I could feel eyes on me, but I ignored them. I cared not for what others thought of me. I learned from a young age that it didn’t matter if people formed an opinion about you. Either way, when you needed them, they would not be there to save you. The only person you could count on was yourself.
Feelings were a weakness—a disease. I’d learned to shut them down a long time ago. Why? Because feeling nothing was better than feeling everything. If my family did one thing right it was to raise me to be fearless and ruthless.
I made my way to where the people or pets were chained up, since I had to play my part and pick one. My eyes traveled over their faces, the lifeless look in their eyes, the look of despair. Killing them would be mercy. I picked the one who still had some fire in his eyes. His bones and skin had been damaged, but his soul was still there. You could always tell who had fight in them by looking into their eyes.
My cold hand made him flinch. I ran my finger over the sharp edge of his jaw and under his chin. I kneeled in front of him, and his eyes grew with fear. He was more alert than the others who were with him. He had a pretty face that looked carved from stone, and eyes that seemed plucked from emeralds.
“Give us a room,” I told the guard that was protecting the merchandise. He looked at me and nodded. I felt eyes boring into my back, but I ignored them.
I waited as the guard produced a key attached with a metal parchment that contained the room number. He then unchained the pet and gave me the leash. I felt nothing as I touched the metal chains that dehumanized the man below me.
“Let’s go,” I commanded. Making my way to the back rooms, I pulled the leash with more force than necessary. A statement needed to be made, and I had no qualms about making it.
The heels tapped against the marbled floor, and with my head held high, I walked with a man kneeling at my feet.
When the door to the room I had requested opened, I pulled the chain on my pet to signal him to go in.
“Adrik.” I called the guy’s name, and his eyes closed in fear or perhaps relief. He had been someone I somewhat trusted. He didn’t deserve the end he was getting, not when he had joined Sekten, but that was the world we lived in today—a back must never be turned.
I kneeled at the man who was a shell of whom he had been. I cupped his cheeks and wiped the tears that fell with my fingertips. He knew his end was near.
Slowly I gave him a kiss. His mouth parted, and I slid the small blade into his willing mouth.
“You will be avenged,” I vowed.
He knew I couldn’t take him out of here without arousing suspicion. He wouldn’t be the same man if I did. Instead, I offered him to die with a little dignity. He would die, but not before killing who had hurt him the most.
Now that my work here was done, I needed to leave.
The man didn’t look at me anymore, and I wished I could say I felt remorse when I pulled open the door. My heart was just an organ, incapable of feeling. As soon as I was out, I was slammed back into the wall as a man passed in a blur.
I bit the insides of my cheeks, pissed off. I might be here on official business for the Sekt, but I also had a debt I had to pay.
“Sorry” was shouted, the words getting lost in the evolving chaos.
I straightened myself and used the distraction the man had provided and walked out of the bar.
Curiosity always got the best of me, so once outside, I ran, trying to find the man who had slammed me. When I cleared the alley, I saw him. He wore all black too, from his leather jacket to combat boots. He grabbed a helmet and got on a Fatboy.
Shaking my head of unwanted thoughts, I raised my hand and hailed a cab. I made my way to the house, where I should have been twenty minutes ago. Any other time I would pay, but since the Sekt came first, there was nothing Yorovich could do about it.
Yoro was the head of the bratva here in Chicago. He was fifteen years my senior, and he was also the one who’d wagered a deal with my father and owned parts of me. Everything in the world had a price, and so did a daughter.
The ride was smooth. The driver ignored me as I started to change in the back of his car, my commando clothes gone and replaced by an Yves Saint Laurent silk dress. The color was pink because Yoro liked to pretend I was a lady and not a paid whore. Someone who was docile and not a weapon. Someone who wanted him and was not fucking him since she was sixteen because he paid for it.
The car came to the entrance of Southernwoods, and my heart accelerated. This was the playground of the rich, and once you came in, what happened behind the gold doors stayed inside. The outside world was forgotten.
The mansions varied in size the deeper you got into the Southernwoods maze. The car stopped at the gated entrance to Yoro’s house.
I lowered the window, feeling the cool Chicago air on my skin.
“It’s me, I have arrived.” I forced my voice to hold back my usual sarcasm, and the bile, when I spoke to him.
“You’re late.”
He didn’t say more, and neither did I. The gates opened for me, and I leaned back, already counting the hours before I could leave this hellhole.
The car came to a stop, and I slid my black Amex on the card reader. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my clothes and stepped one heeled boot out, then the other.
The mansion was big, with a fountain in the middle of a circular driveway. It had a set of stairs, and at the top was the master of the house. Yorovich Morozov, bratva leader in Chicago, and he was one of the most powerful men in Moscow too.
Power was dangerous to men; it made them feel invincible, untouchable, and they forgot they were still mortal.
I never forgot that every single person could bleed.
“Damian needed something handled,” I spat at him in hopes his scowl would go away. “We might have an arrangement, but you will always come second to what the organization needs.”
His jaw went taut at my comment. Yoro would never be a priority for me. Damian and the Sekt would always triumph.
“When you are in my kingdom, you play by my rules,” he stated.
Haven’t I always?
I lowered my head in submission at his response. I knew the game. I hated the rules, yet I played it well.
“I am at your command, master.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, then gave a nod and opened the door for me to follow him. I walked into the house, my skin crawling as I did so. Being forced to submit was one of the worst things in the world.
My life was not my own, and sometimes I feared it never would be.
Five lashes.
That’s how many times Yoro whipped my back for being tardy. This was his kingdom, and I was a mere subject to him. It was part of the contract that when I stepped foot in Chicago, I was his. Outside of this fucking place, I was feared. My name trembled from dying men’s lips—one day, maybe even his.
He whipped me, and then he fucked me. He tarnished my body, and then once I was weak and bloody, he worshiped me as if I was royalty.
Outside of this house, I was.
Since Yoro wasn’t stupid and he only trusted me as far as he could throw me, he left me cuffed. The floor was cold against my bare ass. The see-through nightgown was bullshit; it didn’t lessen the cold. My arms were sore from being over my head; they were looped through one of the handles in the armoire. My back ached against the wood. The whoopings I got last night needed tending.