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When he finally strolls out of the kitchen, I don’t know whether to stay or follow. So I stay, driving my nails into their respective palms. Over. Over. Over.

  “Kotyonok.”

  I spring away from the wall and find him in the dining room. He opens the drawer of an ebony sideboard, revealing a stack of ivory plates and a box of silverware.

  “Set the table,” he tells me before leaving the room again, probably to return to the kitchen.

  My hands shake as I grab two plates from the cupboard. I set one at the head of the table and the other close by. I find fancy-looking wine goblets and add those as well. A fork. A knife. A spoon.

  But I can’t tell which size is needed—or what goes where. Shit. I never had to worry about before. In my real world, setting the table meant throwing a paper plate down and grabbing the least filthy piece of silverware from the pile already in the sink.

  I keep fiddling with my placement, moving each different fork and spoon around. I don’t stop until I hear him finally come in. He chuckles when he sees my progress and drags his thumb along the edge of one of the goblets. Almost in slow motion, the rest of his fingers fan out, knocking it off the table so hard that it shatters on the floor. He swipes at the place setting just as easily, leaving only one plate behind. His.

  “Remember, kotyonok,” he tells me without bothering to explain what he means out loud.

  He leaves the room again, and I drop to my knees, picking up the broken glass with my bare fingers. But I’m too clumsy. I grab the pieces too hard and cut myself. On my palm. My wrist.

  I bleed.

  My blood paints the shards of the broken plate as I pile the rest of the glass onto the biggest piece—but I don’t dare leave to find a trash can to throw it away. So I wait, still on my knees.

  When he finally returns, he’s holding the steaming roaster with the cooked meat and veggies inside. He places it at one end of the table and returns with the bread and the bottle of wine. Without making himself a plate, he sits at the head of the table, reaching for his goblet with one hand. He spies me as I lurch to my feet and nods toward his plate. Serve me.

  I grab the wine first and circle around to his corner. I tip the bottle and pour until his eyes flash, warning me to stop. Then I lift his plate and take it to the roaster. I don’t know how much meat to serve, but I don’t dare ask, either. So I cut my losses and slice off two pieces, trying to make them as neat as possible. It’s only when I start to transfer them onto the plate that I realize my hands are still bloody. Still bleeding.

  “It’s all right, kotyonok,” he calls from his end of the table. It’s like he’s inside my head, feeding off my fear.

  I serve him a single potato and a few slices of onion. I drag the knife through the bread next and lift the cut piece without touching it with my fingers. When I set the plate down in front of him, Maxim eyes it carefully.

  Finally, he nods. “Sit.”

  I start for the chair, but the way he shakes his head stops me dead in my tracks.

  His eyes cut down to the floor. “Sit.”

  I drop to my knees beside his chair, feeling his fingers come to brush the top of my head.

  Another chuckle rumbles from his chest, deeper this time. “Not here…” He seizes chunks of my hair, pulling me upright.

  Through streaming eyes, I see him nod again. To the table.

  I scramble to haul myself onto the edge of it, wincing as my body starts to throb. The pain isn’t deep enough to help me think. I’m thoughtless as I watch him sigh and casually reach for his dinner fork.

  “You need training,” he says while palming a knife with his other hand. He stabs the end of it into his meat and starts to cut. Once he’s sliced off a piece, he spears it onto the fork and brings it to his mouth. Those dark eyes cut up to mine, reducing me to slivers in the same damn way. Before I can react, he grabs my hand, smoothing out each finger to expose my ruined palm. His attention is given to every cut, every scar—both old and new. Carefully, his thumb traces a bleeding wound as his eyes drift up to mine again. “Do you know what you did to offend me last night?”

  The way he says offend. My blood turns to ice. My toes curl. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. God, I need to think.

  “I never want to offend you—”

  “Do you know what you did?” His voice dips to that dangerous level. He’s barely human now, seconds from becoming a monster again.

  “No,” I breathe. I breathe and breathe and breathe, but air never seems to fill my lungs.

  “Oh?” He raises the meat to his mouth and takes a bite. “You orgasmed,” he tells me after swallowing.

