“Be a good girl, and I won’t add on to the punishment you’ve already got coming for biting me.”
Goose bumps covered me at his words, and I did as he said. I lay still while he cleaned me, his touch gentler than I expected, especially around the scabby, tender spot at my hip, as if he were taking care of it. Maybe he wanted to be sure he’d be able to read whatever it was.
My captor pushed my legs apart then, and, with his eyes on mine, dragged the soapy cloth between them.
I protested by closing my legs and pushing his hand away, realizing as I did so that I was regaining mobility a little at a time. But it wasn’t nearly enough to make any difference when all he did was “tsk” at my efforts. This time, he held one knee wide, wider than he’d spread me before, and cleaned between my legs. My face heated—given he’d turned on the lights in here, I could see through the mesh covering his eyes—and I swear he smiled behind his mask. I hated him for it, hated him for his tender invasion, for the natural response of my body as he rubbed that very delicate spot over and over again, as if wanting to draw that very thing from me.
“There,” he said. “Almost done.”
And to my utter shame, he turned me on my side and cleaned me in the back too, taking his time again until he felt satisfied, before finally allowing me to lie back as he drained the tub.
“Let’s get some clean water in here, so we can wash your hair.”
He stood, his gaze sliding the length of me.
I pushed myself up a little, although I still needed the support of the tub, and cleared my throat.
He allowed me to sit up and refilled the tub, taking a seat again as he picked up a half-full bottle of some cheap shampoo. How many girls had been here just like me? How many had he washed like he was washing me? How many had he—I had to swallow hard not to choke on the word—trained? Sold into slavery?
I felt my eyes welling with tears. Was I just fooling myself? I was in so deep. After James, I’d kept out of things and had warned Mateo to do so too. I warned him not to get involved with the mob. With men like Victor Scava. But he had, and he’d paid the ultimate price. Would I now pay that too?
His thumb rubbed across my cheek, and I realized I’d started to cry. I watched his eyes as he wiped away my tears, expecting some rude comment, some sick joke about my future, but all I got was silence.
I turned my head away, and the moment was gone. Poof.
“Deep breath.”
He had his hand on the top of my head as he said it. He barely gave me time to register the words though before shoving my head down under the surface. Water gurgled in my ears, and my scream turned to bubbles before fingers pulled at my hair and drew me back out.
I sucked in air, suddenly panicked, and all he did was chuckle.
“Nothing like a dunk under water to wake you up, huh?”
I spat water and coughed while he poured shampoo on my head.
“Told you to take a deep breath. Next time, you’ll know to do it.”
“Why?” I cried out.
“To shampoo your hair, silly.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, that.”
He rubbed until he got lather, his fingers digging into my scalp.
“Money. Why else? Why does anyone do anything but for money?”
I looked up at him, wanting to see his face, his eyes. Needing to in order to read him.
“Let me see your face.”
He paused. Had he been expecting something else? “Going under again, deep breath.”
I barely had time to think, gulping air before he shoved me under then, moments later, pulled me back up.
“Your name, at least tell me your name.”
“Shouldn’t you be asking different questions?”
He dunked me again, three times more before the suds were gone. He pulled the plug from the drain.
He took one of the two threadbare towels from the rack—again making me think of those who had come before me—and once the water had drained, he draped it over my shoulders and lifted me up to stand. He held on to me when he did so, maybe testing himself how much the drug had worn off. Not nearly enough, considering my knees buckled as soon as I stood upright.
Wrapping one of the towels around me, he carried me back into the bedroom and deposited me on the bed.
“Questions like what’s going to happen to me once I’m sold?”
Leaving me there, he went back into the bathroom to return a moment later with a hairbrush. I noticed the hairs stuck in the bristles. Blonde and red and brown. I wanted to throw up.
He opened the towel as if unwrapping a candy bar and pulled it out from under me, then patted me dry before dropping it on the floor.
Goose bumps rose all over my body, both at the cold temperature in the room on my still damp skin and the thought of my future. Of the fate that awaited me.
