Nicholas
“You motherfucker,” blustered the skinny man as he strode up to me after the auction had ended. “She was mine.”
I stared him down coolly, not moving, although I subtly shifted my weight to the balls of my feet, ready to strike back if he made any sudden moves. One hand slid slowly around my back to grip the barrel of the gun.
“Guess not,” I said.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Everyone around here seems real interested in that question. I’m the new guy. Name’s Nicholas.”
“You don’t understand how shit works, do you, asshole?” He had stepped close enough to me that I could smell his breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead, sliding in droplets around one vein that stood out prominently like a subway route.
“Are you going to be the one to explain it to me?” I asked menacingly. I noticed a crowd had begun to gather around us, drawn by the raised voices. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cosimo looking on interestedly. I focused on the man in front of me.
“If you don’t watch your fucking tone, I’ll beat you down right here and now,” he spat back.
“Be my guest,” I growled. I bent my knees slightly. This dumbass didn’t know what he was getting himself into.
A guttural roar boiled up from his stomach as he leaned back and whirled a wild punch at my head. It was over before it even began. I ducked below his flying fist, grabbed his wrist as it went by overhead, and used the momentum to twist his arm up and behind his back. One sweep of my foot against the back of his legs and he went tumbling, landing face-first on the ground.
I knelt and pressed my knee against his spine, leaning over to whisper in his ear. “Not such a smart move, friend,” I said.
He spluttered angrily in response, but his words were too muffled to understand.
“What’s that?” I asked, raising his head up with one hand wrapped around his sweaty forehead.
“Fuck you, you son of a bitch,” he croaked.
“My mistake. I was hoping you would have something intelligent to add to the conversation. Guess not.” I shoved his face back down. “I’m going to let you get up, but only if you understand one thing: she’s mine.”
He bucked in response, trying to throw me off him. I pulled his arm up a little higher towards his head. I heard a stifled scream with the added inch of pressure.
“A little bit farther and your shoulder will crack like a peanut,” I told him, loud enough for the crowd who’d taken notice to hear. “I don’t think you want that. So I’ll let you up, as long as you can agree you lost. I’ll say it one more time: she’s mine. Stay the hell away from her, or I’ll be forced to hurt you, very badly.”
This time, he nodded.
Suddenly, I felt hands grab onto me and pull me away before I could finish punishing the son of a bitch. I released his wrist as they tugged. The skinny man clambered to his feet, foaming at the mouth, though I noticed with glee he was favoring the shoulder I’d pinned.
I looked around and saw three of the other security guys had yanked me off of him. Cosimo walked over to stand in front of me. “Let him go, boys,” they said. I shrugged them off as they let go of my shirt. He looked at me with a curious tilt to his head. “What was that all about, Nicholas?” He seemed genuinely interested.
I waited to let my breath settle back to normal. Cosimo was patient, his hands folded in front of him. “He tried to hit me,” I pointed out. I knew it was a lame excuse, and I knew Cosimo would see right through it.
“Yes, I’m aware Alfonso has a little bit of a temper. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I was referring to the girl.”
I paused. I should have known interfering with the auction would draw attention I didn’t want. Such a stupid thing to do. I didn’t know what had gotten hold of me, but I’d acted before I could stop myself. Now I was in a huge fucking spider’s web of a mess. The more I thrashed, the worse it would get.
What would Cosimo want me to say? I had to convince him to trust me. Tonight was a golden opportunity to break into the inner circle right off the bat. I had almost blown it by bidding on the girl. Now was my only chance to resurrect it and keep the mission alive.
What Cosimo wanted—really, what any man who worked in our line of business wanted—was someone he could trust. It was easiest to trust someone when you knew what they desired, what made them tick, and that meant a man with simple, direct motives. An animal with one thing and one thing only in his mind. It didn’t really matter what that thing was. For some it was money, for others it was pussy or drugs or power. The only important element was that it was obvious.
To paint myself as such a man wouldn’t be hard. After all, I had that part of me already. I was a man of the streets. I took what I wanted. So’s what I told him. “When I see something I want,” I said with an ominous undertone to my voice, “I take it. That’s all that happened.”
There was a long, pregnant pause. I didn’t know how he would react. He could have me killed right here and now for touching one of his men. I couldn’t be sure what he thought about Alfonso, though if his tone was anything to go by, he didn’t have much respect for the man I’d just whooped in front of all of his companions and business partners.
