by Kitty Thomas
“I’m sure I’ll be a new woman the next time you see me.”
Annette laughed. “I’m counting on it. The old one is so last year.”
She clicked the phone off and stood and stretched. She still felt like ass from all the vodka. She needed a nice hot shower to get herself together for her next call. She’d finish her nails then.
The spray of hot water washed over her as a flash of memory hit. That sultry Russian accent wrapped around her once again as the steam rose off her skin.
“And what would you do?” she’d asked with fake innocence after making his mouth water with all the kinky things she’d claimed she was into.
He leaned in close to her ear. “I could kidnap you. I could take you away to my castle and make you my pleasure slave. I would take very good care of you. You’d be my pet. Would you like that, kiska?” His words weren’t slurred even though he’d had far more to drink than she had.
If she were just a bit more sober, this would worry her, considering the things he was saying even without the aid of too much drink.
Maybe he’d switched to water when she wasn’t looking.
“Yes. That would be so hot,” she whispered. “Would you tie me up?”
“I would have to. We wouldn’t want you to get away.” His hand grazed her thigh, moving ever higher under her skirt. She angled toward him and let her legs fall open. The stranger’s fingertips teased her through her panties.
“Or, I could take you home with me now.” He helped her up off the leather sofa and led her to the door. The strobe lights and electronic music made her feel as though she were vibrating.
Annette couldn’t remember most of what came after. Just that she’d had a dazed sort of panic as she realized she probably should get the hell out while she could. No way was she prepared to do half the things she’d bullshitted about. She’d just enjoyed his attention.
Those dark, smoldering eyes. That wavy black hair. And those cheekbones. To say nothing of his sleek, well-developed muscles that had been obvious through his well-tailored shirt.
The next thing she remembered, she’d puked on his shoes and then clumsily fell into the back seat of a cab. She didn’t remember how she got in her apartment. Maybe Janette had heard her fumbling around outside and helped her.
As she lingered on memories of the Russian, her hand slipped between her legs. Goosebumps broke out over her flesh even under the heat of the shower. She might lie about a lot of things, but the one thing that was honest was how much she’d wanted him to touch her.
She’d been too drunk. All the lies that had fallen from her lips to impress him were far more than she thought she could do with anyone. After all, from what little she’d heard, those sorts of games required a lot of trust, and liars had the hardest time trusting of all.
***
“I’m taking the corner suite on the third floor,” Anton said, as if the prime spots closer to the main spaces in the house hadn’t already been claimed anyway.
Lindsay and Gabe were both taking suites on the second floor. The two men couldn’t be more different. Lindsay was a fifty-two-year-old shrink—Brian’s shrink. And Gabe was the twenty-seven-year-old kid brother of one of Anton’s friends from college. Gabe had quit school to surf and live off his sizable trust fund until Anton had convinced him to find a more productive—if not criminal—use of his time.
Brian came upstairs then. He’d been busy setting up a makeshift suite down in the dungeons. He’d chosen the side with more rooms, the incinerator, and on the other end, a larger room with a bathroom which he’d claimed as his living quarters.
“Are we sure Michael won’t be joining us?” Brian asked.
Michael, Brian, and Anton had all been roommates at Yale. Brian and Michael couldn’t stand each other, and Anton had spent most of his time there running interference.
“I promise. He says he’s not into it,” Anton said.
“He’ll talk,” Brian said. He got that gleam in his eyes like he looked like he wanted to take care of the Michael Problem even before there was one.
“No. He won’t. The only reason he’s not joining us is that he just got married.” Though Anton wasn’t sure about that at all. Michael had seemed disgusted by the idea.
“It’s been three years,” Brian said. “They’re hardly newlyweds. But I get it. It’s not practical. I hate that son of a bitch anyway.”
“We know,” Anton said.
“What’s her name again?”
“Who? His wife? Vivian.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “Right. Vivian. With a name like that, she’s definitely trouble.”
“She doesn’t come from money,” Anton said.
“Even worse. And she isn’t even kinky. That shit will never work out.”
Anton wasn’t sure who’d come up with the business idea. There had been a lot of alcohol involved that night. But it was probably Brian. Lindsay had become more than a shrink to Brian. He’d become something of a friend. They’d been tossing back shots of a single malt scotch Gabe brought and making jokes about the kind of business they’d start if they could all start one together.
When the idea had first been spoken, the four of them had been just twisted enough to not dismiss it out of hand or laugh it off. They would run a training house of sorts. Anton and Lindsay would screen potential kinky women to train to sell as slaves to rich kinky men. They would only take women who had a deep-seated kink, not just random strays. They weren’t monsters.
Well, Brian was, but he would be the house enforcer. Gabe would be a trainer. They’d hire more as needed.
In the second set of dungeons on the other end of the house, Anton already had his first acquisition. Her name was Janette. He’d met her the night before at a club. He’d dragged her down there and locked her up just before the other guys had arrived. He still couldn’t believe he’d done it. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, but the way she’d talked to him the previous night... And then to show up at his spa? He hadn’t even known her name before her appointment.