“Or who will buy me, and what will my new owner expect of me?”
He sat leaning against the headboard and lifted me up so that he cradled me between his thighs, making me very aware of my naked back against his bare chest. At least he was warm. After towel drying my hair with the second towel, he started to brush it, his touch not quite gentle, but also not cruel. Not purposely at least.
“Will he fuck me himself, or pass me around to a dozen friends to initiate me?”
I wondered if he used that tone—quiet and unaffected—on purpose. If it was meant to scare me. If his breath on my face was to let me know I would have no boundaries. That nothing was mine anymore, not even the air I breathed.
Could he feel the quiet tremors breaking me apart inside?
Would he be so callous if he could?
“Or maybe something as simple as will they use lube?”
He chuckled at that, but there was no joy in his tone. In fact, he grew more and more despondent with each comment he made, his tugs on my hair working out the knots, becoming slightly rougher each time as if he paid less and less attention.
He left me to ponder that last one for a while, and when he was able to pull the brush through without a snag, he lay me back down and stood.
I shifted and rolled onto my side, the sedative slowly loosening its hold on me. The tingling in my limbs told me it was almost over. I’d be free of it soon.
But not soon enough.
“Maybe something more imminent, like what punishment can I expect for my earlier transgression?”
Punishment.
He rolled me onto my belly and pulled me toward the foot of the bed until my legs hung over the edge.
I tried to push myself over or off the bed, but that proved too difficult. When he saw my attempt, he snickered.
“You want to see my face?” he asked, his voice quiet.
He came around to where I lay, my right cheek pressed against the bed.
“I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He seemed to say that more to himself than to me. He squatted down so he came to eye level.
“Will it make any difference for you?”
He brushed a wet strand of hair off my forehead, the touch of his finger making me shiver.
“For me?”
His voice, his tone—it sounded so utterly hopeless, as if truly, it made no difference at all. As if nothing mattered at all.
“No, not really, not for you. And not really for me.” He reached up to tug the mask off his head.
I watched, my eyes widening, and gasped.
Short dark-blond hair stood on end, static taking hold of it, making me think of a kid with a balloon, a boy giggling as his hair fanned out in all directions.
What had I expected? A monster. A terrible, horribly scarred monster. Maybe some deformity? What?
Whatever it was, it wasn’t this.
Certainly not this.
He was…beautiful. Beyond beautiful. His face—it belied an innocence that did not belong to him. That I knew in my gut had never belonged to him.
Blue-gray eyes the color of col
dest steel softened by the thickest lashes were set in the face of an angel carved in solid, unbending stone. Too beautiful. Too unbearably beautiful. Thick, blond scruff darker than his hair and spotted with gray dusted his hard, square jaw. His lips were full, as if swollen from kissing.
Kissing.
He had the face of a man who’d just stepped out of a magazine. But it wasn’t only that—that cool, easy, deceptive beauty. There was more. So much more. And it hid behind his eyes, in that bottomless abyss of blue-gray. Looking at them now sent a shiver racing down my spine, making every hair on my body stand on end. He had the eyes of a man who’d taken more and who’d lost more than any one human being should. A man who’d learned terrible things. Who’d seen the worst mankind had to offer one another. A man who’d hurt.
No. Much more than hurt.
A man who’d done unspeakable evil.
I shuddered.
And he smiled.
He smiled a smile of pure evil, and the dimple in his right cheek disarmed me, or would have, had I not seen the darkness, the depravity, the cold, cold emptiness inside those steely, beautiful eyes, and I wished—and I knew he knew I wished it in that moment—I wished I could take it back. I wished he had never taken the mask of death from his face. I wished he’d never shown me this, this perfect evil, this perfect, cold beauty.
“You want to know my name?” he asked, rising, breaking into my thoughts.
I shook my head. He patted my hair as if he were a proud parent. He then unbuckled his belt and whipped it out of its loops. The sound made me gasp. He doubled it over, watching me as he set the buckle in the palm of his hand.
