Page 38 of Sinful Lord

“And what arrangement is that?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“It sounds like you could use some help,” I note.

“I do not need your help,” she spits, her narrow eyes growing wide and wild. “You should see the scope of the organization I created! The money it brings in! Sure, it doesn’t rival the business I’m about to inherit, but it could support me if that ever fell through.”

The ferocity of her response catches me off guard.

“Why the hell would you ever need to worry about money?” I prod, unable to help myself.

“I don’t. Not anymore,” Yasha huffs, slowly cooling back down. “But I did once… You gave me a taste of darkness, Tytus. When you left, I only wanted more.”

“What are you talking about?”

Initially, Yasha hesitates to respond, but it’s like she can’t help herself.

“My father forbade me, but I couldn’t help it,” she mumbles, vaguely. “Of course, no one else in the underworld is anything like you, but by mingling with enough of them, I got my fix. And that pissed daddy off. He threatened to cut me off. To disown me. He didn’t like the rumors that were starting to swirl. So, I took a pre-emptive step. I started my own underworld business. A failsafe in case I was cut out of the will.”

“What underworld business could you have possibly started?” I doubt her, remembering how, when we first met, she had never even seen a gun before.

“I…” Clearly, Yasha wants to brag, even if she knows she shouldn’t. It’s an internal struggle I quickly put an end to.

“Tell me,” I demand.

That’s all it takes.

“Have… have you ever heard of camgirls?” she finally gives in, a small smirk lifting her plastic cheeks.

A prideful glint sparkles around her pale green eyes.

“You started a camgirl show?” I ask, unimpressed. “And you’re worried about Manfred seeing your little sex tapes?”

“I started a brothel,” Yasha corrects. “Hundreds of girls work around the clock to make me and my associates money. I provide the… uh, lodging... and they provide the warm bodies. They dance and they entertain and they earn and I collect. It’s my own little empire… or at least, it was…”

“The lodgings you provide must be nice,” I say, trying to make sense of what I’m hearing. “Otherwise, why would these girls work for you? Couldn’t they just as easily make money on their own? Your story doesn’t make much sense...”

“They don’t work on their own because I don’t give them the option to,” Yasha responds, grinning like she’s solved world hunger. “I find the prettiest girl, the most innocent, the most naïve, the ones you would never see on any kind of stream anywhere else, and I put them in front of a camera. I make them work. I make them earn. For me and for my associates.”

“And if they don’t want to?” I ask, starting to understand where this is going.

“Like I said, they don’t have a choice.”

“So slaves. You trade in sex slaves now. That’s your big criminal organization?”

She shrugs

“Sure. Call it whatever you want. It’s lucrative.”

“I’m calling it what it is. You’re evil.”

“I learned it from you, daddy,” Yasha whispers, her grin only growing wider.

“We are nothing alike. I have my limits. My rules. My code.”

That makes her groan. “Oh come on, lighten up. You recorded us having sex, didn’t you? And you’re using it as leverage. What I’m doing is practically the same thing.”

“No. It’s not. What we did was consensual. It sounds like you’re forcing girls into servitude. That’s slavery. That’s evil.”