30. Willow
30
WILLOW
I sleep on his lap, completely at peace, and safe and happy, for the first time in I don't know how long. The first time forever, in all likelihood.
Dimitri wakes me up with a combination of sweet nothings I don't understand and a caress on my back, yet when I emerge, I am completely conscious of the how, and when, and where we are.
The lab.
We reach it at dusk. It's a far cry from the Hamptons mansion; a simple gray stone building in the middle of a field. I would have assumed it was a farm if I didn't know better.
Dimitri puts his jacket around my shoulders before leading me out of the car and into the barn, which is indeed, filled with a tractor, hay, various tools I don't recognize.
I glance up to Dimitri. He winks, and leads me to a rusty door.
"Open it," Dimitri says.
I glance at him before doing so. Inside, there's just a cupboard, mostly empty except for more tools. "Are we in the right place?"
"Are we?" He steps inside, and I follow with a giggle. "Dimitri Volkov, alpha," he calls, and the cupboard starts descending.
"I feel like we should hear the Mission: Impossible theme."
"The villain theme, maybe," he retorts, as the door opens in front of half a dozen dazed, wide-eyed men and women in lab coats.
"Sir, we weren't told you were coming," a man says, flustered. "If you need progress reports…"
"You can send that to Mishka, my friend," Dimitri says politely, but in a tone inviting no further discourse. "I'm only here for our visitor, yes?"
"Yes. Of course. Your men brought him to the—well, he's at the back."
"I know my way around the lab, thank you."
His arm around my shoulders, Dimitri takes us away from them as they bow, low.
I decide there is exactly no question I need to answer to right now.
We reach a room, two armed men inside. One opens it, and I find my old boss's boss on the floor, his face bloodied, holding his knee as he sobs.
"Please." He sounds oh so desperate.
My heart's beating, fast. So fast the sound blinds me.
I watch in silence.
"I have money. Savings. You can have it all."
The men inside laugh. Andrei, the bodyguard who saved me last Friday. I don't recognize the other; Marc or Quintin, I assume.
Dimitri says, "Do I look like someone who needs your savings, my good friend?"
His hand slides across my arm and squeezes it, before he steps away from me, towards Lloyd, bending down to be close to eye level. "What I needed from you was for you to keep your eyes, and hands, and mouth in check. But you couldn't, could you?"
He circles him slowly. "I'm assuming you got a message about Willow when she started. Something along the lines of, this is a person of interest, don't fuck with her , yes?"
Lloyd sobs harder.
"But you just couldn't help yourself. I mean, you got away with blackmailing and abusing so many former employees, why not this one?"
"Please. I didn't know. She's just?—"
Dimitri's foot flies in a circle with the speed and agility of an artist; it's precise, instant, violently clashing against Lloyd's head. He falls face first into the dirt.
"How dumb can a person get?" he muses out loud, grimacing.
Andrei grabs Lloyd by the hair and forces him back up on his knees.
"You wanted to be here for this, petal," he tells me, those green eyes looking at nothing else. "What's your pleasure? A simple bullet? A knife? There are many places one can cut." He tilts his head. "Unless you'd like him to get a taste of his own medicine. Should we get him to suck Andrei's cock, Willow?"
I don't know what it says about me, but I get wet. Drenched, in fact. I know it's ten shades of wrong, but the despair coming from the man who wanted to hurt me is a balm, and an aphrodisiac. For all that, though, I'll pass on the last option. "I doubt Andrei wants his cock sucked by that piece of shit."
My bodyguard winces. "You got that right."
"Oh well." Dimitri shrugs. "He can suck my cock, then. I think I'd quite like to see him choke on it."
I have to think. I don't mind that option at all, as Dimitri's willing. Then I shake my head. "If I'm watching you get your beautiful cock sucked, I'd rather it be by a pretty girl—or boy."
He smiles. "She has good taste."
His men nod in agreement.
"So what does that leave us with, hm?" Tilting his head, he thinks out loud. "A simple bullet, or some pain with the knife, first?"
It occurs to me that he's still asking me.
I look around the room at the four men watching me, waiting for my decision.
No one intends to judge me for it. It's entirely up to me.
I know that this man is going to die. Not only because he wanted to hurt me, but because he's hurt other people. This isn't a warning. This is an execution.
But I think back to his hand on my butt, his words in the break room, when he believed me cornered. How many times has he done this? How many women has he hurt?
"The knife."
Andrei tosses a blade to Dimitri, who catches it in the air.
First, it goes into the shoulder. I listen to the first scream, so unlike the sob. Then, the thigh, on the leg that's not already bleeding out from the bullet wound.
"In my father's country, rapists are dealt with in a specific way. Let me show you."
Andrei and Marc-or-Quintin hold the man down, while Dimitri slices his pants open. He passes out before his cock's completely removed, but still, Dimitri stuffs it into his mouth.
And I keep watching. Fascinated. Enthralled.
Never scared.
Never disgusted.
There's something wrong with me, isn't there?
Dimitri then moves to a bathroom, and washes his hands, removing his shirt.
I wait for him at the door, wordlessly, simply watching those strong, wet hands.
I know some of this show was for my benefit.
He only speaks after every speck of blood is gone.
"This is what is going to happen to anyone who tries to hurt you. If they manage, it'll be far worse."
He's telling me, not asking for permission, and certainly not for forgiveness.
I nod. "Good."