After the sixth person finished, Karter untied her hands and lowered her shirt. “Now you may apologize.”
This was the point where training kicked in. With a haze of pain clouding her brain, she turned to those she’d wronged and got on her knees. “I’m sorry I disturbed your rest.”
“You are forgiven.” The six murmured the line, more or less in unison.
Her entire body throbbed from the pain. Gingerly she got to her feet.
“Because you’ve proven to be such a dedicated slave, Bull will want you to serve The Cause. Every day, you will help clean the dining hall after breakfast. Today, you will assist the six of your neighbors with sweeping and dusting the meeting hall.” Karter beamed as if he’d just gifted her with a new car.
In a way, he had. Now that she was allowed out of the apartment, she could begin to infiltrate The Eye to learn more about the power structure and day-to-day operations.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said.
Karter inclined his head at one of the men. “Marquan, see Firebrand back to Bull’s apartment when you finish here.”
The man who nodded was the same height as Brandy, around 5’8, and veiny muscles bulged from his neck. Steroids.
Brandy followed the group to a storage closet, and she grabbed a dusting cloth. It was a more labor-intensive activity, and the movement would help her back be less sore later on. Plus, she thought the group might accept her faster if they saw she was willing to take on the harder tasks.
Chapter 5
They weren’t a talkative bunch, possibly because adding a new member always threw off a dynamic.
Or they’d been assigned clean up to punish them for complaining about her.
The Eye seemed like a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t kind of cult.
As a group, they returned to the building housing Bull’s apartment. Most of her entourage lived on her floor. Marquan walked her to the door.
He opened it up and went inside without being invited, a move Brandy knew he wouldn’t attempt if Bull hadn’t been out on a job. Hands on hips, Marquan surveyed the disorganized mess.
“We didn’t know Bull had a slave,” he said at last. “The calls weren’t complaints. We were concerned because we knew he was supposed to be out on a mission.” With that, he closed the door. “I’ll help you set the room to rights.”
“Thank you.” The response came automatically, and Brandy injected as much enthusiasm as she could muster into it. In reality, she didn’t want help. She wanted to finish her search.
Yet the flogging and spending most of the day cleaning the meeting hall had left her exhausted. She appreciated the help in putting the bed back together and moving the furniture back to where Bull had originally situated it. She didn’t think he’d look favorably on her if she rearranged the setup.
Then she tended to her feet, which itched and burned due to the cold and wet. She filled the dish pan up with warm water and soaked her throbbing feet.
The next morning, she was still asleep when he returned. She sat up as the apartment door opened. Clouds blocked the winter sun, and the digital clock on the stove read seven-thirty. The glow of the streetlights let her see him, but he was mostly in shadow.
He stopped suddenly, staring as if he hadn’t expected to see her.
Brandy looked down to make sure she wasn’t flashing him. She’d chosen to wear one of his shirts because her back was sore, and his shirts were loose. Covers puddled around her, and she realized he was probably shocked at what a messy sleeper she was. When he awoke, he barely needed to move anything to make the bed.
He set his bag down in front of the closet with the washer-dryer set. Then he snagged fresh clothes from his dresser before disappearing into the bathroom.
Brandy heard the shower start, and she got out of bed. She dressed and made the bed with hospital corners the way he liked.
Then she made eggs. She finished the same time the shower shut off.
The bathroom door opened. “Firebrand.”
She looked in his direction, her gaze lowered to keep the illusion of submission. “Your eggs are ready.”
“Come here.”
She went inside. He nudged the door closed with his foot while turning her back to him. Then he lifted her shirt, and she knew he’d heard about the flogging.
“I didn’t tell you to clean the apartment while I was gone.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you would like it.”
“I do. I don’t like that you were flogged because I didn’t tell you about the curfew.” His gentle touch skated over the tender parts of her back. “It’s not too bad. You have a few bruises. No cuts. Anita went lightly on you.”
That must have been the third person to flog her, the one who’d left her reeling from the pain. She felt something cold touch her back, and she reflexively jerked away.
“Stay put, Firebrand. It’s arnica cream to help the bruises heal.”
She stilled and let him minister to her. When he finished, she lowered her shirt. “Thank you.”
“Firebrand, use my title.”
Having been part of an organization that had a command structure, she wouldn’t have minded calling him ‘Sir.’ What he asked was outside her comfort zone, though nothing about this situation was in her comfort zone.
She sighed, and then she faced him. “Thank you, Daddy.”
With her gaze submissively lowered, she noticed he wore only a towel wrapped around his waist. The stark white terry cloth highlighted the six-pack of his abdomen and his muscular thighs.
“You didn’t kneel when I came in.”
The quiet observation tore her attention from his powerful body. She lifted her gaze. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
He opened the door and shooed her out. “Set the table while I get dressed.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Over the next month, they established a pattern of living together. When he was home, she cooked for him or they prepared meals together. They played chess, Chinese checkers, and mahjong. He read to her from The Taming of the Shrew and his book with weird facts about Connecticut, and she read to him from The Art of War.
He bought tennis shoes for her.
