Brutally Broken: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  “This is still my home,” I tell him. “You might have good intentions, but you are not the boss of me. Tell your men to leave. They have three minutes before I flush the entire house with cyanide gas.”

  There’s not actually any cyanide gas, but he doesn’t know that. I just want to be back in control. Before Vadim, my enemies were at the gates, but this house was mine. All mine. I decided everything that happened in it. Now I don’t seem to make any decisions at all, and I need to choose something. I won’t feel better until I have just a little power back in my hands.

  He folds his arms over his chest and looks at me with a raised brow.

  “You think it is a good idea to threaten me?”

  God, I love it when his voice goes all thick and Russian. He’s so fucking sexy. I can feel myself getting aroused, but he doesn’t look horny. He looks pissed.

  “I say who gets to be in this house. Not you.”

  “Wrong.” He growls the word. “You have no say.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you took those cuffs off my hands and set me free,” he says.

  We both know that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be outraged by it, and it doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to get control back. I need to bring Vadim to his knees, before he attacks the Vristok and ensures our immediate deaths.

  “You can’t attack them!”

  “I can, and I will.”

  He’s so fucking determined. I don’t know how I’m going to stop him, but I absolutely have to. This isn’t what he thinks it is. He thinks this is some simple cartoon-style situation, where all it takes is a bullet in the right place and everyone lives happily ever after. That’s not going to work this time, and he won’t listen to me. He’s leaving me literally no choice.

  “I’m sorry, Vadim.”

  “Hm?”

  I step forward and shove a Taser into his torso, deploying the full force of the electric impulses with a flick of the trigger.

  * * *

  Vadim

  I think I was hit by a train. My head is pounding, my shoulders are burning. Every single part of my body is aching. For a long minute, I have no memory of what happened, but the moment Sophie steps into my line of sight, I remember. She is such a slight little figure, a woman full of natural female weakness. The bile rises in my throat as I realize that she has bested me. My ego flares with anger and my pride is ablaze. I will have my revenge for this. She will pay for every moment I spend bound three times over—but I am going to have to work out how to free myself first.

  She has me tied up on the floor, cable ties around my wrists and ankles. It is a simple method of restraint, but effective. They are thick enough that straining against them does nothing but make the plastic cut into my skin.

  “Those are rated to hold an elephant,” Sophie says casually, standing over me with a strange expression on her face, which I have not seen since the day I met her in the slave lineup, now I think about it. It is a cold, composed, calculating expression that sends a stabbing bolt of pure ice into my heart. There is something not quite right about this girl. She is tormented in the night, but by day, unless she is thrashed, she is tormentor. Again, I wonder what happened to her to make her this way. This is no natural temperament. This is the behavior of a woman broken young.

  “Sophie, let me go.” I keep my voice measured, try to keep the rage out of it. I cannot lose my temper with her. I do not want to frighten her, even if she deserves to be scared. She is frightened enough, and god knows what she will do if she is pushed further.

  “No,” she says. “I’m not going to let you do this. You’re going to stay bound up just like that until I believe that you will drop this. I’ve already sent your little men away.”

  “I can kill the Vristok. I can save you.”

  “You can’t save me, Vadim,” she says, her upper lip curling in what might be disgust. “I’m so far past saving. I was born into a sin you would tremble to name, and I cannot be saved from it just because one man wants to go vigilante on those who hunt me.”

  “What aren’t you telling me, Sophie?”

  She lets out a laugh that contains no real amusement. “I’m not telling you anything,” she says, her voice a dark sneer. “I’m not telling you a fucking thing. Why don’t you get it, Vadim? I bought you. I own you. You can do as I say willingly, or I will force you to obey me.”

  Every word out of her mouth seals her fate. The moment I am free, she is going to start screaming for a mercy that will not come. Not for a long time. Not until she knows never to treat me this way again.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” she says, her tone mocking. “You’re planning as to how you’re going to hurt me. What perverted way you’re going to fuck me. You want your revenge, but you can’t hurt me, Vadim. I’m past the point of being hurtable.”

