Chapter
19

A subtle buzz traveled through my bloodstream, dulling the pain to a steady roar as a small whirlwind breezed into the room. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes assessed me as she pinched her full lower lip. Her lithe frame was wrapped in a white corset and skintight jeans, a stark contrast to her head full of black curls. She’d tucked a colorful scarf around her neck and into the front of her corset, covering the delicate swell of her breasts. I didn’t know who she was.

“How much has he hurt you?” the woman asked, her small voice filling only the space between us.

I broke into so many pieces I couldn’t be put back together again. This woman, who I had no doubt had some connection to Caesar, slipped into the bed and put my head on her lap. Tiny fingers parted my hair, massaging my scalp. Her warm, chocolate scent enveloped me as I sobbed. My pain strained and my stomach heaved with each breath I took. I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my arms tightly around her thin frame.

“I cannot be in here long, my sweet. He will come and wonder what is happening. Tell me, if I can offer you a way out, would you take it?”

I lifted my head to shout yes, but she put a finger to my lips, silencing me.

“Think, child. To escape a man like Caesar, with my help, may take you to a place you aren’t prepared to go. You are quite beautiful, and men would pay greatly for your time. I promise you will not be abused, but you will have to work. Would you want to?”

Her words filtered through the fog of warmth and support. Would I go and be a prostitute? I understood her words, as well as the meaning in her look. I’d never be my own woman. From the moment I was born, someone had cursed me, and the urge to escape it all swelled in my breast. But she gave me a choice. A chance to be my own person. Perhaps, if I went with her, I could escape. There would be a chance I’d be able to get out and fade into the millions of people in the streets.

Maybe I could get even further.

“Yes,” I answered. “I will go.”

She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “I will talk to him today about your purchase. I’ve done this before, and he’s let them go. Let me deal with it. For now, I need to get you outfitted for his pleasure. Let’s find a way to force him to spend quite a bit of money. Deal?”

She smiled, and I couldn’t help but to smile back. “Deal.”

“My name is Dahlia. He called you Ash, is that short for something?”

“Ashlyn.”

“Well, I wish we had met under different circumstances, Ashlyn, but I will help as much as I can.”

Dahlia pulled my arms from around her and stood up. She helped me to my feet, and held my arms. While the pain wasn’t as biting, it still stung to move. Just as she lifted my arms from my sides and glanced over my naked form, the bedroom door opened.

“What is taking so long?” Caesar questioned.

“I’m studying her shape. She’s a bit underfed, and I’m wondering if I should dress her at this weight or compensate for a fuller figure,” Dahlia answered. She never looked away from my body as she spoke, her brows furrowed with concentration. I even believed her performance.

“Prepare for a fuller figure. She wasn’t much more than this before, though,” Caesar said.

His steps approached, and goose flesh raced down my arms. His black Chuck Taylors came into view first. Signature black jeans encase his legs, and he had a vibrant-red shirt under a white blazer.

“I want to see her in the best,” he said as my gaze collided with his.

Yes, the best for his fuck doll. I ignored the way my treacherous body rippled with need at his heated gaze. Like fingertips pressing into my skin, his gaze traveled down my frame. He missed nothing, and I couldn’t hide.

Dahlia ran her fingers over my arms and down my sides before she clapped her hands. “I’ve got to order some more, but I already have some things with me downstairs that would work for her.”

“I’ll send Mindy and Erin up. They are getting … touchy,” he said. A slow, private smile spread across his lips and I wondered at it. But then he was gone from my sight, heading toward the door. “Girls, bring up everything, will you?”

I wrapped my arms around my chest as I heard steps up the main staircase.

“Turn around, pet,” Caesar ordered.

