CHAPTER 15
The Princess
Now I get why people get pissy when you’re speaking a language they don’t understand.
I’m already sick of listening to these idiots talk, and the car just stopped.
I have no clue what they’re saying, but I get the feeling that if their arrogant snickering isn’t a dead giveaway, they’re a lot less concerned about the loss of their own men than anybody guessed.
I can fix that.
I got jerked out of the car and jerked around some more while I stumbled blind into a building that smelled really strongly of cheap cologne and cloves.
We turned right and a door closed behind me, calculated footsteps strolling past my side and stopping somewhere in front of me.
My hair flew into my face as they ripped the black cover off my head.
It’s an office. A shitty one by the looks of it with a desk that looks like they bought it at a garage sale.
Gross. Have some class, asshole.
“This where you’ll stay. I give you room, you decorate how you wish. Make a list of what you need to be worth top dollar. I expect you to earn your keep, and to be working by week’s end.”
“And my girls?” I asked, squaring my shoulders and blowing hair out of my face.
“What of them?”
“Where are they? They’re gonna be just as expensive as me by the time I’m done training them up.
You want your money’s worth or not?” A couple of the men looked at Mikhail in suspicion, but he kept his focus on me.
It’s getting harder and harder to keep my temper from flaring and blowing this whole thing.
“Girls are your responsibility now. What will you need to train them?”
I shrugged, cocking my head and giving as much sass as I could muster. My goal is to play the expert and seem annoyed that they’re amateurs. This shouldn’t take much…in theory.
“Dunno, big guy. Might help if I can see them. Yeah?” He pinned me with a mistrustful look before finally nodding his head at one of his guys. He took me by the upper arm and I jerked it away. Mikhail pointed a finger at me.
“You’ll go. And do what you’re told. You might own girls…but I own you. Fight anyone in this place…pay a price. Got it?”
I grit my teeth and narrowed my eyes at him before swallowing down my rage. “Fine.” I glanced up at the fucker holding my arm. “Lead the way.”
And lead he did…right to a hallway in a shabby establishment with several doors on either side. They all got opened, one by one, and I was taken from door to door to witness the horror inside.
Keep calm, Bridget Byrne…not yet. Not yet.
Just about every one of them looked like they hadn’t had a decent bath in weeks.
They’re malnourished. Looks like they’re still wearing the remains of whatever clothes they were taken in.
Each one had their right hand cuffed to a shitty metal bed.
Once I’d seen enough, I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall in the hallway.
“You honestly expect men to pay top dollar if your girls look like that? You want ‘em to pay more money to shove their cock into another man’s leftover cum? What the hell kind of turnaround do you expect from some trash heap, underground whore house?” They all looked to Mikhail, waiting for him to blow.
“They want to fuck. Doesn’t matter how they look.”
“They could rape a girl that’s healthier and cleaner than that for fucking free. That’s all this is, anyway. If they’re already doing it, don’t you think they’d go get their own unsuspecting pussy, rather than pay you something for it?”
The wheels are turning. This is working.
“Tell me what you need.”
I smirked and pushed off the wall.
“We need a gathering room. I’ll start working with them a couple hours a day…
after you get them something classy to wear, feed them something that doesn’t make them look like a bag of bones, and get them clean.
” They all just stared at me. “Look, it’s been a long night.
Take me to my room. I’ll work on trying to untangle all this bullshit tomorrow. ”
“Fair enough. Let’s go.”
My room…was a repurposed living room with a bed bigger than any of the other girls have, an extra floor lamp and very little else.
It at least has a bathroom with a working shower.
They left me to it, locking me in, and I sat on the floor of the tub, letting the water run over me while I silently cried like a pussy.
Well, this is it…rock fucking bottom.
I feel physically sick.
These girls are so much worse in better light. I looked over twelve half-starved, no doubt drugged, terrified women that I’m not convinced aren’t an age that starts with one. Most of them refused to even make eye contact with me. I turned towards the guy standing guard at the door to my room.
