CHAPTER 15
SCARLETT
I was running a cold washcloth over the back of my neck, trying to scrub away the phantom sensation of his hands.
It was a useless effort. The water was freezing, sterile, and smelled faintly of the lemon detergent the staff used to launder the towels, but my skin still felt like it was burning.
That was the lingering gift of Nikolai’s "training"—a biological confusion where pain and pleasure got so tangled up I couldn't tell which way was up anymore.
I folded the cloth into a perfect square. One, two, three, four. A tiny, pathetic exercise in control.
The door to the dressing room didn't open; it was breached. Nikolai Smirnov didn't do knobs or knocking. He entered a room like he owned the oxygen inside it.
I didn't turn around. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch. I stared at my reflection in the vanity mirror—pale, hollow-cheeked, eyes too bright, looking like a porcelain doll that had been dropped on concrete and glued back together wrong.
"The guests will be here shortly," he said. His voice was a low grind of gravel and expensive scotch. "Don't disappoint me, Scarlett."
Disappointment meant pain. Training meant surrender. I knew the lexicon of this hellhole by now.
"I’m thrilled," I muttered, dropping the washcloth. "Who are we entertaining? Another group of sociopaths in suits?"
"Watch your mouth." He tossed a garment bag onto the chaise lounge. The zipper screamed as he ripped it open, revealing a slip of emerald green silk that looked more like water than fabric. "This is not a social call. This is a showing."
A showing. Like cattle. Like a prize mare.
"Get up," he ordered.
I stood. My legs felt heavy, the muscles twitching with exhaustion. I was naked, having just stepped out of the shower, but modesty was a concept that had died in this room weeks ago. Nikolai looked at me the way a butcher looks at a prime cut—clinical, assessing, possessive.
He didn't hand me the dress. He walked over, the heavy thud of his boots on the plush carpet sounding like a countdown. He gathered the silk in his large, scarred hands and held it open.
"Arms up."
I obeyed. I was a puppet with invisible strings, and he held the crossbar. As the silk slid down my body, it felt obscenely cool against my skin. It was backless, plunging, and clung to every curve like a second skin.
He stepped behind me. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a furnace wrapped in a bespoke suit. His hands didn't retreat. instead, they smoothed down the sides of the dress, his thumbs dragging slow and heavy over my hips.
"No brassiere," he noted, his voice right at my ear. "No panties."
My breath hitched. "Nikolai—"
"You are unmarred collateral," he cut in, his hands tightening on my waist. "To be claimed only by the creditor. You wear nothing underneath because access is mine, Scarlett. Only mine."
The silk rustled—a soft, expensive sound that made me want to scream.
He spun me around to face the mirror, gripping my chin with bruising force, tilting my head until I was looking at the two of us.
Him, dark and terrifying, a monolith of violence.
Me, a splash of green and pale skin, looking trapped.
He wiped a smudge of nonexistent lipstick from the corner of my mouth with his thumb. The pressure was sharp. Punitive.
"Rules for the evening," he said, his eyes locking onto mine in the glass. "You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not make eye contact with anyone but me. You sit there, you look beautiful, and you remember who owns the debt."
"And if I don't?" I whispered.
"Then I will make you kneel for a week," he promised, his tone devoid of anger, which made it worse. It was just a fact. "Show them your defiance, and I will show them how quickly a captive can be broken. Do you understand?"
"I understand," I said.
"Good." He released my chin. "Let's go."
Walking through the estate felt like walking through a mausoleum.
The air was conditioned to a sterile chill, but the scent of him—leather, gunpowder, and that biting cologne—stuck to me.
He didn't offer his arm. Instead, he placed his hand on the small of my back, right where the dress dipped low.
His skin against mine was a brand. He wasn't guiding me; he was steering me.
His index finger traced the knob of my spine, a subtle threat that kept my posture rigid.
We reached the double mahogany doors of the grand dining room. I could already hear the low rumble of male voices, the clinking of glass. My stomach turned over.
"Keep your chin high," he muttered, his lips brushing my temple. "You belong on my arm. Don't look like a victim. Look like a queen who enjoys her cage."
He pushed the doors open.
The air inside was thick enough to chew. Cigar smoke, heavy and blue, swirled around the crystal chandeliers. The smell of roasted meat and aged bourbon hit me like a physical blow. The conversation died instantly.
Three men sat at the long table. I recognized Hassan immediately—Nikolai’s lieutenant, a man who looked at me with something that might have been pity if he wasn't so terrified of his boss.
