She’d clearly lost her mind. Who knew what he’d do if he woke to find her doing this? She doubted she’d ever know the story behind them. In the week waiting under the ruse that some party outside the house had bought her, she’d heard a lot of things about Brian—how he liked to hurt women. Girls upstairs said that whoever you displeased in this house, never let it be Brian. It had been impressed upon her that if she were to upset one of the others, the best outcome was to throw herself on their mercy and take whatever punishment they would mete out. Because if they outsourced it to Brian—it would be worse.
She’d heard he only fucked women from behind, he rarely took his shirt off to do it, and sometimes he blindfolded them. At the time it had been random boogeyman trivia. It was the kind of thing campers told around campfires—ghost stories meant to scare the shit out of you right before bed.
Now those tidbits came together and meant something. He didn’t want them to see. Yet he’d already allowed Mina that close. He’d been vulnerable with her. She wanted it to mean something. She wanted it to confirm that somehow he could keep his promises—that at the very least he wanted to.
She kissed his back, careful not to wake him. She needed to know what it felt like to press her lips against his skin without coercion or fear. She wanted to experiment to see if she could handle it.
As she peppered kisses down his back, the reality proved more frightening than she’d expected. Because what she felt when she kissed him wasn’t revulsion or disgust. Brian might be the one person who could understand her pain. Even if he got sick pleasure in meting it out to others, he could understand her in a way far more intimate than Lindsay.
She didn’t know why she’d wanted Lindsay to begin with. The doctor would nod and say, “mmhmmm”. He’d make notes and pretend he understood. But all he understood were clinical labels and pet psychological theories. He didn’t get it. He knew how to file and label and categorize, but it was as if he were missing a major sense and merely faking what it must be like as he scribbled on the yellow legal pad.
Brian had known the moment their eyes met that first night. He’d known something more than the doctor would ever be privy to. And though she was afraid, she agreed with him. The doctor could never be allowed inside whatever this was. No matter how scary it was, how scary Brian was, there was the kernel of something inside him that felt like home and understanding. Like he’d lived on that street.
Brian slept on, oblivious. He slept deeply enough that if she wanted to, she could kill him. There was no one else in the house who had the potential to be as dangerous to her as Brian.
There had to be a key somewhere in his room or clothing that would let her inside one of the dungeons. Those cells had weapons. But even as she thought it, a coldness rushed over her, as if the house itself read her thoughts and disapproved of them.
Wasn’t this why she kept getting into such dangerous situations with men who hurt her? Because she ignored her instincts when they told her to run, because she stupidly kept walking into these situations hoping that this one wouldn’t hurt her?
Couldn’t she this one time do something smart and eliminate the threat before the threat eliminated her? But watching him sleep, his softened expression, the scars, she couldn’t bring herself to end his life. Maybe he’d be like Jason. Maybe he’d be worse. And it didn’t matter.
She was already forming that weird captive/captor alliance. If she couldn’t slit his throat right now, she’d never be able to do it, no matter what he did. The clocked ticked loudly as the seconds lurched on.
Brian rolled over, his arm moving around her, pulling her closer. It was the final nail in the coffin of her unending foolishness. There was no one in the world anymore to blame but herself.
He whimpered in his sleep, and a tear rolled down his face. God, what had happened to him? She brushed the tear away and struggled to roll back over until they were cuddled together, his body wrapped around hers. It should have felt claustrophobic and stifling, but it didn’t. He held onto her like she were life itself. After a few moments the awful sounds subsided, his breathing evened out again, and whatever had been chasing him in his dreams went away.
Mina’s stomach growled again. She had to get upstairs before the kitchen closed. She eased out from under his arm until his grip loosened, then she got out of the bed and quietly dressed. She didn’t bother with shoes. Despite all the stone work and the hard floors, the estate was kept well-heated, especially upstairs.
She held her breath as she opened the door, waiting for the creak to work itself out. She glanced back at him, but he slept on. She left before she lost her nerve again.
On the main floor, the atmosphere was very different. People milled about. Debauchery was at its peak. Girls who weren’t otherwise occupied were making last minute runs on the cafeteria. It felt like a college dorm—so different from the cave downstairs that Brian lived in where no light seemed to ever touch him.
Lindsay stopped her in the entryway, concern in his eyes. Now he was concerned. After he’d brought her into this. After he’d threatened her with Brian. After he’d made good on that threat in the most final way possible.
“Are you all right? Has he hurt you?” He gripped her shoulders, searching her face, looking for outward signs of violence.
“Why do you care? You sold me to him.” Even the idea galled her beyond all reason. Yes, she’d agreed to it, but that was when she still lived in a fantasy land and hadn’t processed what she was signing on for.
Mina wasn’t prepared to let this go. She doubted she’d ever forgive Lindsay for putting her in harm’s way after she’d trusted him. Even if he was right. Even if Brian never laid a hand on her in anger, Lindsay hadn’t known beyond all doubt that she’d be safe. And he hadn’t had a true Plan B. That was made clear outside the doctor’s room when her master had delivered his threats.