“This isn’t gonna work if you’re in here. You ain’t gotta leave, but get out and shut the door at least.”
“You don’t give orders, whore.”
I smiled sweetly. “I don’t answer to you, peaches.
Get. The. Fuck…outta my room.” His jaw tightened, and he hesitantly slammed the door in my face.
I turned around to see every one of the girls staring at me now.
At least two of them look very familiar.
I’m almost positive they’re in that stack of files from the safety deposit box.
I parked my hands on my hips and sighed hard.
“I’m about to tell you something very important…
and if any of you want to live…you’ll do exactly as I say…
and do it quietly.” They look like the walking dead.
This is infuriating. “Every single one of you have been bought and paid for. As far as Mikhail Romanov is concerned, you belong to me now. I’ve got hot food coming for all of you.
Fresh clothes. A hard-earned bath that nobody will rush you out of…
and as long as you do exactly as you’re told…
no more chains on your fucking bed. Do I have your full attention? ”
Tears slid down faces. A few looked at me like they wanted me dead.
“That’s not the important part.” Aaaaand…
cue the confusion. “They bought me. I have no fucking intention of being a good girl. I’m to train you to please the men that come in and out of this hellhole.
I’ll teach you everything I know. When business is good…
the boss will get distracted and comfortable. Understand? We wait to strike.”
“Strike?” One girl croaked out, hoarsely. “What do you mean?”
“What’s your name, love?”
She tightened her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. “Adrienne.”
“Well, Adrienne…as I said…you’re mine now.
I didn’t buy you to pretty up your rape.
No woman should fuck any man if she doesn’t want to.
We’re gonna make them pay. Not in money.
But in blood.” Every eye widened and my smile grew wider.
“I’m gonna kill them all. Every last one.
And when I’m done, this place will be a pile of blood and ash.
I’m taking everything that’s mine. That now includes all twelve of you. ”
They started whispering amongst each other and I saw it then. That spark of hope that they’ll get to pick up the pieces of their lives after this dark chapter.
“This doesn’t work unless you all do as I say.
I’m not alone. But if you fuck this up, you don’t just fuck it up for you.
You fuck it up for all of us. If anybody feels like they can’t handle this, I need to know now.
One weak link will cost us all our freedom.
” Silence. Eagerness. Drive. Good. “Alright then. I sat in this shower for a good half hour last night. If there’s anything good that can be said about this place, it seems like it’s that the hot water doesn’t run out. Who’s going first?”
They all took tearful turns in the shower, and I sat with each one, tenderly brushing out their hair and getting to know a little bit about them, honestly trying to make them feel more like human beings, but also to earn their trust. Several boxes of necessities had been brought in, per my long list I gave to Mikhail, and by the end of the day…
my girls were feeling a lot more like the people they were before all this.
It shattered my heart to see some of that progress shrink back into the corner when they all got led back to their rooms. At least tonight…
they have clean sheets, warm blankets and fresh fucking underwear.
I was changing my own sheets as Mikhail let himself into my room.
“You never do this before?”
I fought with the corner of the fitted sheet, not even bothering to look at him. “What? Be sold off to a brothel to tend to a bunch of starving teenagers and micro-dick men? No, can’t say I have.”
“The sheet is turned the wrong way.”
The door snicked shut and my eyes trailed towards it, lead weighing down my gut while he started to unbuckle his belt. “What…are you doing?”
“Testing out what I paid for. Come here. Get on your knees.”
I swallowed and it felt like forcing a cotton ball down my throat…which is a lot better than what I think is about to be forced instead. My face started tingling and the fight in my fucking veins wanted to rage. The demon is awake. This isn’t good for so many fucking reasons.
“I don’t start until week’s end.”
Mikhail smiled, flicking his greasy hair out of his face. “You don’t start with paying customers. I said…come…here.”
“And if I don’t?”
