I opened the web browser, my fingers flying across the keyboard. Muscle memory took over as I typed in the Outlook Mail URL, then my login information. The page loaded agonizingly slowly, each second feeling like an eternity.
Come on. Come on.
Finally, my inbox appeared. I clicked “Compose” and started typing. My hands trembled so badly that I had to backspace and retype half the words.
Subject:HELP - URGENT
Oscar,
I’m in serious trouble. I’m at the Brotherhood of Bastards’ clubhouse in Deadwood. I did something really stupid. Please don’t be mad at me but I need you to come get me.
-A
P.S. Don’t tell Zeus. Just come.
I read it over once, as my vision blurred with tears I refused to let fall. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t explain anything. But it would have to do.
I hit send and watched the message disappear into the ether.
Please see it. Please come.
Then I deleted the sent message from my outbox, cleared the browser history with shaking hands, and closed out of everything. The entire process took maybe three minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. I stood there for a moment, staring at the dark screen, as my heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.
What the fuck did you just do?
I had just used Nano’s own computer to send a distress signal to my brother. To the Gods of Mayhem. To the very people the Brotherhood was trying to keep in the dark about my presence here.
If he found out. When he found out. Don’t think about that. You had to try. You had to.
Because the money was gone. All seventy-five million dollars transferred back to the Brotherhood. I had nothing left tobargain with. Nothing to keep me valuable. Nothing to stop them from deciding I was more trouble than I was worth.
And then what? Would they kill me? Dump my body somewhere the Gods of Mayhem would never find it? Or worse, would they keep me? Turn me into one of those empty-eyed club whores I had seen downstairs, existing only to serve, to fuck, to be used and discarded over and over until there was nothing left of who I used to be?
I won’t. I won’t become that.
But even as I thought it, I knew the truth.
I was already becoming it because my body didn’t belong to me anymore. It belonged tohim.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. I pressed my hands against the desk, needing something solid to hold onto as the world tilted sideways. He had done something to me. Something I didn’t fully understand but could feel in every nerve ending, every desperate pulse of arousal that wouldn’t fade no matter how much I tried to ignore it.
My body was on fire. Had been for hours. Days, maybe. Time had lost all meaning in this room, in this bed, under his control, and the worst part, the part that made me want to scream and cry and tear my own skin off, was that Ilikedit.
I liked what he did to me. Liked the way he touched me, hurt me, denied me. Liked the darkness in his eyes and the cruelty in his voice, and the way he made me feel like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
You’re sick. You’re fucking sick.
Just like with Michael.
The thought made bile rise in my throat. I had sworn that I would never let another man do to me what Michael had done. Never let myself be reduced to a thing that existed only for someone else’s pleasure and pain.
And yet, here I was.
Desperate. Aching. So fucking aroused I could barely think straight.
I needed release. Needed it so badly my hands were shaking and my thighs were slick, and my entire body felt like it was going to combust if I didn’t do something to ease this unbearable pressure.
