The Bratva's Bride

by Jane Henry

  I flush and wash my hands, noting what I’d like housekeeping to bring up today. More towels. More washcloths. Whatever feminine amenities she needs. I want her well taken care of, paying attention to every detail on her body. Today, she’ll meet with the manicurist and hairstylist, as well as a few others I will hire.

  “What do you need to groom yourself?” I ask her in English.

  “Excuse me?” she asks, not moving from bed. Good girl.

  “Razors. Makeup. I don’t know, feminine things. What do you need?”

  “Depends on what I’ll be doing,” she mutters.

  I turn to face her. “You’ll be servicing me,” I say, letting the weight of those words settle like nightfall. “You’ll be my woman to the press and maintain perfect composure to all we see. Today, I’ll have you well groomed, and this evening you’ll get a better feel for what my expectations will be. When I take you out in public, I’ll expect perfect behavior and outward compliance. If you behave, you will not be punished when we’re alone. And if you misbehave, you’ll deal with the consequences of that.” I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms, eyeing her. Watching for any signs of resistance. As the leader of our organization, I’ve learned to read body language well.

  Is she repulsed? Angered? Afraid?

  Her nostrils flare and her shoulders remain taut, despite her breathing in and out, but she doesn’t move from the position I’ve ordered her in. There’s a slight narrowing of her eyes and her lips are tight, but other than those small visual signs of anger and distrust, she keeps her face impassive.

  She doesn’t trust me. She hates the thought of my having any control over her. But she’s smart enough to know that outward compliance will make this go smoother for her.

  I continue. “You’ll pay back the debt you owe us based on merit,” I tell her. “Like the common prostitute you’ll be for me, I will deduct what you owe based on a wage. An hourly rate, if you will. When you go with me in public outside this house. When you service me behind closed doors. Those will be the opportunities for you to earn your wages.” She flinches when I say service me, but I can see she’s mulling this over.

  “I’m eager to give you your first chance to earn your salary,” I tell her, unabashedly letting my eyes roam over her gorgeous naked form before me. “But right now, I would like to eat. I don’t trust you, and you’re my property, so you will sit up and let me feed you. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  She nods. I jerk my head to the door and exit the doorway to let her in.

  “Go, then. When you come out, I’ll give you a notepad to write down what you need.”

  I let her actually shut the door to the bathroom for an illusion of privacy, since there’s nothing in there she can use as method of escape. I’m not convinced she’ll try to escape anyway. She knows that if we found her again, her life would be forfeit.

  My office things have been moved into storage, and I almost like how it looks in here. When I go into the living room to retrieve a pad of paper, I look out the large windows. Our compound sits on a hill, overlooking the city. When I look at the buildings below us, I frown. Something is out of place, though I can’t quite place it. What looks different than it normally does?

  I hear Calina behind me, but I ignore her while I look below us, scowling for a sign of something amiss.

  Something isn’t right.

  I get my phone and dial Maksym.

  “Morning,” he answers in Russian.

  “Something is off,” I tell him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel it in my gut. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I want our entire estate combed by our men before we meet in an hour. I want every exit and entrance patrolled, every security monitor checked, every one of our guards interrogated.”

  “Over nothing, Dem? Are you just suspicious because you brought the girl here last night?”

  “Do what I fucking tell you, Maksym,” I grate out. If he questions me again, I’m not above kicking his ass from here to the capital to make sure he knows his place. Friends, brothers, it doesn’t matter when the stakes are as high as they are with us. I have no patience for anyone questioning an order.

  “Got it,” he says, then he disconnects. I turn to Calina.

  “What do you eat for breakfast?” I ask her.

  “Muesli or porridge,” she says, looking at me warily as if she’s wondering if I’ll poison her food. It’s good to keep her on her toes, but that’s not my endgame. I nod, then place a call to order food.

  “Go sit in your bedroom,” I tell her. “I want no one to see you naked but me.”

