As Willow talks, I drop my hands to her shoulders and begin massaging them. Then I bend down and bite her neck, making her gasp.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” she cries out to Darya. “I just spilled my drink on my lap.” She tries to stand up, but I press down on her shoulders, holding her down, and I bend down again, nibbling her ear. Willow quickly says goodbye to Darya.
When Willow hangs up, I smile at her. “See what a nice guy I am? Helping out your friends like that?”
She twists around and singes me with a look. “Your dictionary must have a different definition of the word ‘nice’ than mine does.” Her beautiful face is set in an angry mask. “I’m happy Darya is doing well. I’m happy for her that she gets to choose what she wants to do with her life. I wish I had that for myself.”
I reply with a cool smile. “Oh, ouch. Your words hurt me so deeply. In fact, I’ve changed my mind, you’re free to go.”
“Really,” she says, not taking the bait.
“Well, you’re free to go change back into your regular clothes. I’ve got some work to do.”
She’s muttering rebelliously as she walks away, but I just smile and let her have that. Let her think that she’s got some control over her own destiny. I’ll have so much fun proving her wrong.
* * *
Days three and four…
Willow moves stiffly through the house, refusing to meet my gaze, only speaking when spoken to. She does her best to avoid me; she goes into areas of the house where she thinks I won’t find her, like the kitchen, and hangs out there, reading, until I come get her.
She hasn’t looked at the stacks of wedding magazines I bought for her. Yes, when I take her to bed, she still comes for me. She more than comes. She cries, she begs for it, she crawls across the bed on command and takes my cock into her mouth. And afterwards, she lets me gather her in my arms and pull her to me, crushing her against my body. She falls asleep in my arms, her breaths deep and even.
But when we’re not having sex, she’s angry and sullen, and she’s so damn stubborn I can see her doing this right up to our wedding day. I could threaten to beat her ass, but we both know that’s more pleasure than punishment for her, unless I really hurt her, which I don’t want to do.
Finally, I offer to let her leave the house on one condition – she has to agree to have another GPS tracker put in.
And of course she can only leave with me, under armed guard. That last part is as much to keep her alive as it is to keep her from running.
She agrees, with a lot of muttered cursing and resentful looks.
On day five, once she’s had the tracker put in, we head out to the Brick Market to go shopping. It’s located at the former brick factory, which shuttered its doors ten years ago. When the brick factory went out of business, it threw Pevlovagrad’s economy into a tailspin, which is why it was so easy for slime like Willow’s father and uncle, and Cataha, to move in and start their trafficking businesses.
I offered to take her to a high-end department store, but she asked to go to the Brick Market instead. There are hundreds of little stalls there where people sell everything from dishware to vegetables to clothing. That’s just like her. She wants the money to go to the housewives who eke out a living selling scraps, and she’d rather buy used clothing from a little stall, even though she knows I’d fill her closet with designer clothing.
Before we leave I remind her not to try to run away. “I own this town,” I tell her. “There would be no point.”
She tries to punish me by ignoring my presence and staring out the car window as we drive. That’s fine; it gives me time to do some work on my laptop. I’m still running my legitimate business, including a shipping company and several construction companies, at the same time I’m working with the police chief to flush out and destroy Cataha.
It’s a weekend, and the market is bustling with bargain-hunters. There are booths selling electronics, dishware, books, sheets, furniture. There is a section dedicated to Soviet memorabilia.
First Willow buys sets of Matryoshka nesting dolls to send to Yuri and Helenka. Then we shop at a stall where they sell traditionally painted Khokloma jars and bowls and table-ware, red and black and gold.
Then Willow has to buy baby clothes for Jasha and Anastasia. After a couple of hours, my butler is laden down with shopping bags. We’re just like a normal wealthy couple shopping on a weekend. Except we’re anything but that.
But it seems as if this shopping trip is good for her. When she’s chatting with the vendors, in excellent Russian with barely a trace of an American accent, the anger and bitterness starts to fade. Her eyes are alight with happiness. I feel the tightness inside me uncoil a little. I want her to look like that all the time.
I am the one who painted that haunted expression on her beautiful face, and it is up to me, my new life’s mission, to take it away.
Wanting her to feel free, to be happier, I make the mistake of letting Willow do a little shopping on her own – with my guards trailing ten yards behind her for safety, of course.
Then a stall keeper sidles up to me. He tells me that Willow secretly offered him money to buy a cell phone. I shake my head in frustration.
This again? How the hell does she think having a phone would help her?
I grab her by the arm and march her towards our car, with our guards closing around us.
“Nice job trying to buy a cell phone,” I snap at her.
She doesn’t look the least bit abashed.
“Which time?” She meets my gaze defiantly.
Oh, no. My woman does not speak to me like this. She may be as stubborn as a team of mules, but she’s not unbreakable. No one is.
“I’ve been going much too easy on you. That ends now,” I snap at her.
I don’t even bother to lower my voice.
I’m seriously pissed off that she’s trying to escape after I warned her not to. Why is she being such a stubborn fool? Going behind my back like this just makes me look bad.
