“My dear, I’m so sorry.” This time, her voice was warm with sympathy. “My own niece died two years ago from the same savage, wretched disease.”
I nodded again, blinking back the fake tears. I’d been taught, through painful beatings that were seared into my soul, to feel nothing and to hold back my tears. It took a conscious act of will to bring them forward at this moment, but I needed to show emotion to bond with Madame Lorraine over our mutual pain. It wasn’t random chance that my cover story had my sister dying of leukemia.
We were both sad for a moment, our shared grief binding us together. Just as Lucien and I had planned. Then she reached out and placed her hand on mine. Not a sexual touch, though there was always an outside chance that she would want me that way. I’d prepared for that scenario as well, but this touch was motherly. A simple gesture of comfort.
For an instant, I was almost undone. My mother had rarely touched me that way. Mrs. Olusola had offered me comfort and caused me pain with the same hand. When Lucien touched me, my body was only a weapon to be trained and moulded to his exacting needs. I wasn’t used to simple gestures of humanity.
“We usually require references or recommendations, my dear, but I’ll make an exception in this case. Of course, you’ll have to pass an evaluation at the hands of two of our trainers.”
Again, her words were not a surprise. When we had discussed this in our planning session, Lucien had given me a hard look. “I trust you’ll be fine, Ellie?” I knew he was referring to that night in Paris, two years ago, when I’d kneed him in the groin before running away. An instinctive response of fear and panic.
I tried not to think of what had happened after. I tried to forget the beautiful man who had touched my body and made me feel whole and complete and cherished. I didn’t have room in my life for that. I didn’t have room for Marc.
“Of course,” I said in response to Madame Lorraine’s question. My eyes were locked on my fingers, unseeing as the memories of the past threatened at the worst possible time. “I understand that an evaluation is expected. But I’d prefer that there be no penetration.”
No cock in my throat until I choked and gagged. No dick or fist in my pussy or in my dry, unlubricated ass. That was in the past.
And in the present was Madame Lorraine, who looked askance at the idea that her trainers would do such a thing as uncouth as have sex with a slave destined for the auction block. “Of course not,” she chided in that prep-school accent that seemed so odd every time I heard her speak. “You do not surrender your right of consent in this auction. We will test your obedience and skill. You will be penetrated, but it will be by dildos, not dicks.”
Dildos not dicks should have been the name of a band, I thought wildly. I was trying not to remember the many days when I’d been given as a prize to all of my Master’s bodyguards. I was trying not to remember the horrific pain of that first day when all five of them had brutalized my body.
But my photographic memory was unrelenting. The images flashed in my head, one by one, in a movie-reel of unending terror. Ivan striking my ass with his doubled-up belt until it was black and blue when I’d gagged around his cock and my teeth had grazed him. Sam, who had slapped my face so hard that my mouth had been filled with blood. Cocks painfully thrust into my raw sore pussy. Into my dry unprepared ass.
“When would you like to do the evaluation?” While my voice was the perfect mix of nervousness and anticipation, my hands were clenched into fists as I fought back the memories of the past. Not now, Ellie, I told myself angrily. Not when you are so close to revenge.
Madame Lorraine eyed me with concern. “Are you alright, my dear? You seem flushed.”
“I’m fine.” I’d become so skilled at lying. “I’m sorry, Madame Lorraine. It’s hard for me not to think about Alicia.” It took an effort, but I let the tears form in my eyes once again, pushing back the memory of Mrs. Olusola whispering to me the first night. This will be easier if you forget how to cry, girl.
“In that case,” she said gently, “how about right now? After all, the life of your sister depends on how you do.”
***
Lucien had changed everything six years ago.
I am a frightened twenty year old huddled in a small house in the outskirts of Lagos, waiting to be raped by the three men who have just purchased me. Though my desire for revenge runs hot in my blood, the reality is that my body is frail. I can’t fight. I can be held down with pathetic ease. I can’t defend myself from attack from someone who weighs a hundred pounds, let alone these big, burly, well-armed men.
I hate myself at this point. I hate how weak I am.
Then the shooting begins.
When I stop screaming, a man walks into the room, his eyes wary and his grip tight on his gun. He is wearing a black t-shirt and black pants. He looks at me briefly before dismissing me as a threat and leaving the room. I can hear him search the house. When he is done, he comes back to where I’m still sitting, curled up into a tight, fearful ball. “You are Dylan’s latest girl, are you not?”
I nod.
He shrugs, more or less indifferent to my plight. “Where is Dylan?”
“Abeokuta,” I reply. “In his compound, I’d imagine.”
The man swears a string of colourful curses. Though there is still a tense knot of fear in me, I watch him curiously.
“Damn it,” he says finally. He runs his hands through his hair. “I’d hoped he would be here with you.” He exhales and is silent for many minutes. When he finally breaks the silence, his words are stoic though his eyes remain bleak. “Ah well,” he says. “There’s always next time, right?”
He turns to leave. I seize my courage into my hands, and call out. “Wait.” He gives me a look of barely concealed impatience. “You want to kill Dylan, don’t you? I do too. Take me with you.”