He moved behind me.
“I underestimated you.”
The first lash of the belt seared my ass, making me scream.
3
Dominic
I have no delusions about the darkness inside my soul. It is a black abyss, a hole so deep and so dark, it could consume me.
It could swallow me whole. It will if I have anything to say about it.
After leaving Gia’s room, I locked the door and set the mask on the kitchen table. I opened the fridge and took out a beer, popping the bottle cap off and drinking half of it down on my way to my bedroom. After whipping Gia’s ass, I needed a drink. And a shower. Whipping was hard work. A workout, really.
And it made my dick hard.
Sick fuck.
In my bedroom, I stripped off my boots, jeans, and briefs, finished the rest of the beer, and switched on the shower. I stepped into the icy flow before the water even warmed, the cold not doing anything to alleviate my rock-hard erection.
I’d heard Salvatore describe me once. He’d been talking to Marco, his bodyguard—glorified foot soldier actually, but who was I to judge, considering. I’ll never forget the word he used. That one word. Monster.
Thing was, he’d been right all along. The golden boy had hit the nail on the fucking head.
I was a monster.
Salvatore thought he must be one to do what he did to Lucia. I snorted at that. He was a fucking white knight compared to me. He did bad things. You couldn’t not. I mean, it’s the fucking mafia, and he’s king. Or would have been, but he handed it all over to our uncle. I could still call Roman uncle. He was a blood relation. That should make me feel better, but it only made me sick.
Fuck them. Fuck the Benedetti assholes. Roman’s allegiance was to them—my uncle whom I’d hated because of how well trusted he’d been now sat like king of the family. Well fuck him too.
I was never one of them. I didn’t even come close to looking like my brothers or the man I’d believed to be my father for twenty-eight years of my life. Blind and stupid. Hell, I didn’t even look like my mother except for the eyes. The color at least. The look inside them was all my father: Jake the Snake Sapienti. I was Dominic Sapienti, and I looked like my loser father. How in hell could my mother have fallen for him? I mean, once she’d gotten to know him? On the outside, I could see it. But the inside? Black as Satan’s soul.
He’d aptly earned his nickname. He slithered from one loyalty to the next. Wherever the payout was, there he was. No friends to speak of, but too many enemies to count. A killer. Ruthless. Hateful. He did the work no one else would do. The jobs that no one wanted to take. Crimes that made even me cringe.
I’d learned from Roman that Franco would have killed him when he found out about me. About his wife’s affair. She’d begged him not to, she said she loved him. And Franco loved her too much to hurt the man she loved.
Well, wasn’t he the fucking romantic. A regular Romeo.
I turned my thoughts to Gia.
To her face.
Her eyes.
Her fear.
I gripped my cock and began to pump, leaning one hand against the wall while water sprayed my head and shoulders. I fucked my hand at the image of her bent over the bed. The sound of her exhalations, her grunts and screams, her drugged attempts to get out of the way of the belt. I thrust harder into my fist at the memory of her bare ass bouncing with each stroke, the welts turning a deep red. I imagined the heat of her ass if I were to spread her open and plunge into her warm pussy. I wondered if she’d be wet. If she’d be ready for me.
The thought made my cock throb. Some girls got off on it. Not the way I’d done it just now, maybe, but for some of the girls, there was something about getting their ass whipped. It made them wet. And even though I didn’t rape them, I made them come after punishing them. It was a power play. That was all. I owned them—owned their pain and their pleasure.
I imagined Gia coming. Imagined kneeling behind her and spreading her open, feasting on her pussy—fuck—as she’d beg for me to stop. I threw my head back, water prickling like needles against my face as I blew.
She’d beg. I’d make her beg. I’d hurt, and then I’d make her body yield, make it surrender even as she fought its release, its yielding to me, to a man she would come to hate. I’d watch that betrayal work itself into her brain. I’d fuck with her. And I wouldn’t stop. That’s what this was. Training. She needed to learn, and pain taught. So did pleasure. It taught you who your master was.