She is my fiancée, soon to be my wife, and I won’t tolerate this kind of behavior. When we get home, her punishment won’t end in orgasms. It will end in screams.
“So literally everybody in this town is in your pocket.” Her tone is disgusted as I shove her into the car.
I settle in next to her. “You see this marketplace, all the people here? That’s all because of me, which means I provide a living for hundreds of people. I paid to promote it, I took it from nothing to success in just a few months. People here are loyal to me because their livelihood depends on it.”
“You’re such a philanthropist. Really, I feel honored to know you.”
“Keep talking,” I growl at her. “You’re digging your own grave with your mouth.”
Chapter Ten
Day five…
WILLOW
I won’t even look at him as we pull away from the Brick Market.
I’m furious. And he doesn’t understand at all.
One way or another, I will find a way to get out of this wedding. I still don’t know if I can ever trust him again, but if I’m going to be married to him, it must be my choice, not his.
He’s brilliant in so many ways – but not in matters of the human heart. That’s because he had to guard his own heart like a fortress, had to tell himself he didn’t have one, in order to survive his early life and then to carry out his mission of revenge.
I know he’s going to punish me brutally when we get home, and I’m afraid, but I’m not sorry I stood up to him. I’m relieved when I see that we’re pulling into a parking lot with a row of stores in it, because it delays the pain for a little while at least.
When we park, Sergei’s men park next to us, and he waits until they’ve all poured out of their cars and scanned the parking lot before we get out of his car. How bizarre we must look, on this normal day, in this normal place.
There are families strolling through the parking lot, and I look at them as Sergei pushes me along.
“This is what people do, Willow. They marry, they have children, they dedicate their lives to each other. See how happy they are?” He gestures at them impatiently.
That isn’t us. Our life looks nothing like that.
“Yeah, I’d be willing to bet money that’s because all those women had a choice when they said yes.” I glare up at him.
I see his eyes spark with anger. I could pretend to go along with this charade, but why bother? He’d know I’m lying.
He puts his hand on my back and propels me towards the sidewalk.
Does he really think that we could ever have what these people have?
The mystery of why we stopped here is solved quickly. We pass several stores and end up in front of one that specializes in wedding cakes. He marches me through the door, and his men line up outside. Sergei turns the “open” sign around to “closed”; apparently he’s booked the entire business for today, just for us.
Model cakes are everywhere, gorgeous, elegant, set with edible pearls and bows, shaped like mansions, like castles, like a giant swan with a couple riding on its back. There are cakes that look like flower gardens, cakes that are set up like an entire landscape with trees and ponds and fountains.
The baker, a rotund man in his fifties, bobs his head eagerly when we come in. Another Sergei sycophant. He babbles congratulations and praise for Sergei.
I’m getting madder and madder.
I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself, and I’m gripping my arms so tightly that my knuckles are white.
This is not my dream wedding. Looking at those families out in the parking lot didn’t make me jealous, it made me furious. And reckless.
When the baker brings out a book of pictures, I shake my head. “Gee, I hope we’re not wasting your time. We’re not sure of the date yet.”
The baker’s eyes fly open wide with surprise.
Sergei shoots to his feet. “Leave the room,” he says to the man.
The baker starts to say something, then takes one look at Sergei and literally runs out of the room through the back door.
Sergei bends my arm behind my back and forces me to bend over, my face pressed against the plastic pages of the wedding cake book. “We’re very sure of the date,” he growls.
He grabs my waistband and slides it down. My pants fall down around my ankles. I’m naked from the waist down. I struggle, and he bends my arm up more until pain forks through my body and I’m forced to hold still.
“What are you doing?” I cry.
“Claiming my bride. Right here. Every time you try to say that you’re not mine, I will remind you that you are. So think about that if you decide to do it right in the middle of a market, or a department store. I’ll bend you over one of the counters while families walk by with their children, and I’ll take you up the ass.”
“Sergei, no! Not here! Please!” I cry out, mortified. There’s a big picture window on the front of the store! Yes, his men are blocking it, but there’s the chance that somebody walking by could see us. And the baker is in the back – surely he’ll hear us.
“I love it when you say please.” His voice is a low, sexy growl. “You should say it more often. I might not have to spank you so hard.” I hear cloth rustling. He’s sliding his pants off. Then I hear crinkling as he tears open a condom wrapper. Moments later, his cock is pressed against my rear entrance.
“Ass or pussy. I’ll let you choose.”
Panic rushes through me, and I choke on a sob. “Not my ass. Please.” I’m still sore and aching from last night. If he doesn’t have lube, and take his time using a butt plug first, it will be agonizing.
“Then say what you want.”
I almost scream at him that what I want is for him to leave me the hell alone, but that’s not true. All he’d have to do would be to stroke me, to feel the moisture oozing between my legs.
“I want your cock in my pussy,” I mutter furiously.
“Louder!”
“Someone might hear me!” I plead. He can’t make me do this.
“I hope they do,” Sergei growls.
I am mortified. I am crying, tears streaming down my cheeks, splashing onto the plastic pages. And I am so wet. I’m panting with desire. My ass is rising up to meet him, back arching.