She got used to calling him by title and kneeling for him. When he was home, he escorted her to the dining hall to clean up after breakfast service, and she convinced him to take her running with him three times a week. He wouldn’t take her every day because she couldn’t keep up his six-minute mile pace, but he didn’t mind slowing down a few times to her eight-minute mile pace.
He brought her fashion magazines, fresh fruit, and a coloring book.
They didn’t talk about themselves, their pasts, or the future.
He never once touched her, and for that, she was grateful.
One day when he was gone on a mission, she sat on the window ledge and stared out the window at the swirling snow falling like it knew exactly where it was supposed to be. Everything in its place, just the way Daddy liked things. The holidays were over, and it was a new year. She thought about her parents and brother, and how out of their minds with worry they must be. Her father hadn’t wanted her to work for the CIA, and he hadn’t liked her move to the FBI any better. He liked to email her links to jobs in the private sector he considered safer than what she was doing.
She envisioned the steps her colleagues at the FBI were taking to locate her. Brandy didn’t doubt there was an outright manhunt underway for her across the country.
Glancing away from the window and her melancholy, her gaze fell on a seam in the molding. It wasn’t a new seam, but there was something different about it. She’d finally finished tearing the place apart to search every possible hiding spot, and she’d come up empty.
Bull was a true believer. He wasn’t a rule-breaker.
Brandy knew every fucking inch of this tiny apartment. Yet her instinct told her something was amiss here.
Frowning, she climbed down from the ledge, slid over the sofa, and knelt next to the
molding. She ran her finger across the seam. A sharp, angled edge scratched her skin. Lightly she slid her nail into the miniscule gap, and she tugged. It wiggled.
Brandy’s searches had been thorough. She’d pried at all the molding. This hadn’t been loose before.
It was now.
She pulled it away from the wall. It was a small section, perhaps six inches long, and it came away easily. A finishing nail stuck out, and she saw that the matching hole in the drywall it was supposed to go into had crumbled around the edges, making it a loose fit.
Inside the small gap, she found a cell phone.
Her heart beat faster, and she pressed the power button to turn it on. It vibrated in her hand as it booted up. It went to a lock screen. Liam Adair, the tech guru she’d inherited courtesy of his penchant for hacking the CIA, had taught her a few things about getting into a strange phone. She held it so that the faint light from the window glinted from the fingerprint swipes, and she traced the design. It took three tries, but she unlocked the phone.
Immediately she turned on the data. It was an older model phone, and it moved slowly. She hoped The Eye wasn’t monitoring the phone or the data running through their tower as she signed into an anonymous account and sent a coded message to Liam. She hoped he used every skill in his hacking arsenal to trace it. Just in case they didn’t make it to her on time—Karter and Yoseff would kill her if they found out what she was doing—she included as much intel as she could. She sent a series of messages, hoping at least one got through.
She sent a warning for them not to try to contact her on the phone, and then she erased the history of her presence on the device.
Then she powered it down and put it back. She bit her lip as she toyed with the idea of repairing the drywall with toothpaste to hold the molding tighter to the wall, but then she rejected the notion. If Bull knew there was a problem, then he’d notice it was fixed. If he didn’t know there was a problem, she didn’t want to do anything to draw his attention to it.
Toward the end of the day, the storm tapered off. Light from the street lamps made the fresh heaps of snow sparkle and glisten. For the first time in weeks, a glimmer of hope made everything seem not so bad. She hadn’t realized how many deals she’d made with herself to get through each day, how giving herself a pep talk had become an hourly habit.
She yearned to lie in the soft, pillowy flakes, stare up at the evening sky, and make a snow angel. She could see Bull helping her build a snow fort or having a snowball fight with her. He’d probably enjoy sledding.
A knock sounded at the door. This late in the day, a knock at the door was never good news. Unless plans had been prearranged, neighbors respected dinnertime as a cutoff for visiting.
Of course, the fact that her visitor knocked was a good sign. Not long ago, Karter or Yoseff or another of the big bosses would have walked in if Bull was gone.
Given her recent illicit activity, her heart beat painfully hard in her chest. If they’d monitored her signal, then she was dead.
But would they knock if they thought she was doing things she shouldn’t?
Remembering the last time they’d dragged her out, she put her shoes on before answering the door. On the other side, she found Yoseff. He stared at her with those beady dark eyes and stroked his goatee.
Yoseff was not a good person. He was a talented public speaker, and he was a natural leader. However he didn’t have a single redeeming quality. He was the kind of person who thrived on having power over others, and he’d do anything to keep and grow that influence. He required everyone to worship him.
However, he was not the leader of The Eye. He was merely a field office chief.
Brandy didn’t think he liked Bull. Bull was popular among the rest of the minions. They gravitated toward his innate, calm leadership and his easygoing manner. Even the higher-ups called on Bull to carry out missions around the country.
His star was on the rise, and Yoseff was stuck in orbit.
She knew now that she’d been given to Bull because neither of them thought she was attractive. The fact that he’d apparently been successful in training and indoctrinating her, and that he didn’t want to trade her in for a newer model, irritated Yoseff.