  Self-preservation kicks in. My answer is automatic. “N-no I didn’t.”

  “You did. The only woman ever to in these circumstances.” He slices off another piece of meat and wipes the blade along my bare thigh. It’s hot. I suck air in through my teeth at the burning sting. “Pleasure is one thing not addressed in the contract. In fact, it takes true depravity or true skill to do so while in agony. So can you tell me, kotyonok? What got you off?”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know whether or not to lie. Why?

  I don’t orgasm. Ever. That’s what the fuckers who pay me for sex do. That’s what Melanie does whenever she screws someone over. It’s apparently what Maxim does while fucking me half to death—and it’s something he thinks requires skill in my case.

  The only defense I have is the truth. “I don’t do that.”

  The knife lands against the edge of the plate, spraying steak juice over the table’s pristine surface as Maxim laughs so hard that his head falls back. His eyes find me again a second later, but the longer he stares, the angrier he seems.

  “Do not play games with me.” His hand finds the knife again, allowing the tip to brush my thigh. Once. Twice. “What was it, hmm?” The blade teases the flesh above my knee. Beads of blood bubble up and drip down. Drop by precious drop. “The money? You can admit that. Maybe you think you can swindle more out of me than you’ve earned? Or something else?” He digs the blade in so hard that I jump and choke on a strangled cry. “Do you have something planned? Some game? Some trick? Some secret to get you off even while being used like a whore?”

  “No!” Liquid spills from my eyes, hotter than blood. “I don’t know—”

  “It seems that you need a demonstration.” With a sigh, he tosses the knife aside. His hand lands over my waist before I can react, pinning my back flat against the table. “Lie still,” he warns.

  His touch is like the IV they stuck in Melanie the last time she OD’d, dripping fear into my veins as he takes my thighs in either hand and drags me toward him. The hem of the dress rides up. My hip knocks his plate to the side, dangerously close to the edge of the table. My right elbow brushes the tip of the knife. His fork is in between my legs.

  So is his mouth. Hot breath splashes against the inside of my thighs—the only warning before his tongue flicks out to graze my pussy. I can’t even come up with a coherent way to describe it, just broken, random words. Wet. Hot. Strong. God, his tongue is strong. He batters me open with it, and I whine at the pain. Too much. Too rough.

  I’ve heard about this. Never experienced it for myself. Never wanted to. Putting my mouth on strangers’ cocks was bad enough. I never wanted any of their mouths on me.

  Trapped beneath Maxim now, I know that my original fears were fucking legit. The things he does. The way he moves. Nibbling. Sucking. Biting—really biting down there. So hard that I see white. I can’t feel. Can’t think.

  I just exist. As gross as it is, the slang for this act seems to fit now more than ever: He’s eating me out. Piece by fucking piece. He growls at the taste of me, his nails piercing my skin, his teeth grazing my flesh.

  It’s awful.

  It’s incredible.

  It’s disgusting.

  It’s fucking insane.

  “S-stop,” I choke out even though I know that the plea means nothing. I can’t refuse him. Can’t say no
.

  Surrender leaves me paralyzed as my brain swirls with every lazy flick of his tongue. There is only one way out. What was it? Three words. Happy? I’m…

  A wave of pain hits me all at once like a punch to the chest and my thoughts shatter. Pain, because it knocks me under. It sets me free. I can think. I can feel. I can scream. Really scream.

  I’m flying.

  I’m falling.

  I’m drowning.

  I’m crashing back down to Earth.

  He doesn’t catch me; he just watches me burn.

  “That is an orgasm,” he says while I blink up at the ceiling and listen to air wheeze in and out of my throat. “Do you remember now?”

  I shake my head. That wasn’t an orgasm. Not fireworks, or sparks, or the toe-curling, mouthwatering pleasure described in those fucking stupid-ass romance novels Melanie used to read—the ones Daisy does now, hiding them under her bed.

  That was pain. That was death.

  “Your cum.” Maxim drags a thumb between my legs and holds it up for me to see through blurred, unfocused eyes. It’s glistening. Wet. With blood. With something else. After a moment, he brings it to his mouth. “Sweet,” he declares after his first taste. It’s not a compliment.

