Here, his cold smile looks different outside the confines of his suite—it doesn’t waver as much. He could almost pass for at ease. At least to those who aren’t close enough to feel just how much tension his grip contains.
Tension that cracks with every step I take in his shadow.
In the dim lighting, the other people in the room look like blurs decked out in fancy suits—the type of men and women who wouldn’t ever give me a second look outside of this place. Filthy fucking rich. And, I realize as my gaze falls over a few women wearing outfits no better than mine, filthy fucking filthy.
Maybe Maxim’s allure rubs off on me, because their eyes flicker in my direction more than once, as they toss him murmured greetings. Too much. With every inch they claim, Maxim’s grip on my chain tightens, drawing me to his side. Close. Closer. I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it. Not until a guy dressed in black eyes me up and down, his gaze settling over my chest. He smiles at me, and out of habit, my lips flinch limply in return.
Shit. I know, even before I feel the telltale pressure on my throat, that I made a dangerous mistake.
“Look at the floor, kotyonok,” Maxim murmurs into my ear. “Now.”
I dart my gaze to my feet, eyeing the heels he picked for me, nothing else. No one else. Fear churns through my veins like poison—and something sharper. Something I can’t fucking name. I don’t want to.
Either way, my punishment comes swiftly; his free hand cups my breast, clawing at the fabric and opening the barely healed wounds. I shudder, hypnotized by the sight of his tanned flesh on blood-colored fabric. Stroking. Claiming. Even if I wanted to slap him away, I wouldn’t fucking dare. One by one, darker splotches seep through the silk around his touch. It’s almost like my body itself is desperate to please him. Even if I have to bleed to do it.
“Look. Only I can give you this.” His fingers clench, grinding tender flesh between them, and my gasp is drowned out by the sound he grunts in response. One almost too terrifying to classify: low, guttural. A growl.
“Only me, kotyonok,” he warns as his thumb tugs on the strap of the dress, letting it fall to reveal my nipple. Right in the middle of the room. In front of everyone. While I watch, Maxim’s hands tug at the other strap and in a slow dance of scarlet fabric the whole thing falls to pool at my feet, leaving me naked except for my black panties.
Vulnerable.
Utterly his.
To drill that point in, he makes me stand here, feeling several pairs of eyes on my bared skin. The sad part? There could be millions, but none would pack the punch his nearness does. His possession runs deeper than anything he could tether to my collar.
It’s the money.
“Come.” He yanks on my chain and I nearly stagger into him as he takes a seat at a leather booth near the stage, pulling me down beside him. On top of him. Pulsing, his erection stabs at my ass, barely restrained by the fabric of his pants or the flimsy lace of my panties.
It’s not my body that gets him off though. He’s thinking of his punishment. My punishment. I picture the knife and my thighs clamp tighter together.
Gradually, soft music plays and Maxim’s lap becomes a sensual, devastating cage. I have no choice but to either go insane from the isolation or stare from the bars of it.
Elegantly dressed women and men flicker past our table, preening for Maxim’s attention, though I avoid looking at any one person directly. The rest of the club seems like the safest bet, and it’s an odd mixture of vulgar elegance. Girls dressed in strips of black leather and lace carry wine on trays, circling through the crowd as the night wears on. Overall, it’s not a rowdy shithole like the kind I’m used to. It’s quiet. A low, dangerous hum seems to permeate everything beneath the casual murmurs and sparse bits of laughter.
The atmosphere makes me feel like I’m in a giant fucking jack-in-the-box. Any second, the ominous music will wind down and something will explode. Maybe Maxim’s cock? His fingers find my open wounds again. Every time I flinch, he grows thicker, harder, prodding my lower back. It’s a struggle to focus on the rest of the room: silvery spotlights over a brilliant black stage dominated by a single stool. When a woman prances toward it wearing nothing but two piercings through each of her nipples, no one bats an eyelash.
Not even when a larger man with a matching set of piercings climbs onto the stage after her and grabs her hips, positioning her over the black stool in the center of the spotlight. He palms his cock, veiny and throbbing. Aims it between her legs. Thrusts in deep while she howls out a breathy moan.
