At the top, the second man wrenched the door open and I was forcibly nudged through.
I barely had time to process that the door wasn’t locked when I was plunged into absolute darkness. The square patch of light from the room behind us vanished with the bang of the door closing. It cut off the stench and the wails. It muffled everything, except the steady shuffle of our feet moving purposefully forward. My idea to run was stilled only by the meaty hand one of the men clamped around my arm. Every fat finger cut into flesh, leaving marks.
Our time through what must have been a corridor ended when Lady pushed open a door at the very end. It was beyond me how she knew where the thing was when I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face, but the crack appeared in the darkness, creating a long, clean gash down one side that widened as it was opened.
It wasn’t overly bright on the other side, much to my relief. The lights were lowered to the dimness of a movie theater with only a few randomly lit spots throughout. The room itself was a threat of sorts, an oval chamber smaller than an opera house, but bigger than a personal home theater. The place below us was a series of circular chairs facing a stage far below. At the top where we were, a strip of carpet made up a narrow, curving path behind a row of seats, separating the sitting area from the wall of cages on the left.
There were eight stacked up on top of each other, barely big enough for a large dog, which was what their purpose actually was. I’d seen them in airports, transporting pets, massive, black kennels. But there were no dogs there, just women being forced inside and sealed in.
“I’m not going in there!” I tore free of the hand gripping me and rounded on the trio. “I’m not a dog!”
The smack sent the world spinning. Pain flared up through my entire face, a blistering heat that burned behind my eyes. Blood filled my mouth, choking me when I cried out.
“Get inside!”
Woozy with sickness, I wasn’t prepared when they stuffed me into one of the cages. The frame rattled when the door was slammed shut behind me. A click snapped into place, ensuring I went nowhere.
It was remarkably larger than I’d expected at first glance. I could almost sit up, but barely. It still bent my head forward, pressing my chin to my chest and mashing the roof of the cage against the back of my neck. It forced us down in a groveling, bowing position with our knees against our chests ... like dogs.
Lady studied me a moment through the bars, her expression masked in shadows and the top part of the cage I couldn’t see without forcing my face against the bars. I couldn’t even be sure she was even really looking at me, except that she hadn’t moved. I wondered if I could plead with her again now that her goons were gone, but she’d already turned on her heels and was leaving me amongst a row of other women, all in cages around me. But none of them seemed to be there against their will. The eager expressions on their faces, the way they seemed to be adjusting themselves to see the stage properly, it made me think they were excited to be there.
What kind of madhouse was I in? There was something happening that I was missing, some key element that I hadn’t grasped. The whole situation stank of kidnapping, abuse, and a heavy shift of sexism, and yet, these women couldn’t hand themselves over fast enough.
I turned to the brunette on my right.
“Excuse me?”
She turned wide, green eyes on me through the tiny squares. “Yes?”
Her calm was momentarily disorientating. We could have been two people in line for coffee and I was about to ask her for the time. How was she so unfazed? We were in cages!
“Where are we?”
Her smile was brilliant through the bars. “You’re new! It’s okay. It’s all a bit disorientating the first time. This is orientation. Master Rutherford is going to go through the rules. He’s amazing. He likes making sure the dolls and their Sirs know what they’re getting into. So considerate. A lot of places don’t do that.”
Nothing she said made sense. She could have been speaking an entirely different language, except she wasn’t and that was somehow worse.
“So, you’re here because you want to be?”
Confusion flickered over her pretty features. “Of course. My Sir wants me to be trained by a professional and I want to please him.”
I really needed to stop asking her questions. It seemed like the more I asked, the less I understood.
“How do you leave?”
Her smile was completely gone now. “Have you talked to your Sir?”
“I don’t have a ... Sir. I was brought here against my will.”
She gave a weak, uncertain chuckle. “What? No, Master Rutherford would never allow that.”
“I don’t want to be here!” I hissed. “I want to go home.”
The girl jerked back and hit the side of her cage, startling the girl on her other side. “I ... I would talk to Master Rutherford. Tell Lady your safeword.”
“I don’t have a safeword.”
She shifted uncomfortably. Her gaze flicked to the stage, then back to me.
“I don’t ... I don’t know...”
I felt like I’d broken her. The excited woman with the shining, delighted eyes and grinning mouth was cowering at the back of her cage like a beaten dog. I didn’t know whether to apologize or tell her to knock it off and tell me how to get out of there. But I chalked her up as a dead end and turned to the woman on my left, a stunning woman with skin the color of dark chocolate and the deepest eyes I’d ever looked into.
“Excuse me, how do I get a safeword?”
Those dark orbs bore into me, infinitely endless, a bottomless pool of all the things her lips never said. She stared at me with the same silent wonderment as Lady and I wondered if that was part of the initiation, to cut off their tongues.
“She’s in training,” the woman on my right murmured. “She’s been forbidden to speak unless her Sir says. In fact, none of us should be speaking. We could get into a lot of trouble.”