I couldn’t breathe until he responded. To my surprise, his eyes shone bright with satisfaction. “I see. I’m very much looking forward to working with you, Nicholas,” he said. “You have been extremely interesting thus far.” He turned to the bodyguards who’d retreated a few yards behind me. “You,” he snapped, pointing at one, “go get us a bottle and some glasses.”
The man bounded up the stairs to the table where Cosimo had been sitting during the show. He quickly returned with a crystalline bottle of expensive vodka and two tumblers. Cosimo plucked them from the man’s hands and poured out two hefty shots, handing one to me and giving the bottle back to his lackey.
“To a fruitful relationship,” he said, raising his glass to touch mine, “between you and I, as well as between you and your fascinating new possession.” He tilted his head towards the stage to indicate the girl I had just bought.
I had to suppress the shutter that itched to crawl down my spine. Something about his tone worried me. He had some kind of a vested interest in this girl, one I didn’t understand yet, but his face was aglow with an intensity that could be interpreted in a million different ways. For the sake of the mission, not to mention the sake of my own skin, I needed to figure out what it was before it was too late.
I nodded, clinked my glass together, and downed the shot. It burned nicely down the back of my throat.
“Come, take these glasses,” Cosimo said to the man who’d first retrieved them. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and burped loudly. “Now, where did Alessandra go?” he asked, turning from side to side. She was nowhere in sight.
“Said she had to go check on something, boss,” murmured one of the contingent of bodyguards floating around the area.
Cosimo frowned. “Very well. Pull the car around, Nico. I want to leave soon.” He pulled out his cell phone and started to flick through messages. The screen cast a dim blue pallor on his bony face.
Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw the stocky man who’d escorted my purchase off the stage. He scowled and said to me, “Your girl is waiting for you in the rooms below.”
I felt an overwhelming, burning desire to get out of this place immediately. Most of the men had filtered out soon after the auction had ended. A disturbing stillness had fallen over the place in their wake. I was still processing the fact that I’d just seen a sex slave auction. It left an absolutely vile taste in my mouth. With any luck, this would be the first and last time I ever came close to something so inhumane and despicable.
“Bring her up,” I ordered gruffly. “I’d like to leave here immediately.”
The man sighed, irritated. “You must go downstairs,” he told me.
“Why?”
“You must break her in.”
I tried not to betray the dizzying shock that lanced through my skull. “Excuse me?” I said coldly.
“I said, you have to go downstairs to break her in.” The man looked annoyed to be repeating himself. His thick brow was furrowed in distaste.
“Is something wrong, gentlemen?” Cosimo said from behind me.
“No,” I shot back quickly. Don’t say a fucking word to him, I silently roared at the stocky bastard who was prodding me to go ‘break her in,’ whatever that meant. I’d had enough of this place and enough of the Espositos for one day. All I wanted was to get the girl and get out.
“He’s refusing to go break in his property,” the man bitched to Cosimo.
I felt Cosimo’s gaze shift onto me. Begrudgingly, I turned to face him. “Nicholas, do as the man says,” he told me quietly. “You need to go fuck your woman to rightfully claim her as your own.”
He stared at me, letting his words sink in. Sure, I wanted that girl badly, in a way I’d never wanted a girl before. It was deeper than just a physical lust. That was familiar and easily assuaged, practically automatic. This was more powerful. I didn’t want to just fuck her. I wanted to make her scream my name until the rafters shook.
But the circumstances made my stomach churn. She wasn’t some random skank at a bar or a Punishers’ groupie longing for a taste of an outlaw. She was property. An object with a price tag. One I’d willingly paid. It didn’t sit right with me.
“Do I need to tell you this is a requirement?” he asked in a soft voice.
I shook my head. “No, you don’t. I’ll go.”
With no choice but to obey, I turned and followed the stocky attendant to the dungeon below.
Natalia
The sound of the door opening froze me in place. I was sitting on the ground with my knees to my chest, still naked. I was shivering as much from the fear as from the cold. Once again, I was being thrust into a situation where the rules were unknown and everyone around me was more powerful than I was. I wondered if I would ever be more than just a victim.
The hinges were greased and silent. The door swung a tiny bit inward, then shut again. I’d been expecting the haunting man who’d bought me to enter and have his way with me. But the person who actually came in was even worse.