It’s nearly a full minute before my mind accepts what I’m seeing: sex. Violent sex.
“You’re uncomfortable,” Maxim remarks, his voice low beneath the pulse of the music and the moans of the performers. He doesn’t sound concerned. If anything, I’ve learned to fear the raspy edge to his voice. “Out of everything I’ve put you through, this unsettles you?”
Slowly, his fingers slide from my breast and blaze a trail to my hip, dipping beneath my panties. Rough and assured, he finds my entrance and circles it once. I only manage to suck in a single breath before he plunges inside. “Or curious,” he grates into my ear, thrusting what feels like a thumb in and out. “Are you, kotyonok? Though I don’t have to fuck you in such a way for the world to know that you are mine. Do I?”
His free hand gestures to the crowd around us, all of whom ignore our corner of the room. Even as I gasp. The power he holds over people—over me—is an entirely new kind of pain, more potent than the brief hits I’m used to. He proposes humiliation, and my body begs for clarity.
“Not that I would be opposed to it.”
My mouth goes dry at the mental image: Maxim fucking me senseless in front of everyone. No amount of money in the world would be worth that.
It wouldn’t.
“Give me a reason to,” he commands against my throat. “One reason.”
I know better than to say anything. So I just watch through blurred vision, tortured by the man beneath me. The two actors don’t slow down as more people approach the stage and sip their wine as they climb into booths. If anything, they amp up their actions, their grunts and groans competing with the music. They don’t care that people are watching—in fact, the audience seems to turn them on more.
Which is fucking disgusting. Disgusting.
And I don’t think I take my eyes off them once.
Excitement and fear mingle in my blood as Maxim keeps a mocking pace, matching every thrust. Every brutal fuck. Hard. Fast. Rough. My thoughts swim, impossible to decipher, as fire trickles through my veins. Shit. My eyes flutter, my breath catching in my throat, as I find myself writhing against his hand.
It’s sick. God, I wish they’d move faster.
“You’re early tonight.” The unfamiliar voice counters the ache building in my body.
Just like that, I’m slammed back to Earth, slumping against the table. I blink and find a man standing at one end of the booth, casting a shadow that obscures most of his face. He’s tall, I know that much before I turn away to eye the wall of the booth. Dark-brown hair gleams in the glow of the lights, matching the color of his elegant suit.
I feel Maxim shrug, his fingers withdrawing, and I risk his wrath to peek out of the corner of my eye.
“I’m angry tonight,” he says, his teeth flashing in a beautiful, heart-stopping smile.
The man matches the expression, and even though I can’t see his face clearly, I can tell his grin is just as chilling. “I can see that,” he says, the hint of an accent giving his words a musical edge. British? “I gather your friend is aware of our policy?” He inclines his head to me.
Maxim twists his wet fingers through my chain again, just enough to make it harder for me to breathe. “Of course. What about yours?”
The man glances over his shoulder, toward a woman standing a few feet away. She looks younger than I am, but not by much. She’s slender, with blond, curled hair, pale-blue eyes, and full lips. Her beauty doesn’t erase the darkness in her eyes, highlighted by the black dress clinging to her frame. I guess she’s seen as much evil as I have.
“Yes, she knows, all right.” There’s an underlying meaning to the man’s words when he faces Maxim again. The fingers of his left hand fiddle with something on the middle finger of the right: a gleaming bit of metal. A ring? He turns away before I can make it out clearly. “I’ll leave you to your fun. I would say try not to make too much of a mess, but I beat you to it already.” With the eerie grace of a predator, the man drifts off, gliding through the crowd while Maxim turns his attention to the stage.
His jaw is clenched, his eyes narrowed. He wasn’t bluffing: He is angry.
“You know what I am, don’t you?” he asks, catching me off guard by the heat in his tone. Instinct warns me not to speak, only listen.
But on the surface, a part of me has to obey and I try to stammer out a reply as a million potential answers flood my mind. Who is he?
Psychopath.
Criminal.
Murderer.
“Don’t speak,” he warns. “Just nod. Yes? No?”