I did as he commanded because I couldn’t do anything else. Dahlia stood behind me, her delicate fingers tracing down my spine. It was both comforting and mortifying. This world they lived in crept into their touch, voice, and lives, until their pores wept with it. Trapped between Dahlia’s dark soothing, and the promise of twisted hell in Caesar’s eyes, the two women who entered the room blazed brighter. Perhaps because they were part of the world, and yet separate. The first one had pixie-short blonde hair, and her blue eyes took up most of her face. Painted bright pink, her pouty lips curved into a timid smile as she looked at me. Her frame was not much larger than mine, but her breasts sat higher and the black corset paired with a bright-red checkered, pleated skirt fit her to perfection. Next to her, a fiery-haired vixen sauntered in. Curls fell around her shoulders, but where the first woman had been demure and dressed like a whore, the redhead looked like a tramp but was dressed in a soft, white pantsuit. The contrast was striking. They carried bags and bags full of clothing and placed them beside the bed before they turned to view Caesar.

The change in them was immediate. Rapture covered their faces, and the blonde bit her lip.

“Hello, pets,” Caesar said, and there was a warmth to his tone that slid over my skin, rubbing me wrong. As Dahlia moved forward to rifle through bags, no one paid attention to the naked woman standing in the room. No, their eyes were on Caesar. The blonde reached him first, her hands worshipful as she ran them down the plane of his stomach.

He lifted her chin with a single finger and kissed the tip of her nose. “Mindy,” he whispered.

Her name. He said her name.

Heat spread through me, a slow, burning flame that started in my stomach and spread through my limbs.

The redhead approached him next and nuzzled against his side. Like a fucking cat, she rubbed her face against his arm and smiled up at him. He speared his fingers through her hair and pulled her head back with a painful yank. Her cheeks flushed and her mouth opened on a gasp.

“Erin.”

Another name.

Twice.

And she moaned.

Fucking moaned as she gripped his jacket and pulled him closer.

When he said their names, in the voice he only said my name, I wanted to stab needles into their ears.

Dahlia came back to me with something in her hands, but I couldn’t look away from Caesar and his pets. Couldn’t pull my gaze away as he kissed the taunt stretch of Erin’s neck and wrapped his arms around both of them. And I felt … lost. Tossed aside. I let Dahlia dress me in a bright-yellow micromini bodycon dress and direct me to sit at the vanity.

“I’m going to get reacquainted. We’ve got guests coming. Make sure she’s presentable.”

He said nothing else as he took Erin and Mindy with him. I watched them leave in the mirror and wanted to call him back. But why? Why did his hands on them make me want to scratch their eyes out? Escape. I had to escape. Caesar made me crazy and hurt me. He didn’t care about me, and I was nothing more than a body beneath him. I knew this. I knew it.

So why do I want him to touch me again?

I groaned in frustration.

“It’s all about training. They are trained to make a man want them. You will be, too.”

I didn’t answer her. I needed a way out. I curled my fingers into tight fists on the cool metal of the vanity and stared at myself in the mirror. My haggard face stared back at me, taunting me. This was what Caesar had done to me. This was what it meant to belong to him. Nothing more.

I held my head high as Dahlia led me from the room and followed me downstairs.

Keep your head high and put one foot in front of the fucking other, no matter how much it hurts. No matter what it takes. You fight because not fighting is for pussies, and pussies all deserve to die.

Caesar’s words blasted through my skull, but I held on to them. Terrified and angry, I didn’t want him to know he’d gotten any feeling from me. My back ached, still dulled by the medicine, but the pain reminded me of my bid for escape. I’d get out of this, too, and Dahlia would help me. No matter what, I’d find a way to get rid of Caesar.

Sean, dressed in a neat charcoal-and-white suit, stood at the top of the stairs. “So we don’t have another incident,” he said, explaining his presence and reminding me of my foolish attempt to escape. His dark gaze looked me over. “You clean up nice.”

I bared my teeth at him in response, but didn’t fight him as he took my arm and guided me down the stairs. Mindy and Erin flanked Caesar on the couch, curled up like stray fucking cats at his side, searching for a scrap of food. Across from him sat an older man I didn’t know. As I peered at him, Dahlia’s nails dug into my forearm. My gaze swung to her, but she only shook her head. The man across from Caesar had salt-and-pepper hair with a hard look about him, even though he laughed at something Caesar said. His hair was cut ruthlessly short, and his features made him look Middle Eastern. Like Sean, he wore a suit and rested back leisurely in his seat.

