“Lift your arms.”
I follow Adrian’s command so he can slide the silky nightgown over my body. It feels soft, soothing, but it’s still too much against my sensitive skin.
We’ve just finished another session of punishment. This time it was three successive orgasms for talking back to him three times today.
The number has been shortening over the past week. Maybe one day, it’ll be zero and I’ll be able to get my reward, but that doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon.
It’s been two weeks since I came into Adrian’s house, and he always, without fail, finds something to punish me for. I guess I’m not being careful enough either, but he’s not tolerant at all.
If I say ‘okay,’ it’s one.
If I ask why, it’s two.
If I don’t look at him while he’s fucking me with his fingers or with his mouth, it’s three.
If he calls me Lia and I don’t answer immediately, it’s four.
There’s no winning with him, because he laid out all the circumstances, so they’d work in his favor.
Every evening, after Jeremy goes to sleep, I come to this bedroom with my heart in my throat in anticipation of what he’ll do next. Sometimes, he doesn’t wait until then and calls me to his office so he can extract his punishment. Then he’ll restart the count to make sure his hands are busy during the night.
Hands that are currently buttoning the top of my nightgown. Big veiny hands with long, lean fingers that I couldn’t stop staring at even if I wanted to.
Hands that can bring pleasure or pain—or both—depending on their owner’s mood.
My eyes are droopy and I’m exhausted from the number of orgasms he gave me in one go, but I remain seated in front of the dresser while Adrian is kneeling before me.
He’s fucking kneeling, and yet the movement doesn’t deter anything from his power. From the hold he has on me—physically, at least.
Only physically.
He’s just finished showering me. Since that day in his office, he’s been open about caring for me. He lathered my whole body with soap and even washed my hair. At one point, my legs couldn’t carry me and I sat on the floor of the shower. Adrian knelt behind me and finished with my hair. His hands were all over me—on my shoulders, my back, between my legs, and running over the birth scar.
It was too much. It still is. I don’t want him to care for me that way. I don’t like being cared for. It makes me feel weak—weaker than the situation I’ve been thrown in. And I sure as hell don’t want Adrian to do it. Because he’s not genuine. Or maybe he is, but not toward me.
It’s toward his wife.
He’s now in black sweatpants and no shirt. I study the hard ridges of his abdomen and the fine hairs on his masculine chest. I wonder why he doesn’t have tattoos there.
His arms and hands are fully inked, but even as I watch them, I can’t tell the meaning behind most of his tattoos. There’s a compass on his forearm, but I don’t think it indicates direction. There are birds escaping at the top of his shoulders. A bloody flower is inked in the middle of an intricate map that doesn’t seem like one of the world. Maybe it’s a map of Russia. I wonder what he was thinking when he got them.
But why would I wonder? I’m nothing to this man. Only a replacement.
I try engraving those words to memory so I don’t get caught up in his gentle touch, in the way his fingers brush against the swell of my breasts every now and then.
He doesn’t see you, Winter. He sees Lia.
My mind drifts back to the figure I saw at the windows that day when I was kissing his cheek.
The pale woman with raging eyes, who looked just like me.
When I blinked, she disappeared.
Either I was imagining things or Lia’s ghost was actually there. I chose to go with the first option because the second one terrified me.
Whenever Jeremy and I play in the gazebo, I keep staring at that same window in case she reappears.
She never has.
I would probably have a better chance figuring out if my hallucinations are true or not if I go there, but Adrian’s guards are keeping an eye on the garden—or us—all day long. Not to mention that the man himself is always watching us like a hawk from his office window.
Yan is constantly there, too.
The only time I would be able to go into the guest house unnoticed is during the night. And that scares the shit out of me.
This house scares the shit out of me.
The man in front of me terrifies me more because he’s the reason I feel like I’m crawling into some fucked-up territory.
Adrian stands up once he’s finished and positions himself behind me, grabbing the blow-dryer. The slow humming of the machine fills the room as he removes the towel from around my head and dries my hair.