My head jerks in some semblance of agreement and he looks away, his brows furrowing. “And yet you continue to play this game,” he murmurs, though I think he’s talking more to himself than to me—a terrifying fucking monologue. “Let me ask you something: can you handle it? You’ve lasted this long.” He barks out a chilling imitation of a laugh. “But I think that’s more due to naivety on your part. If you really saw…if you really knew, you’d run—”
“Sir?” Lucius appears before us, leading another man to our booth. He’s pudgy and balding, with dark, cold eyes that linger on my collar. A gray suit strains over his beer gut. If I squint a little and ignore the price of his shiny boots, he almost looks like one of my regular clients: the typical arrogant Fuckface.
“Levoi,” Maxim says, his tone flat. He lets my chain go and jerks his chin to the bar in a silent command. Go.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I scramble to my feet as the other man sits, and I don’t stop until I’m at the counter. The bartender looks at me but never offers up a drink. Maybe he knows my age, or maybe there’s some unspoken rule about Maxim’s toys. Alcohol makes you bleed more, after all.
But I’m too fucking chicken to test that theory. So I wait until a firm hand grazes my lower back, urging me to follow.
My spine tenses as I turn to face the rest of the room. The person who touched me is only a few feet away, his blond hair gleaming in the scarlet glow. Only now, as I come up behind him, do I understand the purpose of the round tables I noticed earlier. Each one sports colorful roulette boards, tended by a man dressed in black. Maxim heads to the table by the window, the man called Levoi in tow. He doesn’t command me to sit on his lap this time. I just stand, my arms crossed over my chest, while the two men take up opposite seats and place their bets.
They begin to speak in Russian: a low, terse conversation that seems oddly polite at the same time. Every now and then, Maxim will nod or flash a dangerous half-smile, but the other man almost seems bored. His eyes keep flickering around to the scantily clad waitresses or the newest sex show on the stage. A busty blonde and an energetic redhead are at it now, gyrating their bodies to allow the audience to see every angle of their…performance. I don’t even notice the creeping sensation along my hip at first. Then the touch becomes firmer—unfamiliar. Maxim’s fingers aren’t this stubby. I flinch, caught off guard by the flash of yellow as one of the men suddenly lurches over the table.
“Nyet.” The tone is a whip, though mostly level. The piercing, dark eyes directed my way don’t leave any mistake however. It was a command. “This one is mine,” Maxim says, switching to English—a jarring change. “If you want a girl for the night, I am more than willing to supply you with one. After we come to an agreement—”
“Agreement.” Levoi throws his head back and laughs. The unsteady sound cuts through the music, and suddenly, the current actors on stage fall silent. The whole damn room does. “You think I’m here to compromise, boy?” he wonders in an even thicker accent than Maxim’s. “You don’t understand. Anatoli sent me here himself. Apparently, he thinks that you don’t have what it takes to run his operation. He’s on his way back to the States. If I were you, I would worry less about your toys.” He claws at my side, dragging me closer without warning. I stagger, sprawling onto his lap, my face inches from his crotch. “And more about what will happen to you when your grandfather calls you to heel.”
“I will only warn you one more time,” Maxim says softly. Too softly. Fear coils in my belly, but it has nothing to do with the thick, rough fingers tangling in my hair. “Respect where you are and take your fucking hands off what is mine.”
“I see you need to learn your place,” Levoi says.
The flat of a palm connects with my ass so hard that I jump. Thwack!
“Is that so?” Maxim questions.
Then chaos ensues. Nearby, something crashes onto the floor. The next second, the table goes flying. A cold grip snatches my arm, yanking me upright and shoving me aside before I can make sense of any of it.
And then pounding. Over and over—every bit as brutal and calculated as the hammering of the chisel. It’s only when I find my balance and glance down that I see just what masterpiece Maxim is working on now.
Levoi’s face is a bloody pulp, his body jerking with every blow as Maxim pummels him with both fists. Blood flies. No one moves. The room starts spinning.
“This way.” A steady grip on my arm makes me turn. Lucius is standing beside me, his lips set in a stern line. “Trust me,” he says when my eyes flicker toward Maxim’s back. “You’ll want to come with me, Ms. Marconi.”
