Chapter 37
“Make it stop.”
VALENTINA
Anton’s men drag Roman to a metal post in the center of the arena.
They chain him with his wrists high above his head. Back to the open air. Naked. Exposed. My heart rams against my ribs like it’s trying to break free.
Break free.
We have to. We’d both rather die than live on our knees.
Every time my back brushes Anton’s chest, the half-healed welts from last night’s whipping flare like open fire.
Sergei Petrovich strolls into the arena, a coiled whip dangling from his fist like a serpent. His smirk isn’t for the crowd—only for Roman.
I don’t know their history, but I see the scorn in Sergei’s dark eyes. And simpering triumph. He’s dressed to impress, in a three-piece suit and a long, wool black coat. Short black hair slicked back to display his face, nothing but wrath.
“Thought you could take from me and walk away?” His voice carries, oily with venom. “My father rotted in the dirt because of you.”
The first strike lands, sharp, cruel. The whip slices across Roman’s back, raising an angry welt. He doesn’t flinch. I do. I clutch my throat as my breath thins. Tears sting my eyes. The pain in my back screams out in empathy.
The second comes harder. Then the third. By the fifth, blood beads along the lash marks. I clamp my jaw so tight it aches. With every strike, my marks remember the bite of the whip. My blood curdles.
Anton’s arm tightens around me, his palm resting heavy on the high slit of my thigh. Every few moments, his hand creeps higher, possessive, obscene, as if Roman’s torment is foreplay.
Roman tips his head, a bloodless smile curling his mouth. “Would you like to hear,” he says, voice low and cutting, “how he begged for his life like an impotent dog?”
Sergei growls, swinging again. The lash comes down with a crack that makes the front row flinch.
Roman’s shoulders jolt, a sharp breath escaping.
He’s turned away from me, but I read his body language…
how he keeps yanking his head to one side, hoping to find me out of the corner of his eye.
Anytime I try to lean forward, praying he can see me, Anton grips my hair, yanking me back. His hand roams higher.
Another strike. This one snaps across my husband’s lower back, curling cruelly toward his side. A welt swells almost instantly. The third lashes across the tops of his shoulders, the sting blooming red in its wake.
Still, Roman makes no sound other than his breath flaring through his nostrils. He’s so strong. He’s not even flexing his muscles. Relaxed. Because he knows the pain would be worse if he locks up.
My breath heaves and cleaves as Sergei paces to the left, dragging the leather tip lazily along Roman’s spine before swinging again—this time striking the backs of his thighs. Roman exhales through clenched teeth, refusing to bend.
His voice cuts through the snap of leather. “Want to know what kind of man your father really was?”
Sergei pauses mid-swing, breath quick.
What is Roman doing? My intestines twist.
At the barest side of his face, Roman’s smile turns to a one-sided blade. “Let’s just say he would’ve had a whole section in the Epstein files.”
Sergei removes his coat and unbuttons the collar of his shirt. His rhythm turns brutal. No part of Roman’s body is spared—not even the parts that make me gasp and choke back bile. He jerks against the chain after the first blow. I can’t breathe.
Every blow he takes means Anton won’t touch me tonight.
Roman’s gasps turn to shrieks. Sergei leaves him no dignity, no mercy. The bastard unleashes on my husband’s balls and dick, striking them again between hits to his buttocks.
I can’t sit still. My nails dig into Anton’s arm, and I turn and seethe, “Make it stop.”
He ignores me.
Roman’s body jerks again. Blood trickles down his thigh.
I twist in Anton’s lap, snapping and clawing at him. His nostrils flare. My glare burns. “Make it stop. Or I’ll—”
His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back so my neck strains. My back screams from the sharp agony. “You will what?” His breath is heat and whiskey. “You will do nothing. You will sit here, be a good bride, and watch me break your former husband like the cowardly bitch he is.”
“Says the real coward who won’t even get his hands dirty,” I spit, my voice shaking with rage.
His fingers wrap around my throat, squeezing. My vision pricks at the edges.
Then—
A touch on his arm. Light, but sharp enough to slice the air between us.
Roman’s mother stands there, poised in black silk, lethal green eyes cutting into Anton like they could strip the flesh from him. “You want a good show, my son?” she says, her voice velvet over steel. “He won’t be able to fight tomorrow in that condition.”
Anton flinches. Just barely.
The whip lands one last time before he stands, forcing me to rise with him, his voice thundering across the arena, “Enough!”
