BOUGHT
Book Two
of the
Assassin’s Revenge Series
by
Tara Crescent
Text copyright © 2015 Tara Crescent
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
An infinite amount of gratitude to my editor Jim and to Anne A. Lois and Richard North – quite possibly the best beta-readers in the world. Bought is so much stronger because of your help. Thank you, thank you and thank you again!
Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com.
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Never on a Sunday: Stephanie Rice has her sex life all figured out. She fucks six different men on six days of the week. Monday is the Chef. Tuesday, the Technician. Wednesday is the Playboy. Thursday, Mr. Buttman has his way with her. Friday, she has an appointment with the Doctor, and on Saturday, the Dominant works her over.
On Sunday, she normally does laundry. However, on this particular Sunday, her worlds collide. All six men find out about each other, and they are determined to give Stephanie an evening she will never forget.
Prologue
What is your name?
Ellie Samuelson.
The hand whips forward and slaps my face hard. The question is repeated. What is your name?
I hesitate, not knowing what this man wants. Ellie Samuelson, I say finally.
Another slap to my face. My jaw aches. What is your name?
I clue in. Whatever you’d like it to be.
That’s good. There’s satisfaction in the man’s voice. Your name is slave. Or cunt. Do you understand?
I don’t understand. Yes.
Another hard slap. This one sets my ears ringing. A sharp flare of pain fills me. My mouth fills with blood. You will call me Master.
Yes Master.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday. As I huddle in my hot and humid cell, I try not to think of home. I suppress memories of my mother, who might have remembered to stop at the grocery store and buy a cake, if she hadn’t been lost in an alcoholic stupor. Amber and Lisa, my best friends, would have remembered though. After school, we would have headed to Beechwood Mall. They would have bought me a cupcake, since I had a weakness for the sugary, icing-topped treats. They would have sung a loud, boisterous Happy Birthday in the food court and I would have blushed and whispered for them to keep quiet, please, everyone is looking. And we would have all burst into giggles.
It would have been a good birthday.
Instead I’m in Abeokuta. Never heard of it? Neither had I until, two years ago, I was kidnapped one evening after work at the mall. I was brought to this dusty corner of Nigeria, about an hour outside populous Lagos, where I was trained to become a sex slave. My Master’s name is Dylan McAllister.
I had cried the first day. Mrs. Olusola, the Yoruba housekeeper had hushed me as she had bathed my wounds. “Do not cry,” she had whispered. “Be silent and obedient. The Master will punish you if you cry.”
My memory is near-photographic. A curse when all I want to do is forget. I never want to remember Dylan’s cold grey eyes as he had slapped me hard and told me to shut the fuck up. I want to blank out my screams and sobs of terror. The sharp, excruciating pain as Dylan had raped me, taking my virginity without consideration or gentleness.
I want to forget his punishment because I wouldn’t stop flailing and kicking out. I just want to erase my memories of being given to his five bodyguards that same night. “A useful lesson,” his chillingly flat voice had said, “of what will happen to you if you don’t obey.”
It had taken my body a full month to recover from what the five of them had done to me that night. But Dylan McAllister had been right. It had been a useful lesson. I had never fought back again.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday. As I have every single morning, I curl into a ball on the narrow cot. To the guards who are watching me through the security cameras mounted on the ceiling, it must look like I’m surrendering to despair.
I always look particularly wretched in the mornings. The only way I can escape my prison is in my dreams. When I wake up, it is to a never-ending nightmare. But I am not as despairing as I seem. My lips, hidden by the hands that cover my face, chant a litany of names and facts.
Gregor Petrovich. Russian. Fifty years old, two hundred and thirty pounds of hard muscle. Head of Dylan McAllister’s security.
Ivan Klimov. Russian. Gregor’s right hand man.
Pieter Hoffman. German. Mercenary. Enjoys raping inexperienced girls in the ass. Without lube.
Sam Green. American. Gun-for-hire from Louisiana. When he’s not punching Dylan’s slaves in the face, he writes poetry and fancies himself an artist.
Daniel Schneider. Also German. Daniel has lived in Nigeria for many years now. I suspect he’s having an affair with Mrs. Olusola. He had hung back that first night and he hadn’t touched me. He had just watched. But his eyes had been filled with lust.
I chant their names under my breath and just like I have, every single day for the last two years, I make myself a promise.
One day I will have my revenge. I will kill all of them for what they did to a frightened young woman. And when I’m done, I will have Dylan McAllister in my sights. My Master, the man who has kidnapped and raped many girls before me and will kidnap and rape many girls after me.
Dylan is a sociopath, utterly without empathy. He punishes me and rewards me randomly to reinforce my training and make me compliant and pliable.
I will hold a gun to his face. I will speak and when I do, my voice will not tremble. “Remember me?” I will ask him. My speech will be very ‘Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride’. Before I had been taken, I had loved that movie. “My name is not slave. Not girl, not cunt. My name is Ellie Samuelson. And you are not my Master.” My finger will curl on the trigger. I will watch the fear rise in his eyes. I will savor his terror, as if it can make me forget my own.