  Several more seconds pass as he stares, waiting for me to confess something. Come clean. Admit it: I orgasmed.

  But I can’t. I need to think. My fingers flex, rubbing against the open wounds on my hands, but my thoughts never clear.

  I’m not sure exactly when it happens—but his face changes. Maybe it’s after the tears already welling in my eyes fall faster. Or when my entire body tenses up in the face of his slow-building reaction. I’ve been hit before. Beaten. Slapped. None of those blows packed the punch of his rage.

  I jump as he pushes back from the table without warning, rising to his feet. “Go to your room,” he tells me, turning to the nearest window displaying a shadowy view of the city. “Lie on the bed. Wait for me.”

  I haul myself upright and nearly fall off the table in my rush to reach the door. I don’t stop running—but I’m going in the wrong direction. My unsteady footsteps don’t take me out of the suite like they should.

  I’m in my room.

  On the bed.

  I’m waiting. He told me to lie down, so I do, counting the seconds that pass, trying to breathe. I can think at least. Fear acts like pain, swirling through my veins, making every breath feel white hot. Suffocating.

  I can’t move an inch. Not even as I hear him pacing in the other room. Fast. Faster. A violent crash echoes off the walls as if something was knocked over. Then another, followed by the chime of breaking glass. Again. More.

  It’s like a twisted fucking soundtrack is playing as he starts in my direction, bringing a wave of chaos all the way up to my door. A thud ricochets off something close by, resonating through the walls. I feel the vibration race up the bed, joining with the massive slam the door makes as it flies open.

  Maxim took the knife from the dinner table.

  The edge sparkles as he approaches the bed, step by step. “I know who you are,” he says, his voice an unstable rasp. “So I suggest you come clean.”

  Chapter 8

  “Francesca Marconi,” Maxim bites out as if reading off a piece of paper. “Age nineteen. A poor goddamn whore from Horn Hill. Her price is sixteen thousand.” He chuckles to himself, and I have to crane my neck back to see his face: a twisted mask of rage. “Maybe it’s the money that gets you off,” he tells me, nudging my outstretched leg with his knee. “So cheap. So pathetic that you have to sell yourself to any man willing to pay for it. Or so you want me to believe.” He drags his thumb along the knife. “Is that it?”

  I nod, more tears spilling down my cheeks. “Yes. I-I need the money—”

  “So you keep saying.” He frowns, tapping the knife’s edge against the mattress, inches away from either thigh. “But I’m not entirely convinced.”

  The blade drifts higher and my hand flies out to block the tip, but I don’t dare sit up. I just breathe. In and out. Out. In. “P-please!”

  “You have children. Siblings.” His eyes flicker back up to mine and the look twisting his mouth could almost be called a smile. “Did you think I wouldn’t look into that? Did you think I would truly believe that this tight fucking cunt”—he gestures with the blade—“produced children?”

  I can’t breathe. My thoughts get harder and harder to grasp. No. God, no.

  “There are six of them,” he says, adjusting the blade so that the edge of it ghosts my hip, drifting down. Around. Up again. “Michael—”

  “P-please.” A retaliatory cut to my thigh can’t shut me up. I don’t even feel the pain. Just fear, all-consuming. “Please!”

  “So then tell me.”

  Tell him what? I don’t even know. I’m so fucking stupid. I left them alone. I left a sixteen-year-old in charge.

  “Who sent you to me? Maybe I should ask Daisy-Rae?” Maxim wonders. “Or Oliver, Raymond, and Eric.”

  The knife dips into the flesh of my belly, slicing easily through the fabric of the dress, but the pain doesn’t wake me up. It kills me.

  “Perhaps, Ainsley?”

  He digs the knife in deeper. His eyes never leave mine and I realize it now that this man…

  He’s a monster.

  He could have killed them.

  They could already be dead.

  I couldn’t even protect them.

  “S-stop. P-please—”

  “You move so much as a goddamn inch.” His hands go to his fly, ripping it open, freeing his cock. “And I’ll kill them. All of them, one by one in front of you. I will make you watch. Do you understand?”

