Chapter 16

 

Gio

 

Gio looked down at Carla's prone, naked body. He tried to maintain his cool exterior, but he was breathing hard, his face was covered with a sheen of sweat, and inwardly, he was gloating.

 

Of all the conquests he'd ever had, all the triumphs he'd enjoyed in his life, this was the sweetest by far. She'd come to him as a predator probing for his weaknesses, and in no time at all he'd turned the tables and reduced her to prey. The look in her eyes at her moment of total submission had been incredibly satisfying. And best of all, she'd proved herself well-suited to begging and crawling and obeying.

 

Well-suited, he thought. He stole a glance at the pantsuit piled on the floor in the corner and suppressed a laugh.

 

Carla was still panting and keeping her eyes on the floor. Gio realized she was waiting for his next command. He leaned over and unlocked her handcuffs.

 

“Now you can collect your things and go,” Gio said.

 

Carla's heavy breathing paused for a moment, and he could sense her surprise and confusion. “Y-you mean...that's it?”

 

Gio yanked his belt off the floor and expertly cracked it off her left buttock, coaxing another yowl of pain from her. “Address me properly,” he reminded her.

 

“Please, Master...is that it?”

 

“For tonight, yes,” Gio replied. “There will be more nights, though. Lots more. Whenever I snap my fingers, you're going to come running like a good little pet, and you're going to do whatever you're told. You belong to me now. Don't forget that.”

 

Carla nodded and started to get up from the floor. Gio reached forward, seized the chain, and yanked her collar hard enough for her to collapse again with a choking sound.

 

“You seem to think that just because this session is over, the rules suddenly don't apply anymore,” Gio snarled. “But you would be fucking wrong in that assumption. Now crawl.”

 

As Carla made her way over to her clothes on her hands and knees, Gio contemplated the two rules she'd just disobeyed. Had she really believed all of the parameters he'd set would suddenly go out the window just because the sexual part had concluded for the evening? Or was she breaking his rules on purpose? He'd seen other subs do this to test boundaries or just to receive an extra dose of the punishment they craved.

 

Maybe she's even better at this than she realizes, Gio thought. Maybe she did some research before coming over, to figure out what to expect.

 

Or maybe she's done this before.

 

The thought was disquieting to him, though it shouldn't have been. He knew that lots of people were secretly into sexual domination and submission, and he'd certainly been with plenty of other subs who'd had masters before. But this was different. This time, he found himself obsessed with the idea that she was his alone, that no one had ever broken her before.

 

Carla finished dressing herself, then tilted her head in his direction with her eyes still on the floor. “May I please stand now, Master?”

 

“No,” he answered. “Crawl down the stairs ahead of me.”

 

She started down the steps on all fours as Gio followed, holding her leash. He noticed that the elbows and knees of her pantsuit were collecting dark smudges of dust from the floor. The sight gave him a warm thrill inside.

 

When she'd appeared at the door, she'd been so stiff and polished. Now that he was done with her for the night, she was dirty and disheveled, inching forward on her hands and knees like a beaten dog.

 

Finally, they reached the first floor. “Please, Master, may I stand up now?” Carla asked.

 

“Maybe I shouldn't let you stand yet,” Gio said, smiling coldly. “Maybe I should make you go out the front door and down the driveway on all fours, so the whole neighborhood can see what a little slut you really are.”

 

Gio heard Carla's breath catch in her throat. “Please, Master...please don't make me do that...” she pleaded.

 

He let out a contemptuous bark of laughter. He had no intention of bringing her outside with the collar still on—his father had warned him not to mess around with his new “lawyer,” and Gio didn't want word of this getting back to him. Still, it was fun to threaten her with it.

 

“I should,” Gio snickered. “And I will, unless you beg me not to.”

 

Carla pulled her elbows and knees in tight beneath her and lowered her head, sniffling and groveling. “Please, Master, I'll do anything you ask for...anything you want...just please, please, don't make me go out, don't let anyone else see me like this...”

 

As he looked down at her, Gio couldn't resist tormenting her just a little bit more. Punishing Masters, that last Fed who infiltrated the Mancinis, had felt like a gruesome chore.

 

But punishing Carla for the same transgression felt like poetry, and Gio wished he could do it forever.

 

He extended one of his shiny black Italian shoes, putting it right under her nose. “Polish it with your tongue. Do that, and I'll show you mercy, even though you don't deserve it.”

 

Carla hesitated for the briefest moment before her head moved forward, her tongue extended. She licked the top of his shoe once, twice, then gagged for a couple of seconds and went in for a third...

 

Gio pulled his shoe away, laughing again. “All right, that's enough. You did good, especially for a first-timer. Are you sure you've never been anyone's slave before now?” He tried to make the question sound casual, but the thought had been nagging him steadily since it first popped into his head upstairs.

