I walk back around until I’m standing in front of her, and shove my face close to hers. “Apologize!”
She hangs there, gasping, and glowers at me with eyes that are swollen from crying. “Your stepfather treats your mother like crap, do you know that? And you just let him! He beats her behind closed doors, and everyone knows it, you pussy!”
I stagger back a step. I know she’s lying just to get to me. My stepfather is stern, and strict with my mother, like any old-fashioned Bratva husband – but he’d never raise a hand to her.
She’d tell me if he was actually physically abusing her.
Wouldn’t she?
Damn Anya for putting doubts in my head.
Anyway, I can’t let her talk to me like this. I stomp over to the cabinet, grab a ball gag, and force it into her mouth. She thrashes her head from side to side, but I manage to get it fastened. She murders me with her eyes; I’m dying inside. Why do I let her get to me like this?
How will I ever be able to sell her?
I walk behind her, and whip her buttocks. My self-loathing rises up inside me like a great tide of filth, and I stagger backwards, feeling waves of dizziness roll over me.
I can’t make myself whip her again. I just can’t. There are other things I could do to her; waterboard her, make her dance on an electric plate, bury her alive. I could use knives; I know how to do it without leaving much of a scar. The buyers would never see the damage.
But I won’t. I will never do any of that to her. And for once, I won’t let Aleksandr do it either.
I drop the whip, and lower the chains, until she sinks down on her knees, her entire body heaving with muffled sobs.
Her nose starts clogging up, and the ball gag prevents her from drawing breath through her mouth.
I stand there and let her struggle for air for almost a minute before I take the ball gag out. She falls to the floor, gasping.
“Do. Not. Test. Me.” I spit each word out, summoning up the last of my will. Then I drag her back to the bed and chain her ankle.
I leave the room, turning out the light.
I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to make me see that I don’t really have the strength to punish her. She won this round. And I can’t ever let it happen again.
Chapter Nine
Kostya
I let her stew the rest of the day and the night, without food and water. First thing in the morning, I head to her room and turn on the lights, blindingly bright.
She’s curled up on her mattress, naked. Thick red ridges mark the areas where the whip cut into her flesh.
The ridges will show in the photographs that I’m going to send to buyers. And the buyers will love it.
Cruel men getting off on looking at her whip marks...their eyes roving over her naked body...
No. No. No.
Fury detonates in my skull, setting alight a pounding headache. I turn around and walk out of the room, go to my bathroom, and pop open a bottle of painkillers. I wash two of them down with a glass of water and stand there for a minute, massaging my temples, pushing aside all thoughts of the future. I focus on an image of my sister’s laughing face, until the throbbing subsides just a little. Then I return to Anya’s room. She’s sitting on the mattress, hugging her knees.
I get the blindfold, leash and collar.
“Happy to see me?” I twist my lips in an ironic smile.
“Better than Aleksandr,” she croaks. Her throat must be desert-dry by now.
“Did you forget a word?”
She coughs and clears her throat. “Sir.”
"Hungry? Thirsty?" I ask her.
"Yes, sir.”
She’s trembling all over. A day without food and water will do that to a person.
I don’t want her to have to suffer like this, truly I don’t. I kneel down in front of her. “Can you not see that I’m trying to save your life? I could make sure that you are purchased by a kind master. I know who’s going to be bidding on you. I could put the word in their ear, that you’re the sweetest, most submissive slave they could ever hope for. I could even offer them some money to bid high for you. But only if you co-operate.”
“If you would just let Raisa go, I’d do anything you ask.” Her gaze, slightly unfocused, drifts to the far wall. “My life is over anyway. My life is worth nothing. I’m worth nothing.”
Why is she saying that? And why won’t she stop nagging me about Raisa, when I’ve already told her why Raisa will never be set free? “How many damn times...” I snarl, and then I stop. Anya’s made a mistake. She’s just given me the perfect way to punish her if I need to.
