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He grabbed the man and flung him over a spanking horse and shackled him to it. Brian rushed to Mina and felt for a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found it steady and stronger than expected.
“Elsa,” he said.
She looked up, her face tear streaked and angry. “What?”
He took in the marks Matsumoto had left on her. “Why didn’t you tell us he was abusing you during our check ins?”
“He was patient. He didn’t start until the check-in visits stopped. By then I was too afraid of him.”
Elsa spoke in a reasonable manner, but there was murderous intent in her eyes for killing the man that was obviously her lover.
“I can’t let you go. You’re a loose end. You’re too damaged to resell, and you’d be a liability at the house.”
“Mina will never forgive you if you kill me,” she said.
“She’s unconscious. She’ll never know what happened here.” He killed Elsa quickly and cleanly, and then untied Mina. She slumped against him, the blood still dripping down her back onto a white tapestry.
“So you’re killing everyone but me? To send a message?” Matsumoto asked.
“Oh, no, I’m killing you. You’ll die in the fire.”
He took Mina outside and retrieved the gasoline he’d discovered in a nearby outbuilding during his initial sweeps. He went through every room, dousing the house—especially Matsumoto. When he and Mina were a safe distance away, he lit it.
13
Mina cringed when she felt the hand on her face. She wanted nothing more than to slip back into the grace of unconsciousness to step outside of this place and away from her new horrible master. She wanted this deceptively kind touch to be Brian’s. She wished it so fervently that she could almost smell him and believe.
“Mina.”
The sound of loud engines woke her more fully. When she opened her eyes, she found she was lying down with her head on Brian’s lap. His shirt was off, and there was a bandage on his shoulder. As she grew more lucid she could feel the bandages on her own back. And the pain. She felt the cool metal of the collar around her throat. She couldn’t see it, but reaching to touch it, she knew it was Brian’s. Matsumoto hadn’t put a collar on her.
This wasn’t happening. It was a dream. A lovely dream. If she let herself believe this was real and then woke up…
“Drink.” The cool water sliding down her throat finally convinced her she was really with him.
“We’re going back to the house.” His tone brooked no argument, but she wouldn’t have argued. She would have begged to go back with him. She couldn’t believe he’d come for her. She’d been sure she would die in there. Maybe shewasdead.
“I shouldn’t have released you. But I shouldn’t have tortured that girl in front of you, either.” Mina lay silently listening to him speak as he stroked her hair. “I don’t know how normal emotions work. I don’t know why you’re an exception that lets me feel something almost like a real feeling. I don’t know if I love you or if I’m capable of it, but you aremine. You will always be mine. In the future I will consider all the ways I could damage you, not just the ways prohibited in a contract. And I will protect you from those things. That’s the best I can offer, but I need your obedience, and I need you to understand that I’m too broken to ever fix. I am what I am, but you are under my protection. That has to be enough. Is that enough for you?”
It wasn’t enough. It should be, but it wasn’t. But it didn’t matter because whether it was packaged in the way she thought it should be, Lindsay had delivered to her exactly what he’d promised and what she’d asked for: a master who would be gentle with her and respect her boundaries.
“Yes, Master,” she said. It was a lie, but it didn’t matter. Everything he’d asked was rhetorical. He wouldn’t let her go again. Not ever. She could feel the weight of self-blame on him for releasing her and his determination to keep her this time. It was explicitly stated in the grip he kept on her waist as if she might levitate up and away from him.
“We don’t know how he found you.”
Mina tensed.
“But you do.” It was scary how little it was possible to hide from him, no matter how badly she wanted to. “Tell me.” It wasn’t a request.
“The girl you punished in my place before you let me go…”
“Cate?”
Was that her name? She hadn’t known.
“She knew he bid on me but that you’d taken the bid from him because of something Lindsay said. She broke into Lindsay’s office and found the man’s number.”
The look that spread across Brian’s face was so dark and hard, she almost regretted telling him the truth. She didn’t ask what he’d done at the Japanese man’s house, if he’d killed everyone, if he’d left any survivors. She doubted it, but she didn’t want to know, and she was afraid if she asked he might tell her.
