Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Her gaze traveled over the open gate, but she made no move to exit the cage.
“She won’t move.” Dmitri leaned in the doorway, a satisfied smile on his face. “Will you, my dear?”
My mother seemed to cave in, shrinking into the smallest possible version of herself.
“Nikita and I go way back, don’t we?” Dmitri shed his jacket and walked into the room.
I scooted back against the bed and pulled my knees up to hide as much of myself as possible.
He tossed his jacket on the bed and began unbuttoning his shirt. “I knew her when she still belonged to your father. A beautiful woman with an even more beautiful child.” A wistful smile crossed his face. “God, how I wanted her. I would watch her day and night, creep into her room when your father was away, dream about her. But then your father showed me his true nature. He used me.” The smile faded and the cruelty remained. “Over and over. I often wondered if she knew about him. I asked her several times once I got her in my possession. She denied it. But I wasn’t sure if I believed her.” He shrugged and his hands went to his belt.
A shudder wracked me, and I glanced to the door, looking for any avenue of escape.
Dmitri knelt and pointed at my mother’s cage. “You see that? Blind obedience. She won’t leave that cage until I tell her to.” He reached out to touch me, but I slapped his hand away. “You’re fiery now, but it will fade just like Nikita’s did. Soon, you’ll be in this cage.” He patted the empty one. “And you won’t come out until I tell you to. And if I tell you to strangle your mother, you will. And if I tell you to suck every cock that walks through that door, you will.”
“Never.”
Dmitri smirked. “Your mother said the same thing.” He snapped his fingers and stood.
My mother uncoiled from her cage and crawled to him. Her body was marked with a highway of scars—cuts, bruises, burns. Some of them fresh, some of them old, all of them painful. A thinner, longer chain ran from her ankle to a bolt in the floor at the back of the cage.
“Sosat'.” Dmitri delivered the sick command in a stern voice.
My mother knelt before him and unzipped his pants.
I looked away as she pulled out his cock, but Dmitri grabbed my hair and forced me to watch as she took it in her mouth. My gorge rose, and I dry heaved, but Dmitri held me fast.
“You see?” Dmitri slapped my mother’s face as she sucked him. “This will be you in no time. I broke her spirit. Now I’m going to break yours.”
Spit pooled in my mouth as the urge to throw up tried to overcome me. “Nate will come for me.”
Dmitri laughed. “Nate and his associates are dead. All of them. My men are on their way here with Nate’s head.” He pointed to a shelf on the wall between two windows. “I’ve already got a place picked out for it.”
The floor seemed to disappear, or perhaps I sank through it. My heart constricted, as if an icy fist crushed it between cutting fingers. Nate couldn’t be dead. I would have known, wouldn’t I? I would have felt it. A million denials twisted inside me. But the finality in Dmitri’s tone, the sadistic satisfaction in his eyes…
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to. It’ll all become clear soon enough.” He yanked my mother from his cock and threw her to the floor. “Now it’s your turn.”
“I’ll bite it off.” I snapped my teeth.
“I don’t think so.” He pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. Pointing it at me, he stepped closer, his halfway flaccid cock waggling in the cool air.
“Mom.” I choked on the word as she lay where he’d thrown her.
“She won’t save you.” Dmitri shook his head at me as if I were an unruly child. “Don’t you understand?” He grabbed her hair again and dragged her until she sat in front of me.
She didn’t say a word as he ran the blade down her breast, drawing a line of blood right on top of a series of similar scars. Her eyes remained glossy. She wasn’t there. Tossing her aside again, he reached for my hair. I kicked out my foot, catching him right below the knee.
He yelled and fell to the side as I scampered up onto the bed and yanked at the chain.
The noise drew one of the earlier henchmen into the room, but Dmitri stood and waved him away. “Get the fuck out.” He went to the door and slammed it, then flipped the lock.
I tugged at the chain, the metal biting into my ankle as I fought like a wild animal with its leg in a trap.