The gurgle of liquid in that fucker’s cup sounded sexual. Nick’s jaw ached as she came around and gave him the same treatment. Her tits bouncing under sheer fabric, that whiff of violets—did she have to look so fucking good? Was it necessary? The eyes of every man in the room followed her until the door clicked shut.
“Mmm,” Zhoglo murmured. “I love that air of haughty innocence. Attractive, if short-lived, by its very nature. It is always enjoyable to watch a woman learn her true place. I look forward to it.”
The smoke left a bitter taste, like a mouthful of dirt. Nick coughed.
“You must keep your cook presentable until this evening,” Zhoglo informed him. “A guest is being brought from Shepherd’s Bay. I wish dinner to be served to the two of us at seven-thirty.”
“Do you need someone to pick up your guest, Vor? I—”
“Yevgeni will handle that,” Zhoglo said smoothly. “Becca will provide just the right touch of decadence, half-dressed as she is. And my guest might enjoy her. I’ll offer her to him first, while she’s fresh and dewy. It is civil to share, no?”
Nick choked on smoke, and coughed again.
“For now, your duties shall be simple,” Zhoglo said. “Until I know exactly who I am dealing with, you will restrict yourself to setting tables, chopping vegetables, polishing silver. And live sex shows, of course.”
He swallowed. “Ah, yes, Vor.”
“Speaking of sex shows, I had regretted not organizing sexual entertainment for my new associate. And behold, my desires are neatly fulfilled. Convenient. She will do beautifully for my guest.”
Nick nodded. “I’m, ah, glad.”
“After he leaves, however, it will no longer be necessary to, how did you put it? Keep her in working order? We will leave tomorrow morning. She can be put to good use before she is dispatched. My men enjoyed her performance. They have been sitting on a boat with their dicks in their hands for days.”
Nick forced his mouth to open. “And your breakfast, Vor?”
Zhoglo shrugged. “I was tempted to wait until after breakfast. She has such a way with eggs. But I would prefer to conclude this business tonight. Even I am capable of forgoing my luxuries now and again.”
“I see,” Nick said.
“You will do the final honors. Any method you like. The procedure will be taped, of course. What arrangements have you made for disposing of the body?”
Nick cleared his throat again. “Ah…”
“I see. You do not have a plan,” Zhoglo said. “Now it is clear why you have not risen high in life. You are a man who thinks with his cock.”
“No,” Nick said. “I have a plan.”
“You are pale,” Zhoglo observed. “You are attached to the girl?”
Nick shrugged. “No. But she is an excellent cook. It seems a waste.”
“You should have thought of that before you brought her here,” Zhoglo chided. “But it is better that the loss be painful for you. One cannot have something for nothing, no? Sacrifice is necessary to obtain something of value. It makes you value it all the more. My trust, my confidence—they have value, Arkady. Incalculable value.”
“Yes, Vor,” he muttered.
“This shall be your sacrifice,” Zhoglo said briskly. “Look upon it as an initiation ceremony. After tonight, you will be one of us.” Zhoglo leaned over, and slapped him heartily on the back. His hand thudded against Nick’s body, jarring him as if he were made out of cement.
“You shall see,” Zhoglo encouraged. “It will be worth it.”
Chapter
9
If she kept her mind on a narrow wavelength and charged forward in a state of constant activity, she could function.
Drain the marinade. Roll the beef in the peppers and spices. Cut radish roses. Trim yellow bits from the parsley sprigs. Peel and shape the baby carrots into perfect, uniformly smooth bullet shapes—
Wrong turn. No bullets. She pinwheeled in her head, seeking her delicate balance again. Back onto that narrow track. The Task at Hand.
Go, go, go. Cook a fabulous meal while a cold-eyed thug held a gun on her and stared at her body like he wanted to take a bite out of it. Mr. Big was keeping them both company.
In this bizarre context, Marla’s diaphanous peasant top had morphed into a slutty thing that barely covered Becca’s butt cheeks. Her nipples showed right through. So did her pubic hair. She could be wearing a feather boa and tit tassels for all it hid. A clove of garlic fell from her numb fingers, and she stared down at it, unwilling to flash any bare, sensitive bits to retrieve it.
God, how she missed her underwear.
Mr. Big scooped up the garlic for her. Everything he did made a mess and cost her precious time, but she couldn’t think of dismissing him. She would start to gibber and scream if he left her alone. He was the closest thing to an ally that she had in this house of horrors.
She gave him low-risk, busywork jobs to perform, just to keep him close to her. His eyes had that flat, dead look, mouth tight and sealed, the look he’d had before he’d dragged her upstairs and—
No. She wasn’t thinking about that. Stop. Ignore it. All of it. Especially the other man who crouched like a fat spider in the salon, waiting for his dinner.
She was actually quite good at ignoring terrible things. She’d gone through intensive training when she was twelve, when Dad got sick.
Dwelling on that episode of her life was a big screaming no-no, in terms of mood management. But she was miles beyond mood management right now. She was hanging on to sanity by her fingernails.
Just like she had back then. She recognized that sick ache. Grief. Fear. They were hard to tease apart. Hell of a time to be thinking about the bad old days. Maybe her life was flashing before her eyes. She was going to miss her life.
OK, back to the past.
Mom had forgotten that she even had kids, she’d been so focused on taking care of Dad. Becca didn’t blame her for it. She’d been the oldest child, nine years older than three-year-old Josh, ten years older than two-year-old Carrie. She’d taken over cooking, groceries, diapers. She’d kept the little kids bathed, gotten them off to sleep, heated Carrie’s bottles, cut the crusts off Josh’s toast, kept them occupied so they wouldn’t be a bother.
She’d soon discovered that being busy helped. It left no time to think about Dad lying in the bed with the morphine drip, that hollow look in his eyes that told her the morphine wasn’t enough. No time to dwell on bedsores, bedpans, the smell of disinfectant. Mom’s haggard face.
Becca focused instead on getting oatmeal into Carrie’s wriggling body, peanut butter sandwiches and scrambled eggs into Josh’s. Getting the laundry done, the dishes washed, the garbage taken out. Busy, busy, busy. It helped. It really did.
