The Trap

by SR Jones

  The hired thug of his, a man who smiles at me when I work, is now using his meaty fingers to muscle my jaw open. When it does, he pops a pill in.

  “Swallow it down like a good girl, or we’ll have to quieten you down the old-fashioned way, and you won’t like that,” Allyov says.

  I sit, frozen, unable to comply. Scared to swallow the pill and scared not to. “Swallow it now.” There is deadly menace behind Allyov’s words, and he pulls a knife out of his pocket and taps the blade against my cheekbone.

  Heart pounding wildly, I do as he says. I choke down the pill and sit there, my heart hammering, chest so tight it feels as if I’m trying to breathe through the eye of a needle.

  We pull out of the carpark, and the car begins its smooth, quiet journey through the city. The tinted windows mean no one knows what’s going on inside. People are going about their normal lives while I sit here, quiet on the surface, a raging well of desperation and terror churning right under my skin.

  Soon, though, I start to calm. The motion of the car and the men talking in Russian lulls me, and my eyes start to drift closed. I fight against it, popping them open on a surge of panic and adrenaline. The same thing happens, four, five more times, and each time, the adrenaline surge lessens. I’m losing my fight against falling asleep. Against the meds.

  “Don’t fight it, pretty one. You’ll find it much better this way. You’re going to a new life. A better life. You’re going to be the perfect gift.”

  At his words, my eyes drift shut once more.

  The car stops, and I jerk awake. My mouth is dry and my head fuzzy. We are parked in a driveway and, from what I can see, are in an extremely wealthy part of town. Is this Allyov’s house?

  For a moment, I get a surge of hope he is going to give me to his wife as a servant. Domestic slavery sounds much better than the other options right now.

  The pill is still working its magic. My mind knows there’s something awful going on here, but my body isn’t reacting to it in the usual way one would imagine.

  “What did you give me?” I ask.

  “A dose of diazepam,” Allyov says. “Just enough to take the edge off.”

  “Are you sure about this, boss?” thug one says. I should have taken the time to learn their names. I never did because they were always simply there, part of the furniture whenever Allyov was around.

  Unlike the scary Andrius, they are simple bodyguards, not people with their own place within the organization. Or so I had stupidly assumed. Seems they’re more than bodyguards if they’re down with aiding and abetting a kidnapping.

  “Andrius doesn’t like this kind of shit,” thug one carries on.

  Andrius?

  Oh God, is this his house?

  “Andrius will like her, already does if my eyes and ears don’t mistake me. I’ve seen him watching her, and I know he saved her job when she screwed up. I think he’s already got a thing for our little innocent here. This will be a gift even he can’t refute.”

  They’re pulling me out of the car, and my useless rag doll body lets them. I don’t know if it’s the benzo or the shock, but there’s little fight in me right now.

  “Do not make a fucking sound, or you won’t like what happens,” thug two snarls.

  “Act as if you’re pleased to be here,” Allyov says. “There’s a party in there, and you’re going to be the entertainment tonight. So, act as if you’re happy to be here, and don’t fuck this up, or you’ll be found dead in an alleyway a week from now, rats eating your feet.”

  The lovely image makes me even more compliant than the numb brain fog from the pill and the shock.

  Knowing these guys aren’t messing around, I keep my mouth shut and try to smile as Allyov rings the bell. The drug in my system makes it hard for me to organize my thoughts enough to speak anyway. I’d probably say something stupid.

  “Andrius will appreciate what we’ve done when the time comes,” Allyov says.

  After a few moments the door opens, and a stunning woman looks to Allyov and then me with a frown.

  “Sergei? You’re late. We thought you weren’t coming.”

  “Yes, sorry about that. I brought entertainment for the evening.” He gestures at me. “Girl from the club. Can we come in and give her somewhere to get ready? She says she’ll give us all a quick show.”

  The woman’s frown deepens momentarily, but then she seems to remember herself. “Of course.” She smiles and stands back. “Do come in. You can use the guest room upstairs, third on the left. The guests are all in the lounge.”

  Allyov smiles. “You should come join us one time, Justina.”

  She keeps her smile plastered on her face, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. “Perhaps.”

  We go inside, and I take a look around. Wow, even in my drugged state, I am awed at the house Andrius has.

  It’s spectacular.

  It’s modern, but gorgeous. Seriously good art adorns the walls of his hallway, all modern and bright, not the sort of thing you see in many new homes. Not reproductions of classics, or old faux hunting scenes. This isn’t new money trying to be old money, or garish wealth for the sake of it. This is new money doing its thing, but with class.

  “Come on, quickly.” Allyov pulls me up the stairs as Justina disappears into the kitchen. At the top, he yanks me along the corridor to the room Justina told him to take.