“Serves you right, you murdering whore,” Alessandra said. She crossed her arms and snaked towards me, placing one heeled foot in front of the other. Her stilettos were midnight black and their spikes descended into a vicious point where they met the ground.
“I’m not a murderer,” I said quietly.
She pounced across the distance remaining between us, bent over, and seized my cheeks between her fingers. Her sharp nails dug into my flesh, drawing pinpricks of blood. Her eyes were wild and furious. Taut lines of anger were etched into her face. “You are whatever I say you are, do you understand that?” she spat. “You are a slut. You are a murderer. Say it.”
I stayed silent.
“Say it!” she roared, shaking my head and squeezing harder.
“I’m a slut,” I sobbed. “I’m a murderer.”
She released me and straightened up. The insane wrinkles disappeared from her temples and she became the picture of calm once again. Just a prim, attractive woman, too small for anyone to suspect the demon lurking inside of her. “Good.” She nodded, satisfied. “That is good for you to admit those things.”
She turned and began pacing around the room. As she passed the torture utensils hung up on the wall, she stroked them lovingly between her fingers, like the braided leather whips were precious to her. They might have been. Maybe she’d used them before, or maybe she just liked the idea of objects that inflicted pain. Neither one would have surprised me.
“You know, Natalia,” she said as she continued to round the small cell, “I never liked you. From the very beginning, you swayed Marco under your spell. I don’t know how you did it, but I hated you for it.” She spun to face me again.
“I didn’t,” I protested.
“Why did you kill him?” she asked. Her voice was soft and buttery smooth.
“I swear to you, I didn’t kill him.”
She tilted her head to the side. I noticed the tic was the exact same one that Cosimo had. I wondered if she’d learned it from him or the other way around, or if all psychopaths had the same mannerisms.
“Let’s change the subject,” she said abruptly. She knelt in front of me again. This time, instead of grabbing me roughly, she cupped my chin gently between her fingertips. “You are very beautiful, I must admit,” she said.
I sniffled my tears and didn’t say a word. I was terrified of pressing the wrong button and unleashing the river of rage that ran so close to her surface.
“I hope your new owner will treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
Still, I kept quiet.
“Which is, of course, like a whore.” The anger wasn’t lashing out suddenly, but I could feel it slowly simmering again, building back up to an intense inferno. She whipped around and stalked over to a chest of drawers shoved against the far wall. Opening one up, she pulled something out. When she turned to walk back to me, I saw something leather dangling in her hands.
A collar.
It was hard to breathe as she leaned over and buckled it around my neck. Not because of the tightness of the leather strap, but because of everything it represented. She wanted me to feel less than human. Like an animal headed for the slaughter. It was working. I could feel myself crumbling.
“I want you to know that when your man gets in here, he is going to ravage you. You will be lucky to walk out alive. Do you know that, dear?” she said. “Oh, tut, tut, darling, you’re crying!” She wiped away a solitary tear as it trekked down my face. “You mustn’t cry. Men don’t like that at all. No, when he fills you, I want you to beg for more, like the slut you are.”
I was collared, naked, and vulnerable to the entire world. I couldn’t help myself now. I had to ask her. “Why are you doing all this?” I said in a choked voice.
She was quiet for a moment as she stood once again, considering me where I sat on the floor. She began to retreat towards the door, one step at a time, without breaking eye contact.
“I didn’t kill Marco, I swear,” I sobbed again.
“I know you didn’t,” she told me. “I did.” Then the door shut.
Nicholas
The man descending the stairs in front of me was dour and silent. I followed him along a row of dank cells and across a threshold. The vibe changed as we crossed into the second wing. Instead of a prison environment, this felt more like some abandoned Gothic castle. A red carpet lined the floor and massive chunks of gray stone made up the walls and ceiling. Each of the doors was thick and wooden.
He led me to the last one. As he reached to open it, the handle turned and someone emerged from within. To my surprise, a small blond woman stepped out. “Just checking on your purchase,” Alessandra said to me with a twisted grin on her heavily made-up face. “She’s all ready for you.”
The stocky man looked back and forth at us for a moment, then shrugged. Alessandra trotted away. Her footsteps were nearly silent on the thick rug walkway. “Take as long as you want,” he told me. “But do what you’re supposed to.” Then he left, too.
