My temper is about to snap and break all hell loose.
I’m so tempted to get out of his office—to hell with his punishments every night. The sick bastard always finds a reason to spank me or whip me, anyway, so it’s not like tonight will be any different.
He’s making it his mission to not allow me to sit comfortably and to feel every lash of his punishment whenever I move. I constantly sense his presence with me, even when we don’t see each other. It’s a persistent reminder of my shameful orgasms and how my body responds to the pain as stimulation instead of discomfort.
The worst part is that I look forward to nighttime now. I look forward to all the things he’ll do to me in the confinements of the bedroom’s walls. Sometimes, I lie in still in the morning and feel like a slut for taking another woman’s role and orgasming on the bed she slept in for years. I feel like an imposter and a horrible human being.
But come nightfall, all those thoughts vanish, except for the feel of his skin on mine. The scent of his cologne. The sheer power of his presence.
I tell myself to hate it, to loathe it, to rebel against it, but what’s the point? I may muffle my orgasms and turn away from him, but he’s a constant that’s impossible to get rid of. He might have confiscated me from the streets, but he didn’t force me to enjoy his ministrations. That was all on me. I chose to enjoy his brutality, his touch, and even crave it after a single taste.
Now that we’re in his office, it feels different from the bedroom. There are no voices telling me it’s wrong or that this place belonged to his wife.
Ever since the day I waited for him on the sofa outside, I’ve actively avoided this place, so this is the first time I’ve come in here. Like him, his office exudes an intense masculine vibe. The lounge area has a black high-back leather sofa and chairs. Even the glass on the coffee table is black. His dark brown wooden desk is topped by three monitors and he sits in a large chair that’s dwarfed by his muscular frame. I’m surprised to find floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with endless books on either side of him.
They’re probably for show.
He beckons me with a finger. “Come here.”
My eyes widen when he lifts a glass to his mouth and the pieces of ice make a swirling sound, clinking tantalizingly.
Holy shit. Alcohol.
That liar Ogla told me there was none in the house. Adrian is obviously drinking some right now.
I’ve been trying my damnedest to not make mistakes so that I’ll be rewarded and can ask for alcohol. However, my mouth usually gets me in trouble, because I can’t stand Adrian’s tyranny, so I end up being punished every night.
Or maybe you want to be punished every night.
I shove that idea in the black box at the back of my mind.
All this time, I’ve been holding on to the hope that I’ll be able to get at least a little drunk.
Now, things have changed. Adrian has alcohol in this place. If I had known, I would’ve barged into his office before.
A plan immediately forms in my head as I slowly approach him. His calm façade doesn’t fool me, because that’s merely a layer of camouflage to hide his observant nature. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve caught him watching me, whether through his office window or while I’m sleeping.
It’s creepy and causes my skin to crawl, but it’s not only because of the act itself. It’s because he really seems to be seeing through me sometimes. Due to that ability, he’ll be able to figure out whether I’m being fake or genuine, so I conceal my anger while I gently sway my hips.
I’m wearing a soft pink dress that has a skater skirt instead of the straight ones Lia’s closet is filled with. Needless to say, it took me a lot of digging to find it. I’m also wearing heels to add a bit of height to my short legs.
My hair is loose and I fixed my makeup after Jeremy and I woke up from our nap. So I have confidence in my looks. What I don’t have confidence in is my ability to play a seduction game on someone like Adrian.
He’s not only observant, but he also has the ability to barge into the soul of someone without armor.
I stop within an arm’s length of him and inhale a drag of air into my lungs. The scent of cognac is almost enough to make me drunk. I would kill for a sip. Just one, single sip. But no matter how much I crave it, I force myself not to look at the glass nestled between his lean fingers.
If I do, Adrian will see right through me.
He tilts his head to the side as if he’s trying to get past my skull and peer inside my head. “What did you think you were doing with Yan just now?”
“I was only inviting him to play with us. It’s cold outside the gazebo.”
“Yan does not play with you. Whether he’s cold or freezes to death is none of your business.”
“Are you always this heartless, even toward your own men?”
“Why?” He cocks his head further. “Are you offended on his behalf, Lenochka?”
“Of course I am. You don’t deserve his loyalty to you.”
“Do not touch him again. Do not invite him in again, and you do not even talk to him.”
“It was innocent.”
“Innocent,” he repeats, as if the prospect is impossible.
“It was.”
“Innocent or not. That will not happen again.”
“Or what? You’ll punish me?” I resist the urge to scoff, because that’s part of his modus operandi.
“That goes without saying. However, that’s not the only price. Anyone who dares to touch you will pay, too. In fact, if I catch anyone looking at you, they’ll wish they were never born.”
“Are you serious?” I know he is, so my question is rhetorical at best, but Adrian nods anyway.
“Go ahead and test me, Lenochka. If you prefer seeing that side of me sooner rather than later, if you’d like to witness Yan being beaten until a few bones are broken, you can keep up this attitude.”
“You’re crazy.” My voice trembles as images of Yan being beaten slam into my head.
“You’ve seen nothing of my craziness, so do not provoke me.”