Great, I thought. That was one way to keep all the prisoners from rebelling; forcing them not to speak. Well, I wasn’t going to simply live in a cage and get whipped. I’d never been much of a fighter, but I wasn’t going to make this easy on any of them.
The houselights took that moment to flare on, not too bright, just enough to illuminate the stairs and the flood of men who entered along the bottom of the auditorium. I wondered if David was amonegst them, eager to learn all the things he could do to me and get away with. He wouldn’t miss an opportunity like that.
There was a lot of movement, the thunder of feet, the rustle of clothes, the creak of chairs being claimed. Even when everyone was settled, there was the low hum of chatter, the excited buzz that always followed a show. Then it all died as the man from the party arrived on stage. He stood before the crowd, hands clasped in front of him. He observed the group with cool deliberation. It seemed to be a favorite expression of his, like he was searching for something.
“Welcome,” he said once he had the room’s full attention, “to the Doll Factory. Many of you have already spoken to me, but I appreciate you arriving for the orientation. I believe this is the most important step between you and your doll. The bond you forge in the next four weeks with your sub will be the foundation to a long and fruitful relationship.
I’m Tiberius Rutherford, for those of you who I haven’t met officially. I am the Lord and Master of the Doll Factory. Everything we do here is legal and by the book. We treat you and your doll with respect and do our best to ensure you the best experience with safe and tried methods to better your lifestyle.”
He paused and turned his body slightly to the left. One hand extended, long fingers splayed.
From the shadows, a secondary hand appeared, small with slender, elegant fingers spanning forward to meet his. I recognized the red nail polish a second before Lady stepped onto the stage with him in her black panties, corset, and epic heels. She still wore her cat ears and feline contact lenses. She’d only lost her pants, it seeme
d.
He drew her to him, his features a mask of adoration, of the kind of devotion poetry were written about, and kissed her knuckles lightly. He murmured something to her, lips still brushing her skin and Lady all but dissolved on the stage.
Still a delighted pink, she was drawn forward and made to take his place, an angel beneath the spotlight.
“This is Lady, my better half.” He touched her back lightly, a delicate graze of his fingertips and no one missed her shiver or the way she seemed to catch her breath. “We came together by accident, but I’d be lost without her. It took us years to come to a place we were both happy, which goes to show that nothing happens overnight. It takes work, patience, and dedication, but most importantly, trust. I can’t guarantee you will get here with your doll, but I will guarantee, like anything worth working towards, a long, hard road ahead.”
Maybe it was because I’d spent the night pinned to a wooden X, or on the cold ground, but I wasn’t getting the implication that these were people who went out of their way to abduct and keep women hostage, especially when he’d said himself that it was a legal operation. It did make me wonder what David had told them. Had he made them believe I was crazy? Surely that wasn’t the path he’d take a second time, not when this was clearly a business and no one would touch a mentally unstable girl.
I thought of the contract he’d made me sign. I had in all clarity given him permission to keep me, to do whatever he wanted to me. I had signed the bottom line. Maybe that was all they needed, a written form of consent by me.
But it wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be far away from that place and that man by the time the contract deadline ended. And how the hell was I supposed to know a place like that existed? The whole thing was so damn fictional I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.
It didn’t matter. Contract or not, I would make them see reason. I would explain my side. Once they saw who David was, they would help me. They had to.
The orientation didn’t take nearly as long as I would have expected. Rutherford gave his speech, a ten minute rundown of how The Doll Factory was created and why. But the excitement started when a girl was brought up by a man holding the silver cord of her leash. She was made to kneel, eyes downcast. She was made to crawl to him and even lick his toes, basically a pretty show pony to prove that they could take any girl and turn her into a submissive.
I watched, fascinated, but not interested, not the way everyone else seemed to be. The Lord and Master business wasn’t for me. I had no desire to be whipped or collared. I might have tried it if Kieran had suggested it, but not like this, not held captive and forced to endure it.
The whole production lasted a little over forty-five minutes. Then the audience was ushered out and the girls were released from their cages. Each one seemed to have their own Lady, just a different version, but disturbingly beautiful in their leather getup.
I had Lady herself with her two male friends.
“No!” I blurted when they wrenched me from my cage. “I want a safeword! Then I want to talk to Tiberius Rutherford. I’m being held against my will and if Kieran isn’t called immediately, I will sue the crap out of all of you for kidnapping, assault, and accessory to rape!”
I blurted it all out quickly, afraid of another backhand if I didn’t finish in time.
Lady put her hand up when the man on her left made a reach for me. Her cool gaze stayed on me, level, assessing, but shrewd.
I took that as a sign and plunged on. “David lied to you. He had me drugged and kidnapped. He shot my bodyguard. He took me away from my home!” I heard the crack in my voice, but I didn’t care. “If you let me use the phone, Kieran will tell you, or you can call him. Just ... please, please don’t let David have me.”
Lady turned her chin an inch to one side and met the gaze of the man on her right. She gave a subtle nod.
I thought that meant she believed me, but the men grabbed me and pulled me back to my cube. I was tossed inside and left there.
