by KD Robichaux
I hold out my hand, recognizing the name as the owner of the business I work for. “It’s so nice to meet you finally,” I tell him as he takes my hand between both of his, and my face flames as he raises it to his lips to kiss my knuckles. I tug my hand out of his grip and unconsciously wipe the back on the dress I’m wearing, and his eyes flare as a smirk lifts the corners of his lips.
“Likewise, Astrid. Please, I’d like to speak with you in my office where I can actually hear more about you,” he says, leaning down close to my ear.
I nod, figuring he wants to discuss what I’m willing and not willing to do as far as dancing in his club. I want to make it clear that I won’t be doing more than the first level of dancing, and there won’t be a future of me stripping or escorting, so I follow him as he makes his way out of this club. I glance back, expecting to see Crystal following, but she’s still by the dance floor, and she waves, wiggling just her fingers at me, and then disappears into the crowd.
I catch up to Randy at the foot of the right staircase, and he nods at the guard there. I hold the banister as we climb the stairs, and at the top, he turns left. He doesn’t say anything as we make our way down the hallway, and the silence is growing awkward for me by the time we stop in front of a door at the end.
“Please,” he says, pushing the door open with his left hand and gesturing with his right for me to enter before him. I step inside, moving farther into the room as he comes up directly behind me, and I jump as he closes the door, turning a key in the lock before pulling it out and putting it in his pocket. My senses immediately go on alert, fear taking over my system, being locked inside a place I’ve never been with a complete stranger. I’m facing the right side of the room, where a huge desk is set up with two chairs on this side of it and a throne-like seat on the other. And it’s not until I look into the giant mirror on the wall behind it that I see the other side of the room contains an enormous bed, and in the center of it, is a woman.
I swallow thickly as I turn around to look directly at her, not believing the image I saw in the refection, but sure enough, there’s a completely naked Kristin, one of the girls who didn’t show up in the dressing room today for me to do her makeup. Black tears have fallen down her face, soaking into the white cloth she has wrapped around her head, gagging her. Her eyes plead for help, and my stomach drops even further when I see her hands are tied behind her back.
“Oh, don’t mind her. We’re just playing a little game. You know what we do on the second floor, correct? Crystal told me she informed you of the three levels of pleasure one can partake in my establishment,” Randy prompts, and my brow furrows.
“Um…” I clear my throat, my voice shaky. “Y-Yes.”
“Very good. I was just in the middle of training Kristin—you’ve met Kristin, right?—for when her next John wants the pleasure of the submissive type, when Crystal came to get me. You see, Kristin’s more… the topping type. You know, being the more dominant one while fucking. But she needs to learn to… let’s say take a little, as opposed to giving,” he tells me, and I swallow, not getting the vibe from her eyes that are begging me for help that she was at all accepting of this lesson he’s speaking of.
I decide to play dumb, hoping that if I act like nothing’s amiss, then I’ll find a way out of here and quickly. Everything inside me is screaming to run, to go get help, but how, when he has the key in his pocket?
I glance around the room, turning in a slow circle as I take in every detail that might lead to another exit as I say, “This room is beautiful. The whole estate is, actually. Was it like this when you bought it, or did you have someone design it for you?”
He eyes me up and down when I face him, and he makes a little huff of amusement out his nose as his lips curl upward once more. His expression seems to be an ever-present cockiness that would make me despise him instantly if I wasn’t so terrified in this moment.
“It was pretty much the same as you see, only completely empty. I didn’t need to add much besides furniture, the bars, stages, and the sound and surveillance systems,” he replies, making his way around the desk and lowering himself into his leather chair. “Please, have a seat. Astrid, is it?” He gestures toward the chairs between us, and I try to loosen my limbs as I walk over to one stiffly and sit.
