NINA The car ride had been quiet except a few exchanges between Lachlan and Jeremiah, that too in Russian so I didn't understand a word of it. I was starting to hate it. And while Lachlan seemed tense now and then, in turn making me tense because I couldn’t help but be apprehensive and nervous to where Jeremiah was taking me to punish me, he also looked at ease with wherever we were going. The only person who didn't know where we were going and what will happen to me was me. I was wearing a black sequin dress with gold threads woven in it and it felt like I was dressed for a gala, but one look at his face and that twisted smirk had told me that there will be no party, at least not for me. I was scared but I felt like I wasn’t as afraid as I should be. I should be more terrified. But all I felt was this apprehensive flutter in my stomach which was kind of mixed with the arousal they both had brought forth in that cold room. I was still throbbing between my legs and for a mome
NINA Jeremiah moved ahead, his steps confident as he led us toward a private booth carved into a shadowed alcove. I noticed how the people stopped, moved out of his way and stared at him. Men nodded with deference. Women smiled at him, their eyes hopeful for his attention. His scars didn't deter them but instead they seemed to want him more. Unlike the way hesitation and fear that sparked in their eyes when they looked at Jeremiah though, they nodded and smiled at Lachlan. A few of them even stepped forward to shake hands with him and exchanged pleasantries. And, I realised even when in appearance Jeremiah was golden and bright, Lachlan was people’s favorite it seemed, more approachable and less dangerous. And then there was me. Men looked at me with curiosity and women stared at me with a frown and tight lips, almost unwelcoming.I didn’t belong here, a voice whispered in my head, giving breath to the fear and insecurities burning inside me. I didn’t know what would happen next.
NINA I stared at my husband, unbelieving of what he was asking of me. He wanted me to get naked. Here?In front if everyone?My gaze swung to Lachlan, but his eyes were straring daggers at Jeremiah. “Kakogo cherta ty delayesh?” He growled, his hands curling into fists. [What the hell are you doing?]Jeremiah’s cold greys focused on Lachlan and his response felt like a sharp bite of a dagger. Even when I didn’t understand a word of their conversation, I felt like something deeper under the surface was happening.“Ne zabud’, ona moya tak zhe, kak I tvoya. I voobshche, ty tozhe prinadlezhish’ mne. Tak chto luchshe zakhvati sebya v ruki I perestani eban voprosy zadavat’.” [Don't forget she's mine as much as she's yours. And in fact, you belong to me too. So you better fucking stop questioning me.]“Ona? Ya? A pochemu togda eto sovsem ne chuvstvuetsya tak?" Lachlan gritted out, his eyes flashing and I thought he was just seconds away from punching Jeremiah. [Does she? Do I? Because it d
LACHLANI shouldn’t be surprised. And maybe I wasn’t. But I was fûcking fuming.Jeremiah had always loved putting on a show. Voyeurism was his kink, and exhibitionism his stage to show how he was the God between the mere mortals. He showed everyone that he was the king and no one was allowed to even breathe without his permission.And I—I hated it.As much as Jeremiah loved showing off what he owned, I hated it.I hated sharing. I hated when eyes lingered on what I deemed mine.And most of all, I hated how he knew exactly what my hard limits were, where I drew the lines, and still he fucking chose to dance all over them, towed them to break my control. To test my resolve that seemed to be weakening ever since Nina had come between us.My fingers itched to grab Nina and throw her over my shoulder, to get her the fuck out of here.But I didn’t.I curbed my impulse and I sat there, jaw clenched, blood boiling in my veins, as he made her pour and serve drink to Xavier and Kayne. Like s
NINASomething was fúcking wrong with me. How could I settle in his lap and let myself get lost in the heat of his body? But damn, for being a cold, heartless monster, he sure has the body heat similar to a comforting woollen blanket in the frigid temperature. He had been conversing in Russian and the rumble of his accented voice had lulled me to a false sense of safety. And I had almost relaxed into him. Now I blinked at him as his question registered, “Are you sleeping, wife?”I stiffened. “No.” “Good. Now that everyone is here let’s begin with next part of your punishment.”Before I could respond or slid out of his lap, he stood up with his arms securely wrapped around me. My eyes went to Lachlan, and unlike before, he seemed to be at ease now like he had come to terms with whatever Jeremiah had planned.Lachlan stood without a word. The others followed, falling into line behind him.I was surrounded by shadows in suits, by silence thick with menace and danger.And yet… in a