I shiver for a reason completely different from my wet hair meeting my neck. I keep my eyes downcast because I don’t want to look in the mirror to see him caring for me and blow-drying my hair. I don’t want to get caught up in these moments that aren’t meant for me.
Lia was one lucky woman. Or maybe it was the opposite, considering the savage ways he touches me—her.
I wonder how it felt to have a man as hard as Adrian care for her like this, as if she was his world. Was she tingling like me, or did she consider it suffocating as I should?
I wonder if he also made her wait before he fucked her. I internally shake my head. Why the hell am I thinking about him fucking her? Or me?
It’s just that it doesn’t make sense for him to keep coming all over my stomach, my breasts or even my ass. His hard-ons seem painful, but he still refuses to fuck me.
I refuse to let him hear me moan or scream, so I guess it won’t happen in the near future.
Is that what he did with Lia, too?
“How was your marriage with Lia?” I ask before I can stop myself.
My voice is quiet compared to the blow-dryer, so I pray to all the stars above that he didn’t hear me.
But then he says, “It was a marriage.”
My mortification at being heard disappears at his answer. He has this infuriating way of avoiding questions. He doesn’t exactly refuse to respond, but he gives something vague or rephrases the original question.
“How did you guys meet?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Why do I want to know, really? Why am I interested to know about him and his wife?
Clinking my nails together, I keep staring at them. “I thought I should know in case anyone asks.”
“The official version is that we met at a party.”
My head slowly lifts and I stare at him through the mirror. “There’s an unofficial version?”
He’s preoccupied with my hair as he speaks, “Correct.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a secret between Lia and me.”
“I thought I was Lia.”
“I thought you didn’t like being called Lia.” He threads his fingers through my fast-drying hair.
“You still make me play her role.”
“You still don’t think you’re her and that doesn’t make you privy to my secrets with her.”
I open my mouth to say something but choose not to, because whatever I spout will backfire in my face.
The sick asshole is trying to completely erase me so I’ll become his wife. If I let my guard down, there will be nothing left of me.
“You’ll accompany me to a birthday party in a few days,” he announces out of the blue, shutting off the blow-dryer and brushing my hair.
“Whose birthday party?”
“Igor’s.”
I squint. “Igor Petrov?”
He nods. “What do you know about him?”
I pause, feeling attacked by a quiz all of a sudden. I try to recall the details I read about him. “He’s higher up in the brotherhood. Not as high up as you, but he has a notable position.”
“And?”
“And, what?”
“His family. How many members are there?”
“I…don’t remember.”
He glares at me through the mirror.
“What? There are too many people in your organization and I’m super bad with names. I’m sure I’ll be fine when I meet them.”
He wraps his hand around my hair and tugs back, tilting my head to peer down into my eyes. “You’ll learn all about them before the birthday. You are not allowed, under any circumstances, to make any mistakes. Is that clear?”
“Ok—I mean, fine. Fine!” Jeez. He has a weird way of flipping from gentle to harsh in a fraction of a second. It’s like he has a split personality or something.
“Ogla will ask you questions until she makes sure you’ve learned everything.”
“Lovely,” I mutter under my breath.
“What was that, Lenochka?”
“Nothing.”
His grip tightens on my hair, but he lets it and the subject go.
“Let’s sleep.” He extends his palm, and I want to refuse it. I want to pretend it doesn’t exist, but that will only result in more punishment and I really want to sleep.
As per every night, I try to scoot to the edge of the bed, facing away from him. Adrian doesn’t stop me, as usual, but he spoons me from behind, his knee pushing between my thighs and his chin resting on my shoulder. He smells like woods and shower gel. Clean and strong like everything about him.
His hand slips under my arm and wraps around my stomach. Sometimes, he grabs my breast and absentmindedly teases a nipple until it’s sensitive and aching.
I stare at the soft light on the nightstand, attempting to erase his existence from my surroundings, to pretend that his skin isn’t covering mine.
That I’m not a hostage in my own body.