 

“No, Master,” Carla responded in a high, breathy voice. He could tell she was still trying to control her gag reflex. “I've never done this with anyone before.”

 

Gio wanted to believe her. But...

 

“Look into my eyes,” he commanded.

 

Carla craned her neck, looking up at him. Her eye makeup was streaked from crying and her lower lip trembled.

 

She looked utterly helpless and shattered. Beautiful.

 

“Swear that you've never been anyone else's slave like this,” Gio said. “And don't lie, or I'll know. I can always tell when women are lying to me.”

 

The line sounded cool and menacing, but Gio winced inwardly, knowing how foolish it actually was. She'd been undercover around him for over a week and he hadn't suspected a thing.

 

But Carla's wide, tear-filled eyes looked into his, desperate for him to believe her. “I swear I've never been anyone else's slave before. Only yours.”

 

Gio nodded. He believed. “Good. Lower your eyes again. Now you have my permission to stand.”

 

Carla looked down and rose to her feet slowly. Gio reached forward, undoing the clasp on her collar. It fell to the floor.

 

“Now go,” Gio said, “and make sure you keep your cell phone on and charged. Whenever I summon you, day or night, you'd better come running. And you'd better be ready to do what I say. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes, Master,” Carla responded in a small voice.

 

Gio leaned over, unlocked the front door, and opened it for her. She stared at it for a few seconds, then slowly stepped out as though she were in a trance, heading toward her car.

 

He watched her for a moment, then closed the door behind her.

 

Gio felt a clammy chill ripple over his upper body, and he realized that his silk shirt was soaked with perspiration from all the activity upstairs. He pulled off his tie, tossed it onto his couch, and stripped off his shirt, making a mental note to take it to the dry cleaner tomorrow. Then he walked back up to the second floor, took off the rest of his clothes, and stepped into the shower in the master bathroom, turning the water temperature up as high as he could without scalding himself.

 

As he stood under the pulsing jets of water and soaped himself up, he wished he'd been born into a different family. Yes, the wealth and privilege he came from had certainly furnished his Special Room and his hedonistic lifestyle, but at what cost? He still had to keep most of his nighttime activities a secret in order to maintain the respect of the other mafiosi.

 

Growing up, Gio had often sneered at average guys, with their piddling incomes and shitty day jobs. But tonight he felt like they had more freedom than he ever would. These days, who cared if a plumber or a stock broker was into paddles and riding crops? They could do their work, make their money, and then make plenty of time to do whatever they wanted to after hours without anyone giving a fuck.

 

Gio was stuck being a Mancini 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, always on call in service of the family.

 

No, not just any Mancini. Worse. The son of the Mancini. The sole heir to the whole crooked fucking mess, with so many eyes and expectations on him that he sometimes felt like he was buried under ten tons of concrete, like some of the bodies he'd helped dispose of.

 

But what if his new FBI pet could help him get away from all that?

 

The thought flashed through Gio's mind suddenly, taking him by surprise. Carla had started this whole thing by infiltrating the Mancinis to collect enough evidence to bring the whole family down. Now that he and Carla were bound to each other through the threat of mutually-assured destruction, perhaps both of them could end up getting what they wanted.

 

It was a risk, certainly. If anyone found out, Gio would be killed—even his relationship to Mario wouldn't save him. Still, he was already taking that chance just by hiding Carla's true identity from the other Mancinis, wasn't he? And Gio had heard of plenty of made guys who'd turned state's evidence and disappeared into the Witness Protection program. If Gio played it smart, he could escape from his violent legacy and concentrate all of his free time on training lovely new subs...

 

Except he realized he didn't particularly want new subs. What he really wanted was Carla. She was unlike any slave he'd ever had before, and he wanted to keep her, to explore her delicious submission in a thousand different contexts and locales.

 

And once both he and Carla were free of the Mancinis, he'd have no power over her anymore. She could erase her topless photo from his phone, or kick him out of Witness Protection and let every mafia family in America descend on him like hungry piranhas.

 

The daydream suddenly seemed silly, and it quickly deflated in his mind. He knew he couldn't possibly betray his own father like that. He'd been raised to believe that blood was everything and that anyone who was disloyal to his family would burn in hell forever.

 

Plus, as much as he hated Mario, he knew that he owed everything he had in life to his father. In his heart, Gio still had trouble believing that he'd ever amount to anything without Mario.

 

As he got out of the shower and dried himself off, Gio let go of the tantalizing fantasy of freedom, and instead focused on the best ways to enjoy his newfound control over Carla while he still could.

 

He'd let her off easy, and he'd respected the safe word. This time.

 

The next time might be an entirely different matter.