“Yes, sir. I’ve been here for a week now and absolutely love my job as your new makeup artist for the girls,” I reply, trying to be as polite as possible. I can see an undercurrent of evil in his eyes that I don’t want to set off. They’re almost… soulless. I hadn’t figured the owner of a place like this would be a saint or anything, but I didn’t expect someone like this man. Neil, Seth, Corbin, and Brian own their own sex club, a BDSM one at that, and they’re freaking mercenaries—paid vigilantes, Neil confided, lying in bed one night when I asked him to tell me more about him and his team—but they have a code. A life for a life. They didn’t kill anyone who hadn’t killed an innocent person. They defended and avenged the helpless, in my mind something noble and virtuous.
This guy is… deviant. I don’t get any sort of moral or honorable vibe from him, and it sets every last one of my nerves on edge.
“Sir?” He chuckles. “What a good girl you are,” he says low, his voice deep, sending a chill of fear down my spine instead of a quiver of desire like when Neil tells me the same thing. “So tell me, Astrid. How far are you willing to climb the levels of my club?”
The way he says willing makes me think he doesn’t actually care what I want. He’d find a way to force me to go further.
“Um, well… I’m comfortable in my position as the makeup artist for sure. I was told a second one would be hired in order to split the hours, so I wouldn’t have to work every day. And I really enjoyed dancing in the nightclub tonight. That was a lot of fun, and the men were gentlemen, which was a nice surprise. So I wouldn’t mind filling in for the regular girls every once in a while, if you have no other options. But that’s as far as I’m wanting to go as far as the other aspects of the club,” I answer, thankful my voice comes out steady and firm at the end.
His eyes go even darker as he seems to stare through me. And then he snaps out of it, blinking before standing from his chair quickly and making me jump.
“You’re sure? Because there is more money to be made than you could possibly dream of on the top level.” He comes around the desk, walking slowly until he’s standing directly in front of me. He then leans back, propping against the giant piece of wooden furniture, before reaching out to trace his finger along my jawline. I shiver at his touch, jerking back in my seat. He lifts a brow, his hand hovering in the air where my face had been, and then he crosses his arms.
“N-No thank you. I’m only trying to earn enough money to go to school, to further my training as a makeup artist. I don’t need anything extravagant. I’m very happy where I-I am, as far as everything else goes,” I tell him. If I hadn’t just felt his warm touch on my skin, I would swear he was a coldblooded demon looking down on me. And it’s in this very second in time that I swear if I get out of here unscathed—hell, if I get out of here at all—then I’ll never come back. I don’t want to work for a man that permeates the air with such evilness just by breathing. I will tell Neil he can pay for whatever the hell he wants. Just please, God, get me out of here.
“Hm. I… I think you might need some convincing,” he tells me. And I suck in a breath, ready to scream my very lungs out if he tries to force me to do anything, but then I let it out as he stands up straight and passes me by, slowly prowling over toward the bed where Kristin sits, sobbing silently. I’ve spun in my seat to watch him, seeing her eyes lift to reluctantly meet his.
“It would be so easy for you to pay for college, Astrid. You could pay it off in just one week, really, if you worked really hard and were a good girl for your Johns. Just one week, and you’d make a small fortune. And then I know you’d be hooked,” he says. “Now watch, and I’ll show you how easy it’d be to make twenty… thousand… dollars in
one night.”
Kristin sits on the side edge of the bed, and Randy reaches down, gripping her knees, and jerks her thighs apart, moving closer to stand between her legs. He unbuckles his belt, his eyes coming to meet mine for a moment as he pulls it from the loops of his black dress pants, turning back to Kristin’s as he drapes it around her neck like a scarf.
Her tears come out faster, and something tells me either she’s been through this “training” before and knows what’s going to happen, or she’s heard the stories from other girls. Because why else would she be crying so hard? If she’s already an escort on the third tier of the club, then why would she mind sleeping with her boss? I see the wad of cash already on the nightstand next to the bed. Just as Crystal said, the girl is paid before the night begins. No, she must be this distraught because she knows what’s going to happen isn’t something she wants, isn’t something she’s agreed to. And she’s helpless against it.