His eyes rake my body and I can imagine what he sees. A beautiful woman no doubt, but otherwise completely useless. My muscles are weak. I huddle in terror when the shooting starts. “You have nothing to offer,” he dismisses me. “No. You will not be useful.”
“I’ve been Dylan McAllister’s sex slave for two years,” I snap back. The dismissal stings. It only reinforces what I already know. I’m deadweight. But I’m not going to back down. I will have my revenge. “I know things about him that will help you in your quest.”
“Like what?” he scoffs.
I recite things. The blessing of a photographic memory. Precise descriptions of each of Dylan’s five bodyguards. Details about the Nigerian mercenaries that Gregor Petrovich has hired to supplement the security in the compound. I paint vivid word portraits of the housekeeping staff. I talk about security rosters. At what hour of the day the guards change. I remember everything and I tell it all to this stranger dressed in black.
When I’m done, there’s a moment of silence. Then the man speaks again. “It appears that I have underestimated you,” he says. “What do you want?”
“I want to kill Dylan McAllister.”
“Get in line,” he quips, before he turns serious. “Killing is hard and soul-destroying work. Do you have what it takes?”
I remember everything. Every unwelcome touch. Every biting kiss of the whip. Every painful penetration. Every single time I’ve been tossed to Dylan’s bodyguards as punishment.
“Yes.” My voice is flat. I do have what it takes.
***
The life of my imaginary twin sister did not depend on this auction. But my revenge did.
There had been a spate of killings in the human trafficking world. Lucien and I did our share, but our target was always Dylan McAllister and his henchmen. We didn’t take on the entire shady underworld. We just didn’t have the resources.
But people had been dying. Two years ago I had killed Ivan Klimov in Paris. Ivan had been guarding Stanislav Durov, the man who controlled the pipeline transporting women from Azerbaijan and Georgia to Moscow. But the next day, I’d learned that a few hours after I’d killed Ivan,
Stanislav Durov himself had been assassinated. Someone took advantage of the confusion I’d created when I’d killed Ivan to go after the bigger fish.
Everyone was afraid. Everyone had doubled and tripled their guards and were on high alert. And sadly for us, Dylan McAllister had moved from Abeokuta, where we might have had a chance at getting him, to a completely impenetrable fortress-like compound on the outskirts of Hanoi.
There was only one way in. Three times a year Dylan McAllister was visited by a man. Alexander Hamilton. Lucien had tried to gather intelligence on Alexander but had come up with absolutely nothing. We didn’t have a photo of him. We had no idea what he did or why he visited Dylan. We’d heard that he was Dylan’s finance guy – the one responsible for keeping him firmly entrenched among the ranks of the world’s billionaires so that Dylan could kidnap women with impunity, and surround himself with bodyguards to safeguard him from his crimes. But it was just speculation. We had no idea.
We had only one lead. Two years in a row, Alexander Hamilton had attended Madam Lorraine’s consensual slave auction. Twice he had bid on women and won. Twice he had failed to bid at all.
So I was in Bangkok. My appearance had been altered to resemble the two girls he had bid on in the hopes that I would better appeal to him. My red hair had been dyed a dark brown. I’d lost weight, a lot of it, so that I’d look more like the emaciated waifs he was drawn to.
Though my heart thudded in my chest like a trapped butterfly seeking desperately to fly free, I found myself agreeing to participate in a slave auction, exposing myself to leering gazes, hoping to be bid on by a man Dylan McAllister trusted.
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.
I would kill Dylan McAllister. But there was an order to things. First, I needed to pass this evaluation with Madam Lorraine. Second, I needed to be so beautiful and alluring that Alexander Hamilton would bid on me at the auction. Third, he needed to be so entranced with me that he took me on the trip that he made three times a year to that otherwise impenetrable fortress-like compound outside of Hanoi. He had never yet taken anyone on that trip.
There I would find my former Master, the man who had enslaved me when I was eighteen.
I would kill my former Master. Then and only then would I be fully free.
Chapter 2
Ellie / Jenny:
My nerves were at a fever pitch when Madame Lorraine escorted me to the dungeon. Though Dylan hadn’t bothered with BDSM equipment very often, he sometimes found it arousing to tie me down for my beatings. Sometimes he would blindfold me so I couldn’t see where the pain was coming from.
What had I been thinking? Everything in this room was a giant trigger for me. I had no good memories of dungeons. All I remembered were waves and waves of blinding pain.
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. I used those words as a meditative chant, trying to soothe my emotions as best as I could.
“Stay here,” Madame Lorraine told me. She’d evidently noticed nothing amiss. No surprise there - I was adept at hiding my emotions. I had to be. I’d learned to control myself in the harshest way possible.
“Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I replied. I kept my eyes on the floor. My voice was soft and submissive. In this space, the lessons of the past were returning one by one. I existed only to serve my Master. I had no other purpose.
“My trainers will be here presently,” she said. “Please get naked and wait on your knees for them.”
I nodded silently. “Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I repeated. My Master had liked his instructions acknowledged verbally. Several strokes of the cane had punctuated his desire the first time. Another lesson I‘d never forgotten again.