  After being roughly shoved inside, I stare at the three men closing the door and turning to face me.

  What did he mean entertainment for tonight? Am I supposed to service the men who are here for the party? Is this something they all do? Why didn’t the woman help me? Surely, she saw the terror in my eyes? The fear must be showing despite my best efforts.

  She works for a hitman, though, and probably doesn’t give a shit what happens to me.

  Are these men going to take me first? Allyov and his thugs? Maybe this is a kink of theirs.

  Tears well behind my eyes, and I try to blink them away furiously.

  “Now, now. No need for tears,” Allyov murmurs.

  “Go into the bathroom and put these clothes on. They should fit.”

  I do as he says, taking the bag thrown at me and heading into the bathroom. I look around desperately, wondering if there’s anything I can use as a weapon. There aren’t even any glass bottles in the place. There are what look to be lotions and potions, but all in plastic bottles.

  Crap. I look in the bag and grimace. Inside is a load of white underwear, of the sort I imagine a virginal bride might wear circa nineteen-eighty.

  They want me to wear this? Do they want me to do a striptease or something? That’d be way better than the alternatives. But then, I think, they wouldn’t drug me simply to make me strip. Surely, they could just ask, offer to pay me a ton of money, or threaten me if I don’t do it.

  “Hurry the fuck up.” The deep bass of thug one rumbles through the door.

  With trembling hands, I undress and put the horrible underwear on. As I pull the underwear into place, I’m relieved it covers a lot of me. It’s also much better quality than I first thought.

  There’s a bustier type top with spaghetti straps that covers my breasts, leaving a hint of cleavage. Suspender straps hang from the bottom of it, and there are stockings in the bag. Frilly French knickers complete the outfit, and I pull those on first, relieved they are big on me and fit more like shorts.

  The stockings take me a while because my hands are shaking badly, but eventually I manage them.

  Once I’m fully dressed in the underwear, I walk on jelly legs out of the bathroom.

  Allyov gives me his kindly grandad smile, and I want to vomit.

  “Come, my little lost girl. You’re about to get a home.”

  He wraps his hand around my upper arm and pulls me out of the bedroom. I don’t have on any shoes, and it strikes me as odd. I’d have thought they’d want me in high heels, but they didn’t give me any, so I don’t say anything.

  It will be easier to run in stockin
g-covered feet than heels if the chance arises.

  We head downstairs, and in the cavernous hallway Allyov pauses behind a heavy set of double doors. There’s the hum of conversation coming from behind them. Mostly the deep voices of men talking.

  “Hold her.” Allyov points to me, and each thug takes an arm.

  I’m strung between them like a sacrificial offering.

  Allyov sweeps the doors open and walks into the room as if he’s God himself.

  “Gentlemen.” Allyov claps his hands and everything stops.

  The room is full of men. Most of them older, Allyov’s age. A few younger.

  One man is in a darkened corner with a woman writhing on his lap. A couple of other women are draped over two of the younger men, but they are the only females in the room.

  Andrius is sitting on a massive sectional sofa, whiskey in one hand, deep in conversation with an elderly gent. At Allyov’s entrance he looks up. On seeing me, he frowns.

  I don’t often see Andrius show any emotion, and his frown is both perplexed and displeased.

  It seems whatever Allyov wants me to do here tonight, Andrius didn’t know about it.

  “Andrius. You’re a valuable member of our … company. And we all wanted to welcome you properly now that you’re not going to be working for anyone else here in the United Kingdom. This is an auspicious day, the start of a beautiful partnership.”

  I want him to get on with it so I can find out my fate.

  “We wanted to get you something truly wonderful to celebrate this moment. A bottle of scotch simply wouldn’t do.” He pauses, and there’s nervous laughter from a few men in the room, their eyes flickering from the still frowning Andrius to the grinning Allyov.

  He says something else, and I don’t take it in as there’s a ringing in my ears. A panicked bell-like sound, clanging loud and hard telling me I’m done for. I do catch the last words, though.

  “I got you this instead.”

  The two thugs throw me at Andrius. I land at his feet, on my hands and knees, my face burning as some of the men in the room laugh.

  Andrius says nothing. I lift my head, and he’s still as a statue. He doesn’t move to help me, doesn’t even look at me.

  “I don’t need a waitress, but thank you, Sergei. I appreciate the thought, but she can go back to working at the restaurant.”

  Allyov goes to sit next to Andrius, the other man getting up without a word and leaving the two alone on the couch.

  The conversation in the room resumes as if this shit is normal!

  “No, she can’t,” Allyov says with a sad sigh. “She’s not exactly here by choice. She has no one, is a lost little lamb.”

