Chapter 32

I leg it around the front of the building onto the open pavement and run straight into the smug bastard,
thumping into that hard wall of intimidation and muscle standing waiting on me. I didn’t see him at all. I
literally ran straight into his goddamn chest and arms and get lifted right off my feet in an angry swoop
that gives me no chance of changing direction. Breathless, panting and sweating from exertion, and he
just strolled out the front bloody door catching me blindly.

‘‘Going somewhere London? We have more than one exit you know.’’ He sounds amused rather than
angry, but I know that’s not what that is. He’s in devil mode and his amusement masks simmering rage.
I try to wriggle and fight him off as he carries me back inside the gloomy club, feet dangling pathetically
and no fight in me as I try to recover from my sprint. He barks at everyone who stops to gawp.

‘‘Everyone out!’’ He yells it into the silence and I go limp, fear washing through me as I realise this isn’t
going to end well at all. Emptying the room is not a signal for a cosy little chat and a heart-to-heart. I
can’t escape, he’s too powerful, and he has me caught up in a hold that’s making it hard to breathe,
holding me tight enough to crack ribs as I wither with cold panic in his crushing grip. There’s a
scattering of feet as people exit from any door they can, knowing better than to disobey, and the room
is cleared barren in a nanosecond.

They all know who to fear and all he needs to do is click his fingers and everyone scatters to the wind.
No one is going to stick around and help me. I wouldn’t stick around to help either if it was me.

There are no windows in this club, so apart from the light from the small high portholes he had installed
and the electric mood lighting, we are in the gloomy darkness of a deserted bar and as it’s a club, every
wall is soundproofed to maximum effect. No one will hear my screams.

Alexi walks me forward, focused on where we are going as I start to struggle again, my legs dangling
above the floor by two feet and held taught against him, my arms tight to my sides and crushed to his
chest as I have tip over his shoulder. He has me higher than his head and is making this seem like I am



weightless. I could kick and damage him with my heels, but I think that would just add a level of stupid
to what I have done already.

‘‘I’m sorry. I’ll behave, just put me down. Alexi, please …’’ I start to tremble, fear coursing through my
veins, but my tears mean nothing to him. He has no soul, and he might not hit women, but he finds
other means to punish us, and I don’t want to experience anything he can throw my way.

I recoil into docile weight he is dragging along effortlessly, old habits die hard when I know that fighting
is futile. I just defied him in front of his own people and now he’s pissed, cold and closed off and that’s
when he is at his worst. I need to just revert to submissive and hope he gets over it quickly.

He pulls out his master card and swipes one of the boudoir doors pushing it open harshly and drops
me on my feet uncaringly, so I go over on one ankle and yelp in pain as he gets us inside. He doesn’t
stop to right me or even care that I cried in pain. The lights blink on automatically, with being motion
sensors and I pale as the room before me becomes illuminated and realise exactly what he intends to
do to me.

Using information from last night to punish me in the worst kind of way. It belongs to another mafia
boss, Santagato, and his taste is much like Alexi’s, in that this room is full of BDSM playthings and a
huge cross in the middle with straps to anchor his victim to. Alexi knows my fear of being restrained
and being taken from behind is enough to make me an emotional wreck. He is all about the
psychological trauma and I turn to run but get nowhere fast as he catches my upper arm and hauls me
with him, his vice-like grip inescapable.

I start to sob impulsively as he drags me in and kicks the door closed behind us, pulling me towards the
wooden torture device in the middle, and I strain against him with all my might, trying hard to get loose
from his barbaric grip; digging my heels into the floor with as much strength as I can muster. Alexi just
yanks me with him like I weigh nothing more than a bag of sugar. Inside my organs are a mass of



shaking Jelly and my blood has turned to ice water in my veins, I literally feel the blood drain coldly
from every part of me, and I am left in desolate fear.

‘’Please, Alexi, I’m begging you.’’ I can’t help it; all my self-composure falling to ruin as he gets me
closer and I fall apart mentally. Sobbing and clinging to his hand as I try to pry his fingers from me,
praying for any hope that he has an ounce of human decency.

Don’t tie me up, don’t bind me and gag me and hurt me. I’ll die inside, more so than I am already.

NOT AGAIN PLEASE, NOT AGAIN … Alexi seems blank, robotic and unreachable and just hoists me
up as I try to curl up in a ball, dropping my weight to the floor to deter him, but it is pointless. He just
sweeps me up and forces me, pushing me against it with his body and knee and bracing me upright
then yanking one of my hands up in a bid to strap me to the shackles. He hauls my body taught with
the way I am stretched up, even though I try to fight it and pull it off, but he just flicks me away
effortlessly.

Sheer brute strength and a lack of soul make him my complete controller. I have nothing in me.