“Come to my office. Let’s talk. Where is he?”
“I’m not allowed to talk to you about him or us.” It wasn’t just that she wasn’t allowed to, she didn’t want to. She both wanted to mentally torment the doctor for his poor decision-making and his greed, and she wanted to protect Brian. She shook that latter thought out quickly. That couldn’t be right. Why? Why would she want that? No matter what had been done to him, he’d more than made up for it with viciousness of his own. So what the hell could he ever need protecting from? And did he even deserve it?
“I promise that whatever you say will remain between us. I won’t say anything to him. No matter what he’s told you or made you believe, he can’t watch you every second. He can’t know everything you do when he’s not with you.”
Who cared whether he could or not? And maybe he could. If there was a tracking device in her collar, couldn’t there just as easily be a recording device? Brian wasn’t stupid. He’d even seemed to know it was safe for him to sleep in her presence. Given whatever past he’d survived, he wouldn’t have gone to sleep next to her if he hadn’t been sure she wouldn’t do anything.
Mina brushed past the doctor. “I said no. I have to get to the cafeteria before it closes.”
He gripped her arm. Mina spun and slugged him in the jaw. She stared at her fist as she pulled it back. Her hand stung and would likely be bruised the next day.
He leaped back and held his jaw as a wounded puppy look came over his face.
Right. Because he was such a victim here. A moment later his mood changed, and his eyes flashed with rage. Why did they all fear Brian? Lindsay seemed to be the one with the hair trigger. At least with her. Maybe Jason was right. There was something inside her that made men want to hurt her.
“You think you can hit me?” He said. There it was. That entitled jackass dominant bullshit. Lindsay lunged for her and grabbed her wrist, forcing it behind her back as he pushed her face against the wall.
A group of girls gathered on the fringes to watch the drama unfold. The acoustics of the grand entryway made their whispers sound like loudly hissing serpents.
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If she’d been operating only on instinct, she would have been afraid, but after Brian’s display outside the doctor’s room, she had no doubt that if he found out Lindsay laid a hand on her, she wouldn’t be the one who had to fear anything.
“Let go of me and pray I don’t tell him about this,” she said.
Lindsay released her and stepped back, rattled. “I was trying to help you. I wanted to ensure you were safe, and this is how you repay me?”
He had her exit blocked, using sheer force of intimidation against her now that he realized the folly of touching her. Part of her hoped Brian would wake and come upstairs to see this, though she worried when he was finished with Lindsay, she’d have to pay for having left. But did he mean for her to starve? She’d barely eaten all day.
“You just want to soothe your guilty conscience. Get out of my way. I have to eat something.”
“Fine, to hell with you then,” Lindsay said. “Don’t come crying to me later when he loses his shit on you.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t sold me to him in the first place! How much? How much did it take for you to just not give a shit about your promise to me?”
“five million,” he whispered.
Mina heard a low whistle nearby. It made her want to punch someone.
“Dollars?” Because surely it couldn’t be that. Rupees maybe, but not that many dollars.
Lindsay nodded. “He was insistent. He said he had to protect you from Matsumoto. That was the bidder who would have taken you. He said there was something not right about him.”
She might have asked why Brian would have cared if not for seeing his back, the scars that so closely resembled her own. She knew why. She wasn’t sure how, but the marks across her flesh made him see her differently—as someone not on the hurt list. For that she was grateful, even as she still worried he might lose control.
She pushed past the doctor.
“Are you going to tell him about this?” he asked, his voice low.
“I haven’t decided.” Maybe it wasn’t just the scars that formed the kinship between Mina and Brian. With the smallest glimpse of power, she already saw how she might seek to abuse it. Had she been in Brian’s position, she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t seek retribution in the way he had, and that thought scared her.
Mina managed to cover her distress and passed through the veil of whispers to get to the cafeteria line.
“Five minutes later, and you’d be going to bed without supper,” an older woman said from behind the food counter.
Mina wondered how she’d come to be here and was convinced she was must be just as much a prisoner as Mina. Surely she’d tell someone what went on here if she were ever allowed to leave the premises.
“Everything?” the woman asked.
“Yes, please.”
The woman behind the counter loaded roast, potatoes, and green beans onto the plate, and salad on another plate, then slid it to her. Mina took her tray to get some pie and a drink. Normally she wouldn’t eat all this, but this was her only real meal today. She’d better make it count. And with the counter closing in a few minutes, she wouldn’t be able to return for seconds.
A strange shift had happened. Before, she’d been taunted by the mean girls table, now they looked on curiously as if they were in the market for a new leader—or more likely, in the market to use somebody who might put in a good word of protection for them should Brian ever get them in his dungeon.
Annette sat across from her. “Is your hand okay?”
It still stung, but the skin wasn’t broken. She’d probably done more damage to her own hand than she had to the doctor’s jaw, but it felt liberating to fight back for the first time in perhaps ever.
Hitting the doctor, forcing him to back off—even if it had been the threat of who she belonged to and not any physical stopping power she had on her own—had accomplished what six months of therapy failed to. Maybe she should have taken up boxing instead.