How had she found him? He had to get down there to her or she was going to think he was some kind of psycho. Anton pushed aside the accusing voice in his mind that agreed with that assessment.
Brian leaned against the wall with his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. He looked like he was about to have an episode again. It was the damn drugs Lindsay had him on. He was even more fucked up with them than without them. The last thing Anton needed was the loose cannon following him while he reassured his little pet.
“There’s a space for a fitness room. That’s your department. You want to go check it out and make a list of everything you need?” Anton asked.
“Yeah, sure.” He pushed off the wall and headed in the direction Anton pointed.
Before Gabe or Lindsay could come downstairs again, Anton slipped away to the other set of basement stairs.
He’d gagged her for the long drive, and she’d struggled when he’d pulled her into the house. It had taken less than five minutes from the moment he’d gotten her into the car to realize that not only was this stupid, but she was scared. Really scared. Well, of course she was.
Somehow he’d gotten the idea after the dirty talk at the club that she’d be into it. She’d hunted him down after all. He’d tried to reassure her on the trip, but nothing he said made it better. And the plain fact was, if she thought he was really kidnapping her, it had gone from a poorly-planned and bad-idea game to a genuine kidnapping.
Once he’d made that shift in thinking, the only place to take her was to the house.
What the fuck had he been thinking? That was the problem, he hadn’t been. He’d been so high off the idea of the business and getting the house and then finding the perfect pet who couldn’t hold her vodka, teasing him so sweetly.
When she’d shown up at the spa he’d been sure she wanted to act out their game but was just too shy without the aid of alcohol to tell him. Now that he knew how wrong his assumption was, i
t wasn’t a game anymore.
The door creaked when Anton pushed it open. She flinched, her eyes wide. Long blonde hair covered part of her face from where she’d struggled in the ropes he’d tied around her wrists.
“Shhhh, kiska,” he said. She was bleeding from her struggle with the ropes. “Stop it. You’re hurting yourself.”
She tried to scream around the cloth in her mouth.
“I will remove the gag if you don’t scream. Be a good girl. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and the only people in this house are on my side.” Well, Brian probably would be. Gabe and Lindsay, maybe not. “Will you promise not to scream?”
She nodded.
Anton eased closer, trying not to spook her further. He removed the gag and pushed the hair out of her face. She looked up at him with wide, guileless blue eyes.
“W-who are you? Are you going to kill me?”
Brian would definitely be up for that. His primary reason for signing on was the chance to hurt people. Even if they were careful, there were going to be situations where someone had to be hurt or worse.
“Kiska, don’t play games with me,” Anton said. “Admittedly this was a bad idea. I just thought you’d be into it… the stuff you said at the club.”
She looked confused. “What club? What stuff?” Some realization seemed to light her eyes. “Oh! I’m not her.”
Anton tilted his head to the side. “Not who?”
“That was my sister you met at the club. She came home drunk. You must be the hot Russian. T-this was some kind of game between the two of you?” Though her voice suddenly sounded reasonable, the words she spoke were crazy.
“I tried to explain that to you in the car, that I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Anton said.
“You kidnapped me! How can I believe I’ll be safe in those conditions?”
“Yes, well. That was part of the game. I told you it was stupid. I thought you’d play along. But you were just playing me at the club, and now you think you can play me again with this bullshit story of a sister.”
Did she really think she could pull off such an obvious con? A sister. It was absurd.
“It’s not bullshit. I have a twin. Her name is Annette.”
“Annette and Janette? You’ve got to be kidding me. Those names don’t even sound real.”
“It’s true, I swear. I-I’m sorry for the mix-up. Please just take me home. I get it was a game. It’s just a mix up. R-right?”
Fucking tears.
Anton didn’t acknowledge her plea to be released. As if he could let her go now. She knew where the house was, another stupid thing. He should have blindfolded her. But he’d known from the moment the game plan switched from taking her to his apartment at Dome to taking her to the house that she was never leaving. He’d tried not to think too hard about the implications of all that as he’d driven and reassured her he wouldn’t hurt her. He still didn’t want to hurt her.
But could he keep that promise? Maybe not. So much depended on her.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Anton shut and locked the door on her shouting. He was glad the sounds wouldn’t carry upstairs. What were the other guys going to say about this?
There was no one up on the main level. Brian must have gone back down to work on his dungeon suite, and Gabe and Lindsay must still be upstairs working on their rooms.
Lindsay had an insane idea about a plant room that he’d been babbling about over Chinese take-out earlier. He’d already moved his African Grey into his suite. The bird’s cage had been covered, but you could still hear Ralph muttering under the blanket. “Take one of these in the morning and one before bed.” “One in the morning.” “One before bed.” “Take that one with food.” “That’s a normal side effect.”
Anton could only imagine the things Ralph would learn to say in this new environment—especially if Lindsay took women upstairs.
He took the elevator up to the third floor and retrieved the first aid kit from his bathroom. When he returned to her, she was still crying.