‘‘Tears and begging don’t work on me. I know all your little wiles, London. As you keep telling me—I
don’t have the heart to give a shit.’’ He’s so cold and I just give in, inevitable fate, no way to fight his
strength, and I am all alone surrounded by people paid to look the other way. I know futile when I see it,
and instead, I try to put what’s left of my fight and energy into self-protection mentally, rather than
physically. There was a reason I used to revert to compliant silence; it’s the only way to mentally
disconnect from the horror being done to you, and the only way to salvage any sort of sanity. It’s how I
have lived through all I have and come out with some ounce of a functioning human.

Close down, recoil inside and protect what I have left of my sanity. I learned this when I endured so
much. I try to go into that place deep inside my head as he continues to buckle me to this contraption
and try like crazy to shut it all off, block it all out and numb myself away from what my body is going to



endure. I can get through this. I have done so many times before when terrible awful things were done
to my body.

I close my eyes and bite on my lip until I taste blood, turning silent in my own mental hell as tears pour
down my face. I flinch as every leather cuff he wraps around my lifeless limbs and waist is pulled tight
and bites into me. Until I am fully held to the wooden cross and just hang my head in complete defeat,
unable to look his way or focus on anything in this room anymore, awaiting my fate.

I cannot bear to look into the face of my tormentor. It would just blur into the many faces of many dark
memories and all would come pouring out together. Whatever he intends to do to me cannot damage
an already destroyed soul. I just have to live through the pain and focus on anything else. Go to my
silent place in my head where no one can hurt me; where they can’t ever find me.

There’s quiet while I await the start of what he intends to do; tense, silent crying and waiting. The
agony of knowing that I’m about to go through hell once more as I disconnect my body from all that’s
inside. I do what I used to. I close my eyes and hum that song in my head that takes me away from
here, limp and accepting that I’m going to live through it like I always do. If I can just shut it all out until
he’s done. I wait, and I wait, ready to feel the first strokes of a lash or any form of touch, silencing my
manic singsong from under my breath when nothing happens.

Flickering my eyes open warily and staring at the floor where I can still see his feet. He hasn’t moved,
and I don’t look up, not sure if this is part of the game. Nothing but silence and stillness surrounds me,
and the lack of movement makes the lights shut off spookily. I jump and reignite the dim glow with my
own sharp reaction which coaxes me to look up and blink my eyes through blurred and pouring
makeup to see he’s just standing looking at me. A strange expression on his face and a furrowed brow
as though he isn’t sure what to do now.



Alexi looks like he has lost all traces of the anger and sadistic urge to torture me. He just looks normal
and eerily still. My nose is running, and I swallow hard as tears continue to pour silently down my face,
my heart breaking in two. I can see the hesitation in his stance, if not his face and for a moment there’s
hope that maybe he won’t do more. Courage coming back to me.

‘‘I’ll stop fighting you. Please don’t hurt me.’’ I beg him, I plead, my accent slipping so my more
common dialect slurs through almost inaudibly. The hints of my trashy start to life in Hackney. I can
barely get the words out, they’re stuck in my throat, so breathless and fear fuelled. I know I am a mere
shadow of the woman he’s used to seeing in this state, and all my defences have shattered beyond
recognition. He broke me so effortlessly, after all the years that I endured so much more, and he does it
without even trying—twice now, and I know when I am defeated.

This is my idea of the worst kind of hell. Humiliated and raw, open for him to see how vulnerable I can
be. The depths of fear and trauma I feel right now are ripping me inside out and I’m just stiff and
poised, afraid of what I’m about to endure. If it was any other man, then I don’t think I would have fallen
apart this way. It’s him and the knowledge that nothing I do will sway him from punishing me in heinous
ways is a powerful weapon against me. Yet he still just stands looking at me silently, until something in
him makes him snap out of it, it’s like he was in a weird trance. He looks away from me to the wall on
his left and swallows hard. Like he’s suddenly doubting whether he should or shouldn’t and I see
hesitation all over again.

In the great man of complete composure and cruelty—he flounders. He drops his gaze to the floor and
walks towards me; my body trying to recoil as I inhale sharply and start to panic, tugging on my
restraints to get away from him, my breath becoming raspy and on the verge of an all-out blackout.

I maybe imagined it, and this is what he was waiting for. Me to look, to see what he’s going to do. He’s
sadistic enough to wait for that, to lull me into a false sense of hope first.



I don’t want him to touch me, I can’t take him hurting me this way and I won’t survive. It somehow
seems so much worse that it’s him that is about to inflict this cruelty on me, and it’s unbearable.

He reaches up and unclips my wrist with a tug that renders me instantly mute with the shock. My arm
falls down in front of me with the sudden weight of it, his eyes on task and avoiding mine as they focus
fully on his face through a sodden mess. I pull my hand against my chest and grip the neckline of my
dress, afraid to believe he is letting me loose in case this is a ploy to mess with my head some more
and just watch and wait with bated breath.


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