He drapes his own jacket over me and steers me out of the mansion altogether. A different car than the one Maxim drove is waiting, and that familiar driver is already in the front seat. Once we reach the high-rise, Lucius walks me all the way to the door, letting me inside the suite. He doesn’t follow me in.
“What was that?” The question spills out of me as my brain reboots, reconciling the horror I’ve just witnessed.
Rather than answer me right away, Lucius rubs his chin and glances over his shoulder at the gleaming closed doors of the elevator. It’s almost like he’s waiting, checking that Maxim really isn’t there.
“That was business,” he says finally, turning to face me again. His voice dips, giving the word a chilling double meaning. “I suggest you forget about everything you’ve seen tonight. Everything you’ve heard. Though…”
“Yes?” My breath catches in my chest. I can’t shake the feeling that whatever he’s about to say, it’s a warning I need to hear.
“I strongly suggest you avoid mentioning anything of what you heard to Maxim as well. Especially his grandfather. Goodnight, Ms. Marconi. Oh, and your clothing arrived the other day,” he adds, before heading to the elevator. It’s such a jarring change in subject that I just stare at him, blinking twice. “I had it placed inside the closet of your bedroom.”
“Th-thank you.” After he leaves, I swallow hard, my mind already hesitant to imagine the type of clothing Maxim prefers his women to wear.
Lace and black seem to be recurrent themes, I find once I reach my bedroom and throw the closet doors open. At a glance, it doesn’t look much different than it did the other day. The clothes are still organized into three separate sections, each one with a slightly different color scheme. But, when I look closer, I realize one major difference: Every single item of clothing is new. Tailored for one person. One woman.
Even the shoes are all the same size: mine.
I know better than to read more into it than the obvious; every woman probably got her own wardrobe for however long she lasted. I bet Maxim only kept a mixture of different sizes just in case he had to buy a new toy.
Just in case.
I feed myself that lie as I settle on a black, plain dress for dinner and wait while the hours pass by and the shadows creep over the edges of my room. It’s nearly midnight when I pull on a lacy, gray night dress and climb into bed.
Without permission.
But, by two a.m., I’m convinced Maxim won’t be returning any time soon. So I risk it, and I’ve barely drifted off to sleep when the first ear-shattering crash echoes throughout the suite.
It came from his room—I can tell that much. I hear another crash. Another. It sounds like someone is throwing something—a lot of somethings. Stomping footsteps mingle with the chaos. And shouting. Yelling.
Brutal, violent noise.
I’m out of bed when glass starts to shatter, and I stagger toward the door, opening it just enough to peek out into the hall. I don’t smell smoke. Nothing’s on fire. But the shouting grows louder.
The chaos beckons me forward, step by step, while my hand trails along the wall for balance. Another crash resonates through the floor the closer I come, and I find the door to his room already open, swinging as if on broken hinges.
Beyond it, the once completely black room is a collage of broken color. Lighter clothing is strewn over the floor. One of the end tables is in shambles, pale wood spilling out from the flawless façade. The closet is open, the racks within broken and twisted.
In the middle of it all stands Maxim. He’s breathing heavily, his head lowered, his body shirtless—and it seems to be the most damaged thing of all. Tattoos and scars riddle the taut flesh stretched tight over coiled muscle. Near the ridge of his abdomen is something that almost looks like a wound at first: a circle of pink flesh. I have to blink before I recognize it, only because of a stint of working at a nursing home a year back. One of my patients had colon cancer and had to get a colostomy. He has the same wound-like area on his stomach: a stoma, I think it was called.
“You should have stayed in bed, kotyonok.”
I’m already turning to run. My fingers brush the doorknob—too damn slow.
“Stay.”
I feel the weight of his command like a slap. My heart starts pounding as I have no choice but to step over the threshold of his room. The carpet feels dangerously soft at my feet, and it’s disguising the way they tremble.
He makes me come closer to him than I ever have. Close enough to touch. To breathe him in. Rather than command me to stop, he shoves me down to my knees.
