Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Xeniya Morozova
The good news was that my meltdown hadn’t happened at the Russian compound. The bad news was that it happened in the middle of a torture session with Aleksandr.
Embarrassing, to say the least.
It started with purple.
I was branding Aleksandr’s right arm with the words Fuck me like you mean it when my gaze snagged on the purple beneath his skin. Then my vision blurred, and I dropped to the floor, holding my head.
For a long moment, I couldn’t see again. It was like before—like my greatest nightmare. All I saw was purple and felt the crushing weight of silence. There should have been screams, but all I heard was silence.
Fucking purple.
The color that haunted me for ten years.
I didn’t know how long it took me to get myself together and for my vision to return to normal. But far, far too long.
I planted my palms against the cold concrete floor and pushed myself upright. My head was now level with the operating table, and Aleksandr’s cold eyes stared back at me. They gleamed with taunting malice. He’d enjoyed that show.
“Haunted by something, little whore?” His voice was laced with sadistic joy.
I glowered at him as the tips of my fingers tingled and grew cold. It was as if they wanted to change.
I groaned. Not now.
I shook out my hands and dragged them through my hair. It grounded me well enough. My silver-white hair nearly glowed in the process. The light played funny tricks.
My furious attention returned to Aleksandr as I took the poker out of the grill next to me. The word fuck glowed orange at the end.
Refusing to acknowledge that he had spoken, I gripped his arm, turned the brand, and pressed it against his flesh.
Like the little bitch baby he was, Aleksandr screamed. The sound filled my soul. I could bathe in those screams; they were so satisfying.
“Oh, does that hurt?” I asked, pressing harder. “Oh, so, so sorry.” I pressed down even harder before removing the poker and examining my work.
I continued the process with the next five words until my phrase was perfectly burned into his skin.
Unfortunately, I needed him alive. That meant smearing medicated salve over the burn to keep it from getting infected.
But at least the salve stung.
Blood dripped from his wounds, pattering—drip, drop—against the metal table. Drip. Drop. My favorite color. Drip. Drop. My gaze fixed on it, and my mind became a blur of crimson.
Drip.
Drop.
Beautiful.
Joy coiled like a snake around my bones at the sight, but Aleksandr rudely ripped me out of my trance when he said, “Do you plan on staring at me forever, whore?”
I blinked. The words pierced my chest, hitting far too hard.
I was cracked open and vulnerable, trapped half in the past and half in my present.
And another memory hit me with the force of a bomb.
I turned around and faced my tool tray. I couldn’t have Aleksandr see my face. This time, the memory wasn’t purple. It was the Man in Black.
I sat cross-legged on my cot, my eyes flicking up at the blinking red light in the corner. Someone was watching me through that camera.
I knew it.
When I first got here, I assumed it was a surveillance camera, but when some of the men who rented me had said things like, “Great to see you in person and touch you finally,” I knew it was a livestream.
Fuckers all over the world were watching me be raped, tortured, and tormented. I was their little object—their plaything.
I never knew what was coming next. Some men rented me for sex. Some rented me to torture, to cut words and phrases into my flesh. Not my face, though. That must have been off-limits. Others made me run through the compound as their little mouse. Some just wanted to talk.
Most just came to rape me. I was beginning to prefer those days. At least they didn’t hurt me afterward.
There was only one visitor I looked forward to. Safe wasn’t the right word for him, but Blackwood was the closest thing I had.
He never touched me like that, and he always came to give me medicine or food I desperately needed.
Yes, of course, he was a villain like all the rest, but he never hurt me. He was a respite from all the pain.
Blackwood wore a black mask and a perfectly tailored suit every time he visited, and he refused to show me his face.
Some of the men wore masks.
Others never did.
So when the door opened today, I hoped it would be Blackwood again. But it wasn’t. It was a new man.
One without a mask.
He stepped into my cell and beckoned me toward him with a finger wrapped in a black leather glove.
I obeyed.
What choice did I have?
My feet hit the cold concrete floor, and my diaphanous blue dress swung around my knees with the movement. Slowly, I stepped toward him.
What would it be this time?
As I reached him, I looked up into his bright, arctic-blue eyes. This man was beautiful—chiseled face, as if carved by one of the great artists of antiquity. Muscular frame. A tailored black suit. Everything he wore, from his socks to his cufflinks, was solid black.
Without touching me, he guided me out to the larger concrete room, covered in cameras and always changing decor.
It depended on what the Order wanted. If they wanted an obstacle course for me to run through as they shot BB gun pellets at me, so be it.
If they wanted a sex dungeon, so be it. Whatever they wanted, they got.
Today it was empty—just a chair and several buckets.
The Man in Black walked over to the chair, sat down, and motioned for me to stand in front of him.
I obeyed.
Silently, he stared at me.
The only sound was the wind whistling through the trees outside.
I had no idea how long we stayed like that, but eventually, I felt a cramp in my foot and stretched it out to relieve it.
And finally, he stood, picked up one of the buckets, and threw the contents at me.
I flinched, and my hands came up to protect my face. It could have been acid. It could have been anything.
It was ice water.
Freezing ice water.
My nipples hardened, and my already see-through dress clung to my skin.
All he did was stare until I wanted to claw my skin off.
When my dress got too dry, he threw another bucket of water on me. And so it went.
For hours.
Hours.
During that first visit, he never touched me, and he never spoke. That might have been more terrifying than all my other visits combined.
The memory cleared, and I knocked over my tray. Apparently, I had grabbed it while the vision hit me. The contents fell to the ground with clinks and clangs.
“Fuck,” I said as Aleksandr began to laugh… maniacally.
Without glancing back, I rushed from the room, my boots clicking against the floor as his horrible laughter followed me.
Shit, I needed to get myself together.
I could not fall apart in front of one of my victims.