If I at least had a drink, I wouldn’t be feeling so victimized right now. I would’ve numbed it—everything about it.
Fourteen days without alcohol—aside from that slight taste that preceded Adrian’s first and only kiss.
I don’t think I was that much of an alcoholic if I’ve managed to go two weeks without a drop of it. Maybe I merely convinced myself I was one.
My cravings are somehow gone, but my yearning for that state of mind alcohol provided me is definitely real and ever-present.
Adrian traces an invisible line over the cloth on my stomach and it’s hypnotizing—like his touch. I fall asleep almost immediately.
I shouldn’t feel safe enough to fall asleep in the embrace of a monster like Adrian, but it just happens.
A small sound makes me open my eyes. I’m still sleeping on my side, Adrian wrapped all around me.
I blink the sleep away as the sound comes again. It’s almost like the footsteps of a child, but they’re heavier than Jeremy’s.
Something jams against the doorknob. It turns but rolls back into place because of the lock.
Who the hell would attempt to come into the master bedroom at night? Adrian’s guards don’t step inside, except for Kolya and Yan sometimes, but never at night. Ogla never bothers us during this time either.
All sounds disappear and I think I’m imagining things, but the doorknob is jammed again, rattling harder this time.
I gasp, sitting up in bed and pulling the sheet to my chest. Adrian’s arms drop from around me and I shake his shoulder, tentative at first, but it becomes more urgent with every passing second. “Adrian…wake up…”
The doorknob is still twisting and turning with supersonic speed.
“Adrian!” I hiss, but he’s not moving.
The door bursts open, and I suck in a sharp breath at the view.
The ghost I saw from the window is standing in the doorway. Her plain white gown falls to below her knees. Her hair is tied back and her face is pale, but other than that, she’s a replica of me. Even her dark-circled eyes and hollow cheeks look like mine from when I was living on the streets.
“L-Lia…?” I whisper.
“So you know who I am, yet you still dare to steal my husband as if it were your God-given right.”
I shake my head frantically. “No…I didn’t…”
“Home-wrecking cunt.”
I shake my head again. “I didn’t want to…Adrian…” I extend a hand to wake him up, but I’m stopped by her harsh voice.
“Don’t touch him! Leave!”
“I can’t…” I’m crying now, my voice hoarse with how much I’m trying to form into words that I never wanted this. I never thought about taking her place or her name or her husband.
She lunges toward me and I cross my hands in front of my face to protect it. But she doesn’t reach me. Instead, a gurgling sound emerges in the silence.
I peek from between my fingers and gasp as a patch of blood explodes on Lia’s nightgown, something sharp protruding from her abdomen—a knife.
A large body stands behind her, the one who stabbed her, and I think it’s one of the guards, but his face is shadowed.
Lia’s neck lolls in an unnatural position, but her eyes remain on me, watching me, following me, creeping me out of my damn skin.
It’s like she wants to drag me with her to whatever place she’s going.
I slam a palm over my mouth to muffle a gasp, but a harsh metal thing hits my lips.
Confused, I stare down at my hand and find my fingers wrapped around a gun.
What the…?
“Pull the trigger,” the shadow behind Lia whispers. His voice is monotone, almost robotic. “You have one mission.”
“Pull the trigger on who?” No clue why that question escapes me, because it doesn’t matter. I won’t do it.
“I killed this bitch for you. Pull. The. Trigger.”
I shake my head violently, but then sinister laughter escapes the shadow. It’s long and grates on my nerves like fingernails scratching on the walls of my brain.
“Stop it,” I hiss.
“You already took a life. What’s one more?”
“No…”
“But can’t you see? It’s already done.”
“What?”
“Your gun.”
I stare at my hand and watch with horror as my gun aims and my finger presses the trigger.
Straight into Adrian’s chest.
He doesn’t even stir as a blotch of blood covers his shoulder and chest, then forms a pool around him, soaking the sheets.
“Nooo!” I shriek and my world goes black.
