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He reaches up, running his finger around her nipple, and Sasha squeals, twisting away from him with a gasping sob. “I can’t leave marks on her, of course. Not lasting ones. This one is the only one of you that’s unblemished, except for her lack of virginity. But she’ll fetch the highest price.” He sets the knife aside then, undoing his belt. “But I can still teach you a lesson in this way.”
Alexei circles around her, folding the belt over in his hands. And then, as Sasha sobs aloud, twisting on the hook, he brings the belt down on her ass with all the force in his arm.
Sasha’s scream is like nothing I’ve ever heard. She screams again when he does it a second time, and Alexei laughs, a sound that’s almost a cackle. “When you defy me,tsarina, when you refuse to bend to me the way you’ve bent to your husband, when you argue with me or try to harm me, when you try to thwart me, it won’t be you who receives the lash. It won’t be you that I push to the very edges of your limits to bear the pain. It won’t be you that I torment and violate.” He smiles cruelly, his eyes lighting up with pleasure as he strikes Sasha again, hard enough to send her body swinging on the hook.
“It will be her, or the crippled one, or Romano’s wife. And if you haven’t learned your lesson by then, after I’ve grown tired of taking out my anger on them, I’ll turn to something more—convincing.” His eyes gleam, and I know with a bone-chilling fear exactly what he means.
“After all,” Alexei says pleasantly as if we were discussing the weather. “Don’t most children need a good spanking from time to time?”
“Fuck you!” I twist against the ropes tying me to the bed, baring my teeth at him in a near snarl. “You won’t lay a fucking hand on them—”
“Oh?” Alexei raises an eyebrow, and then he brings the belt down on Sasha’s thighs. Not once, not twice, but over and over, swinging in a relentless rhythm that peppers her butt and thighs and hips with the crack of the leather until she’s nearly glowing red and sobbing, dangling helplessly.
“Please,” Sasha whimpers, and I wait for Alexei to beam with pleasure that she’s begging him. But then she turns her head in my direction, and I feel something in my chest crack open with a specific, excruciating agony. “Caterina, please—”
“What?” I gasp the word, feeling as if I can’t breathe. “Sasha, I—”
“Stop fighting him. Please.” She’s crying harder now, gulping for air, her body shaking as if she’s nearly seizing from the pain. “Please don’t make him mad. I can’t take anymore, please, it hurts, it hurts so bad, Caterina, please don’t—”
I feel myself go limp, every bit of fight that I ever possessed draining out of me. It’s as if Alexei reached inside of me and tore out a piece of my soul in that instant, as if he crushed my heart in his fist. I’d thought that I’d felt broken before, leaving his room, but I’d been wrong.
I hadn’t known just how broken I could be.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I won’t—I promise I won’t. I won’t fight. I swear, Alexei, please don’t hurt her anymore—”
“Louder.” He moves as if to swing the belt again, and I nearly scream it, jerking at the ropes.
“I won’t fight back! I swear, Alexei, I promise, just don’t hit her again! Please! I’ll do anything you say, I swear—”
He steps back, a satisfied smile curving his lips. “Very good, Caterina.” He motions to one of the men at the door, and the guard strides forwards, stretching up to pull Sasha off the hook. She crumples into his arms, unable to stand and seemingly uncaring who is holding her, as long as it keeps her from falling to the floor.
“Take her back to the room,” Alexei orders. “And bring in the other one.”
“What?” I gasp aloud, my eyes going wide. “But I said—”
“You aren’t arguing with me, are you,tsarina?” He looks at me calmly, his mouth twitching with obvious pleasure at the corner that he’s backed me into. “You said you would go along with whatever pleased me, yes? That you wouldn’t fight or thwart me if I let your friend down? Because I can bring her back if you didn’t mean it—”
“No!” I shake my head fiercely. “I’m not—I meant it. I promise. I’m not arguing with you, I just thought—”
“Women.” Alexei clicks his tongue. “You all think too much. It’s not necessary. All that we need from you is a hot mouth and tight pussy on our cocks, a pair of hands to keep the house, and a fertile womb to give us an heir. None of that involvesthinking. So less of that, please.” He motions to the other guard, who opens the door, and a moment later, I gasp as I see Ana being dragged in, her ruined feet barely touching the floor.
“You see,” Alexei begins, as the guard drags her wrists over her head to hook them like Sasha’s had been. “I can’t trust you,tsarina. You promised me once before, after all, to behave, and obey me willingly if I spared the lives of Viktor and the other men. But you broke that promise. Now I’m going to give you another chance to keep the one that you just made.” He moves towards Ana, who looks at him with terrified eyes. She hasn’t been blindfolded, and she whimpers as he comes closer, trying to move away. But of course, she can’t. The rope holding her wrists is over the hook, and her feet barely touch the floor.
“I’m going to punish this one now,” Alexei says calmly, “to drive home the point that I’ve made. I need you to understand, Caterina, that your husband is not coming for you. None of them are. They are not coming to save any of you. Your only hope of survival, and your only hope for your friends and for those two precious children, is for you to submit to the situation that you’ve found yourself in—for you to submit tome. This—” he gestures at Ana, shivering in fear on the hook, “isyourfault. You attacked me, and now these poor girls are paying for it.” He shakes his head as if deeply disappointed. “Your obstinacy is the reason why they’re in pain.”
I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be brave. More than anything, I wanted to protect them. And as Alexei starts to methodically cut away Ana’s clothing, ignoring her sobs and pleas, I can feel every ounce of strength I had draining out of me, leaving me feeling empty and hollow, more hopeless than I’ve ever felt in my life.
I’d thought that I’d hit rock bottom before. But clearly, there was further down to fall.
I don’t bother begging. I know it won’t help. What Alexei wants isn’t me pleading and crying. He wants me silent, compliant, obedient. He wants me to submit, to accept his decisions without argument, and this is one of those. If I beg, if I argue, if I fight back, I’ll only make it worse.
Ana doesn’t meet my eyes. She doesn’t plead like Sasha did either or say anything to me. She hangs there, head down so that her chin is almost brushing her chest, tears dripping onto the hardwood as she cries, waiting for the blows.
When Alexei starts in, he doesn’t stop. I want to look away, but I force myself to watch all of it. Because he’s right—this is my fault. All of it. I let my emotions get the better of me, lost control, gave into the gratification of fighting back instead of keeping my word and protecting the ones I have responsibility for. And now I’m responsible for something so much worse.
He brings the belt down, hard and relentless, again and again until Ana is so limp that I’m afraid she’s passed out. Alexei doesn’t stop, doesn’t take a break, just beats her until her skin is welted and burning red, visibly bruised and decorated with broken veins. Finally, breathing hard, he steps back, admiring his work.
“I could go harder on her,” he says, his voice pleased. “She’s worth nothing at sale anyway. Not like the other one. Beautiful, isn’t it? Such a lovely red.” He reaches out to touch her, and Ana shudders away from him like a fly-bitten horse, a cry escaping her lips.