  My body shuts down as he takes a condom from his pocket and pulls it on. Fear pins me in place and I let it. He could cut me, burn me, do whatever the fuck he wants to me.

  But not to them.

  “You have five seconds to tell me the truth. Who do you work for? Who planted you, hmm? They have to be powerful, because you are fucking convincing.” He waits, and my eyes go to his knife. One. Two. Three. Four. He sighs, tossing the blade onto the floor. “Fine. Spread your legs.”

  I have no choice but to obey. My legs drag themselves apart—just enough for him to force his way in between. I cry out when he enters me. It’s not like before. My body resists. It hurts, it hurts. And, for the first time, the pain doesn’t take me away. It doesn’t clear my head. It breaks me. Thrust after thrust.

  This isn’t hooking. No amount of money is worth this. It doesn’t sink in until I hear him groan, his hands positioning my hips so that he can pin me flat with his weight, filling me up, ripping me open—getting off on the pain he causes. I can’t hold it back. I scream. I cry.

  The same way I cried for Melanie. The same fucking way I cried the first time I peeled my pants down for fifty fucking dollars. The tears that only cutting myself can hold back, along with that sickening thought I can never seem to escape: I failed. I failed. I failed.

  All at once, the world shifts as the unbearable pressure inside me relents.

  “Look at me.” Warm fingers grip my chin. “Look at me!”

  I have no choice. He hovers over me, still wearing his shirt, his eyes piercing through my skull. That anger is gone. All I find is…

  I don’t fucking know.

  “Look at me,” he growls before I can even start to turn away. His hand cups my chin so hard that my teeth clip together. The motion tilts my head from the bed, forcing me to meet his gaze. For what feels like hours, his eyes search mine, hunting for something—but finding nothing. Slowly, his mouth falls out of a snarl and back into a cold, emotionless line. “I will never, never hurt your family. Do you understand?”

  Tears drip down my chin. I’m still crying. All this time. I thought it was background noise—maybe he left on a television somewhere that was playing a horror movie where the dumb bitch being murdered just couldn’t fucking stop whimpering.

  “Look at me.” He tigh
tens his grip and shakes, making my body jolt over the mattress. “Do you understand? You never have to fear that from me. Do you understand?”

  He’s lying. I can’t believe him. I shake my head, stammering, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t—”

  He stands up. His hand goes for the knife and he throws it onto the bed. When I lunge for it, he watches me, his eyes cold, his arms at his sides. He doesn’t move when I curl my fingers around the handle.

  I point it at him, and he turns for the door.

  “Come.”

  I don’t want to. I have to; my body makes me, obeying the warning tone in his voice. I step off the bed and hit the floor, blinded by more goddamn tears. Fear and pain—my brain doesn’t know which drug to give in to.

  Strong hands curl beneath my shoulders, ignoring the way I’m flailing around with the knife. When he hauls me upright, the blade falls. I’m in his arms a second later, being carried through the rest of the suite and out into the hall.

  “Trust me.” He brings me down a stairwell and out into a dark, enclosed space. A parking garage?

  The sounds I make echo off the walls of it. Choking. Gasping. Gagging. Screaming. Strangled sounds.

  The next second, Maxim approaches a black car and shoves me into the back seat. As the car begins to move, I’m thrown forward by the momentum, smacking my head off the front seat so hard that I taste blood. My vision blinks in and out. I see lights. Colors. A million different sounds flood my ears: sirens, shouts, laughter.

  “Look at me.” Maxim stands over me, his body leaning in through the open door.

  The car stopped moving. It’s dark wherever we are. After two days in his suite, I almost don’t recognize the shitty street corner I find myself on when he hauls me out of the car and makes me stand beside him.

  My house gleams in all of its fucked-up glory. The lights are on. Even from here, I can hear Ainsley screaming—but before the fear can bite deep, I make out what she’s saying. Curse words. Apparently, Eric got to her stupid-ass dolls again.

  “I cannot say the same for you, but I will never hurt them,” Maxim tells me, his voice trickling into my ear, louder than anything else. “Do you understand? Say it.”