Page 47 of Break Me

“Everything,” I say, still staring into the distance.

“Is there anything I can get you? A cup of hot tea? Another pillow? Something to eat?” He brushes his knuckles over my cheek in a comforting stroke. “Something besides porridge and beef stew.”

I close my eyes and swallow against the sour bitterness rising in my throat.A cup of tea or a pillow.It’s all I’ll ever get from him. I keep my eyes closed as my whole world starts to whir.Gray walls, screams of agony, women being violated. Me standing by, just watching. Me silent in a muzzle, on my knees—a person I don’t know. The gut-wrenching fear as I looked down and saw blood spilling from my stomach.I can’t take it anymore—this place, this man.Me.Who I am down here. So I part my lips and say the only words that make sense right now—the only hope I have left. “Get me out of here. Please sell me.” It’s the only way I’ll ever leave this stagnant nothingness.

I finally look again, and the shocked, almost hurt expression on Dax’s face almost makes me want to take the words back. But then his expression turns to stone. “Is that what you want?”

I stare at the man who has become my whole world, and the word ‘no’ hovers right at my lips. But then my eyes flit away, across the barren cell, which has become my whole world too. A cold shudder rolls through me, tightening my muscles and tugging at the wound in my stomach. A whimper rolls past my lips, and I add a “yes” at the end. Because it’s the only answer that makes sense. The only answer thatshouldmake sense.So I close my eyes again, knowing seeing him will only make me waver. “You need to sell me. Please. Just do it. Get it over with.”Get me out of here.

I don’t see his response, but I feel the icy chill in the silence. It drags on for what feels like a full minute until he finally answers. “Okay.”

26

DAX

Anger, frustration, and a maelstrom of other emotions I can’t name churn inside me as I leave her cell.

I’ve been down here all night—on edge and checking on her every hour—and haven’t slept a single minute. Instead, I’ve been in my office, brooding, or in her cell, watching her sleep, all the while my head has kept up a constant debate on whether to just take her upstairs and wire a generous sum of money as compensation to Mikhail.

During the night, I decided to put the idea to a careful test. So I gave her my comforter and my pillow. To get a sense of how I’d feel about having her in my bed. It felt amazing wrapping her in them. As I watched her sleeping peacefully inmysheets, all I could think was that I wanted to lie down behind her.

But I refrained. I went back to my office to think it over. My mind was too clouded by the residual shock and fear and sleep deprivation to see clearly, but deep down, I knew what the right decision was. It was just a matter of time. I knew right until the moment she asked me to sell her.

She fuckingaskedme to sell her.

My hand itches to snap someone’s neck at the thought. Or beat someone to death.

It makes me so fucking mad that all I see is red. Keeping a grip on myself when she said that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And now, I need someone to take it out on.

As I’m about to pass the hall with the padded cells, I come to a halt. The blonde who sliced my sub is down there, all alone. Mikhail told me last night thatDorin had up and left when the auction was about to start. He didn’t say why, but we both knew it was because he couldn’t bear to be here when he lost her. Which means the girl is alone and unprotected. Just waiting for me to finish the job I was supposed to do last night and send her off with her buyer.

Opening and closing my fist, I head down the long hallway and stop in front of cell one. I just stand there, fuming for several minutes. And then I hear it. The soft sound of a voice singing. Stepping up to the door, I listen closely, and suddenly, I understand why my sub would run off despite blatantly disregarding my order.

Her voice is angelic. Listening to it is like having a small peek through the gates of heaven. Like a walk in the mountains on a misty morning when the sun is rising, glittering on the dewy leaves. She sings her heart out like it’s the most important thing to her in the world. She almost sounds peaceful even as she’s locked up in a cell, about to be sold to a beast.

The idea that she has found even a tiny sliver of peace grates on my nerves. She shouldn’t know any peace after cutting my sub.

Clenching and unclenching my fist again, I decide how to get my revenge. She hurt something precious to me, so I’ll hurt something precious to her.

I open the cell door, and the blue-eyed woman immediately goes quiet, surprise widening her eyes as she sees me. She’s sitting on the mattress, and I huff a laugh as I scan my eyes up and down her. She’s in a straitjacket, feet bound together in leather ankle cuffs, ready for me to take. Easy prey.

“Are you here to take me to him? To Zoltan?” she asks in a fearful voice.

“Not yet,” I say, approaching her with slow steps.

“Then why are you here?” she asks, scooting into the corner as she watches me approach. Her breaths go more staggered with each approaching step I take. The nature of my intentions must be screeching in the very air around me.

“To get my revenge.” Grabbing her by the hair, I yank her up.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean t—”

I cut off her words with a hand over her mouth, wrapping the other around her waist to lift her. Small as she is, she puts up a hell of a struggle, making it a bit of a hassle to carry her like that even despite her bound state. But no more than a nuisance. And annoying as it may be, I’m not about to risk her screaming and drawing attention. Mikhail won’t like what I’m about to do. But I don’t care. I’ll gladly pay every cent in my bank account to compensate for his monetary loss if it means I’ll get a release for this lingering fear and anger that has kept me up all night.

So I take her to my office, where I lock the door from the inside and strap her down in my chair.

***

After returning the blonde girl to her cell, I go back upstairs and collapse on my bed. Four hours of sleep is all I get, but it’s the first good sleep I get in days, so I feel almost well-rested as I go back down to the dungeon late in the morning. With the angry haze having settled and the sleep having cleared my mind a bit, I feel more rational. But it’s no relief, really, because with the rationality comes the realization that what I did this morning puts my sub in harm’s way. If Dorin comes back before the girl is out of here and finds out what I did to her, he’ll want to do the same—and much worse—to my sub.