“Do you know the first rule of obedience?” When I don’t answer, his eyes darken and he heads for the dresser, wrenching open the only drawer left intact. From it, he withdraws a length of black material and what looks like a plastic pouch. Carefully, he places the pouch around the stoma and then wraps his entire abdomen in the black material: the binder I noticed before. “The first rule,” he says after a moment, “is to never question. You submit.”
He paces, seeming to grow larger with every step. Angrier. When his hands go to his belt, I assume he’ll channel his rage into sex, make me suck him off. My mouth is already open when he yanks his belt free and curls it around one fist.
Then he lashes out with the loose end.
Crack! The flat edge hits my knee in a fiery splash of pain. I can’t even attempt to hold back a gasp.
“The second is suppression. You feel nothing. You are nothing. Turn.” He grits the word out and I have no choice but to obey.
I face the bed on my hands and knees as he comes up behind me. Rough fingers seize the back of my nightgown, yanking it over my hips, and the next blow strikes my ass. I see white—he didn’t hold back.
“You fall and I will make this worse for you,” he warns as my body sways, sweat beading over my skin. “Do not move.”
The whip cracks again. Another burning sting assaults my system. Again. Again. My arms shake, fighting to keep me up. Keep me up. Please. God.
Another hit to my lower back draws a cry from my lips, mingling with the drool dripping from my mouth. A lower strike. He lashes away at my calves before finally nudging me with what feels like the toe of his boot.
“Spread your legs.”
The carpet bites into the skin of my knees as I wiggle them apart before I sense the next rush of air. I feel nothing at first. Maybe he missed?
Then stars. One by one, they float across my vision. My pulse surges through my skin, drowning out whatever Maxim is gritting out above me—it’s that damn loud. I can list off every single searing welt on my body: twelve. My thoughts are that goddamn clear. It’s terrifying to float this high. An overdose of agony.
“Don’t move.” He hits me again, this time growling out words with every blow. “And finally, the last pillar is honestly. So admit it. You’re toying with me. Why? Do you enjoy it?”
Thwack!
“Did you like mocking me?”
Crack! Crack!
“Answer me!” His next blow hits me so hard that I taste blood.
“N-no—”
“Nyet!” A string of Russian cuts me off, followed by another hit to my back. “Maybe he planted you, huh?” Maxim growls, switching to English. “Anatoli. Another test. You are just like the rest. Selfish.” Thwack! “Reckless.” Thwack! Thwack! “Careless! I’ve always seen through you. Fuck him. Fuck you. Fuck! FUCK!”
He strikes my shoulder and both arms give way, pitching me facedown into the carpet, my ass in the air. I don’t know if it’s part of my punishment, but he doesn’t slow. I hear the whistle of leather. Feel the bite of pain. Over and over and over.
It’s all I am. All I fucking know. It will never end. I’ll die like this. My eyelids flutter as the blows trail off. He’s done. He has to be done.
I’ve barely taken stock of the damage he’s left behind before his fingers dig into my hair, tugging, pulling. He hauls me upright and shoves me forward, onto the bed. I hit the mattress face first, jostled by the shift in weight as Maxim climbs on behind me. His fingers find the back of my collar, tugging it tight. Too tight. Choking.
Blood rushes to my head. My arms jerk, weak and useless, clawing at whatever they can, trying to reach his hands. It’s too much. Too much pain. Too raw.
I’m dying.
And he’s inside me, thrusting deep and hard, manipulating my body like a rag doll. I’m only conscious for the first three thrusts. I feel them all the way up to my throat, suffocating me from both ends, but I lose myself after that. Clarity comes only in bits and pieces before I go under again. I hear him grunt. My airway closes. The world goes black. Gray. He groans. Climaxes. I breathe.
The ordeal doesn’t end, even when he finally climbs off me. I hear him pace, still throwing off rage like heat from a bonfire. I know the moment he picks the whip up again and the last coherent thought I have is of the safe word. Remembering it.
My lips tremble, fighting to say it. “I’m hap—”
“Shhh.” The mattress vibrates as Maxim finally collapses beside me. And the world goes black again before I can say a damn thing.