Afternoon, day three…

Galina’s report infuriates me so much that red swims in front of my vision. She tells me that Willow not only refused her breakfast this morning, she spat on it.

I am outside on the back patio when she tells me, sitting with Feodyr, Slavik, Karl, and Mikhail. We were just finishing up lunch, checking out the pictures of a Russian seaport official who died at my men’s hands yesterday.

Jasha gestures at the red bowl of borscht. “Kind of looks like his face right now,” he says, and my men laugh.

We’d invited the man to work with us, and he’d declined. Not because he was too honest; if only we could find an honest official. He’d declined because he was in the pocket of local rivals, and he thought they could protect him. He thought wrong.

When Galina tells me what Willow did, I spit curses and slam my hand down on the table so hard that the dishes clatter.

“She’s in the drawing room,” Galina says eagerly.

“That bitch,” Karl scoffs. “She always thought she was a princess.”

It occurs to me that Willow’s barely eaten since she got here. I should have noticed her arrogant rejection of my food, should have punished her for it earlier.

I’ve been too busy putting the final plans in place. Bribing the right officials. Making sure that my men are where they need to be.

Her insult makes me so angry I could tear through walls.

I remember the hungry years back in Russia. That sick, dizzy, hollow feeling. The sensation of being gnawed from the inside by rats. Men taunting us, waving food in front of us and then snatching it away. The others weeping, begging. I never wept, I never begged, and our tormentors made sure I suffered for it.

Who is she to scorn my food? To scorn the hard work of preparing it? To mock my hospitality? I’ll show her the high price of her arrogance.

I storm down the hall to the drawing room, with the men at my heels. She’s sitting there in a pale pink dress, curled up on a soft suede couch, reading a magazine. I slap the magazine out of her hands. She gasps in surprise and fear. She has no idea why I’m so angry. Spoiled little American girl who has never known a day of hunger.

Her gaze shoots to the doorway, and I see Galina has followed us. She is standing there, watching, with a smirk twisting her lips.

Galina catches my gaze and looks down, then quickly hurries off.

It’s time to move her somewhere else.

I brought her here because she had provided me with valuable information, at great personal risk. Keeping her on my property was a way of keeping her safe from retribution. Not that I give a fuck what happens to the stupid bitch – but I am sending a message to the people in my territories. Work for me and you will be safe. Go against me and you will die screaming – like the men that Galina informed on.

Putting her to work keeps her busy and out of my hair. I know she wants more from me. She’s offered herself to me many times. I let her service me once, found her manufactured shrieks of pleasure grated on my ears, and sent her away.

Willow leaps to her feet, mouth open in shock.

I slap her face, a stinging slap, but light as a butterfly’s wing compared to what I could do to her.

I can see a perfect handprint on the smooth, pale flesh of her left cheek. Tears stream down her cheeks. “What did I do?” she cries out, looking genuinely bewildered, and for some reason, I feel a clenching in my gut.

I summon my strength.

Since when do I hesitate when I’m about to strike a blow?

Since never.

“I don’t need a fucking reason.”

She doesn’t argue. She looks down at the ground, pale, tears brimming in her eyes. “Yes, sir.” She chokes out the words and clenches her fists. She’s shaking all over.

I wish she’d fight me, so I’d have a reason to strike her again even harder. To punish her. To hurt her. But she looks down, shoulders hunched, trembling. The way she’s biting her lip – I know she’s furious. But she’s too loyal to her family to lash out and attack me. She’ll sit there and take whatever I dish out, for their sakes.

I stand there for a long, long moment, letting my rage build, and build, and she holds my gaze. Tears shimmer in her enormous blue eyes.

I bite out each word. “You spit on your food, and you ask me what you did?”

At that, she looks at me in shock. “I did not. Sir. Galina spit on the food, and told me she’d put something in my coffee.”

“Right.” I sneer at her. “And you conveniently failed to mention that when you saw me this morning.”

She draws herself up. Trembling and courageous. “I’m not some little schoolyard snitch. I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I’m just telling you why I didn’t eat my breakfast.”

Doubt wavers. I don’t want it to be true, because her decency and bravery are getting under my skin, shaming me to my very core, and I fucking hate it.

“Don’t lie to me!” I throw her back down on the couch, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve straddled her and pinned her hands over her head with one hand. Oh, my God, do I want her. My cock is ready to slash its way out of my pants to get to her pussy. I want her so much that I don’t dare take her.