She pasted on a friendly smile. “Good evening, Sir. Daddy is out on a job tonight. How can I help you?”
“Get your jacket.”
Brandy grabbed her coat from the hook on the back of the door. She put it on.
Yoseff didn’t clamp his hand on her arm or drag her behind him. He trusted that she was well-trained enough to follow him.
Brandy hid a smirk as she thought about how Yoseff and Karter avoided her when Bull was around. Even when he wasn’t, they seemed reluctant to mess with her. She didn’t know what Bull had said or done after they’d flogged her that one time, but ever since, they’d pretty much left her alone.
She followed Yoseff to the street where a snowmobile waited. The last winter storm had dumped at least twelve inches on them in the past two days. He handed her a helmet, and she climbed on behind him.
They went clear to the other side of the compound, to the place where the apartments were larger and more luxurious. When she ran with Bull, they often looped around this side of the compound. He’d mentioned that he was close to earning one of those apartments. He’d said that she would be able to have her own bedroom, and he’d be able to get more of the fresh fruits and vegetables she liked.
Yoseff parked the snowmobile in front of a building that had a wide entryway with an arched overhang. In the summer, Bull had told her, they ran the fountain out front. Right now the snow cover made it barely discernible.
He led her inside. The wide hallway bisected the building. On each side were two numbered doors, marking four apartments. Yoseff led her to the number three.
The interior featured high ceilings and large windows. A small foyer opened to a large living room with leather and metal furniture. Beyond that was a kitchen with miles of marble countertops. From where she stood, Brandy spied a setup significantly better than what Bull had.
Three women hurried from different places in the house, and they knelt in front of the counter separating the living room from the kitchen. They each had long blonde hair and a tiny waist. Though they didn’t appear related, they had been cut from the same mold.
Yoseff smiled. “Firebrand, it has come to my attention that you aren’t fully servicing Bull.”
A cold stone sank in her stomach. She swallowed hard. “Sir, I serve Daddy in all the ways he wants.”
Yoseff flounced down on a leather sofa, and he pointed to the floor near his feet. “Kneel here.”
As Brandy complied, she wondered whether the FBI would raid the place before or after she was raped and molested by a despot. She called on every ounce of her training to not run out of there.
“Girls, lose the clothes.”
They hadn’t been wearing very much, but at his order, they stripped out of their lingerie.
Brandy kept her gaze trained on the floor in front of her knees, but it didn’t stop her from hearing his order for Pixie to crawl to him. She did, stopping when she was half in his lap. Brandy listened to the sound of his zipper unknitting and the sloppy slurp of Pixie giving Yoseff a blowjob. She gagged a few times. Brandy felt like doing the same.
While Pixie was busy, the other two began kissing and touching each other.
Between moans and groans, Yoseff called orders to Trixie and Dixie to guide their sex show.
If Brandy had been able to laugh at their names, she would have. At least Bull had chosen a name for her that showed respect.
Time passed much too slowly. From the periphery of her vision, she watched Yoseff use sex toys on the women and instruct them to use them on each other.
Once he caught on to what she was doing to avoid really seeing anything, he ordered her to watch. He bent Dixie over the side of a chair and ordered Brandy to keep her gaze on him as he fucked his slave.
Each of the
women put on a good show, and a closer study of their pupils and their movements revealed that they were high.
Trixie passed out after an hour, and they left her on the floor where she fell while they engaged in more sex games.
When he felt like the night was over, Yoseff grasped a handful of Brandy’s hair and hauled her to her feet. “This is how a slave serves a Master. The next time I see Bull, he’d better be wearing a big fucking smile and walking funny. If not, then you’re finished here. I’ll get him a new fucking whore, one that knows how to please a man.”
She looked into the obsidian of his soulless eyes, and she noted the mania driving him.
Yoseff knew Bull didn’t want to have sex with her.
He wanted to make her force the matter.
He wanted to destroy Bull, and he thought he could use her to do it.
Brandy blinked.
“Do you fucking understand? Because if you don’t, I’m happy to tie you down and show you. My girls would consider it a treat to train you.”
Brandy would fucking kill them all before that happened. “I understand, Sir.”
Back at the apartment, she conducted another, more subtle search. Yoseff had known that she and Bull weren’t sleeping together somehow, and there were no transmission devices inside the apartment. The cell she’d found definitely belonged to Bull, and he was unquestionably hiding it from her and everyone else. No, there had to be a different way they were keeping tabs on them.
Bull arrived home the next afternoon. As soon as the door opened, Brandy knelt on the rug.
He touched her hair as he set down his bag. “I need a shower, and I’m starving. Let’s make an early dinner.”
From her place on the floor, she noted the blood on his boots. The splatter pattern indicated more than one victim, but there wasn’t enough blood for her to think anybody had died.
It was a sobering reminder that she was at the mercy of cutthroats and killers. Even Bull, who had never been anything but gentle with her, had visited horrors on other criminals. Perhaps even on innocent people.
Re/Deemed (Doms of the FBI Book 8) Page 5