“Don’t ask me again. And please, start using your brain. You know what my orders are. You know what would happen if I defied my stepfather.”
She shrugs her shoulders, and then grimaces in pain from the effort of moving her shoulders. I’m sure every movement makes her whip marks sting.
I kneel down in front of her and grab her by the chin, tipping her head up so she has to look at me. Her eyes are bloodshot, and deep blue circles puff under them, and she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I ache down to the bottom of my soul, seeing her like this.
"Do you actually think that I have a choice in any of this?" I ask grimly.
She stares at me with big luminous eyes. "Of course you do. You are the smartest, strongest man that I know. If you didn't want to do this, you could figure out a way."
Not when my mother and sister are five thousand miles away, out of my reach. Hell, why am I even thinking about that? Am I actually trying to come up with a way to save her? It’s impossible. Might as well wish I could put the moon in my pocket.
"This is a problem without a solution. Now put your blindfold on.” I drop it on the mattress in front of her.
Her hands shake as she blindfolds herself. I make her crawl on her hands and knees, naked, down the hallway, until we reach the dining room. Then I take off her blind-fold and make her sit next to me and feed me my breakfast. Aleksandr joins us, and ignores her completely. I take my time, chatting with him about the weather, and sports. Anything to make her wait longer.
Every time her stomach rumbles, every time her tongue runs across her dry lips, my self-loathing swells up inside me, until I’m afraid it will choke me.
After I’m done eating, I feed her spoonfuls of omelet and bites of buttered bread. I frequently jerk the food from her lips before she can swallow. I make her say “Thank you, sir,” after every single bite. She’s getting pretty good at it, she finally uses the appropriate tone and casts her gaze down demurely – but she’ll never mean it.
The thought fills me with bleak despair. The best that I can hope for is to make her behave until the auction, and convince the least abusive possible master to buy her, as I’d promised her – but when she’s sold, she won’t submit. She’ll never accept the life of a sex slave. She’ll try to kill her new owner. She’ll almost certainly fail, and...
Aleksandr’s phone buzzes, interrupting my gloomy thoughts. He glances at it. “Claudio here to see you, sir.”
“Bring him to the parlor, I’ll chat with him there.”
Claudio is Diego’s closest friend and most loyal associate. And, like Diego, he’s married and a new father. That gives him a vested interest in not going to war – although he’s also a crazy, violent, prideful psycho, who would rather die than be treated with disrespect. He’s not a man I’ll enjoy going up against if we have to fight.
I blindfold Anya again and leash-walk her back to her room, where I chain her to her bed again. “I want you kneeling on all fours, until I or Aleksandr comes to fetch you. You’re being watched. If you move, I’ll know.”
“Yes, sir.” She obediently moves into position, staring down at the mattress as she kneels there. I avoid looking at her, so my eyes won’t have to settle on the red lines cris-crossing her body. With some food and water in her, she’s no longer trembling. Her voice is stronger and more confident. This pleases me, but
it shouldn’t.
Dull exhaustion settles in my soul as I leave her to meet with Claudio.
Aleksandr has already set out a tray with two drinks on the coffee table in front of Claudio. He knows me too well. He’s made mine a double – ice cold vodka.
I sit facing Claudio, who shakes his head when I push the tray towards him. “It’s 9 a.m.,” he points out. “A little early for me, thanks.” He looks at the drink, narrow-eyed, and then at me. “Everything okay?”
“Other than the fact that we’re on the verge of war? Life couldn’t be better.”
“Bullshit, but that’s fine, I don’t really give a fuck about your problems. I’ve got problems of my own. Like, should I send my wife and child on an extended vacation? Should Diego? This is a question that plagues me these days.”
Defiantly, I grab my glass and down it one long, shuddering swallow. I slam the glass down.
“If it were me...” an image of me with Anya by my side suddenly forces itself into my head. Anya, with a big sparkling ring on her finger, and her belly swelling with life. Anya, holding our child. The longing for this to be real is so intense that I almost choke.
