Chapter 8 Sofia
The dress arrives with a collar.
Red silk pools across my bed like spilled blood, the fabric so thin it's practically transparent. Beside it lies a delicate gold collar, its chain fine as spiderweb until you notice the lock. The kind that requires someone else's key.
Hours since he found evidence of my midnight wanderings. Hours of his pale eyes tracking my every breath, searching for cracks in my performance. Hours of careful deflection, playing the confused princess who couldn't possibly pick locks or disable cameras.
Now this.
I lift the collar, finding exactly what I expected: a tracking device, military grade, embedded in the gold. The message is clear: tonight I'm not attending a bratva gathering. I'm being displayed as his possession.
The silk slides over my skin like water.
Cut to reveal more than it conceals, the neckline plunging past decent, the back completely open except for delicate gold chains.
When I move, the dress shifts like smoke, revealing my entire leg through a slit that rises dangerously high.
He must have had someone take my measurements while I slept.
The door opens without warning. Alexei fills the doorway in a black suit that makes his pale eyes look like winter ice. His gaze travels my body slowly, and I feel it like hands on my skin.
"Turn around," he commands softly.
I comply, letting him see how the dress barely exists from behind. I hear his sharp intake of breath, feel the weight of his stare on my exposed spine.
"The collar," he says, voice rougher now. "Come here, kotyonok."
His fingers brush my hair aside, exposing my neck. The collar's weight settles against my throat, cool metal that immediately begins warming to my skin. The lock clicks with finality.
His hands linger at my nape, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just below my hairline. Each touch sends sparks down my spine, making my nipples tighten beneath the thin fabric.
"Perfect," he murmurs, breath hot against my ear. "You look exactly like what you are."
"And what's that?"
His thumb traces where metal meets skin. "Owned."
The word makes my stomach clench, empty and aching.
In the car, his hand claims my thigh, fingers spreading possessively over the silk. His thumb traces maddening circles, each rotation sending heat straight to my core.
"Remember the rules," he says, eyes forward but attention entirely on me. "You speak to no one unless I allow it. You look at no one directly. You're a broken Rosetti princess, thoroughly conquered, understanding her place."
"And if someone speaks to me?"
His hand tightens, fingers digging into soft flesh. "They won't. They know better."
"But if they do?"
He turns then, and something predatory in his expression makes my breath catch. "Then I'll handle it."
The way he says 'handle' makes me think of blood on marble, of bones breaking under his hands. My thighs clench at the thought of him turning on his own men for me.
"Why display me publicly?" I ask, genuine curiosity breaking through. "After suspecting I'm hiding something, why risk it?"
His smile is sharp as winter. "Because sometimes the best way to reveal someone's secrets is to apply the right pressure in public. You control yourself when we're alone, sofiyushka. But surrounded by my people, wearing my collar, playing my possession, how long before that perfect control cracks?"
He's not wrong. The collar's weight, the dress that makes me feel naked, his hand on my thigh all work to keep me off-balance. My nipples are hard, visible through the thin dress, and I know he notices.
The estate's opulence drowns the senses: crystal chandeliers fracturing light across marble floors, men in suits conducting business in corners. The air reeks of Cuban cigars.
Conversations die as we enter. Every eye tracks to my collar first, then the obscene dress, then Alexei's hand possessively splayed across my lower back. They see exactly what he wants: Sofia Rosetti, conquered, wearing the Volkov mark at her throat.
I stand silent beside him as he conducts business, playing the perfect ornament while memorizing every detail.
Names, any locations mentioned, who talks to who.
The collar shifts when I breathe, constantly reminding me of my role.
Other women wear jewelry, but none wear ownership quite so blatantly.
I catch whispers in Russian: his pet, completely broken, look how she doesn't even fight.
I have to focus on keeping my expression blank, on not letting them see I understand every word.
Each comment makes my pussy wetter, shame and arousal tangling together.
If they knew I could understand them, if Alexei suspected…
My Russian comprehension is a secret I must guard as carefully as my combat skills.
Three drinks into the evening, everything shifts.
A lieutenant approaches, drunk and swaying. His eyes travel my body like I'm meat at market, lingering on where my nipples press against the silk.