He presses the head of his cock against my small, puckered, rosy hole, and starts to force his way in. A lance of pain sears through me.
“No,” I plead. “Not there!” I gulp, and force myself to yell out loud, “I want your cock in my pussy!”
He repositions himself and forces his cock inside me without even bothering to stroke me the way he usually does. He doesn’t have to. I’m oozing with moisture for him. He rams in hard, holding me firmly by the hips.
Then he takes his time, sliding slowly in and out. Drawing it out. The heat between my legs burns me, it hurts, it screams for release. He can always tell when I’m about to peak, and every time he freezes, mid-stroke.
Finally, I pant, “Please, Sergei, please let me come!”
“Are you sorry?” He’s still a statue. I try to squirm back against him, but he holds me so that I can’t move.
Damn him to the fiery pits of hell!
No, I’m not sorry.
Yes, I’m sorry that I am being dangled over the peak like this, my entire body a throbbing pulse of need.
The words come out without my meaning them to. “Yes, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I wail. “Please let me come!”
Then he begins pumping inside me, harder and harder, slamming the table against the wall with his thrusts. When I come, I cry out again, without words this time, as the pleasure crashes over me and leaves me dazed and breathless. I’m shaking and sobbing. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this humiliated.
Still inside me, Sergei calls out, “You can come in now!”
I let out a strangled scream. He slides his cock out of me, and I frantically pull my pants up.
I’m still zipping my pants when the baker strides back in through the door, smirking. My face is tear-drenched, my makeup no doubt a mudslide down my cheeks. And I know I’ll have that sex-swollen, hair-rumpled look that announces exactly what happened here moments ago. To say nothing of the fact that the air reeks of our lovemaking.
Sergei forces me to sit there at the table, in front of the man who heard me screaming for Sergei’s cock. I am bright red with embarrassment; I know because I can feel it.
The baker doesn’t say anything about what he just heard, but he keeps smirking and shooting me lascivious looks.
We slowly page through pictures of cakes. I’m ready to pick the first one, but Sergei insists that I look at every single picture in the book. Just when I think the torture has ended, Sergei insists that I have to taste some samples – which he insists on feeding to me.
“Do you like that in your mouth?” he taunts me. The baker’s eyes are practically bulging out of his head, and he licks his lips.
When Sergei finally settles on the very first cake we looked at – a traditional three-tiered buttercream cake adorned with red roses – he’s smug, and I’m burning with anger and humiliation.
He pays the baker, who can’t seem to take his eyes off me.
“Don’t you want to thank the nice man for his wonderful service, darling?” Sergei’s voice caresses me, mocks me, promises even more punishment if I don’t do exactly as I’m told.
“Th-th-thank you very much,” I say to the baker. I’m so mortified I have to force each word out.
A leer twists his face. “Oh, it was my absolute pleasure to serve you. Please come back any time.”
I feel sick at that. Sergei prods me.
“Of course,” I mutter.
Finally we’re walking towards the door. I never want to set foot in there again.
“So, you defied me, and mouthed off to me in public. How did that work out for you, sweetheart?” he taunts me as we leave the bakery.
The parking lot is crowded as we start to make our way towards
his car.
I don’t care. I’m ready to scream. I want to claw him and make him bleed. How could he do that to me? I start to curse him out when I hear the screeching of tires, then panicked screams and the splatter of bullets.
One of Sergei’s men cries out. “Cataha!” he shouts. And then a fine mist of red surrounds his head, and he crumples to the ground.
Chapter Eleven
Day five…
WILLOW
A mob of people literally pours over me and Sergei, ramming us like panicked bulls, forcing us apart with their sheer mass as he screams curses into the wind.
Women holding children, men pulling their wives, people scrambling for cover, for safety. Gunfire, the smell of blood, the shrill cries of terror and pain. I’m carried away by the crowd, crying out, flailing my arms.
I see a dozen SUVs with dark tinted windows blocking the exits to the parking lot, and men with machine guns spraying Sergei’s men with gunfire. Sergei’s men are wearing body armor, and they return fire with deadly precision. Bodies drop, blood sprays.
The crowd scatters, and I stagger, looking around wildly. I am choking with panic. I can’t see Sergei. There’s a child lying on the ground, his blue eyes wide with terror, his mouth open in a wordless wail. I run to him on shaky legs, scoop him up into my arms and stagger towards a concrete column. A woman grabs him from my arms and dashes full speed towards the street, and I hear more gunshots and screams. Men lie crumpled on the concrete, their arms splayed out, their heads exploded like ripe melons. Sergei’s men? Cataha’s? I can’t tell.
Then I see a cluster of ski-masked men with machine guns moving towards us, and I know they’re not Sergei’s men. A group of shoppers are trapped out in the open. I’m one of them.
We all freeze. There’s nowhere to run. I hear pops of gunfire, and I don’t know if Sergei is dead or alive.
The thought fills me with mortal terror. It ices over my soul. Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.
I hear a child scream in terror. “The devil! The devil!” And my heart stutters in my chest.
Thirty Days of Hate Page 8
