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My voice shakes and the tears fall as I am transported back to that night, and I gasp, “He told me that if I didn’t cooperate, he would rape me. He wanted to use me for some kind of subscription service and set me up as a virgin. If I didn’t do as he asked, he would fuck me and then arrange ‘dates’ with powerful men who would rip my sanity to shreds. I had two choices, and I wanted neither of them, so I took the one where no man actually got to touch me. All I had to do was ‘perform’ and he would collect the subscriptions.”
Mikhail grips my hand hard, and I expect he is disgusted with me as I confess my darkest sin.
“Mickey set it all up. He converted Reggie’s room into a fake bedroom for the camera. It was kind of pretty in a way, all pink and white, almost childlike. I was given stuff to wear that left little to the imagination, and I was expected to lie on the bed and touch myself. The fact he watched the entire time as he filmed me was the most degrading thing I have ever experienced.”
I dash the tears away with my free hand and my voice shakes. “It was relentless. I ‘worked’ twelve hours a day in that room. The money was flooding in, and he set up a separate area where the viewers, as he called them, could pay for extras. Full nudity, touching myself intimately and spreading my legs so they could see everything. I was made to pose in disgusting ways and all the time pout seductively for the camera. I was a whore in a shop window that nobody ever got to go inside, and Mickey profited from my shame.”
My wish is granted when the elevator door opens, and the waiter pushes in a trolley laden with takeout cartons and boxes. My eyes widen as the scent of fried food hangs in the air, and yet my appetite has deserted me now.
If anything, I feel sick and Mikhail says abruptly, “Leave the trolley, we’ll help ourselves.”
The waiter nods and almost bows out of the room, leaving me with a man who is staring at me with thunderous rage in his eyes. Fuck. This doesn’t look good.
CHAPTER 23
MIKHAIL
Iam physically boiling with rage and revenge is beating a hole in my heart, desperate for release.
Mickey Gruber is a dead man walking, and I am tempted to head over there now and spend the night taking his body apart inch by inch.
I guessed it was bad, but knowing how degraded Lilli must have felt, with that pervert watching her, makes it difficult to breathe and yet I maintain my emotionless guard and absorb the shit she is telling me.
I know things are changing and what he set up is common now. Women make millions and never even leave their bedrooms, but they do it for themselves. Not become a performing monkey for a man with no morals. No compassion and no fucking chance against me. To trap her on the day of her sister’s funeral and in her sister’s room is the worst kind of monster. Thank fuck Lilli ran, but it still doesn’t explain what Carter did.
I nod toward the food.
“Enough. I get the picture. You don’t have to tell me any more details.”
“Thank you.” She bows her head in shame, and I want to smash something.
“Go and choose, Lilli, and bring me whatever you’re having.”
Her eyes widen. “I don’t…”
“Eat, I insist.”
The last thing I want is for her to pass out on me. She may not feel like eating now, but her body requires fuel to operate.
I dash out a text to Damien while she wanders over to the trolley.
Meet me in the den in thirty minutes and I want everything you have on Mickey Gruber.
Lilli heads back to the table and hands me a burger and fries and several sachets of tomato sauce.
“I’m sorry, Mikhail.” She whispers sadly.
“Sorry about what?” I stare at the food in disgust, wishing like hell I hadn’t agreed to this.
“Your lovely meal. Your chef must be angry and then, well, my story isn’t pleasant, and you must hate me right now.”
She says breathlessly, “I’ll understand if you want me to leave. You don’t have to say anything. I’ll just grab my clothes and go.”
“Leave?” I raise my eyes.
“You tried that before, and it got you nowhere. I need you for something extremely important to me and what you were forced to do makes no difference how I feel about you.”
She won’t look me in the eye and with a sigh, I drop the hated heart attack inducing burger and head to her side, dropping down on my heels and taking both of her hands in mine.