A groan ripples through the crowd.
“Thank you for attending,” he calls. His hand is still on my arm, but his grip loosens. “The next demonstration will be Saturday…followed by the wedding on Sunday.”
Cheers rise, ugly and eager.
My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach.
Roman hangs from the post, head bowed, shoulders heaving.
Roksana lowers her head. She doesn’t look at her son, but she flinches when his ragged cries cut through the air.
I swallow down the scream building in my chest because I know if I let it out, Anton will know he’s won.
“Would you like to know why I am doing this, moya nevesta?” Anton croons above me.
He presses me into the mattress, my cheek against the cool silk sheets, the scarlet dress discarded somewhere on the floor.
His weight pins me in place, knees straddling my hips.
I curl my nose from the faint scent of antiseptic as he works, his hands full of meticulous purpose. A gentle sadist but a mocking one.
Nothing about this feels like aftercare.
I bite down on a leather strap, my cries muffled as he flushes my whip marks with saline, cleaning them before rubbing on a thin layer of antibiotic ointment with lidocaine. The sting eases slightly, and the cool gel spreads over my welts, soothing some of the fire.
Roman’s wounds are far worse. And I have no idea where he is or if Anton has even sent him a medic.
“This is proof you belong to me,” he murmurs, his thumbs tracing the red lines. My breaths turn shallow with each passing touch. “The right to ruin you, take you apart, and stitch you back together.”
I lift my head just enough to glare. “God complex much?”
He chuckles low and menacing. “I will bring you to my temple where you may worship every night, Valentina. My divine right. And after I’ve brought you as low as I desire…only then will I raise you higher.”
Malignant narcissist.
Roman may be an asshole, but he knows he’s an asshole. And an asshole can still love, can still burn the world for his queen, then worship and fuck her on top of a throne of rotting corpses.
The morbid thought keeps me breathing, hoping, praying.
I keep my jaw tight. Sometimes, Anton covers the wounds lightly with telfa pads; sometimes he leaves them open to air, reapplying the ointment when it begins to dry. Every motion is methodical, a reminder that he enjoys the control as much as the brutality.
But Anton could never bring me lower than Roman has. Or raise me higher.
Roman knows how to wreck me into something beautiful with his degradation and praise, surging a riot of endorphins and adrenaline through my body. He tests and pushes until I break. A controlled break, as far as he believes I can go and not beyond.
But then he gives me his hand, enabling me to rebuild myself stronger than before.
Anton only knows brutality. Violence. Grinding someone down into the dirt and rubbing salt in their wounds. Just like now.
He leans forward, breath warm against my ear. “Only a few more days now, my bride. Sunday.” His voice is almost tender, making my skin crawl. “Our wedding will be beautiful. And don’t worry—your former husband will be there. Front row. Our guest of honor.”
My lip curls against the pillow. “He can’t if he bleeds out tonight.”
Anton traces the untouched skin on my shoulders where his whip never landed. “What would you give to make sure he does not bleed out, Valentina?”
I turn just enough to glare at him. “He fought so your dick would stay in your pants for the next two nights.”
A soft chuckle. “So he did. But he is terrible at bargaining. He only thought of your needs. Not your desires. Arrogant and naive. My brother is too used to winning. How the tables have turned.”
“What the fuck do you want, Anton?”
His lips press into a slow, knowing smile, and my blood chills. He cups my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. “You have been such a good little bride the past couple of days. I believe you have earned yourself a reward.”
Slowly, he turns me onto my back. I hiss from the raw pain, but the cool sheets help. All I want is to pull the nearest one over me, but Anton thrusts it away, leaving me naked, vulnerable.
And then, he rises, hovering over me with his fists braced on either side of me. The kiss comes. I try to jerk away, but he grips my jaw, forcing his tongue inside. My teeth scrape against that tongue, but he holds my jaw open. I taste bile, blood, and salt as his kiss slaughters me.
When his hands move to cover my breasts, I bring mine to his chest and try to shove him off. He pinches and twists my nipples hard in a warning, and I cry out, his mouth devouring the shriek.
My breath catches as he lowers his head and touches his lips to the side of my neck, purring low, “This is what you will give. Your pleasure. I will ravish you. You will whimper, moan, and beg, and when I finally give you what you need, then you will scream my name so the whole manor can hear. My name. Not his.”
It’s worse. So much worse.