Page 48 of Break Me
So I start by resetting the lock on her door to only accept my fingerprint. I probably should change the whole locking mechanism, but Dorin is shit with technology, and the master key is safe with Mikhail. Dorin would have to kill him to get it, and even mad as he is, he won’t go that far. He needs this place too much. Just like I do. And Mikhail is the only one who can keep it running.
Next, I go to my office, retrieve the gun I keep in the safe there, just in case, and call Mikhail.
“You need to get Dorin’s girl out of here now.”
“I’m in the middle of negotiations with the buyer. He wants me to lower the price because of the episode yesterday.”
I scoff. “Are you shitting me? If he didn’t insist on holding a knife to her throat, that mess wouldn’t have happened. That bitch wouldn’t have cut my sub.”
“How is she?” Mikhail asks.
Ignoring him, I say, “Just get the girl out of here before Dorin returns, or you’ll have a real fucking hell to deal with.”
His voice darkens as he sees straight through me. “What did you do, Dax?”
“Just get rid of her,” I all but bark. Then I hang up and just sit there, staring at the wall as I consider what I agreed to last night. The things my sub said.
Please sell me.
Those three words repeat over and over in my head like a record stuck in a never-ending loop, each cruel repetition scratching at my insides.
I had just decided to keep her, but the idea of taking her upstairs now seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Nothing good will come of it. She’s messing with my head, my ability to work, and even my ability to sleep. I’ve been a mess since I started training her, and it’s only getting worse. What I did this morning, blinded by rage, just might be the stupidest, most reckless thing I’ve ever done. If Dorin finds out, I might have put both my own and my sub’s life at risk. And it pisses me off that I did something so stupid for a fucking girl.
I clench and unclench my fist on the desk as I stare at my closed laptop, which holds a list of potential buyers I have had for weeks. I started looking for a buyer a few days after I started training her, knowing it might not be easy to find someone who’d build on the work I’d done and not just destroy it. It took me some time, searching outside our usual clientele, but I found three potential buyers, who all seem promising. Rich men, who don’t have the patience to train a sub themselves or the time to look for a good one. Men who aren’t beyond making an illicit transaction and paying a fortune to get the real deal. I’ve promised each of them that a real deal is what they’re getting from me. Submission doesn’t come any purer than from my sub.
My sub.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist into the desk, making the laptop and everything else on the table rattle. Clenching my jaw, I grab the laptop and open it. Then I call the first man on my list: a French businessman with more money in his pockets than anyone can count.
This man has been my favorite buyer from the start. I’ve even met with him, and I’m sure he’ll do my training justice and probably even make my sub—his sub to-be—happy. He’s far from our usual buyers, who are sadistic bastards—like myself—who get a kick out of making a girl scream. This guy doesn’t care about pain or even humiliation. He just wants the dominance. Hell, even to an almost legal degree. He might even be satisfied with a sub he found at a regular BDSM club if it wasn’t for all his money and never knowing who wants him for who he is and not just for his bank account. He just wants to know that the submission is real, and I can promise him that it will be when he gets a sub I’ve trained.
Apparently, I’ve sold her so well that he doesn’t care to go through any bargaining or get further reassurances. He’s dropping everything to come here tomorrow afternoon, and if he’s satisfied with what he sees, he’ll pay the full price and take her home to France straight away.
But neither the easy sale nor the prospect of getting her far away from Dorin grants me any relief. Anger is still ripping through my gut and pounding in my blood as I hang up. Seeing three unanswered calls from Mikhail doesn’t help. It sends a surge of searing fear into the maelstrom, stirring up the already crazed speed that threatens to make me act on ridiculous, stupid impulse again.
The most likely reason for him calling is that he’s pissed, having lost a lot of money over the thing I did this morning, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to it as I bring the phone to my ear. My heart slams against my chest, and it feels like the first beep before he picks up lasts for minutes and not a second.
“Dorin is back,” Mikhail says as he picks up. And that’s all I hear. The rest of his words fade into the inconsequential distance as the door flies open and I look up to meet Dorin’s murderous gaze.
“What the fuck did you do?” he demands, his whole stance teeming with a violent energy that has me reaching down to rest a hand on the gun in my waistband.
“What she had coming,” I say calmly even though I’m gnashing my teeth and am preparing to pull my gun out or block an attack. Or maybe initiate an attack myself just to get a release from this constant pounding fury.
“You’ve fucking destroyed her. MY girl!” he growls in a deep voice that reverberates through the room with a force like a small earthquake.
“She cut what belongs to me, so I cut something of hers. Eye for an eye and all that. You grew up catholic, right? So you’ll understand.”
He slams his fist into the cabinet beside the door, making a huge dent in the metal drawer. “You won’t see it coming, Dax,” he says with a potent threat hanging thickly in his words. “You won’t see it, but I promise you’ll regret it.” Then he leaves, slamming the door so hard the cabinet rattles.
My heart pounds as I sit there, reeling from the altercation. I’m good in a crisis.I’m good face-to-face with danger—even war and death. But what I’ve learned during the last twenty-four hours is that I’m not good with someone threatening my sub. He didn’t do it directly, but I know what he meant.Eye for an eye,just like I said. Only, he doesn’t see what I did this morning as an act that leveled the field. He sees it as the one that instigated the war.
Fear rages inside me as I consider what he might do—or have done. I don’t know if he’s even been back long enough to retaliate, and I have no idea how he would have gotten into my sub’s cell, but no amount of rationalization will chase away the gnawing anxiety that keeps clenching around my chest. I try to quench the fear by breathing deeply, just like I’ve so often told my sub to do. But the fear keeps ramping up until adrenaline is pumping through my veins and I’m thrumming my feet against the floor.
Bursting up from my chair, I dart out of the room. I don’t care how much her plea last night hurt; I need to see her. See that she’s okay.
Relief is like a cork popping free from my tight throat, allowing me a free breath, as I barge into her cell and find her on the mattress, staring into the air and looking despondent, but alive and breathing, nonetheless, all her limbs in place.
“Are you okay? Say something,” I demand, needing to hear her speak.