Chapter 7
Gio
What a stupid fucking mess.
I toss an old box of ammunition aside and drag a bench piled with crap out into the hall.
The gun room in the back of my house is surprisingly large and well built, but it's gathered a ton of shit over the years. Of course my father left me to clean the thing out alone while the girl lies there on the floor, drugged and unconscious. I have stacks of old weapons, ammo, and other nice surprises stashed away in there, and it took me forever to finally get the room more or less emptied out. It’s perfect for this.
Fitted with a biometric scanning lock for my fingerprint, a small full bath attached and no way of escape, it’s fucking perfect.
When I come back into the room, I can’t help but glance at the girl on the floor.
She’s still right where I left her, curled on her side in the corner of the room, and still just as fucking gorgeous as she was a few minutes ago.
I can’t keep my eyes off her, even though I know it’s fucked up to have the sort of thoughts I’m having about a woman that’s drugged and unconscious.
The entire situation is fucked up though. A few days ago I wanted to turn the contract down, but my father managed to swoop in and make the decision for me. Now I’m stuck with her, Grace Rossi, and I’m supposed to somehow turn her into a model sex slave.
I have some ideas about how to pull that off, but I’ve never done it before. Frankly, I don’t feel like fucking doing it now. My father has a past in this shit. Not me. But I’m not letting him have her. No fucking way.
All of this is a pain in the ass, especially this goddamn mafia princess. I don’t need her or want her, but for better or worse I’m fucking stuck with her.
My heart hammers as I look over every curve of her body. My princess.
I sigh and drag a few more boxes out into the hall. Duke is snooping through them, and I push him to the side. He wags his tail and looks at me, panting and happy, completely oblivious. I ruffle his head and step back into the room, this time making an effort not to look at the girl.
Standing in the far left corner, uncovered from years of accumulated junk, is a large cage.
I stare at it, smiling to myself. It was meant for bears, and I bought it years ago at a flea market.
I figured I might have to lock up some asshole that I didn’t want to kill immediately or some shit like that, but I ended up just storing it away and forgetting about it.
Now, though…
The girl stirs over in the corner.
She’s beautiful. Fucking gorgeous. I keep thinking that every time I see her, my memory never doing her beauty justice. I kneel down next to her and gently lift her head up, making sure she’s still unconscious.
I notice the wound on her head and grind my teeth, annoyed.
That fucking asshole didn't need to hit her as hard as he did, but he got what he deserved in the end. I beat the shit out of him and his partner, the sick fuck that was kicking her on the ground. She’s a tiny thing in my arms, light and easily carried.
I lift her up suddenly, not really thinking about it, and bring her over to the bathroom.
I gently lower her into the tub before grabbing some rubbing alcohol and bandages from the medicine cabinet. I carefully clean and dress her wounds, then quickly check her for others. I need to make sure that the sick fuck didn’t break a rib or cause some kind of internal bleeding.
There’s nothing there, thankfully. Or at least nothing fresh.
Her body is covered in scars. Not every inch, but there are several in places that wouldn’t normally show with clothing on, white welts in jagged shapes. I take a sharp breath as I look over them, marveling for a second at the amount of pain this girl must have been put through.
Who the fuck would do this to her?
I stand, shaking my head in anger. I adjust her so that she’s in a more comfortable position in the tub, my mind straying to dark places, trying to imagine what happened to her.
My princess looks like she’s been through something, though I can’t be sure what.
Maybe abuse, maybe some kind of accident.
Either way, she knows pain, and that might be a bad thing.
She might be stronger than she looks. I won’t intentionally cause her that kind of pain, but things happen in my line of work that can’t always be controlled, no matter how much I plan.
I get back to work, removing the mirror from the bathroom and any other hardware that she might be able to use against me or herself. When I finish, the room is just a showerhead, a tub, a toilet, and a sink. Everything else got stripped out.
Back in the main room, my mind drifts back to my childhood.