He pulled his cock out, proud with himself as if he put me in my place, and pointed a pistol at me.
“I know your weakness now, moya zaika. Swallow me…or I send your lover a piece of you in a cheap box every week.” My breaths shuddered, and my legs felt weak, adrenaline and boiling hate thrumming through every part of me as I clenched my fists at my sides and forced one foot in front of the other.
If I wanna make it outta this, then I have no choice but to follow my own advice.
Sev’s life is worth that. Her family’s life is worth that. These girls’ lives are worth that.
Declan is worth that.
I fought back tears, pushing myself to look him in the eye as I stood in front of him. He knows he’s won this round with me, and it fucking shows.
I’m going to enjoy every second of killing you, Mikhail Romanov.
“Let us see if O’Dell is gambling man.”
The barrel of his gun touched my forehead and I swallowed, clenching my teeth until my jaw was sore…and lowered myself to my knees.
I don’t have to know I exceeded expectations.
I’m already aware I’m good. Better than good, actually and fuckboy didn’t even get my full potential.
About three hard strokes with my neck turned a certain way and his less than mediocre pickle erupted.
It was all I could do not to laugh in his face.
I gagged myself and puked his nasty baby gravy right into the toilet as soon as he left my room.
It’s been six days since then.
He hasn’t come back for another taste and I’m almost surprised.
Nearly a week in, and the girls are already looking ten times healthier.
They’ve been listening, too. Two of them, Amy and Larissa, had horrible withdrawals for nearly three of these six days.
They seem so much better now. Finally eating and keeping down their food.
We spend about half an hour of our time together mapping out our assault when Declan finally puts all the pieces together and comes for us.
…And I know he will…he is a wizard, after all.
Mikhail went out of his way, after what I couldn’t even call a blowjob, to supply me with everything and anything I asked for regarding me and the girls.
I’ve outfitted them in lingerie that accommodates their best features.
They’ve got decent products for their hygiene and general upkeep.
I was even able to get him to agree on supplying them with condoms to sweeten the idea of not bringing home something Ajax can’t clean off to their oblivious wives.
As for me…I’m going for the ‘whore couture’ approach.
The boss lady has to be slightly better dressed than her little minions.
Of course it’s red. Lots of satin, including my sheets. I get a curling iron. That’s a small win. You realize how much you take for granted when you don’t have it anymore, that’s for sure. I did get one more thing…a non-negotiable item.
A sleek little painted skull mask that I assured Romanov was for the ones with a taste for a bit more kink.
It almost seems like he’s doting on me in some weird way.
Which is great, because I’ve got a bit more freedom to roam the pleasure house and pocket little things that we’ll need when the time comes—like the two small knives I jacked from the kitchen this morning when I begged for coffee.
It doesn’t mean I’m okay with the fact that I had to do what I did, and it definitely doesn’t mean he’s off the hook for the way I plan to make the bastard suffer.
It does mean…that I have the means to make a little room for bigger plans, moving forward.
If I can pretend that I’m unbothered by being forced to do something I’m not willing to do…
I might be able to get us all out of here in one piece.
Broken, yes…but free to start rebuilding the women we’ll become after this.
I was told to get myself ready after working with the girls today.
Looks like tonight’s the night.
Play the good girl.
Look the part.
Put on a show.
Build the hate.
And then feed on it so I’m ready to play with the demon when it’s time to let it out.
I can do this. I have to. I think I always knew that it would take something big to learn how to understand what the rest of the world sees when they look at me.
Spoiled, pampered and ungrateful. Always getting my way…
even when I accept some consequences. I never thought it’d be this.
I have no one to blame but myself. That’s not to say I won’t still be the bitch that I am while I serve my sentence for the wrong I’ve done.
I stood in the bathroom, fluffing the last curl that I ironed into my hair, and there was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Showtime,” I sighed, pushing my tits up and adjusting the bodice of my gown. Time to charm the pants off whoever just bought me…and hang him with them.
Tee-hee.