  She’s so fucking wrong.

  I lie there, silent for a moment. This is not like any situation I have been in before. She is not like any captor I’ve been held by before. I need to assess her weaknesses again. Then it occurs to me. Night. The night is coming and she will sleep and that is when the darkness swallows her whole. She has gotten accustomed to clinging to me like an oversized teddy bear. We will see what comfort she can get from a bound man.

  “Not talking to me now?” She lets out a derisive little laugh, but I remain silent. I am not interested in conversing with her. She has already told me that she doesn’t intend to share her secrets with me, so any words passing between us now would be wasted.

  “I want you to understand, Vadim. It’s sweet that you want to help me, but the only way to help me is to do as I asked you to originally. I don’t need an army. I just need you to watch over me.”

  Her words are delivered more sweetly, but I do not believe them. She has never made it truly clear what my role is. I am simply a pawn in her game. But that role does not suit me. My Bratva family treated me as a pawn, and that landed me in chains. I will never again allow myself to be moved according to the whims of others. I will take charge of my life. And I am going to whip this little girl’s ass so hard she can’t sit down for a month.

  “Do you understand, Vadim?”

  “Yes.”

  She cocks her head. “That’s too easy. Are you lying to me so I let you out of the cable ties?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t like one word answers.”

  She’s nervous. She should be. And of course I’m lying. Anyone being held against their will is not likely to tell the truth. But I think she wants me to be agreeable. I think in her mind, if she displays some force, I will acknowledge her as my superior. But that is never going to happen. She could tase me into unconsciousness a hundred times over, and I would never allow her to control me.

  * * *

  Sophie

  Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell. I should not have done this. Now he’s pissed. And I mean really, really angry. I am racking my brains to try to think of a scenario in which I cut those bonds off him and he doesn’t immediately whip me into next year, but I can’t think of one.

  I couldn’t let him start a war either, though. Okay. I just need to think. This is fine. This is totally fine. I’m in control. I am a strong, independent woman, who doesn’t need a man, even though she has one tied up on the floor.

  As I’m thinking, I walk over to the intercom and press the button. “Chef? Could you have a large bowl of strawberry ripple ice cream sent up to my room? Thank you!”

  In a minute or so, there will be ice cream. That has to improve things on some level.

  “Let me go,” Vadim says, stirring into verbal life again.

  “Only if you promise not to start a war. And only if you promise not to whip me or thrash me once you get out.”

  “I promise,” he says in a liar’s deadpan.

  “Dude! I don’t believe you!”

  “Then stop making me promise and let me go so I can do what we both know I am going to do. It will be worse the longe
r you wait.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if you let me go now, I’ll spank you every night this week. If you let me go five minutes from now, it will be with the belt. Ten minutes, it will be with the cane. See how this works?”

  I let out a feral little growl. I do not see how this works. This is bullshit. How the hell can the man still be dominating me from the floor?

  “I want to let you go, Vadim,” I tell him. “But if you threaten me, you might find you spend longer than you think down there. A man can live for a long time tied up. You could spend the rest of your life bound just like that.”

  “I’m going to start with the belt,” he says, as if he’s just made a very casual decision. “And on the thighs too. All the way from the backs of your knees to your bottom. I’m going to make it all burn, little girl.”

  My stomach clenches and does flip-flops, but I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to get into my head. And it’s not going to work.

  “Stop that,” I say. “Or you’ll spend every night this week tied up just like that, dreaming of belts you’ll never use, canes you’ll never touch.”

  He lets out a short, dark laugh. “You are a bad girl, Sophie.”

  “Oh, I know,” I agree.

  There is a light tap at the door. My ice cream has arrived. I open the door handle, reach for the bowl, but instead of picking up a ceramic vessel of creamy treats, my wrist is grabbed by a large hand and I am yanked against the body of a man I do not know.