That’s a future that can never happen, because it would mean that my sister is married to some perverted seventy-year-old who beats her, and my mother is likely shipped off to some mental asylum.
Fuck. There is no happy ending here. Whatever decision I make ends in misery for someone.
I reach over and grab Claudio’s vodka, and drink that too. I don’t even care about the look that he gives me, or the brief frown that bunches Aleksandr’s forehead before he smooths his face and stares at me blankly.
I slam the glass down. “Yes,” I say to Claudio. “If I were in your shoes, I would take precautions. A vacation would be nice.”
“And after their vacation is over?”
I meet his gaze coldly. “We are all at the mercy of those we serve. If they call for war, so be it.”
“Shame,” he shrugs, and from the look on his face I know exactly what he’s thinking. It will be a shame if he has to kill me.
I think the same thing – it will be a shame if I have to kill Claudio, and Diego, and Carmelo, and Rocco, and...
He clears his throat impatiently. “You do realize there’s no way this ends well.”
“Does it ultimately matter, really? Aren’t we all destined for an early grave?” I glance at Aleksandr. “Another drink for me. Make it a double.” There’s a flicker of concern in Aleksandr’s cold gray eyes, but he goes over to the bar nonetheless.
Claudio arches an eyebrow, openly challenging me with his hard stare. “Do you know what a liver transplant costs on the open market these days?”
I glare at Aleksandr’s back, as he stands at the bar, pouring my drink. Then I return my wrathful glower to Claudio. “Both of you can go fuck yourselves,” I say, slumping back in my chair.
“Wow, whoever she is, she must be something special. Because she’s really got you by the balls.” Now there’s a hint of humor in Claudio’s voice.
Claudio’s way too perceptive.
I glare at him. “Do you think this is a good time to push me?” I snap.
Claudio shrugs, his lips twitching into a smirk. “I’m kind of having fun with it, actually. Hey, remember a year ago or so, before I married my wife, and I was acting like a dumb fuck? And you suggested that true love is a rare thing, and if a man was lucky enough to find it, he should grab it and never let it go?”
“Doesn’t sound like something I’d say,” I mutter. “Especially to you.”
Aleksandr sets my drink down. Claudio snatches it before I can pick it up, and drains it in one long gulp.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I yell. Aleksandr makes a strangling sound, almost as if he’s laughing.
“You’ve had enough for the moment. I’d like your head clear for this conversation. And then I’ll leave you to finish off the entire bottle, if that’s what you want. So. You were talking about how we seem to be destined for an early grave. Our bosses never end up in those graves, though, do they?”
“What does it matter? We’re not the bosses. We’re not at the top of the pyramid.”
“We could be.” He sets my empty glass down, and leans forward, all humor vanished from his expression. “Let’s look at this with fresh eyes. Me and Diego have a problem. And the problem is Tiberio, and even more so, Joe Esposito. And your problem is your stepfather. If we could figure out a way to neutralize them, our problems would disappear. I am willing to fight and die to protect my family, and by that I mean not just my wife and daughter but my mafia family. However, I’m not a fan of dying because a couple of old men want to have a pissing match. I’m not suicidal. And I don’t think you are.”
“Yes, but it’s not that simple. If I were to make a move against my stepfather, I might as well slit my own throat. And the same goes for you guys. You can’t fight city hall, as you Americans say. And Joe and Tiberio are your city hall.”
“I see. So you’re giving up, at this point,” he says with contempt.
I glare at him.
“I didn’t say that.” My mind is racing. I hate being called a quitter. Fuck this smug mafia asshole. “I have an idea that might buy us some time. Do you have any men that you’d consider disposable? Snitches, men who you wouldn’t mind losing?”
His brow furrows in thought. “Hmm. I can think of a couple, although I was really hoping to deal with them personally. Why, what did you have in mind?”
