When the idea had first been spoken, the four of them had been just twisted enough to not dismiss it out of hand or laugh it off. They would run a training house of sorts. Anton and Lindsay would screen potential kinky women to train to sell as slaves to rich kinky men. They would only take women who had a deep-seated kink, not just random strays. They weren’t monsters.
Well, Brian was, but he would be the house enforcer. Gabe would be a trainer. They’d hire more as needed.
In the second set of dungeons on the other end of the house, Anton already had his first acquisition. Her name was Janette. He’d met her the night before at a club. He’d dragged her down there and locked her up just before the other guys had arrived. He still couldn’t believe he’d done it. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, but the way she’d talked to him the previous night... And then to show up at his spa? He hadn’t even known her name before her appointment.
How had she found him? He had to get down there to her or she was going to think he was some kind of psycho. Anton pushed aside the accusing voice in his mind that agreed with that assessment.
Brian leaned against the wall with his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. He looked like he was about to have an episode again. It was the damn drugs Lindsay had him on. He was even more fucked up with them than without them. The last thing Anton needed was the loose cannon following him while he reassured his little pet.
“There’s a space for a fitness room. That’s your department. You want to go check it out and make a list of everything you need?” Anton asked.
“Yeah, sure.” He pushed off the wall and headed in the direction Anton pointed.
Before Gabe or Lindsay could come downstairs again, Anton slipped away to the other set of basement stairs.
He’d gagged her for the long drive, and she’d struggled when he’d pulled her into the house. It had taken less than five minutes from the moment he’d gotten her into the car to realize that not only was this stupid, but she was scared. Really scared. Well, of course she was.
Somehow he’d gotten the idea after the dirty talk at the club that she’d be into it. She’d hunted him down after all. He’d tried to reassure her on the trip, but nothing he said made it better. And the plain fact was, if she thought he was really kidnapping her, it had gone from a poorly-planned and bad-idea game to a genuine kidnapping.
Once he’d made that shift in thinking, the only place to take her was to the house.
What the fuck had he been thinking? That was the problem, he hadn’t been. He’d been so high off the idea of the business and getting the house and then finding the perfect pet who couldn’t hold her vodka, teasing him so sweetly.
When she’d shown up at the spa he’d been sure she wanted to act out their game but was just too shy without the aid of alcohol to tell him. Now that he knew how wrong his assumption was, it wasn’t a game anymore.
The door creaked when Anton pushed it open. She flinched, her eyes wide. Long blonde hair covered part of her face from where she’d struggled in the ropes he’d tied around her wrists.
“Shhhh, kiska,” he said. She was bleeding from her struggle with the ropes. “Stop it. You’re hurting yourself.”
She tried to scream around the cloth in her mouth.
“I will remove the gag if you don’t scream. Be a good girl. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and the only people in this house are on my side.” Well, Brian probably would be. Gabe and Lindsay, maybe not. “Will you promise not to scream?”
She nodded.
Anton eased closer, trying not to spook her further. He removed the gag and pushed the hair out of her face. She looked up at him with wide, guileless blue eyes.
“W-who are you? Are you going to kill me?”
Brian would definitely be up for that. His primary reason for signing on was the chance to hurt people. Even if they were careful, there were going to be situations where someone had to be hurt or worse.
“Kiska, don’t play games with me,” Anton said. “Admittedly this was a bad idea. I just thought you’d be into it… the stuff you said at the club.”
She looked confused. “What club? What stuff?” Some realization seemed to light her eyes. “Oh! I’m not her.”
Anton tilted his head to the side. “Not who?”
“That was my sister you met at the club. She came home drunk. You must be the hot Russian. T-this was some kind of game between the two of you?” Though her voice suddenly sounded reasonable, the words she spoke were crazy.
“I tried to explain that to you in the car, that I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Anton said.
“You kidnapped me! How can I believe I’ll be safe in those conditions?”
“Yes, well. That was part of the game. I told you it was stupid. I thought you’d play along. But you were just playing me at the club, and now you think you can play me again with this bullshit story of a sister.”
Did she really think she could pull off such an obvious con? A sister. It was absurd.
“It’s not bullshit. I have a twin. Her name is Annette.”
“Annette and Janette? You’ve got to be kidding me. Those names don’t even sound real.”
“It’s true, I swear. I-I’m sorry for the mix-up. Please just take me home. I get it was a game. It’s just a mix up. R-right?”
Fucking tears.
Anton didn’t acknowledge her plea to be released. As if he could let her go now. She knew where the house was, another stupid thing. He should have blindfolded her. But he’d known from the moment the game plan switched from taking her to his apartment at Dome to taking her to the house that she was never leaving. He’d tried not to think too hard about the implications of all that as he’d driven and reassured her he wouldn’t hurt her. He still didn’t want to hurt her.
But could he keep that promise? Maybe not. So much depended on her.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Anton shut and locked the door on her shouting. He was glad the sounds wouldn’t carry upstairs. What were the other guys going to say about this?
There was no one up on the main level. Brian must have gone back down to work on his dungeon suite, and Gabe and Lindsay must still be upstairs working on their rooms.
Lindsay had an insane idea about a plant room that he’d been babbling about over Chinese take-out earlier. He’d already moved his African Grey into his suite. The bird’s cage had been covered, but you could still hear Ralph muttering under the blanket. “Take one of these in the morning and one before bed.” “One in the morning.” “One before bed.” “Take that one with food.” “That’s a normal side effect.”
Anton could only imagine the things Ralph would learn to say in this new environment—especially if Lindsay took women upstairs.
He took the elevator up to the third floor and retrieved the first aid kit from his bathroom. When he returned to her, she was still crying.
“You aren’t letting me go, are you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what he was going to do. The shrink should be dosing him with something. This sounded like the kind of insane half-baked thing Brian might do. He untied her wrists and ankles.
“I need to get this taken care of so it won’t get infected.” Her ankles were fine at least. She was wearing jeans. The skin underneath the denim was unmarked. It was only her wrists that looked bad.