Once I am returned to the room across from Vladimir’s private abode, a thin nightie is shoved into my chest. “Put this on. Vladimir will happily tear it off you later. He likes unwrapping his favorite whores.”
The idea of giving Vladimir any pleasure repulses me, but I slip the thin material over my head, nonetheless. It barely covers my nipples and the faint hairs between my legs Vladimir refuses for his captives to remove, but it’s better than remaining naked. A thin barrier of protection will forever exceed nothing.
The goon has only just stepped out of my room when the lady I saw earlier sprints past him. Although her clothes are torn open, her body isn’t harnessing any of the marks I anticipated her to have after her visit with the devil.
Is that because she’s already marked?If so, I wish even more now that I didn’t attempt to take out one of Vladimir’s guests with the blade of a razor my first week here.
If scars will save me from Vladimir, I’ll wear them with honor.
“I’ll come back. I promise I will be back,” the redhead shouts in multiple languages as she darts down the corridor.
When my door slams shut at the same time she comes to a grinding halt, I race for the keylock. I can’t see the person responsible for her frozen stance partway down the corridor, but I don’t need to see him to know who he is. The redhead’s face is holding the same sickened expression mine did when Vladimir forced his cock between my teeth my first week here.
I press my ear against the door when accented voices boom through it. Although I can’t speak a word of English, I do understand it. My father loved English-speaking television shows. My mother and I regularly watched them with him, so we caught onto the lingo.
“Is she as you remember?” asks a familiar, arrogant tone. Vladimir sounds like he’s still hard from watching me being punished. I’m not surprised. He’s a sick fuck who would have enjoyed watching the welts in my back bleed more than my pathetic attempt to give him head.
“Yes,” answers a male voice I don’t recognize. “You can starve off your hunger for years, but it doesn’t make your desire to eat any less rampant.”
If I were half the woman I once was, I would have agreed with him.
Now I doubt I’ll ever be desired again, much lessfeeldesire.
It dawns on me that my earlier assumptions about the redhead’s scars saving her from Vladimir were true when he spits out, “Even knowing she’s marked?” He sounds as disgusted as his abhorrent face makes me feel.
After a few seconds of painstaking silence, the second man replies, “Scars don’t bother me. It’s the marks you can’t see that are the hardest to heal.”
His words hit me harder than I care to admit. I’m damaged both inside and out, so if what he’s saying is true, it’ll take more than a hearty meal and a long shower to fix me, and unfortunately, not all the damage occurred here.
My focus returns to the confrontation occurring outside of my room when Vladimir grunts out, “To each his own. Just don’t mark her any more than you already have. There are a long list of men waiting their turn.”
I want to scream for the redhead to run again, but she has more gall than all the women in this compound combined. “He will kill you if you touch me.” Her threat is stern and to the point, fortified by a strong backbone. “When Nikolai discovers what you have done, he will kill you both.”
I peer back out of the keyhole when the shuffling of feet sounds through my ears. It has me missing what a dark-haired, blue-eyed man replies, but no amount of thickness can detract from the roar of war that thunders down the corridor a few seconds later.
“He’s here! Nikolai is here!” bellows up the stairwell a mere second before gunfire gobbles up the man’s shouted warning.
The corridor fills with men as the redhead strays her eyes to Vladimir. “I told you he’d come. It’s time to pay your penance, Vladimir. The prince has arrived to collect his throne.”
The back of Vladimir’s hand collides with her cheek so forcefully, even my teeth feel the brunt of his hit. “The sale has been canceled. I'll refund your money by the end of the week.”
I bang on the door, wordlessly pleading for Vladimir to leave the redhead alone when he drags her down the corridor by her hair.
He doesn’t pay me any attention. He’s too busy repeating to the man not happy his sale has been canceled that it’s his way or death.
There are no in-betweens when it comes to this man.
When Vladimir and the redhead disappear into the room I was just punished in, I press my back against my door so I can cradle my head in my hands. The sound of a chain being run through the pulley is too much for me to bear. It reminds me that the pain skating across my back isn’t the pleasurable version some women love. It’s because I was humiliated in the very room Vladimir plans to kill the redhead in.
I saw the gleam in his eyes. He only ever gets that look when death is on the agenda.
* * *
With my head occupied by horrible thoughts, the time between Vladimir dragging the redhead to her death and a funky wet substance seeping under my door darts by remarkably quick. When I dab up droplets of the liquid onto my fingers, I’m torn between being excited and uneased. The sickly smelling liquid is gasoline, and there are more than a few droplets.
When I return to staring out of the peephole, my heart launches into my throat. Four men are splashing gasoline on the doors lining the corridor while another two soak Vladimir’s room from top to bottom, dosing it with way more gasoline than needed.
Vladimir is a madman, but not even someone as evil as him would burn down an entity bringing him in thousands upon thousands of dollars every night. That’s why my emotions don’t know which way to swing. If they’re planning to burn this place down, that can only mean one thing.