  I scream at the top of my lungs, panicking and kicking with all my might, but it makes no difference. I am swung off my feet and thrown into a submission position on the bed while several men push into the room and work to free Vadim.

  It’s those fucking mercenaries.

  “I sent you all away!”

  “We were hired to protect you. Not take orders from you.”

  Fucking hell. This has gone so completely wrong. I’ve lost control of my own home. I am being manhandled by strangers and now Vadim is standing up. Stretching his muscular arms. Looking at me with an expression that makes me wish I was literally anywhere on Earth other than where I am right now.

  “What did I say?” he muses, almost to himself. “Oh. That’s right. The belt.”

  His hands go to his waist and unloop the thick leather I bought for him. I had no idea why he insisted on that at the store. It’s too wide to be fashionable. But now I know he had other ideas for it.

  “Hold her down,” he orders his men, his eyes on me with cold intensity. I bite my tongue and stare him down, at least as long as I can before I am pushed back down onto the bed and held in place by those same people I don’t know, people who have no right to touch me.

  I know what Vadim is going to do to me. That doesn’t make it hurt any less when the belt cuts across my ass too many times for me to count, far too quickly for me to distinguish one slashing swat from another. This is rough, merciless Russian discipline. This is what I knew would happen the moment I pushed the button on that Taser and sent him shuddering to the floor. I give thanks for one thing: he didn’t bare my ass. He’s left me with my skirt and panties, two layers of fabric that will stop the worst of the welts, but does nothing to ameliorate the pain. He does exactly what he said he would do. He lashes from the backs of my thighs all the way to my ass, painting up and down with the leather until I am screaming, but not for mercy. I know I haven’t earned, it and I know it will not be shown. The belt falls until he sees fit, until every volt of electricity I shot into his body is accounted for, until every second he spent in cable ties is made up. When he drops the belt, I am sobbing into the bed, no trace of resistance or rebellion left in me.

  “Let her go,” he orders the men holding me. Their hands leave me, but I do not move. Where could I go? There’s nowhere. My personal private sanctuary has been invaded and the one place I wasn’t supposed to be able to feel pain has turned into a palace of punishment.

  I hear him speaking softly to the men, and then I hear them leave. I don’t know what orders he gave, but I am sure that my wishes have been disregarded. They are going to war, and we are all going to hell.

  Vadim’s hand brushes lightly across my hair. “Take some time. Compose yourself.”

  But I can’t. I have lost my composure, my control, and my will to even try. Every breath I take seems to make the wretched heat and sting flare more. My ass is not a part of me. It is something attached to me, feeding hurt and humiliation directly into my bloodstream.

  * * *

  Vadim

  I couldn’t be gentle with her. Not after my men found me bound on the floor. She embarrassed me in front of the people I need to command, and that I cannot allow. I push her skirt up and lower her panties to check the condition of her body. Her ass is not as bad as it could be. There are welts, but no bruises, and I did not break the skin. She will feel this for some time, but that is a good thing. She needs the reminder of pain, I think, or she will return to her arrogant, demanding self.

  She refuses to look at me, preferring to cry into the covers, and I let her. This has been a humiliating interlude for us both, but whereas her shame merely hurts, mine could affect my ability to command my men.

  “Leave me alone,” she sobs as I reach out to touch her hair. My hand clenches and I draw back. She hates me for what I just did to her. But maybe that doesn’t matter. Our relationship was not founded in love. It began with a transaction, and it will likely end in blood. I can’t treat her like I would a normal girlfriend, not that I’ve had one of those. The girls who were permitted into the Bratva house were ones who knew their worth, and made sure to extract the balance from me before they slipped out of my bed, lipstick-smeared, bow-legged, sometimes with a slight limp.

  I have only ever been taught how to be rough on women, and though this one sometimes inspires my tenderness, she fucking tased me. She tried to bring me down, so she had to pay the price.