I slumped forward, heart pounding, my cock still throbbing in my fist. I opened my eyes.
What I should have done, though, was come all over her instead of in the shower.
Degradation was a good teacher too.
I had time, though. Not much—two weeks until the auction. It’d have to do.
I washed my hair and scoured my body. I did that a lot now, scrub at my skin to the point it hurt. For the last seven years, it was as though I was trying to claw my way out from inside it. I hated myself. I guess I always had, but now I had a reason. Now I knew the stock I came from. The scum I was.
I climbed out of the shower and grabbed a towel, scratching the rough cloth against my skin as I made my way into the bedroom.
Had I intended to become what I was? A mercenary for hire? Taking the highest paying jobs, no matter the cost to my victims? Not consciously, no. Over the last few years, though, I had done everything I could to live up to my heritage. I was a mercenary. I went where the money was.
I didn’t like training women, readying them for something like this. But I was good at it. And I wasn’t sure there was another job on earth that would make me feel any lesser trash than this. Taking women and knowingly delivering them into the hands of other monsters like me. Worse than me.
I was well and truly a sick fuck.
I’d started taking these types of jobs two months after the night I’d learned the truth. After that night at Salvatore’s house when my world had exploded around me, and left me holding the smoking gun. When I’d stood over my brother’s—half-brother’s—dying body.
He didn’t die.
But that didn’t matter. I’d felt Franco’s hate. His revulsion. Had he always felt that way about me?
I sat down on the edge of the bed, as if needing the support.
Had I just always been too fuc
king stupid to see it? Too cocky? I’d been my mother’s favorite. Her little prince. I knew why now. She’d loved my father more than she’d loved Franco Benedetti. And I was the living, breathing result of that love.
I shook my head. What would she think if she saw me now?
My throat closed up, and I stood. I had to forget. I just had to fucking forget. I could try to understand forever, and it wouldn’t make any difference. It wouldn’t change anything. I just needed to stop thinking about it.
I went to the dresser and opened the top drawer, taking out a fresh pair of underwear, jeans and a long-sleeved, V-neck T-shirt. Black. It was all I wore these days. Underneath was the photo I kept there. Taking it out, I touched the little face. The tiny smiling face. Effie. My little girl. She was eleven now. And I missed her. I’d been in her life off and on for her first three and a half years, but when she and Isabella had moved back to New Jersey, I’d seen her almost daily. I think that’s why I missed her so much now, even after so many years had passed.
I was just Dominic to her, though. Not dad.
Dad.
I shook my head. She’s better off, asshole.
Isabella—for some unknown reason—kept e-mailing me photographs. I printed the ones I was especially fond of. It was strange. I didn’t think she’d want me in the picture at all. Did she feel bad?
No. That bitch didn’t have a conscience. Or she hadn’t until Luke.
She was the only one who knew how to get ahold of me, and I knew she hadn’t told a soul. That was confirmation of her lack of conscience. She’d watched her sister and my half-brother search and search for me, and she never said a fucking word.
But even she didn’t know about this cabin in the woods.
Even she could not forgive this.
I tucked the photo back into the drawer and got dressed. That was what I needed—to remember all the lowlifes in my life. To remember none of us had a conscience. Well, except maybe Salvatore. And fuck him. I was sick of thinking about him.
In the kitchen, I grabbed another beer and opened it, taking a sip and looking at the food supply. The cabinets would have been stocked before I got here. Part of the setup. I had several contacts, but only one man knew of the location of this cabin. And I only knew him as Leo. He got me my jobs. No one knew they were hiring Dominic Benedetti or Dominic Sapienti. Leo got the cabin ready and delivered the girls. I didn’t kidnap them. I was purely a trainer. I spent about six weeks with them. I got them from here to the auction. And I delivered them submissive.
Dominic: a Dark Mafia Romance (Benedetti Brothers Book 2) Page 3