My father taught me how to break down and reassemble every single one of the guns I owned while blindfolded.
I carefully move the remainder out of the room and arrange them out in the hall, pausing only to pat Duke on the head.
My father taught me how to torture a man, both physically and psychologically.
I know every mental tactic there is. I know how to break a person and to make them completely mine if I really wanted to.
He taught me to ignore pain. He taught me to complete the mission no matter what. He taught me to be strong and capable above all things, and so far I’ve lived my life that way.
Even if I hate the orders, once I accept a contract I have to do what I’m told.
There’s a part of me that hates how much I’m enjoying this.
It’s sick as fuck that I love the challenge of building her a prison in a short timeframe.
I know the drugs will wear off in about another two hours, maybe even less, so I have to keep moving fast. I like keeping busy and building things, but I like staring at my princess.
Her scarred body only makes me want to know her more.
Those are dangerous thoughts. She needs to remain just a subject to me, not a person. I can’t risk getting close to her. That’s the danger with this sort of thing: sometimes you see beyond the story you’re telling yourself, and the thing in front of you can turn into a person.
Once the room is clear, I stand in the middle and look around.
The cage is in the back left corner, the bathroom is on the right, and the rest of the room is empty.
There are two small windows, but they aren’t nearly large enough for her to get through.
Plus, they’re unbreakable and soundproofed.
She can scream, but there’s nobody around for miles.
I have video cameras set up in the ceiling, and I can see every inch of her enclosure, including the bathroom.
The door is impervious to both blasts and tampering and will only open with my fingerprint.
When I had this room built, I didn’t spare any expenses.
No one can get in or out without my help. It’s the perfect prison for her.
I’m about to leave, when I suddenly have an idea. It comes to me like lightning. It’s the perfect way to get to her, to peel back her layers and force her to show everything to me.
It’s like a game, or maybe it’s something like pity for what she’s been through before. Either way, it’s a tool.
The cage will be her safe space.
I stare at it and remember my childhood. I remember the girls and the men doing whatever they wanted to them. I remember how they cried at first, but quickly their faces became consumed with pleasure. They learned to enjoy it.
I remember how it excited me. I remember how ashamed of that I was, and still am.
I've decided. So long as she’s in the cage, I won’t touch her. That’ll be the deal I make with her. If she stays in that bear cage, she’ll be safe from me. It’s a few feet wide and long, and large enough that she can stand.
But if she leaves it, then she’s mine. She’ll break and leave that cage with time, and I’ll do whatever I want with her. And I’ll make sure she enjoys it. If she retreats, I’ll leave her alone. I’ll give her food and water, and the comfort of a blanket.
My heart thuds in my chest. I glance into the bathroom and see her in the tub. She’s fucking gorgeous, and I picture her crawling from the cage, begging me to come into the room and teach her a lesson.
I grin to myself. It’s the perfect little game. I need to earn her trust if I’m going to make her mine, and the cage is going to be the key to that trust.
You can’t just force a person to break. It doesn’t really work that way. You can beat and starve them all you want, but if you never gain their trust, then it’s all over. This cage will be her safety net, and I’ll be the man who gives her that safety.
I can feel the darkness inside of me celebrating as excitement courses through my veins. I’m at war with myself, hating these sick little thoughts that I’ve been trained to embrace, and yet aroused at the prospect of playing with her.
It doesn’t hurt that she’s so fucking beautiful, and with a fight in her that I admire.
I walk into the bathroom and kneel down at her side. Her wounds are cleaned and bandaged, and soon the drugs will wear off. She’ll wake up and she won’t know where she is, but she’ll be safe. I’ll explain the rules of the game to her.
And then we’ll play.
I reach into the tub and scoop her up, carrying her back into the main room and gently place her inside of the cage. I leave the door open, but I make sure she’s completely in there. It isn’t comfortable, but at least it’s safe.
I give her one last look before I leave her room, shutting the door behind me.