I spell out my plans to Claudio. He looks impressed, nodding as I lay out each detail. “So your brain isn’t completely pickled yet. That’s not bad,” he agrees. “For now.”
He stands up to go and then waves a hand at the empty vodka glasses. “Seriously. Deal with your shit, Kostya. I really don’t want to have to break in a new Bratva brigadier. You’re less annoying than most of them.”
“Kiss my ass, Claudio. And you, get me some coffee,” I call out to Aleksandr, with a sour glance at Claudio. I can go a few hours with another drink, can’t I?
Or at least until Claudio leaves the house.
Chapter Ten
Kostya
Another day of training dragged by yesterday. Anya obeyed all of my commands, instantly, and earned three good meals and no more punishments. The problem is, I know it’s all an act. I could see the anger in her expression. I felt it in her coiled muscles when I made her sit in my lap and feed me. She’s just waiting for the first opportunity to make some kind of move – to attack me, or Aleksandr, or to try to call for help.
This morning, we go through our ritual again. She has to blindfold herself, and crawl on her hands and knees through the house after me, naked, as I jerk on her leash. She has to feed me breakfast before she is allowed to eat. We will do this every day; it’s an important part of her mental conditioning. She must be ready to perform the most degrading of tasks instantly and without question, and she must always put her master’s needs before hers.
After breakfast, we shower. This is the one place that she’s submitting to me for real. She loves everything I do to her in there. I’m just rough enough, holding her firmly in place, sliding my fingers inside her, stroking her until she begs for release. I love how frustrated I make her. She hasn’t earned an orgasm; that will come after she stops fighting me and accepts her fate.
I haven’t fucked her yet. That feels too intimate. I crave it, though. I want to bury my cock in her delicious heat and make her come again and again. That’s why I can’t let myself give in. This need is a weakness; I’m afraid that once wouldn’t be enough.
What I should do at this point is change it up. I should send in Aleksandr to shower with her, or my driver, or one of my other men, or Carmelo or Rocco. She would be devastated, she’d fight it. She wants only me. I think I’m the only man she’s ever wanted, which makes me hurt to the depths of my soul.
And that’s what I really need right now. I’ve got to shatter her will to the point w
here she’ll instantly submit to my every command, no matter how much she loathes it.
But I can’t stand the thought of another man putting his hands on her wet, naked body. Anya on her knees, choking on someone else’s cock...no. Fuck, no.
My temples start to pound again, and my vision swims red.
Fucking hell. How am I even going to attend the auction? Because it’s required, I can’t just drop her off and have Aleksandr take over. Pasha plans to be there, and my stepfather may attend too. There will be dozens of buyers bidding on the women, and they’ll be allowed to fondle them, shove their fingers inside them...
I think my head’s going to explode. God help me. Anya’s not the only one who can’t accept what’s coming.
I’ll be ready by then, I’ll have to.
After we shower, I bring her, naked, to the photography studio. We have a new hairstylist, and this one used to be a police officer in Russia. She can defend herself. I warned her that Anya may try to fight.
Truth is, I’m hoping that Anya tries to resist again, because I know how to really punish her now. If she fights back, I can show her what real consequences look like.
She gave me the idea when she kept begging me to set Raisa free. If Anya steps out of line, I will punish Raisa in her stead. Raisa’s disposable. Yes, she’s a pretty virgin who has already been promised to a buyer, but we’ve still got the other two virgins.
The hair-dresser, a short, stocky woman named Marya, stands impatiently by the chair waiting for us. Aleksandr stands in the doorway.
“Get dressed,” I tell Anya.
Anya selects a little scrap of a black dress from the rack of clothing and pulls it on over her head. She stands there barefoot, looking at me with a cold defiance that sends a ridiculous thrill through me. God, she’s magnificent. So fierce, so fearless. I’ve never met a woman like her.
I grab her by the arm and lead her over to the chair.
Kostya A Dark Bratva Hate Story Page 8