2

2

STACEY

The room is dark and cold – icy air licks at my exposed skin. Compared to the elegance of upstairs, down here looks like one of those Saw movies.

Am I about to die? Where’s Luciella?

The elevator dings behind me as it starts ascending, leaving me to tremble in fear and terror. There’s a shadow of a guard standing by the door, his gun strapped to his chest, and I can hear light sobs coming from somewhere. Through the air vent?

“We have another one!” he calls out, and I flinch. “Should I send her through yet? Is the other one sorted?”

I have no idea what the person says in response. It’s a mumble. Faint. An echo. The sobbing through the vent stops, or maybe it just gets quieter, or maybe I’m just imagining it in my state of shock.

I need to find Luciella. We need to get out of this.

“Stacey Fields,” I whisper, shaking uncontrollably, a lone tear slipping down my cheek. “Pl-ease.”

Then I flatten my lips and pause as the guard briefly shines a torch in my face before turning around again. “She’s young, maybe early twenties. Appears unharmed,” he says and then laughs. “Well, for now. How much did she go for?”

He whistles and laughs again. Glancing over his shoulder to me, frozen in place, he sneers. “She’s tainted with ink though. It’s a disgusting sight. Are you ready for her yet? Should I strip this one too?”

Strip…

Oh God.

My punishment might be even worse if they find an earpiece on me, a wire attached to my body, hidden between my breasts. While the guard has his head down, trying to hear what his colleague is saying, I tug out the earpiece and try to pull at the wire – the glue sticks to my skin, and I silently sob as I rip it off and drop it on the ground.

The guard glances up at me through the darkness, finishing his conversation – I kick the wire behind a box and hug myself as he approaches me. He towers over me, the gun making me nervous as he chuckles at spotting Bernadette’s blood on me.

“Heard you messed up the boss’s face. She’ll make you pay for that. Are you going to fight me like little blondie?”

My chin trembles. “Did you hurt her?”

“She’s lucky I didn’t,” he says, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the door. “Don’t worry about her – you won’t be seeing her again anyway.” He shoves me out the room, into a corridor with pipes lining the ceiling and flickering lights that hurt my eyes. “Take her to room six.”

I’m grabbed again, dragged down the corridor by another guard. I can already feel bruises forming on my skin from their deadly grips. I try to pull away, but he presses something hard and cold to the base of my spine. A gun?

“Walk, or I’ll make sure you never use those pretty legs again.”

As I pass doors, I can hear crying, screaming, and… moaning. Not the good kind either. Like forced moans – moans that indicate their bodies are betraying them in the middle of screaming for help. Both men and women are begging for help – for their attacker to stop.

My stomach twists.

I think I might be sick. Is Lu in one of those rooms?

“Is my friend okay?” I ask, using a pleading tone. “Please just tell me she’s okay.”

We stop at a door at the end of the corridor. “You should be more worried about yourself.”

He swipes a card against the scanner, and the door beeps – a red light above it changes to green. I’m shoved inside, the lights automatically turning on, and my eyes widen at the sight before me.

“I suggest you shower. Your new master might not enjoy the sight of someone else’s blood on his pet. Leave your dress by the door.”

I turn to look at him. “He’s coming here?”

“You thought you’d leave so easily? No, you need to be initiated. You’ll stay in this room together until he’s happy with your submissiveness.”

The guard closes the door with a slam, leaving me in the torture chamber by myself. A four-poster bed sits in the middle of the room, leather cuffs at each post. There’s a shelf filled with… My gut twists when I see the ball gag attached to a chained leash. There are loads of tubes of lube, other sex devices and a rack of different sizes of blades, the edges facing out.

I rush to them and freeze, my hand outstretched to the smallest. Instead, I grab the biggest one, like a mini machete, and hold it behind my back. Then I press myself into the wall opposite the door. When the person comes, I won’t let him touch me. I used a smaller blade once, when Chris sold me to his friends, and I won’t hesitate to do it again.

Even if the person who won my auction is a giant.

He won’t be getting anywhere near me.

I swallow down a lump growing in my throat as I wait.