"The famous Sofia Rosetti," he slurs, moving closer than appropriate. His breath reeks of vodka. "Alexei, you lucky bastard. When you're done breaking her in, maybe we could discuss sharing arrangements?"
His hand grabs my ass hard, fingers digging into flesh through the fine material.
My body reacts on pure instinct. My hand snaps toward his wrist, fingers finding pressure points for a joint lock that would drop him screaming. I'm a heartbeat from breaking bone when my brain catches up, forcing my hand to go limp instead.
But Alexei saw. His pale eyes track from my positioned fingers to my face, noting the precise angle I'd chosen, the perfect form. He's recalculating everything.
The ballroom has gone silent, everyone watching to see how Alexei handles his lieutenant's insult.
"Tork," Alexei says softly, death in his voice. "You mentioned sharing?"
The drunk lieutenant nods, too intoxicated to recognize danger. "Just a thought between brothers—"
"Let me share something with you instead."
Alexei grabs Tork's hand, the one that touched me, holding it up for witnesses.
"This hand touched what's mine," he announces. "Let me be very clear. She is mine. Not ours. Not negotiable. Mine."
The first finger breaks with a wet crack. Tork screams.
"This finger touched her." Snap. The middle finger bends backward, bone piercing skin.
"And this one." The ring finger follows, blood dripping onto marble.
Each break makes my pussy clench, wetness soaking through my panties. I'm sick, broken, getting off on violence done in my name.
"Every." Crack. "Single." Snap. "Finger."
The pinky breaks last. Tork collapses, sobbing, cradling his destroyed hand.
"Apologize to her," Alexei commands. "Kiss her shoe and beg forgiveness."
Tork crawls to me, blood trailing behind. I stand perfectly still as he presses his lips to my heel, mumbling apologies. The room watches in absolute silence.
"Anyone else," Alexei addresses the room, hand returning to my back, "who thinks what's mine is available for discussion?"
Silence.
"Good. Clean this up."
As security drags Tork away, Alexei leans down, lips brushing my ear. "Did you enjoy that, kotyonok?"
"I don't enjoy violence," I lie, though my nipples are so hard they hurt and my panties are soaked through.
His dark laugh makes me shiver. "Your body says otherwise. Your pupils are dilated. Your breath quickened." His voice drops. "You're dripping wet from watching me destroy him for daring to touch you."
Heat floods my face because he's right. My pussy throbs with need, empty and aching from his display of brutal possession.
He drags me through marble corridors, past guards who study walls as we pass. A door opens to reveal a private study filled with dark wood and leather and danger.
I barely register the sharp click of the lock behind us before Alexei’s hands are on me—one wrapped tight around my throat above the collar, the other fisted in the hair at my scalp, angling my face up until my back arches and I’m forced to meet his winter-pale gaze.
"That joint lock," he snarls, "perfect form, military precision. Where did a princess like you learn that?"
My pulse beats wild against his palm. I drag in a shaky breath, scrambling for the demure, empty-eyed look that’s protected me thus far, but he is not fooled. Not now. Not after what he saw.
"I don't know what—"
He cuts me off with a cruel chuckle, shaking his head like I’m a wayward kitten who’s bitten too deep.
"Lie to me again and I'll make Tork look lucky.
" His other hand skims down the line of my body, hiking the dress up so the silk pools around my hips.
In one motion, he slips his fingers beneath the elastic of my panties, finds the heat between my legs, and shoves aside the last scrap of dignity.
He’s rough, deliberate, like he’s been imagining this every night since he took me. Two thick fingers thrust inside me without warning. The stretch is sudden and obscene, and my body—traitor, traitor, traitor—welcomes the invasion with a slick heat that coats his hand.
"Your mouth lies," he bites out, driving his fingers deeper, "but your cunt tells the truth."
I clamp my lips together, straining to keep the moan behind my teeth.
I will not give him the satisfaction. But he’s relentless, curling his fingers just so, grazing the spot that makes my knees buckle.
The hand at my throat holds me up, keeps me locked in place as he works my body ruthlessly.
His thumb circles my clit, slow at first, then faster, then a cruel feather-light tease that leaves me gasping and desperate.