I will pull the trigger and Dylan McAllister will die at my hands. This is my promise to myself. This is the only reason I survive, the only way I can endure.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday and though I don’t know it yet, my life is about to change once again.
Mrs. Olusola bustles into my cell. She positions herself with care in front of me. The expression in her eyes is one of fearful courage. Why?
I’ve wanted to hate this woman. In the early days, I did. I hated her with passionate intensity because she stood by while my Master raped me again and again. But over time, I’ve learned to temper my anger. She has three young children, and her husband ran off with another woman. Without this job, her children will starve.
I don’t forgive her, but I understand. You do what you need to do to survive. I’ve parted my legs compliantly for my Master for two years for the same reason. I’ve knelt at his feet. I’ve gazed into his eyes when bidden, keeping my hatred hidden. If he deems it fit to punish me, I take my punishment without protest or complaint. I have become the ideal slave girl.
You do what you need to do to survive.
Mrs. Olusola yells at me now. “Get up, get up,” she cries loudly. My gaze n
arrows. This is unexpected behaviour for her. Most days, she treats me with tentative kindness. What has changed?
She stretches her hand out towards me and I see the bundle of notes she holds in her sweaty palm. “They are coming to take you away,” she whispers. “You must try to escape.” She screams at me again to get out of bed and I realize she’s positioned herself so that her back blocks the view of the security camera. The screams are a camouflage to allay the suspicions of any watching guards.
I quickly take the money from her and tuck them in the waistband of my pajamas. When I’m in the bathroom, I will find a better hiding place for it.
***
The bathroom is almost the only room where there are no security cameras. No point – there are no windows, nowhere I can run to, or escape. I crave the few minutes I spend there each day, my only minutes of absolute privacy.
As the water cascades down on my back, I wonder why Mrs. Olusola has given me the money. She has handed me fifteen thousand naira, the equivalent of about a hundred dollars. This has to be a good half of her monthly earnings. It is a gesture of stunning generosity.
I feel a sense of impending doom. I concentrate – have I missed any signs of oncoming change? As I scrub my flesh with the harsh soap, I curse as I realize what I’ve failed to notice. Over the last few months, the number of times my master has sent for me has decreased. When he’s punished me, he’s looked almost bored. He is tiring of me.
From the chatter I’ve managed to overhear around the compound, my Master likes his girls at the cusp of womanhood. At twenty, I’m too old to arouse him.
I take a sharp inward breath. I’ve been so foolish. I’ve enjoyed my respite without realizing that something worse is around the corner. But Mrs. Olusola isn’t quite as naïve. She has seen girls come and go. She knows that tougher times are ahead for me. Hence the money and the whispered message. Run.
***
There are three waiting men in my Master’s study. They all wear the traditional colourful dashiki. When they speak, their voices have the characteristic African lilt. It should be soothing, but their eyes are cold and assessing as they survey me.
I’m wearing a simple white sundress. I feel naked and exposed under their gaze. I feel like prey.
“This is the girl then, Oba?” one of them says. He’s a big man. He has to be three hundred pounds of muscle and fat.
Oba is the Yoruba word for king. I’ve learned that much in my time in Abeokuta. It is a title of respect. But since the three Nigerian men in the room want something from Dylan McAllister, perhaps the title is just surface politeness.
“Yes,” my Master says carelessly. He looks at me. “Get naked.” I obey silently and without hesitation. My Master is quite capable of giving me to these men to teach me a lesson about obedience. “This is the girl,” he says to the men. “She’s not a virgin of course, but she’s quite well trained.”
They all laugh. “Your training methods are very effective, Oba,” one of them compliments my Master. Sycophant.
The men circle me. Their hands come out and pinch my breasts and my bottom. Rough fingers invade my pussy, checking to see how tight I am. Another finger pokes into my unlubricated bottom and tears fill my eyes. I blink them away furiously. I must be brave. I must watch for every opportunity to escape.
“Is there anyone looking for her, Oba? Family?” one of them asks.
My Master shrugs carelessly. “Her mother died a couple of months after I brought her here,” he says dismissively. “Drunk driving accident. No other relatives. No one is looking for her.”
My heart stills and I cry out inwardly in anguish. The barest whisper of sound escapes my mouth. I know that I must control myself around Dylan. He hears me though and shoots me an impassive look. “Do I need to remind you of what I expect from you, cunt?” he asks me coldly.
I kneel immediately and rest my forehead on the floor. “This unworthy cunt begs forgiveness, Master,” I whisper. My mind is tearing apart with sorrow. My mother, imperfect as she was, was all I had. And now she’s dead. She’s been dead for two years and though he knew the entire time, Dylan never saw fit to tell me.
Once again I repeat my promise to myself. It is the only thing I can do. The only way I can endure. One day, I will hold up a gun to Dylan McAllister’s face. One day, I will kill him. One day, I will have my revenge for every bit of cruelty and pain.