NINA My hands dropped by my sides as I laid there on the spanking bench, and my eyes fell on the cuffs on either sides. But thankfully my monstrous husband didn’t cuff my hands and legs. It couldn't be kindness, I knew that. It was just his way of keeping me under control with more threats in sight. He gave me a warning though, as he caressed his palm down my spine, he said, “Don’t move. If you move, we’ll start all over again.”I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve begged. But a part of me… a small, sick part… was almost thankful for the punishment now. At least my mind will stop connecting this monster to the man that comes in my dreams. And I will stop feeling that pull I have been feeling for this monster despite myself. After this humiliating ordeal I will go back to hating him and that’s what I needed to keep my sanity intact. Because hate, unlike this spiraling confusion, was clean. Controlled. Necessary.“This isn’t just for me,” My husband said as if he was a king giving s
NINA“Lift her,” My husband ordered, voice like sharpened ice. “And put her on the table.”The table? My breath froze in my lungs, the blood roaring in my ears, making it impossible to hear anything else. Olezka moved toward me before I could do anything, not that I even had the strength anymore. With my skin stretched taut like any time now I will catch on fire as I burned with shame and pain.But thankfully, Lachlan was there as he lifted me and carried me with a tight expression on his face to where Jeremiah wanted me. On a padded table in the center of the room. The surface was cold, the leather felt chilling to my heated skin as I was laid bare on it. I hissed through my teeth when my aching arse, the raw flesh, came in contact with the cold surface. My thighs instinctively tried to close, a last shred of modesty screaming inside me even when I knew it doesn’t matter.But at least Kayne and Xavier were not there anymore. Jeremiah laughed. “Now you want to hide, when we can cl
JEREMIAH The silence in the car was thick— like blood drying on skin, like ash after fire. She hadn’t said a single word since we left the club. And for the first time I wasn’t too comfortable with this silence. I’ve always preferred it in the past. It’s predictable. Reliable. Uncomplicated. But tonight, it feels like a scream stretched thin across the leather seats. It’s suffocating like the silence in that dark cell where I was kept. She was crying. Again. The way someone cries when they were trying not to. The kind that doesn’t beg for attention. Not loud, not hysterical but just those quiet sobs that crawl under your skin and settle into your bones. And then then those quiet sobs turned into more, they begin to shake her shoulders, like something inside her was breaking with each breath.I fucking hate it.And I didn't understand why. But hearing her muffled cries had my jaw locked. And my mind? It felt like a fucking battlefield.I should feel victorious. I should feel sati
JEREMIAH “Was she in an accident?” I stared at the doctor as his question hung between us. The problem with his question was the same as the one that had occurred to me while I was going through the file that Chen brought. I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know what kind of life my wife was living before we brought her here. When I remained silent, Lachlan responded, “We don’t know.” And I hated that we don’t know. Maybe it was time I started digging up in her life and what she was up to all these years while I was fighting for mine. The doctor nodded. “It is possible she was in one and then when she woke up, her mind decided to bury those memories that were too dangerous for her sanity. Most of the amnesiac patients have this in common. It's most commonly known as a Dissociative state. The mind protects however it can to ensure survival. It mostly is common in the victims of abuse or someone who've survived a fatal accident. Sometimes, it’s also the reason of selectiv
LACHLAN I was waylaid by a phone call from Kayne telling me that Vasili Baranov was itching and throwing hands for a meeting at the High table, to settle the disrespect he had suffered. The old fucking bastard surely wanted a trip to my black room and I'd happily oblige if given the chance. I had hated him since the moment he had suggested the marriage between his granddaughter and my Jeremiah. Something that had amused Jeremiah at that time, but now even he was annoyed by the old bustard's continuous pestering since the party. And so he had been ignoring all his calls and demands to meet him in person.But now Vasili was throwing a fit with Kayne and Xavier to make Jeremiah listen to him. I informed Kayne that I'll let him know when Jeremiah will be available for the High table, if ever.And then by the time I made my way upstairs to her room, Jeremiah was already there. Instead of entering, I paused on the threshold as I saw Jeremiah crouching beside her prone figure on the floor.