"The truth," he says, punctuating each word with a thrust that sends sparks up my spine. "Where did you learn combat training?"
"My brothers," I choke out. It’s technically true—Nico and Dante, mostly, had drilled me for self-defense, the basics of being a mob heiress. But that’s not what he’s asking, and we both know it.
There’s something in my grip, my footwork, the way I almost snapped Tork’s wrist with surgical precision. Something I never meant for him to see.
He slows, leans in so his lips graze the shell of my ear. "Try again, sofiyushka. Your brothers taught you to shoot, maybe to throw a punch. Who taught you to kill?"
It’s like he can see straight into the catalogue of faces in my memory: the trainers, the tutors, the enforcer who taught a twelve-year-old girl to disarm a grown man before he could slit her throat. But I say nothing. I refuse to give him my secrets.
He moves his hand, finds a rhythm that should be illegal, fingers fucking me faster, thumb torturing my clit until my hips jerk involuntarily, chasing the pleasure even as my mind tries to deny it. The wet sounds are obscene in the hush of the study.
"Not good enough," he growls, biting the words into my neck. "Protection doesn’t teach joint locks that precise."
His fingers curl again, and I whimper, the edge of orgasm approaching, lethal and bright. He slows then, just enough to keep me trembling, to keep me wanting.
"You’re going to come for me," he says, and it’s not a request, not a seduction, it’s a directive. "You’re going to come on my fingers while wearing my collar, after fifty men watched me mark you as mine. And then you’re going to tell me everything."
He’s relentless, driving me higher, until I’m shaking in his grip, so wet I can hear how I coat his hand with every thrust. I’m desperate, clinging to the last of my composure as he pushes me closer and closer to the edge.
"Say it," he commands. "Say who you really are."
"I’m—" My voice is barely more than a gasp. I try to hang on, but he adds a third finger, the stretch nearly too much, and the pain-pleasure of it shatters my defenses.
"Say it," he repeats, fucking me mercilessly.
"I’m—" The words die in my throat as the orgasm hits, violent and sharp, white-hot pleasure radiating from my core and out to my fingertips. I bite down on his shoulder, muffling my scream against the tailored wool, tasting expensive fabric as I shudder and convulse around his hand.
He holds me upright, gentle now, supporting my weight as I tremble through the aftershocks. His face is inches from mine, and there’s something like respect in his gaze now, mingled with the familiar hunger.
He withdraws his fingers slowly, making me whimper at the loss. Then, maintaining eye contact, he brings them to his mouth and sucks them clean, tongue sliding along each digit.
"You taste like secrets," he says, then presses those same fingers to my lips. "Taste yourself. Taste what your body admits even when your mouth won't."
I part my lips, letting him push his fingers deep into my mouth. I taste myself on his skin, tangy and shameful. My tongue moves against his fingers without permission, and his cock visibly hardens against his expensive trousers.
"Your brothers' protection training," he muses, fucking my mouth with his fingers, using them to turn my face toward the light. "That's your story?"
I nod around his fingers, playing overwhelmed even as my pussy clenches, already desperate for more.
He withdraws his fingers, dragging them down my chin, my throat, leaving a wet trail that makes me shiver.
"There's more," he says with certainty. "About what you really are under this princess mask."
He leans in, lips brushing my ear. "I'm going to peel away every secret, layer by layer, until I find the real you. And when I do, you'll beg to tell me everything else just to feel my cock inside you."
The promise makes my pussy throb even as rage flickers through me. He thinks he owns me. Has no idea I chose this, that I'm gathering intelligence even as my body betrays me.
"Fix your dress," he commands, stepping back and adjusting his obvious erection. "We have another hour, and you're going to play the perfect conquered princess. Every man out there needs to see you thoroughly claimed, smelling like sex and submission."
I smooth the silk with trembling hands. I reek of arousal, of shame and desperate need. The collar feels heavier now, warm from my flushed skin.
"Oh, and Sofia?" He pauses at the door. "Next time you come, I want to hear my name. Alexei."
He leaves me there, legs shaking, pussy still clenching around nothing, trying to understand how I'm supposed to gather intelligence when my body craves him like a drug.
Trying not to think about how badly I want there to be a next time.