The other two were strangers, though they wore the same uniform of corruption: expensive suits, heavy watches, eyes that had seen too much blood.
"Gentlemen," Nikolai announced, his voice booming. "The asset. Dinner is served."
I felt the weight of their stares. It was like having bugs crawl over my skin. One of them, a thick-necked man with a scar cutting through his eyebrow, looked me up and down with a sneer that made my skin crawl.
"Good evening, Scarlett," Hassan said, clearing his throat and looking at his water glass.
"Sit," Nikolai commanded softly.
He pulled out the chair at the head of the table, to his right. As I lowered myself onto the padded seat, he leaned in, creating a private canopy of intimacy in the middle of the room. His hand clamped onto the back of my neck, hard.
"Sit still, cunt," he whispered, the vulgarity shocking against the formal setting. "Breathe the air and think of nothing but the debt."
He released me and took his seat, the picture of a gracious host.
"A pleasure to finally meet the infamous collateral, Smirnov," the scarred man—Marco, I assumed—said, picking up his wine glass. He didn't look at Nikolai. He was looking at my chest.
"The pleasure is yours, Marco," Nikolai said, unfolding his napkin with a snap. "The report on the North district?"
"On the ledger," Hassan said quickly, opening a folder. "Volume is up twenty percent."
I reached for my water goblet. My hand was shaking. Just a tremor, barely visible, but I felt it in my bones. I took a sip, the ice clinking against the crystal, sounding like a gunshot in the sudden quiet.
Then, Nikolai’s hand disappeared beneath the white tablecloth.
I stiffened. I couldn't help it. My spine locked as I felt his palm land heavily on my thigh. It wasn't a caress. It was a claim. A heavy, warm weight settling on the silk, burning through the thin fabric to the skin beneath.
"We toast to the evening's profits," Nikolai said, raising his glass, his face completely impassive. "May they be as fulfilling as promised."
Under the table, his thumb began to stroke. Slow. Deliberate. Back and forth across the muscle of my thigh.
"Is the asset worth the fifty million risk, Nikolai?" Marco asked, cutting into a rare steak that bled red juice onto the white china. "Or is she merely a symbol?"
I stared at the centerpiece—a bowl of white lilies that smelled like a funeral. Don't react. Don't look at him.
"She is worth every cent, Marco," Nikolai replied smoothly. His hand slid higher, the rough callouses of his fingertips catching on the silk. "But only to me. She is a proprietary interest." He turned his head slightly, his blue eyes boring into mine. "Eat your dinner, Scarlett. You look pale."
"I'm not hungry," I said, my voice tight.
"I didn't ask if you were hungry," he said. "I told you to eat."
I picked up my knife and fork. My coordination was shot. As I tried to saw at the filet mignon, Nikolai’s hand moved inward. He bypassed the silk entirely, his fingers finding the bare skin of my inner thigh.
The shock of it made my hand jerk. My knife screeched across the porcelain plate, a horrible, high-pitched sound that made everyone wince.
"Careful," Nikolai murmured.
Hassan started talking about shipping lanes and customs bribes, his voice a nervous drone. I tried to listen to him. I tried to focus on the numbers, the logistics, anything other than the large hand sliding relentlessly upward.
He hit the juncture of my hip. The heat was suffocating. My vision tunneled. The room seemed to stretch and warp, the men's faces becoming caricatures.
"The retrieval required... persuasive tactics," Nikolai was saying to Marco, discussing a hit from last week. "Nothing less than total surrender."
His fingers brushed the curls at my center.
I stopped breathing. I literally forgot how to inhale. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. He was doing this here. Now. With three men watching us eat steak.
"Scarlett," Nikolai said.
I snapped my head up. He was looking at me, his expression bored, almost sleepy. But his eyes were razor-sharp.
"Do you find the conversation tedious?" he asked.
"No," I choked out.
"Good."
Marco laughed then, a wet, ugly sound. "I heard Aris traded a few accounts for a new yacht this morning. Some men prefer wood to women, I suppose. Coward doesn't even have the balls to negotiate for his own daughter."
The insult to my father shouldn't have stung. I hated Aris. He had sold me to this monster. But hearing this piece of trash laugh about it, reducing my life to a punchline about a boat...
Rage flared, hot and sudden. My eyes darted to Marco, narrowing. "My father is a coward," I said, my voice cutting through the smoke. "But at least he knows how to count. Do you?"
The silence that followed was deafening. Marco’s smile vanished.