“You know how to entertain, C. I am appreciative of that,” the man said as we got closer.

“That’s the benefit of doing business with me. Now that you will have your merchandise, there are other things to discuss,” Caesar told him.

But the man wasn’t looking at him. He watched me with a pointed stare and licked his lips. “Who is this?”

Caesar didn’t even turn around. “My newest addition. Erin, Mindy, get her moving.”

His pets slinked off the couch and came toward me. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but Sean pushed me forward into them, and Dahlia squeezed my forearm in warning again. I stumbled against Erin’s chest, and she put me back on my feet.

“You aren’t even worth it,” she hissed at me.

In shock, I looked up into her brown eyes. She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Get the music ready, Sean. I know how he likes it.”

I didn’t miss the emphasis in her words. Sean walked to a solid panel in the wall and pressed something to the side. The panel opened to a stereo system on which he pushed buttons. Invisible speakers clicked on, the sound around me and above my head. Symbols crashed, and then drums and a piano filtered through the speakers before a female voice crooned about being a bad, bad girl. Erin rolled her hips and lifted her hands into the air as Mindy twisted her body and rocked to the beat.

And Caesar watched me expectantly.

I froze, music and limbs surrounding me. His pets rubbed against my body in time to the music. Warm. They were so warm against me. I teetered in the white stilettos Dahlia had forced me into, making my body move. Erin lifted my arms and held on to my hands so they stayed above me head and put her chest to mine. Mindy pushed up behind me and gripped my hips in steel fingers and pushed and pulled.

Pushed and pulled.

As the music throbbed, Caesar watched me as his guest salivated. I felt like a criminal, just like the girl in the song. My body moved to the beat; I couldn’t fight it. Every time I tried to pull away, their hands dug into me. Harder. Caesar’s hands. These women had learned at his feet. They moved me, and Erin moaned in my ear. The sound ricocheted in my head, and I hated her. She didn’t do it for me, but him. As they watched us, she forced me to put on a show for her master. The man touched her, and she loved it. The man she wanted to take her again. She could have him. They both could. How could they like what he did?

The same way I do.

The speakers moaned and different drums pulsed. Moaning, more moaning. We were moving, and I didn’t know how, but we were a tangle of three bodies. Caesar got closer but just out of reach. And then I was falling—falling too fast to catch myself—into the lap of his guest. Face-first between his legs. His cock rubbed against my cheek, fat and short under his slacks. His hands so different. So different. He gripped my hair and jerked me up until I straddled his lap. Then he turned me, forcing my legs open over his lap, facing Caesar.

Don’t touch me.

But he did. He didn’t care about my cry. He didn’t give a shit how he made me feel dirty.

“Violate all the love, and I’m dying,” the woman sang. I held on to her words to block out what happened. To separate from the way Erin and Mindy draped over Caesar and blocked his vision of me. They hovered in his face, Erin grinding on his lap.

Save me.

The cry didn’t stop, as the man holding me squeezed one breast and used his other hand to rub down my stomach. My back was on fire, the medicinal haze fading in my fear. But I couldn’t move.

“No,” I whispered.

“What?” Caesar asked. He gripped Erin’s side, but Sean put his hand on Caesar’s shoulder, stopping him.

“I was talking to Dahlia. Dahlia, turn up the tunes,” Sean ordered, covering my cry.

My gaze clashed with his as dared me to speak again. To do anything but be a whore for their guest. Tears sprang to my eyes.

No.

I couldn’t do this. Dahlia waved behind Sean and implored me with her kind eyes. She wanted me to be a whore, too. I couldn’t. Her way of escaping wasn’t possible, either. I didn’t want to be a whore anymore. I didn’t want to be used. I wanted to fight. I wanted to be my own woman. I wanted to find a way to see the woman who stood over her tormentors’ dead bodies and laughed. I wanted to be her.