  She obeys. I cast one more glance outside before I join her. The sun has begun to rise, and I finally realize what’s wrong. The street lights that surround us have already been extinguished, and they typically do not go off until the sun has risen fully. It isn’t just that, though, but my intuition that tells me something isn’t right. I’ve learned under Dimitri’s tutelage to always trust my instinct. When I feel something is about to happen, it’s typically true.

  When a knock sounds on the door, I take a moment to glance through the peephole in the door to be sure it’s someone I recognize. It is. I take our food in silence, and arrange it on the table in the main room before I go to the bedroom where she waits for me. “Come with me.” I motion for her to walk ahead of me.

  Walking in front of me, stark naked, she looks fucking beautiful. I can still see the faint pink trail marks of the cane on her thighs and ass where I marked her with the cane.

  Fuck. I want to stripe her again and again, and show her how punishment can yield both pain and pleasure.

  I slide the silver tray on the table, and her stomach growls audibly. I smirk. It’s kind of cute, the way she blushes and looks down almost shyly.

  “Sit.” My stomach tightens when she winces as she sits, a possessive hunger taking hold.

  “Hungry?” I ask her.

  “Starving.” She tosses her head and meets my eyes. “You know, if I wasn’t sitting here naked, still feeling the punishment you gave me the night before, and I didn’t spend the night in a room that’s essentially a prison, I would almost feel as if this is nice. Room service and all.”

  I ignore her chatter and uncover the tray revealing a silver bowl of our best muesli, a small pitcher of milk, a bowl of porridge, a plate of eggs and fresh fruit. I don’t offer it to her, but allow her to eye it. She swallows and lifts her eyes to mine, but doesn’t touch the food.

  She knows she’s not allowed to touch it without my permission, and the small gesture of obedience warms me.

  Good girl, I think.

  I think I may enjoy the training of Calina.

  “Room service and all,” I agree. “You’ll find that if you cooperate, things will go better for you.”

  “I gathered that,” she says, and her eyes flash at me a split second before she looks away and shields her gaze.

  We’ll see how compliant she is after I feed her.

  “Do you want food, Calina?”

  “Of course I do,” she snaps.

  I don’t like her tone of voice. I take my own tray of eggs and fruit, and begin to eat. Watching me eat, she begins to tremble.

  “Show me.”

  “Show you?” she asks, a twinge of annoyance in her tone. “Show you how?”

  “Beg me.”

  My dick tightens. There are many ways to control another human being. I tend to favor the deprivation of the most basic necessities.

  Shelter. Food. Comfort.

  “Beg you?” she repeats, spitting the words out as if they’re distasteful. I take a deliberately large bite of my eggs, chew and swallow, then nod.

  “That’s what I said.”

  Will she defy me? I hope she does. In my closet hang belts and straps. An after-breakfast whipping sounds like a decent workout.

  Or will she do as she’s told?

  Long minutes pass as she looks at the food then brings her eyes back to m
e. She doesn’t move. I finish my eggs and move on to my fruit bowl, and still, she stays where she is.

  “You have hundreds of hours of work to pay me off,” I tell her. “Consider this your first one.”

  I watch her inhale then exhale, her eyes narrowing on me, before she pushes herself away angrily from the chair and kneels in front of me. Jaw clenched, eyes like little pyres.

  “Please may I have food,” she says through clenched teeth.

  “Sir,” I amend, taking another bite of food she doesn’t miss. Her eyes rove over my plate as she watches me eat.

  “You’re a—”

  “Watch it,” I correct. “I’ve explained to you that as mine, you will obey me. You speak to me disrespectfully, and you’ll find your ass striped good and red before we go downstairs to my brothers shortly.” I let the weight of my words sink in. “Now try again.”

  She takes in a deep breath, draws her shoulders back, and says through gritted teeth, “Please may I have food, sir?”

  It’s almost passable.