JEREMIAH Chen left the office without another word, what he had said now echoing in the silence of my office while Lachlan and I stared at each other, processing the information.The men who had attacked her were Russians.Lachlan took a seat and asked, "Did anyone know about her before we brought her here?"My jaw clenched, and I forced my hand to stay still on the desk, not ball into a fist like it wanted to, as I shook my head. Instead of pushing the curiosity aside I pulled the file open in front of me.The pictures of the men were there. All dead. Because my little shadow had been unable to curb on his violence. I might be known for my cold heart and merciless attitude, but Lachlan was the one who had a temper of a volcano. When it erupted it doesn’t stop until it destroys everything in his path. I focused back on the file with all the details of this men. Names. Their backgrounds everything was there.“Black Hive.” I pulled out a sheaf of paper and a black and white picture wi
ROSE My body was frozen from the fear of my own desire. His gravely words, his fury was making me want him more. It was almost ridiculous that I could feel the flutters in my lower belly. I knew he was going to spànk me like the other day, but unlike that day now I knew what was going to happen and as much as I feared it, the buzz of anticipation in my body couldn’t be ignored. You've really gone mad, Rose! Ryan pushed me on the desk, still maintaining the grip on my tied wrists. As far as I knew he pulled something from his pocket, something silk and cool to the touch with which he tied my hands together. I startled as he swept the hair off the back of my neck which he had unravelled and then surprising me he placed a gentle kiss between my shoulder blades. He followed my spine all the way down to my ass where he traced the waistband of my panties with his fingertips. I sucked in a breath as without any warning he dragged my pantîes down to my knees. I could feel his hot b
LACHLAN I flung the office door open as I entered, my pulse still thrumming with the aftermath of witnessing her break down and looking at me with disgusted eyes, shoving me away like I was filth. Like she couldn’t look at me for one more moment, like she couldn’t bear my touch. She hated me. And god, it hurt.Jeremiah looked up from his desk, a half empty glass of bourbon in his hand even though it wasn’t even noon yet. His grey eyes travelled down me and I saw the possessive gleam he didn’t hide. Any other time I’d have enjoyed his gaze on me. But now. I slammed the door shut behind me and marched to the desk behind which he sat.Her arched a blond brow. “I thought you’d have a better disposition after last night.” I glared at him. He said, “You did sleep like a baby, but I see something have upset you again. What is it?”“Nina.”In a blink, his expression changed. His jaw tightened and his eyes turned cold. “What about her?”“You should’ve seen her,” My voice was low. Tight. “She
NINA It was ten in the morning when Lachlan entered my room, bearing a breakfast tray in his hands. The scent of buttery toast and coffee curled around me. If he thought it would fix things, like food could erase the way I was dragged, punished, humiliated under strangers’ eyes, while the one person who promised to stay and be there for me... vanished, then he was hugely mistaken.Because his presence now, the warm food, it didn’t bring me comfort. It was a slap, a mockery. And all it did was remind me what a fucking liar he was. A deceitful fucking man. A manipulative bastard.Worse than the monster himself.He walked in like he had a right to. Like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t fractured something that was already delicate between us. Like I hadn’t been left alone and stripped bare in front of the wolves, and he hadn’t walked out afterwards instead of holding me. Instead of giving me a safe blanket he had left me in the care of the monster.He put the tray on the table near
NINA My eyes fluttered open and I looked at the bed beside me, at the empty space, and felt a heavy weight in my chest. Like the presence I had felt wasn’t here in the reality but deep somewhere buried in my heart. It was a dream. I told myself it could only be a dream, but its echo was wrapped around me like a comfortable blanket. Like a blanket I had adored in childhood and lost somewhere along the way, but now I could see it peeking through the clutter of forgotten things, shining and beckoning me, as it looked down at me from the top shelf that I couldn’t reach.He was there in my dreams. Once again my husband was in my dreams and he wasn’t the monster he was today. I had willingly crawled into his lap, I had felt safe with him. He was the man who’d brought me my favourite food and gave me a relief from my horrible life.I sat up slowly and let out a breath when I felt my whole body tensing up in discomfort. And then my present, my reality, rushed back to the forefront of my min
Flashback continues...NINA “You need to eat more, lisichka. How will I hunt you next time if you fainted in the middle of the chase.”I sucked in a breath, he made it sound like there was more to our little game of chase. I licked my lips and despite myself I obeyed him. Somehow it felt good to obey him, to make him see that I could do whatever he wanted from me.As I ate, I watched him. And watching him, made my body relax. It always did when I am around him, except that initial nervous energy that takes hold of me. But being close to him, my muscles would relax, no longer coiled up to fight or run from danger. Even though I knew he was dangerous, he felt less so with every other threatening presence around me.And it was all because of the last few days. Because something had changed without me knowing it. The quiet between us wasn’t threatening anymore. It had morphed into something else. Slowly, subtly, it had become a respite from the nightmare that was my life. I used to be s
Flashback #4 NINAThe house was quiet. And it was way past midnight. But I was still waiting… He hadn’t come yet.I didn’t even know when it had started, this habit of waiting for him. Of glancing at the balcony doors every night, my breath catching at the slightest shift of shadows, thinking that he had finally come.But he wasn’t there.For the past ten days, he had come at midnight like clockwork. But even though he had been at the dinner table last night because my father had invited him, he hadn’t come to my room afterward like he usually did. And it seemed he wasn’t going to come tonight either.With a disappointed sigh, I slid down on the bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was just about to let out a frustrated breath when I heard the balcony door creak open, and the air in my bedroom shifted with his presence.Jeremiah Sokolov.The Russian. Enemy of my father.And my only chance at freedom.The small lamp at my bedside table barely illuminated him, but I knew exactly w