Talking never had the hope of healing her. The only thing that would get her there was having control over her own life and having some power back. But that ship had sailed. If only she’d figured this out before she’d fallen for Lindsay’s smooth talk and lies about only wanting what was best for her. Lindsay wanted what was best for Lindsay’s bank account.
“Mina?”
“Sorry. Yeah, it’s fine, I think. It might bruise. I don’t know.”
“Well, he deserved it. I still can’t believe he sold you to Brian. Of all the sadistic shitheads to hand you over to.”
Mina bristled at the insult to her master but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t prepared to admit that any part of her was already willing to defend him. The moment in the bathroom had shifted something inside her the tiniest amount.
She tried to ignore Anton’s slave as she dug into her dinner. She’d been famished and was surprised she hadn’t passed out.
“Are you okay? Has he hurt you?” Annette asked, echoing Lindsay’s earlier pretend concern. From her the concern sounded convincing.
“I’m fine.” For now.
Annette’s eyes widened and Mina turned to see what had caught her attention. Brian stood in the middle of the cafeteria, watching her. Everyone else on the main level had given him a wide berth. He crossed the floor to Mina’s table with a tray in his hands.
Annette got up as if her chair had been lit on fire and fled the area. Brian sat in the chair she’d vacated and started to eat his own dinner.
“I woke to find you gone,” he said between bites. There was no inflection. No anger. Everything came out flat. The lack of emotion was perhaps more frightening than if there had been any.
“I’m sorry, Master.”
“I haven’t eaten much today, either.”
Mina just stared at him. Never would she have expected someone with Brian’s reputation to take anything she’d done calmly and rationally.
When he looked up, she switched her focus to her own food. She winced when he laid his hand over hers.
“What happened to your hand?”
Mina jerked it back. “N-nothing.”
“Nothing, Master,” he corrected. But he wasn’t angry. Who was this guy? What had he done with the psycho?
“Nothing, Master,” she repeated. But it didn’t end the inquisition.
Instead, he grabbed her hand to inspect it. She didn’t see any broken skin or enough redness to call attention to. He must have noticed her wince.
Brian pressed against the knuckles and watched her expression closely. “Does this hurt?”
“No, Master.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“A little.”
“How did it happen?”
“She punched the doctor in the jaw!” one of the girls nearby, said.
Mina was sure the girl tattled on her because she thought Brian would hurt her. Information about her contract terms had leaked, and many in the house had decided she needed to be taken down a peg.
Lindsay seemed to appear out of a mist to stand beside the table. “Yes, she punched me in the jaw.”
She couldn’t determine if the doctor was trying to get her in trouble, too.
“I’m sure she had a good reason,” Brian said.
He surely hadn’t expected that response. Neither had Mina.
“Finish your dinner, and we’ll go back downstairs,” Brian said.
The two of them continued to eat in silence. After a few moments of being ignored, Lindsay wandered off.
When Mina finished, she picked up her tray to take it to the counter.
“Leave it. We have people for that.”
He led her past the nosy bystanders and back down the stairs to their room. It was strange to hold Brian’s hand like that, as if they were some young ordinary couple. Inside, he didn’t immediately let go of her hand. Instead, he pulled her closer and held her against him. His warmth pushed through her clothes, through her skin, into her bones.
Finally he
released her and sat in a chair across the room. “Undress.”
Mina shivered.
“Are you cold?”
She nodded.
He flicked on the gas fireplace. It only took a few minutes for the room to turn toasty warm, warm enough that she wanted to take clothes off. He smirked from the chair as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Strip,” he said. “You have no more excuses.”
He’d seen her already… kind of. This was no different. But it was. It was so different. For a moment she was back with Jason being passed around like some whore. Then she was in the medical room at the house, freezing up, unable to do what was asked of her because she’d just… hit the wall.
Now the wall rose again. What if she couldn’t? What if she said no? What would he do to her? She’d seen what he could do. He could make whatever promises he wanted—like the others had—but she’d seen his eyes through the cell window when he’d been fucking that girl he’d just beaten. Mina’s breathing went shallow again, and the room started to spin.
“Mina.” His voice rolled over her like thunder in the distance.
The tremble started in her lip, and she felt the tears and the panic ready to explode out of her. How had she ever thought she could do this again?
He motioned, and she went to him. He took both of her hands in his and looked up. His expression reflected her own pain—like he understood. “It’s okay. I just want to look at you. It will be okay. Give me this.”
She wanted to.
“I saw you in the cage. And in the bed. This is just… a little more.”
She couldn’t believe he was being so patient… Brian. It gave her the strength to take her clothes off for him.
“Turn away,” he said when she was exposed and bare before him.
He stood behind her and stroked her throat as he pulled her against him. Then he began kissing her neck. His mouth was so warm and soft against her skin that a whimper slipped through her lips. Despite how he’d been with her, she never could have imagined that his mouth on her could feel like this—a shocking tenderness that eviscerated her.