The men are watching this little exchange with fascination. “She’ll do,” they say finally. “How much?”
The haggling begins and I stay prostate on the floor, doing my best to both pay attention to what I need to know and to repress my fear. I shiver slightly at the fate in store for me. I’m about to be sold to a brothel in Lagos. My pain tolerance – learned through many repeated applications of the cane, the whip and the riding crop, is a bonus for which the men are willing to pay extra. Their clients like to beat up their whores. My ability to withstand my beatings will be useful.
I struggle to keep my emotions flat. In my head, I chant the speech that will be the last words Dylan McAllister will hear before I kill him. “Remember me?” I will ask. “My name is not slave. Not girl, not cunt. My name is Ellie Samuelson. And you are not my Master.” Then I will pull the trigger and Dylan McAllister will die at my hands.
The price has been determined. I’m allowed to pack the few clothes I own into a suitcase under the watchful gaze of Sam Green. I’ve already hidden the money Mrs. Olusola has given me, all fifteen thousand nairas, in the hem of my dress. A dangerous chance to take but I have no choice.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday and I’ve been sold to a brothel owner. I am to live out the next few years of my life as a whore until my body is no longer an object of desire.
No.
Today – I will escape or I will die trying.
Chapter 1
Ellie / Jenny:
It was frighteningly easy to buy a human being. There were many options for those who were interested, in parts of the world where the arm of the law wasn’t long and could be easily distracted by a well-placed bribe. If you knew the right people, you would be allowed admittance to a slave auction in some remote destination. There you could sit among other men, smoke your cigars and sip your scotch, while young girls who had been unwillingly torn from their families were paraded in front of you. You would be allowed to look and even touch these girls. Grope a nubile breast, stick your fingers between their untried legs. You could find yourself aroused by the terror in their eyes.
What Madame Lorraine offered was something far rarer and correspondingly much more expensive. The consensual slave auction. The billionaires of the world still came to bid, but this was a more refined gathering. In this crowd, the slave wanted her subjugation. She craved humiliation. She needed to serve.
A three-month contract was the norm for this particular operation, run only twice a year. However, from the dossier that we had accumulated on Madame Lorraine, I knew that she also offered a shorter one-week term for people newer to the lifestyle.
Money didn’t exchange hands in the one-week version. The house charged a token fee for its expenses and the Dominant made a donation to the charity of the submissive’s choice. Those exchanges were farces, meant to attract the men and women who experienced a sexual thrill at the idea of being purchased as a sex slave. They were glorified vacations where a willing man and a willing woman got together for the purposes of having consensual, kinky sex.
The three-month auction was a darker animal. There were checklists and protections built into the system for the safety of both the clients and the slaves. But three months was a long time and anything could happen. Especially when the slave’s list of hard limits was as short as mine.
On the checklist, I’d indicated that I would do anything. I would perform any act of debasement. Take any amount of torture. Obey any order.
I could see Madame Lorraine read the list that I’d spent the last ten minutes filling out. While she wa
s reading, I surveyed her covertly. Though my dossier had included pictures of her, she still wasn’t what I would have expected. She was short and plump, her skin the colour of warm caramel. She was in her late fifties, but her face didn’t betray it. It was smooth and unlined. Just some crinkling around her eyes and a few lines around her mouth.
Laugh lines? Somehow, I doubted it. Madame Lorraine started holding her auctions after her sister was killed by a slaver. This was her own defiant gesture against the dark underworld of sexual slavery and human trafficking. Her attempt at letting go of her dark past and reaching towards the light.
You know that scene in the Matrix when Neo was expecting to see some super human being and when he met the Oracle, she turned out to be a cookie-baking grandmother? I had that same moment of cognitive dissonance when I first met Madame Lorraine.
“This is an auction for slaves and submissives with prior experience,” she spoke finally. Surprise after surprise, because her accent was about as upper-class British as I’d ever heard in my life. “Can you tell me where you were trained?”
Through a force of will, my mind stayed firmly in the present. “It was a private affair,” I replied briefly. “My former Master does not wish to be identified.” It was a fairly common response in a world where people dwelt largely in the shadows.
She nodded and I smiled inwardly. Lucien and I had prepared for this interview. Every question we had thought she might ask, I’d practiced my response.
“Why do you wish to participate in this auction?” One dark eyebrow was raised.
No doubt she’d already researched me and my past, my reasons for knocking at the door of her auction house. I had to trust that Lucien had done a good enough job falsifying the paper trail so that my cover story would hold up. “My twin-sister has leukemia.” My eyes lowered demurely and I twisted my hands in my lap. I’d practiced that gesture many, many times in front of the mirror. I needed to show that I was falling apart emotionally due to my sister’s illness and the fact that we didn’t have enough insurance to provide her with the treatment her body so desperately needed. Yet I also needed to project that I was strong enough to withstand the rigors of the next three months. I needed to convince her I was desperate for the money, but that I would still follow the rules and not sully the reputation of her auction house.
Bought (Assassin's Revenge Book 2) Page 1