“You’re a fucking dictator. I don’t know how the hell Lia stayed with you all this time. If I were her, I would’ve left long ago.”
I regret the words as soon as I say them. Adrian is fully believing that I’m Lia, and I just broke the spell he’s accepted as truth for a whole week.
His expression darkens, and I’m tempted to bolt out of the room. Better yet, the whole damn house. But something keeps me rooted in place.
It must be the alcohol. No. It’s definitely the alcohol that’s making me stay here.
Adrian grabs me by the wrist and I squeal as my throbbing ass meets the edge of the desk. He rolls his chair forward and opens his legs, caging me between them.
The warmth of his skin captures me in its dark depths, pulling me under despite myself. We’re separated by his pants and my dress, but it doesn’t even matter. The hold he has on me is magnetic and it keeps getting worse, not better.
He wraps a possessive hand around my hip and I shiver as he speaks calmly, “You would have left?”
“Yes,” I whisper truthfully, because there’s no use in lying now. He’ll see straight through it.
“But how would you have left when you’re monitored?”
I lift my chin. “I would’ve found a way.”
“Like…”
“Dressing as a maid or a delivery man or something.”
His lips tilt in what resembles a smile, yet isn’t. I’ve seen him every day for a whole week and I’ve never seen him smile, not even when he talks to his son. “How would you escape my guards and security?”
“I don’t know. One of them would surely take pity on me and help me out.”
“Take pity and help you out. Interesting.” The way he mulls the words over makes it seem like this entire thing is a real situation, not a hypothetical one.
I shrug. “Not everyone is as heartless as you.”
“And then?” he probes.
“Then, what?”
“Let’s say you succeeded in escaping. How would you survive in the outside world?”
“I’d leave the state and go to the South and work as a waitress or something.”
“And you think you’d get rid of me that easily?”
“I could try.”
“What if I caught you? What if you failed?”
“I’d try again. I wouldn’t stop trying until I succeeded.”
His jaw clenches as if I’ve landed a punch to his face, and his fingers dig painfully into my side. “You will not succeed, Lia. Never.”
“It’s just a hypothetical situation.” I squirm. “Ow. That hurts.”
He loosens his grip on my hip, but he doesn’t let me go. His face is still closed off and I’m lost as to why. Is it because Lia tried to escape before? I hope she succeeded.
An eerie feeling grabs hold of me at the thought that her escape could’ve only succeeded because she ended up dead.
The conversation has darkened his features, his cheekbones appear sharper, harder, like they’re able to cut. I really don’t want him in a sullen mood when I need that drink right now, so I clear my throat, motioning at the library. “Did you read any of these?”
“Why? Interested in reading one?”
“No, thanks. I’m barely finishing that thick as hell document.”
“Not a reader?”
“Nope. I prefer music.” I pause. “You’re probably not a reader either and only keep them for show.”
“I’ve read every book in this office.”
“No way.”
“Yes, I used to sit down and read as much as possible when my father was working here.”
I recall the memos from the document that mentioned his father, Georgy Volkov, who was a leader in the Bratva, too. His picture showed that he had grim, scary features, like he’d snap a person in two if they so much as spoke to him. Adrian shares some of his traits, but his looks and physique are more sophisticated than his father’s. He can easily be considered an honorable gentleman in public, when he’s actually a devil’s minion.
Georgy passed away when Adrian was in his early twenties, and Adrian inherited everything, expanding his influence until he became who he is today.
There was no mention of his mother, though, so I ask, “Did your mother have an influence on your reading habits?”
He raises a brow as if he didn’t expect that question. “Maybe.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Neither. That’s why it’s a maybe.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Is he teasing me?
“Why wasn’t your mother in the document?”
“Because she didn’t exist.”
“Oh. Did she die while you were young?”
“Something like that.”
All his answers are vague at best. I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say or what he isn’t, but at the same time, he’s not completely refusing my questions. If anything, the small conversation has loosened him up a little to the point where his hold around my waist feels intimate. It’s no longer to ensure his control on me, but more like he wants to touch me.
“Did you have a childhood like Jeremy’s?” I ask.
“Like Jeremy’s?”
“As in, your father was absent and your mother had to take care of you?”
“It was the other way around.”
“Your mom was absent?”
He says nothing, his eyes looking at me but not seeming like they’re seeing me. I feel as if I’m losing hold of him, so I blurt, “If you had an absentee parent yourself, shouldn’t you feel Jeremy’s situation more?”
Some of the light goes back to his eyes at the mention of his son. “What about Jeremy’s situation?”
“He barely sees you, even though you mostly work from home.”
“We see each other fine.”
“Have you ever read him a bedtime story?”
“He outgrew those.”
“He’s only five, Adrian. He didn’t outgrow bedtime stories. Besides, he misses you.”
“How would you know that?”
“Every time we do something, he never fails to mention when he did it with you or what you told him about it. He’s looking at you all the time; why don’t you look at him?” My voice chokes and I try to clear my throat.
He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have an angel like Jeremy as a son. Adrian wipes a thumb under my eye, his expression warmer, almost like he doesn’t want me to cry. The asshole doesn’t seem to mind when I’m sobbing out my orgasms while he’s punishing me.