She’s never been nice to me, always catty and rude. It’s awkward when I have to do her makeup, having to touch her and be close, right in her face, while I’m working. But I’d never wish something bad to happen to the woman, especially something she sees coming and has no power against it.
With Randy looking at Kristin as he unbuttons his pants and slides down the zipper, I frantically glance around, trying to find a way to escape. There is a wall of windows, but we’re on the second floor high above the ground. I’d kill myself trying to get out of one before he could catch me.
“On your knees,” he suddenly barks, making me jump as my eyes return to the two people across the room. With her hands behind her back, it’s difficult for her to maneuver herself up onto the bed, and I wince, sucking in a startled breath as he slaps her ass when she apparently doesn’t move fast enough for his taste. A red handprint immediately rises on her flesh, and a flash of my own welts from a year ago fills my mind.
He climbs on the mattress behind her once she’s on her knees in the center of the huge bed, and he takes hold of her hips, spinning her so that I see them in profile. He obviously wants me to have a good view of what he’s going to do to her, and I grow nauseous at the pure evil that’s taken over his every feature.
He grasps hold of the back of her neck, and her whimper breaks my heart as he forces her to bend over, but since her hands are tied behind her back, she can’t catch herself with her arms, so her face is shoved into the mattress, her ass high where his hand still grips her hip.
He takes out his cock, not an overly massive one, but one that would still hurt if forced inside an unwilling hole, and he does just that.
As he begins to pound into her with no preamble, no sort of foreplay to warm her up and prepare her for the intrusion, he lets go of her hip and takes hold of his black belt around the back of her neck. Her face turns toward me, her eyes widening to saucers, begging me to do something, anything, as she begins to scream behind the gag. I watch in horror as he loops the end of the belt through the silver buckle that gleams in the light of the extravagant chandelier above the bed, and then he pulls it all the way through until it’s tight around her throat.
He wraps the long tail around one hand, holding it like a leash now as he uses it to pull her into him as he fucks her so hard I feel it making my own womb hurt. When I look back at her face, her lips have turned almost purple, and I know I have to do something. This isn’t the deliciously erotic asphyxiation my Viking had treated me to that made me soar into subspace. This isn’t the careful hand of a Dom who knows exactly how to carry out a dangerous game of breath play without hurting his sub who he loves.
This is a sadistic motherfucker who wants to hurt without bothering to produce pleasure along with the pain.
“Stop!” I yell, shooting up from the chair, taking a few hurried steps toward them. “You’re hurting her!”
But I’m stopped in my tracks, because in one fluid motion, not even stopping his painful thrusts into Kristin’s powerless body, he reaches beneath the pillows and then swings his arm around, smiling evilly as he aims a handgun straight at my head.
Chapter 24
Doc
We searched the entire nightclub room, the three of us forcing ourselves to move calmly, trying not to draw attention to ourselves. With Seth’s help using the cameras, we came to the conclusion she wasn’t there, which most likely meant she was already with Elias, or Randy, whatever the fuck they call him now. I didn’t give a shit, because the only thing he would be called after this night, is dead.
Heading back through the hidden doorway to the hall leading to the dressing room, Corbin and I got Heather’s attention letting her know Astrid wasn’t on the dance floor while Brian made his way out the back door. Time to skip to Plan C. I don’t even stop to question how Brian plans to get his big ass up to the attic window. I don’t really even care. He said it with 100 percent confidence, so I have no doubt in his abilities. He’s never failed a mission before, and I know he doesn’t plan to start now.
“Remember, second floor, all the way down the left corridor, and then it’s the last door on the right. It’ll be locked if they’re inside. Good luck,” she whispers, and she hurries back to a salon chair to finish putting on her makeup. She knew it would be suspicious to suddenly leave right after just getting there, so she’s going to spend the rest of the night safe in the nightclub room, get her last payment here, and then never come back.
Hell, most of the women might not come back after tonight, depending on what happens with Randy. When we deliver him to the police with all the evidence we find, it will most likely come out that A Secret is actually a whorehouse and not just a strip club, and this place will be shut down for good.