I raise my free hand to slap her again. Instead of cringing, she pins me with her unwavering blue gaze. “You can do anything you want to me, but at least admit why you’re doing it, sir. Because you hate me for no reason at all, not because I spit in my food.”

Ah, there’s that fire.

“Fucking right I can do anything I want to you.” I reach down and cup her breast in my hand and squeeze it, hard. She whimpers.

God. That sound. So sexy.

“I am not lying to you, sir. Why would I lie?” There’s a bite to the way that she says sir, a sassiness, that makes my cock twitch.

I look down at her. “Last chance to tell me the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth. Sir.”

As she says that, I hear her stomach rumble, and she blushes.

And I realize that I know she’s not lying to me – I just don’t want to admit it to myself.

Forget transferring Galina.

Galina knows the rules. She knows what happens to people who lie to me.

I growl in rage. I climb off her and order a tray of food from the kitchen.

It’s there in minutes. My men stand back and wait, silently.

Willow sits at a table, hunches over her food and wolfs down the roast beef sandwich and the slice of chocolate cake. Now I feel something like remorse. That gnawing feeling of hunger…it is my fault. And she didn’t even rat Galina out when she could have.

I have one of my servants take the food tray away, and I tell him to call Galina back. She rushes into the room. She’s smiling, eager.

“Take off your clothes for me, Galina. Sweetheart.” I say it gently. If she knew me any better, she’d be terrified.

She is wearing a form-fitting, scoop-necked yellow dress. She yanks it over her head in one swift movement and drops it to the floor, then steps out of her panties. She is glowing with delight, shooting looks of scorn and triumph at Willow.

“Yes, sir,” she says eagerly. “What can I do for you now, sir? Would you like to punish me?”

Oh, she has no idea.

I gesture at the men. They know what I want, and they all walk forward. She looks at me in bewilderment, eyes widening.

“You were the one who spit on the food. There are cameras all throughout this house, by the way,” I tell her. “But I’m not going to waste my time going over the footage, because I can tell from the look on your face.”

She turns a sickly white, and her mouth forms an O of shock. “Sir… I’m sorry…”

The men are still advancing toward her. She backs up, eyes wide with terror and fury. Funny. When I see that look in her eyes, it does nothing for me. I go back to being dead Sergei, with a blizzard blowing where his heart should be.

When I see that same look in little Pussy Willow’s eyes, it makes me hard as a fucking rock.

“After everything her family did! After what they did to my sister!” she screams, tears spilling onto her cheeks.

“Not my fucking problem,” I snarl at her.

Willow gasps. “No! Wait! Because of me?”

Oh, good. She forgot to say sir. I feel a rush of blood to my groin.

“I’m sorry,” Willow babbles. “I shouldn’t have complained. It’s nothing. Really. Don’t hurt her because of me.”

All my men are staring at me now, eyes gleaming with anticipation. Galina is sucking in big, gulping breaths, and black, mascara-stained tears are pouring down her face.

I walk toward Willow, who flinches away from me on the couch. “What did you say to me?” There’s just the hint of an edge to my voice.

She looks up at me, her eyes huge.

“Take it out on me instead,” she whispers. “It’s my fault. I…I must have done something to upset her. Give me to the men instead.”

She just gave me an order! I smile at her, lips curving upward in a savage smile.

I grab her by the hair and pull her to her feet.

Galina screams at her, face red and contorted with fury. “Fuck you!” she screams at my Weeping Willow. “Bitch! Don’t you dare feel sorry for me! I’ll fucking cut you, bitch! Whore!”

Nobody talks to my property like that except me.

I stalk over to her, dragging a crying, struggling Willow with me by the hair, and backhand Galina with my free hand so hard she falls over. Blood is streaming from her mouth.

She lets out a strangled shriek. “After you’re done with her, take out the trash,” I tell Feodyr, and he nods abruptly.

Galina gasps. She gets it now. She realizes the full horror of what’s about to happen to her.

I hear her screams of terror as the men climb on her. Mikhail is mounting her, his cock already out of his pants. Working for me has its perks. She shrieks as he impales her with his rigid dick. Karl straddles her chest, starts jerking off on her unnaturally round plastic tits.

“I did everything for you! For you!” she screams to me.

No, she did everything because she’s a greedy little bitch who hoped I’d be her meal ticket.

But she doesn’t matter. She isn’t worth thinking about.

Now, it’s all about Willow.