  I finish my fruit and take her muesli. I despise the stuff, but it was the first thing she asked for, so she can watch me eat it while she learns to behave. I dump some in my fruit cup, top it with milk, and spoon the too-sweet concoction. It takes effort to school my features from grimacing when I taste coconut. Fucking disgusting.

  I choke down a bite. “You’re getting there,” I tell her. “But I think your tone of voice can be more compliant.”

  “And I think your—”

  But she stops herself mid-sentence. I take another bite of her muesli.

  “Please,” she says in a quiet voice, “May I have some breakfast, sir?”

  I nod. “You may. Sit.”

  She gets off her knees with grace becoming a woman of stature much higher than her own, and sits regally in the chair before me, her breasts full and pert and still lightly marked from the cane.

  Perfect.

  I give her the remaining porridge.

  “Good job,” I tell her. “Now while you eat, let’s go over what I expect of you.”

  She swallows large bites of porridge as if she’s afraid I’ll take it away from her and when I don’t remove it, she pauses long enough to top it with sugar before resuming her breakfast. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s eaten.

  “You’ll speak to me with respect,” I tell her. “No backtalk or rude tones. While we’re here and I’m occupied, I may cuff you or cage you, and any time I do I expect you to submit.”

  Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing as she continues to eat.

  “You’ll pay me back by the hour when you obey my commands,” I tell her. “As I explained to you before, in my presence, you will obey and submit, or suffer the consequences. This is not a partnership. Anything that seems like freedom is merely an illusion. You are my captive, and you’ll be given many opportunities to pay back what you owe. But make no mistake, Calina.” I lean forward. “You are mine. You have no freedom but what I allow. I am your master and you, kisa, are my slave. Understood?”

  It seems the food has settled her a bit, because she nods. “Yes, sir.”

  Now that I’ve eaten, I need to work out. I’d like her to join me, but I don’t have her clothes yet.

  “I’m going downstairs for a bit, and you’ll remain here.” I hand her a pad of paper and a pen. “Write down what you need.”

  A few minutes later, she hands me the list. I look it over, then place a call to one of my men to pick up the essentials. “And send Rothsky here,” I tell him. “I want her checked to be sure she’s clean, and I want her on birth control as soon as possible.” I’m impatient and want her to myself as soon as possible.

  I stand and stretch, then cover our meals and point to her room. “Go back and lie down. You may use the bathroom if necessary, but no freedom in my absence today. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” she says in an almost sing-song voice. We have a meeting in two hours, and I want her prepared before then.

  “No disobedience, Calina,” I warn, considering the cage in my absence.

  “You’ve made that clear, sir,” she responds, and this time she seems the most compliant she’s been since I brought her here.

  Chapter 5

  I do what he says, lying on the bed while he prepares to leave, but I want him on edge. I don’t want him to have full control here, so I begin to sing to myself in a low voice. I’m doing what he said. He never asked me not to.

  He walks into the room and eyes me thoughtfully before he speaks.

  “On second thought, I want you with me,” he says. “Dress in the clothes you wore here. When we return, you’ll be outfitted for the clothes you’ll wear with me.”

  I continue to sing, ignoring him.

  “Calina.” His voice is sharp, and I pretend I just heard him.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say. “What?”

  He stands in the doorway between our rooms, his eyes darkened and brow furrowed for one long, silent minute. Lifting one finger, he beckons to me. “Come here.”

  I rise, walking to him with dread growing in the pit of my stomach. I remember the spanking he gave me last night when I acted silly. Maybe this part of my plan isn’t quite working.

  When I reach him, he takes my chin in hand and tips my head up so he can look in my eyes.

  I try to look away, but he jerks my chin so I look back at him. He doesn’t say anything at first, but looks at me for long minutes before he says, “What’s the capital of America?”

  I blink.

  “Washington D.C.,” I say, bewildered.

  “Tell me how your father died.”

