Day three…

He drags me to his special room, fingers still tangled in my hair.

I am crying. I know Galina was a bully, but to have her killed? Because of one little lie?

He marches me over to the wall. He cuffs my wrists to chains that dangle down from a broad horizontal wooden bar, with my back to the wall. He walks over to a panel on the wall and presses a couple of buttons.

“My intercom system. A little music for my men,” he says. “I want them to hear what I do to you.”

Of course. All intimacy comes with a cost.

He selects a small black whip from a rack on the wall and walks over to me. “This is a single-tail,” he says. “And this time, I want you to see what’s coming.”

He snaps it, so fast I can’t see.

But I can hear it, a microsecond before an explosion of pain on my left breast.

It makes a terrible cracking sound each time he slashes at me, and I jump and cry out. He snaps it at me again and again. It criss-crosses over my breasts and down my stomach. Every snap is a line of fire. I can feel the entire line of heat where the whip struck, and he adds more and more of them, until I feel like someone drew lines on my flesh with a white-hot poker.

He is breathing hard, panting, and when I glance down I see the outline of his enormous cock.

And as he slashes, I feel that answering jolt of arousal again, building and building, until I can’t tell if I’m crying out with pain or ecstasy. I’m drowning in a red haze of lust.

When he stops and tosses the whip aside, I am gasping just as loudly as he is. He walks over and turns the intercom off.

Then he begins caressing me. He kisses my neck, and runs his hands lightly over the burning whip marks. My gasps melt into moans of pleasure.

He slides his hand between my legs, stroking gently.

“Mmmm.” I’m biting my lip to keep from crying aloud.

“Beg for it,” he whispers to me. “Tell me how much you want it. I like it when you beg.” His breath is hot and it feathers against my ear.

I know that this time he will give me what I’ve been craving so badly…if I just ask him nicely. He’d take me. He’d be inside me. Maybe he would soften for me, start to care a little?

Then Galina’s horrified face flashes in front of me.

Galina. She is dead or dying. Because of me. That means that I killed her.

“I can’t. Sir.”

He freezes, instantly. He takes a step back and stares at me, examining my face intently.

He arches an eyebrow. “What’s changed?” So he can sense it. Sense my moods and feelings.

“I am responsible for Galina’s death. Sir. It’s all that I can think about.”

He laughs, a harsh, braying sound. Madness flashes in his eyes. It chills me to the core, and I flinch away from him.

He undoes my cuffs, and I drop my arms and hug myself.

“Galina sold out her father, husband and brother, who worked for a competing outfit.” His gaze bores into me relentlessly. “She came to me and told me when they’d be delivering a shipment, knowing that it would cause their deaths. Not just a quick simple death, because they had killed several of my men, and I needed to make a clear statement about my feelings on the matter. My revenge was long and drawn-out and very well deserved. She knew what I would do to them, and she sold them to the devil for money. And the reason she abused you? She was jealous. She wanted me for herself. After I’d personally flayed the flesh from her nearest and dearest.”

I feel a wave of shock and disgust at the thought. Her own family? Is Sergei telling the truth? I somehow sense that he is. I doubt he’d bother to lie to me; he doesn’t care enough about what I think.

“Was she telling the truth about my family doing something to her sister? Sir?”

He ignores me. He is walking away.

“Please, sir,” I called after him pleadingly.

He glances back at me. “Yes.”

I want to ask him what they did. Clearly Galina came from a criminal family. Did her sister get caught in the cross-fire of a fight? Did she die of a drug overdose?

But Sergei vanishes through the door. He’s not even telling me what to do.

I feel cold and alone. I quickly get dressed and go back to my room.