  “You don’t tell me to leave you alone,” I growl.

  She lets out another sob, and instead of feeling vindicated for my gruff words, I feel like an asshole. That’s a new feeling. I’m not used to regretting anything I do, or feeling sorry for anyone on the receiving end. Sophie got exactly what she deserved, so why the hell do I want to pull her into my arms and cuddle her?

  I don’t know, but I’m doing it anyway. Against her wishes and my better judgement, I wrap my arms around her and I pull her up from the bed. I can’t sit her on my lap, that’s going to be far too painful, but I can sit down and put her over my thighs.

  “Why... what...” she whimpers, thinking she’s in more trouble. She’s not. I run my hand down her back, over her neck, into her hair, and then back down, skipping over her sore bottom and rubbing her thighs, which I showed some mercy on. This could have been so much worse. I should have been harsher. My body is still aching from the aftereffects of fifty thousand volts of current. I don’t know which one of us will hurt longer.

  I say nothing to her. Instead, I let my touch tell her what she needs to know. Rubbing my hands up and over her thighs, I let my thumb drift up the inside of her thigh, brushing the soft unblemished skin gently and running it up a little higher, approaching the top of her thighs where the soft down of her hair covers her pussy.

  I feel my cock flex and stir into life just looking at that slit, knowing what hot, wet treasures await me in there. Fucking her would teach her an even greater lesson, but perhaps not in her pussy. Maybe...

  I turn her over on the bed again, ignoring the plaintive little whimper she makes.

  She lets out a hiss as I clasp her punished cheeks and spread them open to look at the tight little bud winking between her cheeks. That little hole has gotten off far too lightly so far. That’s where I should have disciplined her.

  I press my thumb to that little bud and feel her get tense. She knows what I have in mind. She can sense it. Moving the pad of my thumb in slow circles, I feel my cock rising. Fuck, yes. This is what she deserves. A
good, long, hard ass fucking for daring to Taser me.

  “You have lubricant?”

  “Second drawer down,” she whimpers. I’m surprised she doesn’t try to beg for mercy, but she is too proud for that. And too smart. I am not done with her yet. A whipping serves for one part of the punishment, but I need her to feel my control more intimately still, and she needs to surrender a part of her she’s never given to anyone. This sweet little ass, bright red and squirming, is where I am going to prove my dominance.

  I push my thumb harder against her bottom, testing the mettle of the muscle, making her ass give way to me.

  * * *

  Sophie

  It’s not over. He’s not done with me.

  He keeps his hand on my ass, the pressure of his thumb making my anus submit by slow degrees. I hear the flip of a cap opening and then I feel the cool sensation of lubricant being dripped directly onto the tight bud that used to be mine and mine alone, but is now going to be taken by him.

  The smearing of the lube leaves me vulnerable, wanting, and just a little bit frightened. The pain is still there, hot waves of sensation rushing through me in throbbing patterns that fluctuate and catch me off guard with spikes and valleys of intensity. He is playing with my ass, doing something dirty and illicit and wrong, and that is precisely why he is doing it, because he knows it will make me feel even more how very much under his thumb I am. My anus is the entirety of me in this moment. I am squirming uncontrollably, but he somehow manages to control me anyway, one hand on my hip, the other still working on my bottom, twisting and pressing until his thumb slips inside me, pushing past the ring of muscle and finding my insides.

  “Fuck,” I grunt as he pushes deeper, stopping an inch inside me, then twisting and pulling out again, gathering fresh lubricant and pushing back in again, just as deeply as before. My ass is tender, unused to this kind of handling, and very sensitive thanks to the thrashing he handed out before deciding to use my bottom for his pleasure.

  I don’t know that I want to stop him, even though the penetration is less than comfortable. I need something from him. I’m not sure what it is, or how to get it, but I have to get release. Maybe forgiveness.