Chapter Sixteen — Kieran
I watched for her.
I knew it was pointless, that she wouldn’t be there around the next corner, yet I took each turn leading up to Thornton Manor with white knuckled care. My heart hammered in my chest. My lungs burned from lack of allowing myself to breath ... just in case. By the time I reached the cul-de-sac and cut the engine, I didn’t know whether to break my fist into the wheel or hyperventilate.
She wasn’t there. I knew she wouldn’t be, yet I had prayed the entire way that I would come across her walking down the street. Her absence was a dark hole that kept threatening to suck me in. It was pure determination that kept me from succumbing.
I climbed out and squinted up at the looming affair boring down at me with the arrogance I had come to expect. The gleaming windows glowered in distaste and finding me lacking. I hated it. Hated being there. I had hoped that once I had Gabby, I would never have to return. Yet, I found myself making my way up the steps.
Jameson took my coat with an inclination of his head and murmur of greeting.
“Is Mr. Thornton in?” I asked with a tug at the lapel of my blazer.
“Yes sir,” the butler declared at once. “He’s in the parlor.”
Thanking the man, I made my way down the familiar path, breath caught in my chest, strides quick. I reached the opening, my gaze searching, hoping for signs of Gabby, but only finding Cordelia.
She smiled when I stepped in.
“Kieran, hello.”
The part of me I’d had to tame before arriving reared its head, demanding I march over, grab her arms and shake her until she told me what happened to Gabby, but the rational part won. There was only one way to win this war.
“Where’s your father?”
There was something to say about a woman who could sound confused, but maintain an air of smug arrogance. Cordelia had it down to a science.
“Is something the matter?”
She stupidly turned her back on me, possibly under the assumption it was beneath me not to kill her as she made her way to the drink cart, her movements the fluid motion of liquid.
Tumblers clinked, cubes of ice struck glass and rattled. I waited patiently while she poured me a scotch. Then, as an afterthought, poured herself one as well. Both glasses were brought back.
I refused mine. I barely even glanced at it even when she held it out to me.
“Where’s Gabby?”
“Gabby?” She took a tiny sip, blue eyes studying me from over the rim. “Do you mean Gabrielle?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Cordelia,” I warned, careful to keep my voice even and my anger contained. “Where is she?”
One pale shoulder lifted. “Well, how would I know? We’re not exactly close. Have you checked the kitchen?” She gestured with the untouched glass, index finger extended in the direction of the door. “She’s no doubt huddled in a cupboard.”
“If you or your father have touched one hair on her head—”
“Kieran.” David appeared in the doorway, not even bothering to mask his lack of surprise by my sudden visit. “What brings you into my home?”
I didn’t miss the emphasis on my, nor did I care.
“He’s looking for ... Gabby,” Cordelia offered, hesitating on Gabby’s name as if amused by it.
“Are you?” The other man stepped deeper into the room. “Wasn’t she with you?”
It took everything I possessed to maintain my cool, my calm, my hold on the red veil urging me to just slaughter them both were they stood. I reminded myself who I was, who I needed to be if I was to bring Gabby home.
“You don’t want to play this game with me, David,” I warned him quietly. “I want Gabby back. I want her home unharmed, and I want her now.”
Without missing a beat, David accepted the drink Cordelia had offered me. The bits of ice clinked with the swirling motion of his wrist. His soulless blue eyes never wavered from mine.
“I’m
afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, son. If she’s run off—”
“She did not run off,” I interjected. “She was taken ... by you. I don’t know where you’ve taken her. I don’t know why, and frankly, I don’t care right now. Give her back and I may forget you were ever stupid enough to take what belongs to me.”
David broke the connection between us. His eyes lowered briefly to the glass and the amber liquid glistening inside. His mouth mashed together and twisted up on one side in an almost deliberation, or regret.
“I wish I could help you,” he began at last. “But I simply can’t.”
“I see.” I smoothed a palm down the front of my dress shirt to restrain myself from reaching out and tearing the man’s throat out. “I had hoped we could settle this privately, but I can see that you are determined to get on my bad side, which is unfortunate, especially for you.” I cast a flick of my gaze in Cordelia’s direction and enjoyed watching the dimming of her arrogance. “You might want to ask yourself just how far you’re willing to take this, if pissing me off is worth the all holy hell I will bring down on you. You might not like Gabby and this might be your attempt at revenge, but you’re not facing her. You’re facing me and I will not leave any survivors. Think on that a moment.”
Cordelia may have been manipulative, backstabbing, spoiled, and mean, but at the core, she was a businesswoman, a shrewd one. She would have already done the math in her head, the costs and downfalls of pitting her company against me. She knew I could ruin her, ruin her life’s work, the empire she’d built from the very ground. She knew I could take it all away with just the snap of my fingers.
“I don’t know where she is!” she spat in a snarling hiss, lips curled back over bared teeth. Her knuckles blazed white around the drink she was barely restraining herself from throwing at my head. “I couldn’t give a shit.”
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