  His words pull me up short, reminding me of my feelings about myself. A lamb amongst the lions.

  “I looked into her background. She’s a nobody. Apart from at the restaurant, no one will know she is missing.”

  “Everyone has someone,” Andrius says low. “Even if it’s only a waiter they know or a favorite barista. A neighbor. A landlord wanting rent. She’ll be missed by somebody. Let her go, she knows to keep her mouth shut. Right, Violet?”

  For the first time, Andrius looks at me, still on my knees. His gaze cold. Hard.

  I nod my head vigorously.

  Allyov sighs again. “You don’t like her? I feel bad. I wanted this to be a great gift. A gift to link us so we’ll be like brothers in all the important ways. No problem, I will send her off to the Middle East with the arms on Sunday. She’ll go down a treat there with her coloring.”

  His words have me crying out, and for a moment, the conversation in the room dulls.

  Andrius is watching Allyov with a calm expression, but a tiny muscle ticks in his cheek.

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t to my tastes, Allyov. I simply don’t need the heat that might come from this. It’s messy.”

  “Trust me, it won’t be. No one knows she’s gone. We will sort her rent out with the landlord. And as for any waiters or baristas, they aren’t going to go to the police over a waif and stray they occasionally talk to.”

  Andrius sighs and makes the smallest movement. A repositioning of his body a tiny increment, but it screams at wanting to do more. If I could read his mind, I swear I’d see fantasies of him throttling Allyov.

  “She is pretty.” He gives a wolfish grin to Allyov, and my hope fades. “If I take her, then I want to be the one to sort out her landlord and any other issues.” Andrius holds Allyov’s gaze, not looking my way at all.

  “Fine by me, one more job off my hands. So … you like her? You know”— Allyov leans in close and lowers his voice—“some of the men, they thought you were maybe, you know … you liked boys. Not that I care.” Allyov leans back and holds his hands up. “I’m a modern man, but the foot soldiers … they talk. You don’t touch the girls in the clubs, you don’t fuck Justina, and she’s gorgeous. You’re like a monk. But Donna, she asked Justina one day, and Justina laughed and said you like women, but you like them innocent. Untouched. It’s why you don’t mess with the girls in the clubs. I saw you noticed little Violet here. A man like you who pays no one much heed, you noticed her. Yes?”

  He laughs low and soft. “We are more alike than I knew, same taste in women. I think I might have wanted her for myself if I didn’t already have a tasty little morsel lined up. But … we like them the same way. Brothers for sure, under the skin.”

  He claps Andrius on the back. Andrius smiles a slow smile and nods. “Brothers, eh?”

  “Yes, and this beautiful young girl is my gift to you, brother. Do with her as you wish. When you’re done with her, do as you wish. If you get bored of her and don’t want to … dispose of her yourself, let me send her to the Middle East for you.”

  “You don’t run girls,” Andrius says.

  “True,” Allyov replies. “But it won’t hurt this once. I have the contacts. I will send her if she’s not to your taste; she’ll be welcomed by an associate of mine.”

  There’s a moment of silence. Then Allyov leans down and pulls my hair harshly upwards.

  “Get off your knees, stupid girl, and come say hello to your new owner.”

  I try to stand, but I’m terrified, even with the diazepam, and my legs collapse under me.

  One of the thugs approaches, picks me up, and places me in Andrius’ lap.

  Oh my God! This can’t be happening.

  Huge arms come around me. The arms of a stone-cold killer.

  I’m being cuddled by a hitman for the mob. A hitman who now apparently owns me.

  All my dreams of vengeance on Allyov blow away as if dust. So does any future I imagined for myself. I’m going to get used up, then thrown away.

  I’m in hell, and it’s all my fault.

  I should have never come anywhere near these men.

  A man crosses the room and grins at me, leering.

  “She’s fucking delectable, Andrius. Look at those tits. Jesus.”

  He reaches out a hand to grab at my breast, and I flinch, but before he makes contact, Andrius slaps him away.

  “Go find your own toy to play with,” he growls. “She’s mine, which means she’s off limits to anyone else. I don’t fucking share.”

  With those words, he stands and carries me out of the room to a few cheers and jeers.

  He climbs the stairs with me in his arms and opens the door to a bedroom.

  Throwing me on the bed, he stares at me and shakes his head.

  “Well, aren’t you the fucking proverbial wrench in the works.”

  I don’t know what he means, and I simply hope and pray whatever he does to me won’t be too horrendous.

  My future is in the hands of God now.

  I close my eyes and pray.

  To be continued in

  The Gift: Bratva Vows Duet One

  Thanks for reading! To read the rest of Andrius and Violet’s story you can one click The Gift, part one of the Bratva Vows duet.

    SR Jones, The Trap