I can’t do it. I just . . . can’t.
His fingers tangle in my hair and he yanks my head back, the tug against my scalp biting. “I see that defiance in your eyes, my love. You dare to look at me this way? The man who saved you? The man who owns this city, as I own you? The man who deleted the security footage that showed you leaning over a dying man?”
And there it is. A promise to destroy me should I not submit, delivered by the mob boss. A laundry list of the many ways he can, and will, hurt me if I leave him. And a reminder to me that I can’t kill him yet. Not when I’ve seen enough of his operation to know he will be avenged. Not until I know I’m ready to disappear and take the necklace with me.
“Say thank you,” he orders.
“Thank you,” I force out.
“You don’t sound like you mean it.” He leans in and brushes his lips over mine. “I can taste your disobedience. Ah, love. The moment I break you will be the most erotic of my life.” He nips my lips, a painful punishment that draws blood, his voice roughening. “I am your Master. You will say it before this night is over.”
He tightens the grip on my hair and reaches down and smacks my nipple with the flogger. But I don’t give him what he wants. I do not cry out; I do not so much as whimper. “Master,” he repeats.
I want to kill him.
I want to hurt him first.
I want this night to be the night I get to do those things.
“Say it,” he commands. “Master.”
I don’t say it, but he doesn’t even wait to realize that. He releases my hair and thankfully drops the flogger, only to produce a rope from his pocket. “Put your hands in front of you.”
The moment I let him tie me up, the real torture will start and I’ll be unable to kill him.
“Hands,” he demands.
Kill him!
No.
Not yet.
Survive. You have to survive, or you won’t enjoy his death.
He grabs my arms and pulls me to my feet, turning me to face the bed before shoving me down, half my naked body on the mattress, my backside in the air. And then he has my arms, and I know that this is it. I have only moments to decide how this ends. In thirty seconds I could snap his neck. But then what? I can’t get to the money I stashed tonight. I can’t get to the necklace tonight. He binds my hands, thinking he’s forced me, having no clue that I let him. And then his hand is on my lower back, and he shifts. I steel myself for what I know is coming, fearing it and him, not because I couldn’t kill him. Because I can’t yet, which means I am this man’s property.
And then it happens, the expected, and yet it’s still a shock. The flogger smacks my backside with vicious force. He lets that first hard smack sting, lets the promise of another linger in the air, and then he’s punishing me. Hitting me again. Once, twice, twenty brutal times, and then it’s his hand on my flesh instead of the flogger. Over and over and over again. In some part of my mind, I know that pain is his way of telling me that to survive, I must surrender. And I hate that it’s true. But he’s going to really hate the moment he finds out that my surrender is my control—not his.
“Ella. Ella.”
Sasha’s voice permeates the flashback, bringing me back to the present, and I become aware of my elbows on the desk, my chin to my chest and my hair draped around my face. I inhale, willing myself to regain my composure, and suddenly my mind goes to earlier today with Kayden. To us naked on the couch, with my hands taped and him promising to spank me.
“Why aren’t you afraid, Ella?” he’d asked.
“Because you’re not him,” I’d said.
I have never appreciated Kayden as much as I do in this moment, and how easily he could have made me feel like a prisoner but never did.
“Ella,” Sasha repeats softly.
“Yes,” I say, shoving my fingers through my hair. For the briefest of moments, I realize I was a redhead in my flashback and yet now, with brown hair, I am so much more myself than I ever was with Garner Neuville. “I’m sorry,” I add. “The flashbacks come fast and hard, and if I don’t let them happen, I lose the memory. Unfortunately, it wasn’t useful.”
“Sweetie,” she says softly. “I know who you were with in that flashback. I saw how you trembled. But that’s between us.”
I swallow against my suddenly dry throat. “Thank you, Sasha.”
“I hate that you have to relive Neuville to find that necklace.”
“I’m not sorry,” I say. “I have to do this. My surrender is my control.”
She arches a brow. “What?”
“He can’t have my fear. I’m angry that my mind keeps sheltering me—but not for long. I’m going to remember it all. I’m close. Very close.”
“Any luck?”
At the sound of Matteo’s voice, I twist around to find him in the doorway. “I’m armed with potential triggers,” I say, holding up the papers we’ve printed. “But the memories come as they please, not as I will. It’s no miracle fix. What about you?”
“Chris Merit and Blake Walker check out,” he says. “I can find absolutely nothing to suggest otherwise.”