  I swallow. This one’s harder. “He was killed in a freak car accident,” I tell him, and I want to look away from him, but I can’t. My heartbeat accelerates. I don’t want to talk about this.

  “And your mother?” he asks.

  “She died years ago. Please. I don’t like talking about this.”

  Please don’t ask about my sister.

  Please don’t ask about my sister.

  “Don’t like talking about this?” he asks, peering into my eyes with barely-contained anger. “You’re a liar.”

  “What?” I whisper, my pulse accelerating because this tone means danger.

  “You have no psychological damage,” he says. “I don’t believe it. You’re no more mentally retarded than I’m a girl.”

  “You think I wanted to be in that institution?” I whisper, thinking of the real Calina, hoping against all hope that she’s safe and somehow, somehow happy. He stares, not saying anything for so long, I begin to blink rapidly, nervous, wishing I could chew my nails but if I do he’ll punish me.

  “I don’t know why you were there,” he says finally, biting out the words as if they taste rancid. “But you stole from me and my brothers so proficiently I know you’re no imbecile. I can fathom a guess as to why you were there, but it would just be that. A guess. You are bright,” he says, “and fully culpable for your actions.”

  His words make a rock settle in the pit of my stomach.

  Fully culpable for your actions.

  I think of Calina, how she responds when pressured. What would she do in a situation like this? When she’s afraid, she tears at her hair and clothes and runs her fingers down her arms, scraping the skin until it bleeds. If I’m to assume her personality and respond that way, I have to behave that way consistently. And I don’t want to. It’s exhausting. Troubling. And I’m not getting anywhere with him by fooling him anyway.

  “There is more to the mind than you can see, you know,” I say, trying to keep my temper under control but failing. “You don’t know what I suffer. You don’t know what I hear.”

  But his lips only pull into a twisted smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Kisa, what you suffer hasn’t even begun yet. Every one of the men here suffer. Every one of us wrestles demons.” He leans in, and to my shock, pulls my face to his and presses his cheek to mine. It both thrills and scares me, which is l
ikely exactly his intent. I stifle a scream when he runs his tongue along my cheek and to my earlobe, then fully pulls it between his teeth and bites down so hard I scream and try to push him away on instinct. He ignores me and whispers in my ear, “Suffering doesn’t make you special.”

  I shudder, pulling away from him, but he holds me tight.

  “The games are over, Calina.”

  What am I playing at here? I came here prepared to give my life over for my sister. I came here prepared to die, yet he tosses me in a cell-like room and I start flailing like a child.

  My own actions sicken me.

  I want to be brave. I told myself I would be.

  When he gives me room to move, I look in his eyes, ignoring the way he holds me like a possessive lover. Men don’t touch me like this. The touch is foreign, but there’s too much between us for me to let my mind go there now. Too much at stake. I ignore his hard, strong body pressed up against mine. His heat and touch, the way his breath blows away the hair on my neck. The way my body wants to recognize our closeness as more than a power move. I have a job to do, and—

  No. This is no more than a job. Retribution for Calina.

  If I cooperate, I pay off that debt sooner.

  In theory.

  But what happens when I’ve paid it? He hasn’t said.

  If I don’t pay it, my death is my penalty. There is only one choice.

  When his phone rings, he pulls away. He points in silence to the edge of the bed for me to sit, and since I’ve decided I need to pay off this debt and stop fucking around, I sit. He brings the phone up to his ear, eyes fixed on me. Because he speaks in Russian, I have no clue what he says, but I watch as his hand balls into a fist and he grips the phone like he’s going to snap it in two.

  I realize that even though he broke his phone last night in a tantrum, he already has a replacement. All hail the king, I think bitterly. Gets whatever he wants when he wants it. Including me.

  He growls angrily into the phone, then hangs it up and shoves it into his pocket.

  “We will meet my brothers downstairs,” he says, still wearing a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. “I want you wearing what you wore when we came here,” he repeats his previous order.