She smiled at me and left the room. I waited for her trainers in silence.
***
Whenever I read a book about a woman falling in love with her captor, it made me scream out aloud in anger and disbelief. It’s just a book, one part of me would insist. But I’d been imprisoned for two years. I’d lived through my captor’s mood swings. When I least expected it, I would be rewarded with a pretty dress, with a piece of chocolate or best of all, with a new book. But the flip side was also true. When I least expected it I would be punished. Beaten. Caned. Given to his guards so I could be gang raped.
All of it was to instill one belief into me. Everything depended on Dylan. My life and my death. My happiness and my sorrow. Everything was his to control, and if I wanted to survive, I needed to learn to please him as well as I could.
Waiting in Madame Lorraine’s dungeon, my skin felt cold and clammy. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I’d had these, off and on, a few times in the last six years. I’d had one the first time I’d killed a man. I’d woken up with nightmares of being trapped in my cell in Abeokuta, waiting to be summoned by Dylan. I’d been startled awake, time after time, screaming for the guards to please stop hurting me.
Lucien had looked at me eight weeks ago when this plan had been hatched, my panic attacks on his mind. He had asked me if I was going to be okay.
Lucien was driven by his thirst for revenge, the same way I was driven by mine. There was no room for anything else. It wasn’t concern for me that had prompted his question, just a worry that our plan wouldn’t work if I’d broken down at an inappropriate spot.
“I’ll be fine,” I had replied, shutting the conversation down before it could start. Now Madame Lorraine’s trainers were almost here and I was running out of time.
Obedience was simple. I was practised at obeying. But what I had to do was something far more difficult. I had to genuinely experience pleasure and arousal when I followed their directions. I had to crave the bondage and the submission. I had to welcome each stroke of the flogger. I had to believe that pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin and I had to convince myself that when I renounced control, I would fly.
I had to act and I would have to be believed. This was more important than any role I’d ever played in Dylan’s Nigerian stronghold.
Two years ago, had I been asked if I could do this, I would have shaken my head. I thirsted for revenge but I didn’t lack self-awareness. My body had reacted to defend itself against Dylan’s thrusts, lubricating to minimize the pain. When my former Master had strummed on my clitoris, I had climaxed. But these were the automatic responses of my body. My mind hadn’t felt pleasure. I wouldn’t have been able to fake something I’d never experienced.
But that night after I’d killed Ivan, I’d run into a bar and I’d met a man. Marc. As I waited for Madame Lorraine’s trainers, I wrapped the memory of our night together around me as if it were a blanket that could insulate me from the cold in my soul.
***
There were two of them. A man and a woman. Or, to use the proper lingo, a Dom and a Domme.
Both of them were dressed in black. The man was bare-chested, his muscles tight and sinewy. The woman wore a tight leather corset that showcased every inch of her body and she looked absolutely amazing. They both moved towards me.
“Look at me,” the woman commanded. I met her eyes.
They both smiled. “Come,” the man said. He held his hand out to me, and helped me rise from my kneeling position. “Let’s discuss safety before we start, okay? Jenny, right?”
I nodded. Ellie Samuelson was gone. She’d disappeared into the dusk. She’d last been seen in the parking lot of a Cleveland mall eight years ago. No one was looking for her anymore. But Jenny Fullerton had a sister, Alicia, who was dying of leukemia. “Yes Master.”
The man shook his head. “I’m not your Master, Jenny,” he said. “My name is William. If you like, you can call me Sir.”
I nodded. “Yes Sir.”
The two of them led me to a couch that I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the dungeon. Lucien would have flayed me alive for n
ot being observant enough and he would have been right. We never knew what little detail could help keep us alive, or help us find Dylan.
“Sit,” the woman ordered again. She smiled at me warmly, her gentle expression at odds with her firm tone. “My name is Karen.” She winked at me. “Please don’t call me Mistress, it makes me feel old.”
I laughed, surprised that joking was permitted in this space, and they both glanced at each other. Why?
“Jenny.” This was William. “You seem very nervous. I’d tell you to relax but in my experience, telling someone to relax usually has the opposite effect.” He looked at me. “Why don’t we talk for a little bit first?”
“Talk about what, Sir?” What did they expect from me? I’d researched consensual BDSM encounters extensively in preparation for this auction. I’d read books. I’d watched videos on the Internet and some of them had even turned me on. But the videos were made for people to jack off to. They weren’t made to educate a novice.
“Whatever you like,” Karen interjected. “Let’s get acquainted before we jump into your evaluation.”
My evaluation. Of course. I couldn’t afford to forget that if I didn’t measure up, I wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the auction.
“First time in Bangkok?” William asked me.
“Yes Sir.”
“And what do you think? You’ve never been left the States before, right?”
“Yes Sir.” Another lie. I’d circled the globe more times than I cared to count in the last six years. “It’s more crowded than I’m used to.”
Karen laughed. “Aren’t you staying on Khao San Road? I stayed there for a couple of months when I first moved to Bangkok. The vendors still hawking pretty much every single thing in the world on the streets?”
Bought (Assassin's Revenge Book 2) Page 2