And wait and wait and wait. Until my legs are shaking and sweat lines my face and chest. I think an hour passes with me being in my head, worrying about Luciella. Will Kade make sure Bernadette gets her back? Yes. He’ll do anything for his sister, so I know he’ll do what he can to save her. And Base was shot. He was shot in the chest and… and he might be dead.

My eyes water. How did my life come to this?

Where the fuck is Chris? He’s a psychopath, but right now I wouldn’t mind if the insane bastard got me out of this.

Voices pause my thoughts, and my hand tightens around the handle of the blade. The door beeps, and two guards walk in, a large presence behind them. In a white, faceless mask, taller than the others, with wide shoulders, my master walks in in only his white shirt, the jacket he previously wore discarded somewhere.

My breathing stalls as he walks between the guards and stands in the middle of the room – his eyes are the only things I can see as he watches me. Then his head tilts to the side. No words. No actions. Nothing.

“We will provide you with a key card that only you can use to come in and out of the room. The loading floor is the only one you have authorisation to walk freely. Your meals will be brought to this room three times a day. She’s only to wear the white dresses provided in the dresser, but you are welcome to use our laundry system. Do you have any questions, sir?”

He doesn’t respond, just stares at me, his hands in his pockets.

The guards glance at each other before one of them narrows his eyes on me. “We’ll take your dress.”

The blade’s coldness is pressing against my spine thanks to my open-backed dress. Maybe I should just cut my own throat instead of trying to get out of this. Maybe it’ll be easier than actually being fully awake while being raped this time.

One step forward from the large presence is all it takes for my heart to stop, and I lunge forward and try to stab him in the chest – but he captures my wrist before the guards can react, squeezes until I drop the weapon and tuts at me as he shakes his head.

“Little psycho bitch,” one guard says.

The eyeholes of the mask are mesh, so I can’t see his eyes that well. I know they’re blue. The only detail of my attacker that I know. If he never shows me his face, how can I identify him to report him if I ever get free?

I shiver as I feel my dress torn from the back, cut from my body and pulled away as I stand before this man in only the underwear Chris made me wear. No bra.

Not that the man even looks at my body. His eyes are burning into my soul.

“First test, sir. Then we’ll be out of your way.”

“You’re a bad girl,” he whispers, his deep, gravelly voice muffled by his mask. He releases my wrist and snatches my jaw as the guards step away. “Kneel.”

I stay still, standing my ground, refusing to drop to my knees. The guards stare, waiting to see if I’ll successfully pass my first test of induction. If I refuse, they might make my stay here longer. They want me to be compliant – to be a good, submissive pet to my master.

But I’m dead already anyway.

I try to drive my knee between his legs, but he dodges it and forcefully shoves me down, so my knees crash into the floor, pulling a cry from me.

His hold on my jaw moves to my hair, and he tugs it, so I look up at him. “Take his belt off,” one of the guards says. “Now.”

I close my eyes as more tears slip free, and I try to control my breathing as I reach up to the buckle. My fingers tremble as I fail to pull it free twice before finally tugging the leather from the loops. The man snatches the belt before I can drop it, and I gasp as he wraps it around my neck, slots the leather through the buckle then tightens it till it settles against my throat.

He pulls tighter, and my air shuts off, burning my lungs, my eyes pressured.

The guards seem to be happy, so they pat his shoulder and tell him to enjoy his first night. The door opens and closes, then I hear a beep. I let out a choked, strangled sound as he lets go of the belt so I can breathe.

I bend forward, my hand pressing to the carpet as I cough and cry, wishing I hadn’t let Chris force me to come to this stupid fake party-turned-auction. But when the mask drops to the carpet and I see the man lowering to his knees, I freeze waiting for a blow or an order.

Hands grab at my face, forcing me to look up into the eyes of my new master.

Tobias Mitchell.

My lips part, all my fear washing away as I manage, “To-Tobias?”

Kade’s father grabs the blanket right next to us, wraps it around me, then pulls me in for a hug I didn’t realise I needed.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re okay. You’re safe with me,” he says softly as he strokes my hair, letting me cry into his chest. “I found you, little one.”