Bought (Assassin's Revenge #2)
by Tara Crescent
Prologue
What is your name?
Ellie Samuelson.
The hand whips forward and slaps my face hard. The question is repeated. What is your name?
I hesitate, not knowing what this man wants. Ellie Samuelson, I say finally.
Another slap to my face. My jaw aches. What is your name?
I clue in. Whatever you’d like it to be.
That’s good. There’s satisfaction in the man’s voice. Your name is slave. Or cunt. Do you understand?
I don’t understand. Yes.
Another hard slap. This one sets my ears ringing. A sharp flare of pain fills me. My mouth fills with blood. You will call me Master.
Yes Master.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday. As I huddle in my hot and humid cell, I try not to think of home. I suppress memories of my mother, who might have remembered to stop at the grocery store and buy a cake, if she hadn’t been lost in an alcoholic stupor. Amber and Lisa, my best friends, would have remembered though. After school, we would have headed to Beechwood Mall. They would have bought me a cupcake, since I had a weakness for the sugary, icing-topped treats. They would have sung a loud, boisterous Happy Birthday in the food court and I would have blushed and whispered for them to keep quiet, please, everyone is looking. And we would have all burst into giggles.
It would have been a good birthday.
Instead I’m in Abeokuta. Never heard of it? Neither had I until, two years ago, I was kidnapped one evening after work at the mall. I was brought to this dusty corner of Nigeria, about an hour outside populous Lagos, where I was trained to become a sex slave. My Master’s name is Dylan McAllister.
I had cried the first day. Mrs. Olusola, the Yoruba housekeeper had hushed me as she had bathed my wounds. “Do not cry,” she had whispered. “Be silent and obedient. The Master will punish you if you cry.”
My memory is near-photographic. A curse when all I want to do is forget. I never want to remember Dylan’s cold grey eyes as he had slapped me hard and told me to shut the fuck up. I want to blank out my screams and sobs of terror. The sharp, excruciating pain as Dylan had raped me, taking my virginity without consideration or gentleness.
I want to forget his punishment because I wouldn’t stop flailing and kicking out. I just want to erase my memories of being given to his five bodyguards that same night. “A useful lesson,” his chillingly flat voice had said, “of what will happen to you if you don’t obey.”
It had taken my body a full month to recover from what the five of them had done to me that night. But Dylan McAllister had been right. It had been a useful lesson. I had never fought back again.
***
Today is my twentieth birthday. As I have every single morning, I curl into a ball on the narrow cot. To the guards who are watching me through the security cameras mounted on the ceiling, it must look like I’m surrendering to despair.
I always look particularly wretched in the mornings. The only way I can escape my prison is in my dreams. When I wake up, it is to a never-ending nightmare. But I am not as despairing as I seem. My lips, hidden by the hands that cover my face, chant a litany of names and facts.
Gregor Petrovich. Russian. Fifty years old, two hundred and thirty pounds of hard muscle. Head of Dylan McAllister’s security.
Ivan Klimov. Russian. Gregor’s right hand man.
Pieter Hoffman. German. Mercenary. Enjoys raping inexperienced girls in the ass. Without lube.
Sam Green. American. Gun-for-hire from Louisiana. When he’s not punching Dylan’s slaves in the face, he writes poetry and fancies himself an artist.
Daniel Schneider. Also German. Daniel has lived in Nigeria for many years now. I suspect he’s having an affair with Mrs. Olusola. He had hung back that first night and he hadn’t touched me. He had just watched. But his eyes had been filled with lust.
I chant their names under my breath and just like I have, every single day for the last two years, I make myself a promise.
One day I will have my revenge. I will kill all of them for what they did to a frightened young woman. And when I’m done, I will have Dylan McAllister in my sights. My Master, the man who has kidnapped and raped many girls before me and will kidnap and rape many girls after me.
Dylan is a sociopath, utterly without empathy. He punishes me and rewards me randomly to reinforce my training and make me compliant and pliable.