“You aren’t letting me go, are you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what he was going to do. The shrink should be dosing him with something. This sounded like the kind of insane half-baked thing Brian might do. He untied her wrists and ankles.
“I need to get this taken care of so it won’t get infected.” Her ankles were fine at least. She was wearing jeans. The skin underneath the denim was unmarked. It was only her wrists that looked bad.
Janette’s crying became more intense as her shoulders began to shake. Anton tried to ignore it while he wiped the blood from her wrists with an antiseptic wipe. He turned away to take out some bandages and ointment, and then all of a sudden she was halfway across the room and out the door he hadn’t bothered to shut.
If they were going to successfully keep women here, they’d better figure out the logistics fast.
Anton got off the ground and chased her up the stairs. She was halfway across the foyer, well on her way to the exit. He had to keep reminding himself she couldn’t get far. The property was too big and he was the one with the car keys.
The front door opened, and Phyllis walked in. “I’m sorry I forgot to give you the spare key. I didn’t see a car out front so I thought I’d just let myself in and leave it inside...”
“You have to help me get out of here!” Janette shouted.
Phyllis looked from Janette, to Anton, and back to Janette again. Even with her wrists cleaned up it was clear she’d been bound. And her clothes were in disarray. And she’d been crying. The older woman began to back up as Janette moved closer to her one chance of rescue.
“Guys, help!” Anton shouted. He wasn’t sure what else to do. He couldn’t stop them both. He ran for the door and tackled Phyllis to the ground just as Brian was coming up the stairs. “Get her!” he said, indicating Janette.
Brian didn’t ask questions, he just calmly stopped and restrained the blonde. About that time, Gabe and Lindsay walked in.
“What the fuck?” Gabe said.
Anton wasn’t sure how it was possible that before they’d even gotten the place off the ground, he had two people in his care that he either had to keep prisoner… or kill.
Chapter Two
Annette tried her sister’s cell, but again it went to voice mail. She paced across the living room floor. This wasn’t like Janette. Her twin was the good one. It was nearly midnight. She wouldn’t stay out like this without calling—or really at all. She had exams. She wouldn’t be out drinking or partying. Had she gotten into a wreck? Annette tried desperately not to go through the entire mental catalog of all the things that could have possibly happened.
I’m sure everything is fine. Maybe she went out with her study group for coffee or something and lost track of the time.
But even she didn’t buy her own bullshit this time. Something was very wrong. Her sister was in trouble. She knew it. It was a twin thing. The two of them had always been close and the bond had only gotten tighter when they’d been left with only each other.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang in her hand. The caller ID said blocked.
“Janette?” she said anyway.
“Annie!”
“Oh, thank God! Jan are you okay? What happened? Do you need me to come and get you?”
Her sister was crying and couldn’t seem to get her thoughts together to speak a coherent sentence.
“Are you hurt?” Annette kept imagining the car flipped over in a ditch.
“Y-you know that guy you told me about from the club last night?”
“What about him?” It seemed like a weird time to start talking about guys.
“He kidnapped me. He thought I was you. I-I think he meant it as a game at first, but now he’s really not going to let me go. I’m scared.”
The room seemed to narrow to a single tiny pinpoint right in front of her. She was still trying to process her sister’s words, and already self-blame had started spi
nning around in her head.
“Jan, where are you? Do you know? Do you recognize anything?”
Her sister took a few deep breaths, seeming to collect herself, finally.
“Do you remember that time a few years ago when we were driving out in the countryside and we got lost and kept going down smaller and smaller side roads until we found that private drive and we wanted to know what was down there, but you got your GPS working again, and by that point we just wanted to go home?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I know what’s at the end of that private road.”
Annette heard a man’s voice in the background, strong and Russian. “Janette, you naughty naughty girl. I didn’t give you phone privileges.” The next moment he’d taken the phone. “Is this the sister?”
“Y-yes.”
His voice was much more terrifying than she remembered.
“The one whispering filth into my ear last night?”
God, who was this guy? All she could think was Russian mob because normal people didn’t do shit like this.
“Please don’t hurt her. I was the one you wanted.” She tried to keep the hysteria out of her voice.
“You’re the one I still want,” he said. “But we can’t always have what we want. If you go to the police, I’ll kill her.”
The call disconnected.
Annette gawked at the phone. What the hell was she supposed to do?
Every minute she wasted in indecision was a minute he could be doing God only knew what to her sister. Given the depth of the depravity of their conversation the previous night, it didn’t take much imagination to think of what he might be doing to her.
She didn’t even consider calling the police because she believed his threat. He was either a professional or a total scared amateur. Either option could easily end in Janette’s death, and she’d heard too many stories of police intervention gone wrong. She wouldn’t risk her sister for some ego-fueled cop’s promotion.
Annette didn’t have time to fall apart or cry or scream. She had to get it together and go fix this mess. She wouldn’t let herself think about the implications. She just had to move. And keep moving. She just had to focus on each second leading into the next and the next. A cascading set of dominoes falling with each action she took. She just had to get to her sister.