“I’m in the attic,” Brian’s voice comes through our earpieces. “Give me five and you’ll be clear.”
Corbin and I go back up the hallway toward the door that enters into the nightclub, turning right instead and finding the elevator close by.
“The surveillance feeds are all on a loop, so just stick to the shadows, boys,” Seth says from Heather’s car, and we back into a doorway to wait until Brian gives the all clear.
Time seems to be irrelevant. It feels like it’s slowed down to a snail’s pace, the seconds ticking by like minutes or hours. But in the same breath, it seems like we’ve only been here a split second. I feel the urgency to hurry and get to Astrid, but the dread at what I might find is fucking with me. We need to get this over with. We need to find my girl, and I don’t give a shit what happens after that.
But at the same time, I do. This motherfucker ruined my life once, and now he’s trying to do it again. If anything goes down, I want to be the one to throw his ass in jail. I want to be the one to cause the life to leave his eyes, the way he did Shelly’s. He might not have held the knife that slit her wrists, but what he did to her, the way he taunted her afterward, was the guiding hand around hers.
“You’re clear. When you come out of the elevator, stay low and as far against the wall as you can, and the guards at the bottom of the staircases shouldn’t be able to see you at their level. Second floor is clear,” Brian repeats, and a surge of adrenaline shoots through my system like NOS in a racecar.
Like magic, the elevator doors open before us without us even having to push the button. At first, I jerk to the side, out of view in case it’s someone who came down from the second floor, but Corbin gives me a half-smile, pulling me back toward the doors and gesturing me in.
“Your chariot awaits,” Seth says through the earpiece, and I realize he must’ve brought it down. His skills never cease to amaze me.
As the doors shut us in for the quick ride, my skin feels like ants are crawling all over me. The anxiousness I feel, I know for a fact I’d never be able to do this or anything close to this as an actual job. When I look at Corbin in the reflection of the doors, he’s completely calm, looking like he’s on his way up to a spa appointment or something, not into battle with a fucking suspected murderer.
“We’ve got her
, Doc. It’s going to be okay. The minute we lay eyes on her, you snatch her up and run. I’ll take care of the rest,” he says low, and while I agree nearly wholeheartedly with his plan, the idea of it lets in a sliver of regret, regret that it won’t be me to finally make this piece of shit pay. But Astrid is the most important thing. She’s my main focus, and everything else doesn’t matter. It’ll play out the way fate wants.
The elevator comes to a stop, my stomach dipping, and the doors open silently. I stay back as Corbin glances out, checking in all directions, and then follow his lead, hurrying to the back wall and ducking low as we cross to the other side of the staircases’ landing. A glimpse to the left shows the grand foyer, and we make it to the other side without anyone yelling in our direction.
We stride down the corridor, and over Corbin’s shoulder I see Brian squatted down in front of a door. His hands are up at eye level, and as we grow closer, I see he’s silently picking the lock on the door. There’s no surveillance in his own personal room, so we have no idea what we’re going to be bursting in on.
Or so I think.
When the lock is undone, Brian pulls out what looks like a clear tube and plugs it into his phone. He curves the end of it and slips it slowly beneath the bottom of the door. He touches an app, and suddenly the screen is filled with the image of someone’s feet not far from the camera.
He twists it a bit, and the image travels up a pair of legs, over a dress, and then up until I see my goddess, my Astrid standing there, her face paralyzed with fear, her arms up in surrender. Everything in me wants to bust through the wood the separates us, but Corbin latches onto my shoulder to keep me still. Brian maneuvers the camera again, and what I see on the screen of his phone makes the blood drain from my face.
Randy is on a bed, fucking a girl doggie-style, something like a leash around her neck, her face lifeless. And as bad as that is, it’s not what makes my world tilt on its axis. It’s the gun he has aimed directly at the love of my life. The cause of her position in front of the door, frozen in terror. My knees nearly buckle, but Corbin catches me.