I turned to face the door. I couldn’t decipher what I was feeling and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Time to see what lay within. I opened the door and stepped inside.
The room within was strange. I noticed the sex toys and whips covering each of the walls. This was a place for giving and receiving things. Whether that was pain or pleasure seemed to be up to whoever was in charge at the moment. I supposed, for now, that that was me.
The girl cowered in one corner. I could see fresh tear tracks glinting on her cheeks in the flickering light of the chandelier overhead. She was huddled into a little ball, hiding her body from me. But she was even more beautiful up close than she had been on the stage.
Her cheekbones stood in high relief, framing her delicate eyes perfectly. Her skin was flawless and had the creamy texture that had made my cock stir to attention. I wanted to run my hands over her, my tongue, to taste and feel that body. Even without being able to see all of her, I wanted her more badly than any other girl I’d ever come across.
But she looked terrified.
“What’s your name?” I asked. The room was silent enough that I could hear my pulse in my ears along with the soft whirr of her breathing.
“Natalia,” she murmured. She refused to look up at me. Instead, she kept her eyes trained on her knees.
Natalia. Something was tickling at my memory, a long-forgotten sense of déjà vu. I couldn’t place it, but it persisted like an itch. I set it aside for now.
“I’m Nicholas,” I said.
I thought she would stay quiet, but she whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. “What was that? Speak up,” I demanded.
“I said, you’re the one who bought me.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I stared at her. Slowly, one by one, my thoughts fell away. In their absence, there was only a raw, pressing need. It was too powerful to ignore. I felt myself slipping into it and letting it consume me like fire. I became the wanting. I was my desire.
“Stand up.” She looked at me and knew right away not to refuse. She unfolded gracefully from the ground but stayed close to the wall. One hand covered her breasts and the other hid her slit from my view.
“Come here.” She still wouldn’t look at me, but she began to walk, step by tentative step, padding across the cold stone floor with her bare feet. She paused just out of arm’s reach. I turned and circled slowly around her. I wanted to take my time, to drink her in and appreciate the perfect angle of her hips, the way her ass swelled and swooped.
If I was going to fuck her, I was going to do it right.
I reached out a hand and touched her shoulder lightly. She recoiled, like I’d shocked her. That wouldn’t do. Neither would this bullshit with her keeping herself covered. “You’re mine now,” I said in a low rumble. “You’ll never hide anything from me.” I stopped in front of her. “Move your hands.”
She was shivering crazily, but the temperature in the room had begun to climb. She wouldn’t budge. I reached out and encircled each of her wrists with my fingers. I plucked them away from her and set them down by her sides.
There. Now she was perfect.
I paused to let the image sink in. Starting from her feet, I looked up, noticing and admiring each detail as my eyes swept over her. Her calves were thin and lithe, rising into a pair of thighs that I ached to shove my face between. I could see the dark, neatly trimmed strip of hair just above her slit, bordered on either sides by hips that would no doubt be perfect to wrap my hands around. Her stomach was taut and flat, making the heavy, full breasts dangling above look even rounder and perkier. I extended a thumb and forefinger and gently laid them to rest on one brown nipple.
She looked up at me. Her face was a mixture of fear and hate, but smoldering just below that was an animal desire that I recognized. So what if she was scared of me, so what if she hated me.
She was mine now. Mine.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered suddenly. A bolt of courage must have just struck through her.
I laughed out loud. “Are you telling me what to do?”
She hesitated. I could see the sudden spike of bravery draining away from her face. She wasn’t as sure as she had been a moment ago.
I drew myself up to my full height and begin to slowly unbutton my shirt one at a time as I resumed my circles around her. With each patient rotation, my torso came more into view. I watched her eyes grow big and round as she saw more and more of my tattoos, my scars, my brawn. My body was saying everything for me; I didn’t need to add a word.
I am the master.
“You belong to me,” I said coldly as I walked behind her.
She spun around to face me. “You can do whatever you want to me. But you’ll never have my consent.”
I laughed my hardest yet and tossed my shirt to the side. Stepping forward, I moved my hand to her throat. I didn’t squeeze or pressure her, but I rested my broad palm over her airway as if to say, Now what?
“We’ll see if you don’t change your mind,” I told her. “Very soon.”