Fingers pushed their way into my panties, and I choked. The words to the music twisted, and I hated it all. But I locked down, my training going into effect. Where was the fight I’d shown Caesar? Where was the need to push him away? Instead, I floundered like a rag doll as hands controlled me. The man pushed me sideways, and I fell into the couch, the soft material swallowing my vision. Tears, hot and blinding, filled my eyes and spilled over as my underwear was pulled down. Cool air kissed my ass, and fingers pushed inside me. I grunted and whimpered.

No. Save me.

I clenched my fingers into the couch and screamed into the cushion.

“Stay just like that, Ash. You know how they like it. Let it happen and I won’t knock your fucking teeth out.”

Jason. He was here. I heard him. His musk filled my nose, and I did as he commanded. I lifted my ass into the air and blindly waited. Two fingers tunneled inside me, forcing their way through the dry, sensitive tissue of my pussy.

“Still gotta spit on this bitch. They want you fucking wet. The fuck is wrong with you?”

Wet. Get wet, Ash. The pain will stop if you enjoy it.

I rocked back and forth, but the pleasure wouldn’t come. I gyrated and searched, but it just hurt. No edge of dark pleasure to steal the pain away. I felt empty, my stomach dropping to the floor. The world faded. I was that girl trapped on the bed, Jason taking everything from me.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Caesar.

I turned my face toward him and let him see. Let him see that he broke me. That Jason taught me well. That I could be a good girl.

“I’m doing it right. I’m sorry,” I told him. “Jason, I’m sorry.”

Caesar’s face dropped. He turned to stone. He stood, and Erin and Mindy fell to the floor.

“What did you call me?” he asked.

I shook my head, the past merging with the present. Caesar and Jason flickered before me, superimposed into one and the same. Back and forth. I gritted my teeth and worked my hips harder. “Wet, Ash. Get wet. The pain will stop if you enjoy it,” I whispered.

“She’s crazy.” The man withdrew his fingers from me and he dumped me onto the floor at Caesar’s feet. I wrapped around him, seeking his warmth. Isn’t this what he wanted? Had I done it right?

No. No. No.

Black. Black. Black.

“You shouldn’t have paid for her. She’s worthless,” I heard above me.

Caesar slowly reached into his jacket.

“Caesar, no!”

Sean’s warning didn’t matter. I watched, confused, as Caesar pulled out a silver handgun and pointed it at the man on the couch.

“No, Gleeson. She’s mine, and that makes her worth more than your life.”

The gun exploded, a bright flash of light blinding me. I jumped as Erin and Mindy screamed.

“Caesar, what the fuck?” Sean bellowed.

“Say my name, Ash,” Caesar told me.

I looked into his eyes and saw the need, the fear. Fear of what?

“Caesar?” I asked.

He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before he reached down for me. The heated gun burned against my arm, but he shifted me against his chest and stood with me in his arms.

“Dahlia, your services are no longer required. You will be paid to keep your mouth shut, or killed to keep it shut. Which would you prefer?” he asked.

“I know what to do, C,” she whispered. “The girl?”

“Will be fine. I will never need your services for her again. Ship the rest of the clothes you picked for her and take the girls out of here.”

I didn’t look at Dahlia as she hustled the girls out of the penthouse in the silence that remained. Caesar sank into the couch and pulled me tightly to him.

“You cried when he touched you,” he said. “You called me Jason.” The gun still firmly in his hand, he used it to push my hair from my face. “I’m not him. I wanted …” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “Another mistake with you.” He traced my cheek with the muzzle of the gun before he put his forehead to mine. “What are you doing to me?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” I told him. He’d killed him. I licked my lips, too afraid to speak, and yet too scared to not ask. “For me?” I forced out.

He looked up at the dead man and closed his eyes. “You called me Jason,” he repeated.

I didn’t say anything else as he tucked me closer to his body and pushed my face into his chest. “I’m not him. I won’t let you go, I can’t. But no one will ever hurt you again.”

“Except you,” I said.

He sighed and set the gun down. “Yeah, Ash. Except me.”