Chapter 4 #2
It had taken him most of the morning to get it set up the way he wanted.
There was a microwave and a toaster oven set up on a table in one corner, a TV screen took up most of one wall, and he’d put together a sectional couch in another corner.
Wi-Fi was up and running, so it looked like he was watching movies, and he’d managed to get some of the cameras set up, although not nearly as many as he would have liked.
“Don’t have a favorite,” he drawled, looking up from the screen of the tablet he held in his hands.
There was a movie playing in the background, which he’d switched to the second the door opened, but in reality, he’d been checking the views from the cameras he’d managed to set up so far, to check if he needed to adjust anything.
“Was pretty sure you had fun caning the little ringleader yesterday,” Adrian goaded. “Haven't seen you that engaged in well … ever, I guess.”
He shrugged, because in reality the whole thing did in fact bore him.
He cared no more about the brunette who decided being caned was a better option than just taking off her clothing than he did about any of the other women who had passed through Azure’s training rooms. After all, it was only being naked, and her body was toned and slim, nothing to be ashamed of.
May as well just suck it up and get it done.
As far as he was concerned, yesterday’s small blip where he’d temporarily allowed the woman’s fiery attitude to get to him was already done with and forgotten.
He had more important things to worry about than one stubborn woman.
If she wanted to make this whole experience worse for herself than it already was going to be, then that was on her. His focus was on getting to the ledger.
Once he had that, then he’d have what he needed.
All he needed to destroy the trafficking ring from the head down.
The others hadn't known about the ledger. Nathan and Mateo weren't cut out for undercover work like this. Not really. They felt too much. Cared too much. It made them weak. They were good at keeping their cover, sure, and they’d both figured out ways to get information to Prey to save the women who were sold. They’d gathered useful information, but they’d been distracted by trying to mitigate damage done to the women, and in doing so, they’d missed the clues about the ledger.
It was the key to everything, and he needed to find where it was and get his hands on it. That was what was important. Not some stupid woman who was too stubborn for her own good.
“She won't get down on her knees for food. I told her she’d be punished if she didn't, and she said she didn't care and she wouldn't submit. If you don’t want to help, that’s fine, just thought you might enjoy it. It was nice to see you with your head away from a screen for a bit,” Adrian said before disappearing out the door again.
Sighing, Van shut down his tablet. If he didn't go, he was going to look suspicious. He should have let someone else handle disciplining the woman yesterday, now he was stuck having to step in every time she was disobedient, and he had a feeling that was going to be more often than not.
Irritated about having to leave behind important work for this, he stalked out of the room, punched in the code for the room where the women were, and threw open the door, closing it behind him in case the women had anything stupid planned.
Inside, he found five of the women on their knees, in position, with a sandwich on a plate in front of each of them.
They obviously hadn't been given permission to eat yet because no one had touched their food.
Adrian and William had the sixth woman, Makayla Adair, the troublemaker, between them, but he had no idea what they were trying to achieve.
If he wanted to stop this woman from being a constant distraction he didn't have time for, he would need to think of a punishment that would finally put her in her place. It couldn’t be anything that would leave behind too many ugly physical scars, because potential buyers wouldn't like that. He’d already pushed that limit with the caning.
But it had to be something big enough that she would stop fighting, stop bothering him, and wasting his time.
“What are you two doing?” he asked, propping his shoulder up against the wall and looking at them like they were children. Which was exactly how they were behaving.
“Changed your mind, huh?” Adrian asked with a grin.
“Lucky I did, do you even know what you're going to do to punish her?” The quicker he got this woman handled, the better, so he supposed he wasn't as annoyed to be in here as much as he’d been a moment ago.
“Thought we’d put her on the spanking bench. Rework over those welts you left behind,” William replied, swatting his hand down on Makayla’s bare backside, and making her jolt forward.
Van could see the pain flare in her blue eyes, so he knew she wasn't immune to it. She didn't have some condition that dulled her pain receptors. It was just that she was stoic enough to hold in her cries of pain.
No, not stoic enough.
Practiced enough.
The only way you learned how to hold in cries of pain was from firsthand experience seeing how cries of pain spurred on sick monsters like the ones currently holding onto her.
All he knew about her was that she was a social worker who dealt with kids in the foster system.
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Van had dealt with many social workers, and while there were some good ones out there, there were also a lot of bad ones.
He knew which kind Makayla Adair was, and he had to wonder if the reason she’d chosen that particular line of work was that she had experience being on the other side of the job. Had she grown up as a foster kid? Was that how she’d learned that crying and begging only made it worse?
Anger spiked inside him, something he wasn't used to anymore.
There had been a time when anger was his life, it spread its tentacles through every aspect of his being, but not anymore.
Not for a long time. Now he just felt nothing.
Nothing was easier. He heard the whispers about him, the creepy smile, the emptiness everyone sensed, and he never took offense at it, because it was all true.
“I have a better idea,” he said before the guys could latch onto that plan.
It had only been a little over twenty-four hours since he caned her, her backside would still be a mass of throbbing pain.
The idea of making it worse by having her spanked didn't sit well with him, but he assured himself it was just for practical reasons.
If being hit didn't encourage her to be obedient, rather than wasting time flogging a dead horse, they may as well try something different.
When he turned and headed to the door, punching in the code to open it, he didn't bother checking to ensure William and Adrian were bringing Makayla with them, he knew they were.
The layout of this new building wasn't as good as the warehouse.
The huge open basement had given him an easy view of all the cages with the women inside, as well as both elevators, that way he could keep track of everything going on at once.
It also meant that punishments could be easily carried out with all the women there to see it.
Worked well as a deterrent to all the others.
Now there were too many walls, too many doors.
Pausing outside one of the four training rooms they’d set up, he opened the door and stepped inside. “Sit her on the chair,” he ordered as he gestured to the specially designed chair in the corner. It had leather straps that would secure her wrists and ankles, and keep her legs spread wide open.
This wasn't fun to him. He didn't get off on seeing these women tortured, but it was something that had to be done for the greater good.
At least from his point of view. Although as he picked up a toy and turned around to find that the two men had wrangled the woman into the chair, where she now sat glaring up at him, Van doubted she saw it the same way.