Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
ROME
Iwalk into the cell and find four of my men flanking the piece of shit from the playroom.
“Strip him down to his underwear and tie him to the ceiling.”
The man wails in terror, but I don’t give a fuck. Once more tonight, I remove my jacket, roll up my sleeves, and settle in to torture a man.
While my guys work on getting him ready for me, I call Luke.
“Hey, boss,” he says.
“You need to get back here.” I sigh and look at the ceiling. “Scarlett’s been hurt. She’s in the infirmary with Eloise and the doctor. I have the asshole with me in the cell.”
“The fuck?” Luke’s voice is hard, and I feel for him. If the tables were turned, I’d burn the world to the ground for my girl.
“She was whipped.”
“WHAT THE FUCK?”
“Get back here. I’ll get him started for you.”
I might be the boss, but Scarlett is Luke’s girl. I’ve watched him watch her for months. I didn’t need my firefly to fill me in on their relationship.
I have eyes.
And I know my second-in-command.
But just because I’ll let Luke finish this fucker doesn’t mean I won’t have a little fun in the meantime.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask as I step toward the idiot and glare at him.
“No.”
“Well, let me introduce myself. I’m Roman Alexander, and I own this club.” I slap him hard across the face. It’s humiliating, and it stings.
And I enjoy it.
“You came into my club and broke my rules. Twice. And now you’re going to pay for it.”
The door of the room opens, and one of my guys passes me the bullwhip.
“What’s your name?” I ask the man strung up before me.
“Emilio.”
I snap the whip but don’t hit him.
Emilio flinches like the pussy that he is.
“I’m going to hurt you, Emilio. Now, we have some business to discuss. First of all, you ignored the safe word at the spanking bench last week. And I’m warning you, if you lie to me, you’ll only make this worse for yourself.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he says, sweating.
“That’s the wrong answer.” I slap him again and grin when blood spatters out of the side of his mouth.
“I did,” he confesses.
“Good. See, I don’t allow that bullshit here. Loveland revoked your membership for that, yet you’re back in my establishment.”
“She didn’t,” he says, and that gets my attention.
“Explain.” My voice is hard.
“She gave me a warning and told me not to do it again. But she didn’t kick me out.”
Loveland is done.
“So you got your warning and came back here and did it again anyway. But this time, you took a whip to a woman who expressly told you not to do that.” I weigh the whip in my hands. It’s the best quality. Heavy. Thick. And fucking brutal. “You tore up her back.”
His eyes flare with satisfaction at that statement.
“You’re a sadist,” I continue, watching him closely. “If you’d have simply told Madam Loveland that, you would have been introduced to like-minded people, Emilio, and all of this would have been avoided.”
He licks his lips, eyes moving back and forth like he’s trying to decide what to say next.
“That’s not what I want.”
I stop and stand directly in front of him, about ten feet away.
“You don’t want them to know it’s coming,” I guess, and he stares back at me. “You’re a predatory piece of shit.”
“If she didn’t want me to hit her, she shouldn’t have—”
I don’t let him finish that sentence. I strike the whip over his face, slicing it in a diagonal from his right eye to the left jawline, and he howls in pain.
“Didn’t see that coming, did you?” I get in his face now. “How did that feel?”
“Please,” he whines, and I spit on him, then turn away.
“I wonder how many times Scarlett said please.”
I wonder how many times my mother said that word. Cried. Screamed.
I clear my throat and strike again, this time over his chest, and the long slash immediately starts to bleed.
“Weak motherfucker,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You might as well get used to this. We’re just getting started.”