily. His jaw twitched and I stared into his eyes, willing the tears in mine not to overflow. I would not give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Again. I stared at him, and through my tears I almost missed his lips moving.
I’m sorry, he mouthed.
For a split second, Konstantyn looked just like Konstantyn, like a veil had been lifted and he was the man who had comforted me, who’d kissed me, who’d laughed because we liked the same kind of pizza. The one who’d taken a serious beating from the police to help me get away.
No. Those were lies, all lies. What did he want? Absolution for what he was about to do to me?
I blinked and his face was back to the terrifying mask of cruelty he’d entered with. Had I imagined his apology?
His hands were too warm on my clammy skin, and I squirmed. His brutal grip tightened on my jaw to keep me still, and I froze at the bite of pain that twisted around my wrists as he tugged at the attached chain.
He had me completely trapped. Any way I moved, he could hurt me, and my wrists were so raw, just flexing them sent bolts of stinging shock through my nerves.
Konstantyn’s face got close and as his eyes bored into me, no doubt searching for a fragment he could use to hurt me, I wanted to stab those pretty eyes right from his skull.
He’d find nothing. With my brother gone, I had nothing but my life left to lose.
He nodded, as though he’d found what he
was looking for, and a ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, like the phantoms of his victims, taunting me for my own stupidity.
“Smile for the camera, Neva.” He yanked my head around to the flashing red light mounted on the wall over his shoulder, but his eyes stayed on me, and I was drawn back to his gaze with a shudder of revulsion.
It would be witnessed. Everything would be witnessed.
Curling my lip at him, I didn’t let myself be fooled by the sudden drop of attitude in his face, didn’t let myself read into the shame and concern and sorrow that seemed to be crowding into the brown of his eyes.
An act, it’s an act.
But as I raked him with a despising glare, I caught on his mouth, and my heart flopped over again.
Play along, he worded silently.
If he was trying to mess with my head, he was doing a really good job.
Play along with what, his sick games? He was torturing me with the Jekyll and Hyde routine, and my confusion was on a level with my terror.
He leaned in so close, I felt his breath on my ear. “The boss is watching you, right now. Understand? This is the performance of your life, so you better fucking perform good.”
Play along. Perform. My brain was twitching, trying not to believe what it desperately wanted to: That I wasn’t alone. That he hadn’t betrayed me.
His eyes squeezed shut and the mask slipped again. Konstantyn looked distressed, his shoulders bunched and his chest inflating in a deep breath. He was bracing himself for what was to come, and that terrified me more than anything.
If it affected him this badly, how the hell was I supposed to weather it?
Whichever act was the real Konstantyn, it didn’t matter. I was still trapped, my stomach rebelling against what I would have to endure, because no matter if we were playing a part or not, there could be only one end to this.
“He wanted to do you personally,” Konstantyn purred, and I could see the shutters fall down, blocking out the man I knew, and replacing him with a vicious doppelganger.
His fingers stroked along my face and I reared back so hard, I twinged something in my spine. Konstantyn didn’t break, his rough hands keeping my face to the camera as the deep timbre of his accented voice thrummed against my ear, just loud enough to be heard by the recording device. “But I told him, after that pathetic excuse for a blow-job, you needed breaking in first. I’ll break you in good. Don’t you worry.”
My cheeks heated with shame. Insulting my sexual skills should have been the least of my worries, but my pride took a stab nonetheless, even as my fear ratcheted higher. “You make the boss happy, and maybe we’ll go easy on you.”
Oh God. How many times had I wished it had been me who’d died, and not Daniel? How many bargains had I made in my grief? Now it was real, my courage had deserted me.
A warm hand slipped down my spine as Konstantyn spun me to face the bed, and a bead of cold sweat followed the sensation, terror manifesting in my trembling body as I looked at the mattress.
How many gone before me had suffered through painful humiliation on this bed? How many had died, hopeless, alone, and in agony? My brother had been one of them.
I could only hope it would stop with me. If Dante got what he wanted, perhaps no one else would be tortured. But even that had the taste of a lie.
The crack of Konstantyn’s palm against my ass jerked me from my internal war, and I met his dark gaze over my shoulder. His grin stirred me to sickness as his hand kneaded where he’d slapped, and I recoiled, wincing when he grabbed a hard handful and pushed me towards the centre of the room.
“Now get up on the bed.”
I stumbled towards it, my eyes flicking between his face and the camera as I climbed up onto the filthy mattress. Disgust roiled through me. The staining was so much worse up close. I picked my way into the middle with a stiff spine and skin that crawled with abhorrence.
“Face down, ass up,” Konstantyn barked, making me jump as I moved where he wanted me. My cheek mashed into the filthy mattress as I took position, and my hot tears added to the stains on the material beneath me as I trembled. Waiting.
The door clicked open.
“There she is.” Alexei’s voice prickled along my spine. As the two murmured behind my back, I was crimson with shame, feeling the heat of their eyes on me, lascivious, vile, crawling across my flesh like slime. How many more were watching through the camera?
