“I’m done with her,” he says, glancing over at the guard. “Get her out of here.”
I nearly gasp with relief as the guard pulls her down, practically dragging her out of the room as she slumps against him. Alexei doesn’t even glance after them, striding towards the bed instead as he throws his belt to one side, the leather skidding across the floor.
“In two nights,” he says casually, “I’ll be throwing a party for potential buyers. They’ll be coming here to see what I have on offer. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He reaches out, grabbing my chin so that I’m forced to look at him. “Tell me you understand, Caterina, or it’ll be Romano’s wife I drag in here next. And after that—”
Not Sofia.The thought of her on that hook, the belt coming down on her relentlessly, threatening her unborn child, is too much. And Anika or Yelena—it’s unthinkable.
I’d do anything to prevent that. And Alexei knows it.
“I understand,” I whisper.
“If you act out, or defy me, or try to escape or fight back, the consequences will be your fault.” He looks down at me sternly. “And remember, it won’t be you who bears them.”
“I know.” I swallow hard, nodding. “I understand, I promise. I won’t—I’ll behave.”
“Good.” Alexei beams as if we’ve settled something between us. “That’s thetsarinaI know.” He reaches for the button of his slacks then, and I see that he’s rock-hard, bulging against his fly. It makes me sick because I know he’s aroused from the beatings, from whipping Ana and Sasha.
I’ve seen Viktor turned on from my punishments, of course. But it’s not the same. Viktor knows that deep down, I want it, that I get unimaginable pleasure from riding that line of pain and ecstasy, from taking his punishment and submitting to him. What he does to me is a back and forth, a game that I’m a part of that ends in pleasure. Even when it hasn’t, even in our worst moments, he’s still always drawn something out of me, some deep and depraved need that only he can satisfy, and he knows it.
This was nothing like that. There was no pleasure, no symbiosis, no game. It was just torture, just pain, and that’s what Alexei is getting off on. He’s a sadist in the purest sense, and it’s nothing like what I’ve experienced with Viktor.
“Open your mouth,tsarina,” he says, reaching into his slacks. “I’m so hard I could burst, and I need a place to put my cum.”
My stomach turns over, but I don’t argue. I know better now. So I turn my head and open my mouth.
When he stuffs himself into it, groaning as he grabs the back of my head and begins fucking my face, I feel the last shred of hope that I had drifting away.
Two days until the party. I don’t know if he’ll be brokering deals that night, but if not, it won’t be long after.
I’d lied.
No one is coming to save us.
And all of our lives as we knew them are over.