“How about you?” he whispers.
“Me?”
“Do you look at me?”
“I have no reason to look at you.”
“No?”
“No. I’m sorry if you think I’m your wife, but I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, Lia.”
“My name is Winter.”
The darkness I thought was gone slams back into his eyes. “That’s six.”
“You can’t erase my name. It’s Winter. At least call me that when it’s the two of us.”
“Seven, Lia.”
I squeeze my lips shut, feeling more tears barging to my eyes. I don’t know why the fact that he refuses to call me by my name has this effect on me, why it feels like he’s cutting me open more than any of his punishments would. It shouldn’t, and yet, a morbid feeling gnaws at my insides, demanding I win this.
Because with each passing day, my real identity is disintegrating and I feel like I’ll become Lia in no time.
“You can play your sick games all you want, Adrian, but you won’t be able to wipe away who I am. What I am.”
“Eight.”
I should cut my losses and keep my mouth shut, but I don’t. I can’t. He has to know that I am my own person, that he can’t transform me into his dead wife.
“My name is Winter Cavanaugh and I was born in Michigan. My father died when I was a toddler, and my mom relocated us to New York for work reasons.”
“Shut up.”
“No! You’ll listen, because I’m not just some blow-up doll who’s playing the sick role of your dead wife. I’m human. I have feelings. I feel.” I suck in a harsh breath before I continue, “After my mom relocated us here, I took ballet classes, even though they were expensive as fuck. When Mom couldn’t afford to pay for them anymore, my teacher took me under her wing as a charity case and paid for them on my mom’s behalf because she couldn’t stand to see my talent go to waste. And you know what? I was a fucking brilliant ballerina. I made all my classmates green with envy because I had strong ankles and could stand on pointe from the time I was goddamn eleven. I was that good. But that was also when the rich kids started ganging up on me, calling me a charity case. Do you know what it feels like to grow up poor, Adrian? Of course, you don’t. You had your rich mob father.”
“Are you going to shut up?”
“No. You’re going to listen. This time, you’re going to fucking listen. I was recruited as a backup in the New York City Ballet when I was sixteen. I thought me and Mom’s life would become rainbows. But no, the dancers there didn’t like me and made it known. They bullied me, changed my broken-in shoes with new ones. They stole my Band-Aids, toe pads, and my elastic bandages and tore my leotards before important performances to stop me from going on stage. But I had a friend who helped me. She gave me a hand and protected me. She let me dance on her behalf sometimes. She had my back throughout the years, and even though her skills were no different from mine, she became a prima ballerina at the age of twenty. I didn’t get very far. I only stayed there, in the background, like a nobody, but I didn’t resent her for it. I was happy for her. I celebrated with her and was thankful I could keep a roof over our head.
“But do you know what happened next? I found out she was the one who’d kept me in the background. All her nice behavior was a ploy to keep me under her thumb. I was so stupid. So fucking stupid. I hated dancing so much after that, so I quit. I left that world and everything that came with it. But she never left my mind. She stayed at the back of it and in my nightmares. She was there when I was a nobody waitress seeing her posters on the streets. She said she wanted one last favor. She had the fucking nerve to ask for a favor. But I couldn’t say no, and do you know why? Because my mom was dying, and I was knocked up by some fucking man whose name I don’t remember and my daughter was born with weak lungs. I took the hotshot ballerina’s offer, which included having my baby daughter ripped away from my hands soon after she was born. When I told my mom about what I was doing to ensure our future, she cursed me to hell, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t have the luxury of stopping.
“I didn’t succeed, though. I had an accident where my head was nearly cracked open. When I woke up in the hospital, my mother was gone.” I’m sobbing now, tears streaming down my cheeks. “My little girl’s lungs gave up on her and she followed soon after. That’s how I ended up on the streets. That’s how I became a shadow of a person, homeless, a nobody. So no, Adrian. I’m not Lia. My name and identity are the last things I have, so don’t you dare take those away, too.”
I’m panting by the time I finish telling him my story. I never expected to blurt it out as if the words were burning my tongue. The only other person who knows about my history is Larry, and I only told him in batches. Not in one go like I just did.
If I expected sympathy from Adrian, he shows none. His expression remains the same. “What was the favor she asked of you?”
“What?”
“You said she asked you for a favor. What was it?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Tell me.”
“N-no.”
He narrows his eyes. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not proud of it.”
“You said it didn’t succeed.”
“I wanted it to. I guess that’s what counts for me.”
He’s silent for a beat too long and I think he’ll ask me another question, but he doesn’t. His shoulders have visibly tensed beneath his light gray shirt and the subtle intensity in his eyes is sharpening by the second.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was angry. But for what? Because I didn’t answer his question?
“Get on the table, Lia.”
Any hope I had for him to call me by my name shatters and disperses in the background. It hurts worse than anything he’s done to me. Worse than the lashes of his belt and the slap of his hands. Worse than him depriving me of alcohol.
Because at this moment, I realize that he’ll never see me. That, just like in the ballet, I’m only a shadow of someone else.
An insignificant nobody.