Alexei’s distinctive laughter chilled the marrow in my bones. “I could smell that sweet cunt all the way down the corridor.” By the slur in his words and the glassy sheen in his eyes, I gauged he was drunk. The collar of his shirt was undone, and black hairs sprouted from his neck. I knew the bastard had switched to speaking English just to torment me, and fuck him, but it was working.
“Just give me the implements,” Konstantyn gruffed.
Implements? Oh God.
“Where are you going to do her?”
“Where do you think?”
Alexei moved behind me and I felt his rough hand caress the cheek of my ass. My entire body recoiled from his touch.
“Yeah, I always figured you for an ass man. I hear dancers have nice tight pussies, and even tighter little asses. Maybe I’ll stay, and watch you work.”
“You can watch on the video feed, with the others.”
The two men argued for a few moments in Ukrainian, each guttural syllable chipping away at the remnants of my soul.
The steel in my spine trembled as long seconds of silence followed and then… The sound of a zipper clicking along metal teeth, the shush of fabric, the closing of the door.
Vibrating with fear, I dared to glance over my shoulder, expecting the worst.
But Alexei was gone, and it was just Konstantyn’s voice in my ear once more.
“You’re going to want to keep still, or this could go very badly. I’m talking permanent damage.”
His breath was hot on the back of my neck, and I couldn’t help but remember our routine, when he’d had me pinned to his chest, his words warming my nape and teasing behind my ear with a rush that had tripped down between my thighs.
Now, I shuddered, fighting the reflex to hurl up what little I’d eaten.
Deftly, he unlocked one of the cuffs and dragged my arms to the backs of my thighs, before securing the chain to my other wrist again, binding me in that position.
I twisted my wrists discreetly, and the cuff felt a little looser. I said nothing.
His lips twitched up and he needed a kick in the face for looking so pleased.
The mattress dimpled with his weight and I glowered at him over my shoulder as his body brushed against mine. Once, I would have enjoyed it. Now, it was like sandpaper, abrading emotions that swarmed to the surface and flooded my eyes with tears.
For a second, my ragged, panicked breaths were the only sound, and then the thick columns of his thighs kicked out between mine.
The reality of what he was about to do pounded through me, a drum of frantic terror. I shook, adrenaline and fear and a battling survival instinct hissing white noise in my head. No, not white noise, vibrations.
Some kind of an instrument was buzzing at my back.
I torqued to see, but Konstantyn’s palm was a hot brand between my shoulder blades, holding me down with a grunted, “Be still. Dante wants you –”
“Screw what Dante wants!” I lashed out, ignoring the blaze of pain as I ripped my wrist out of the loosened cuff. The top layer of my skin scraped right off, but I didn’t care. My hand was free.
I jerked around, and slipped off the bed, but not before I’d managed to aim a jab at his face, bruising my knuckles on the iron line of his jaw. Whatever instrument of torture he’d been holding went skidding across the floor of the cell, vibrating loudly against the concrete.
Konstantyn’s hands were as tight as the manacles had been as he shoved me back onto the mattress and locked the cuff to my bloodied wrist, tighter this time.
He growled, barely audible,
just a breath of words against my ear. “Still yourself, or you’ll get us both fucking killed. You are dancing for your life here. Understand?”
I froze. Something in his voice compelled me to. Play along. Dancing for my life. Was it really possible that Konstantyn was on my side? That this was all an act for the camera?
The approaching buzz of the machine he’d bent to retrieve from the floor was all too real.
“Dante wants you inked,” he continued like I hadn’t moved at all. “Stay still.”
Inked? Branded more like. The same way he’d branded my mother.
I squirmed in a panic when his knees indented the bed either side of my hips and his palm smoothed over the left cheek of my ass. There was a wet swipe – antiseptic? – on my skin, and then his hand shifted to my lower back and the whirr of the machine got louder, faster, shaking the air around me almost as much as I was shaking.
I wasn’t sure what would have been worse, having their mark on me or having Konstantyn fuck me for their amusement. Either way, I wasn’t going to be living long enough to deal with the after-effects.
“I’m sorry, Neva… stay still. You have to stay still.” His voice was a soft whisper in my ear. Soft enough that the mike wouldn’t pick it up over the buzz of the tattoo gun, I realised.
I looked towards the camera in the corner and I didn’t have to fake my fear. Anyone watching would see the terror building in my eyes as Konstantyn aimed a slap that cracked across my ass, numbing it for mere seconds, before the buzzing was writing over my skin, a tickling itch that crawled down to hum in my bones. But it didn’t hurt, I could barely feel –
“Oh fuck! Stop, Christ! Stop!”
I thrashed and Konstantyn cursed, his palm coming down across the other cheek and shocking me to gasping immobility.
I thought he’d stop, he didn’t.
The needle tapped away at my skin with a hum of searing pain, and I whined into the mattress, caged under the bulk of Konstantyn’s weight as he moved himself to keep my hips still.
“If you can’t handle a tiny needle,” my tormentor rumbled over the bass thrum of the tattoo gun, “you will suffer much in their hands. I thought you were stronger than this, Neva.”