ChapterTwenty-Seven
Gio put his tech team on finding the user on the Hit and Run message board, but the profile had been deleted. They then tried to track the money from Franz’s bank account, but once again, they came up empty. Gio’s tech team is good, but whoever wiped all traces of the transaction is even better.
With no leads to go on, everyday life takes over, and Dad’s killer gets pushed to the background for the moment. Gio and I stay busy mowing down other families who thought we’d be easy pickings with Dad gone. They were wrong. Eventually, we kill enough people for them to start taking us seriously, and business continues as usual.
Six more months go by, and I finally graduate from high school. I’ve decided not to go to college, but Gio is keen to return. He won’t be living in the dorm, instead he will return home each night.
Sage has taken over most of the drug branch of the business, while I handle the casinos and clubs, and Gio does guns and everything else. Between the three of us, we have a handle on things—except for the escorts branch. That’s still in Lorenzo’s hands. Gio has people trailing him and Penelope daily, making sure they aren’t stepping out of line, but I have this funny feeling everything is coming to a head. I thought for sure they would start a relationship now that Dad is out of the way, but their relationship seems to have gone in the opposite direction, and they are barely civil to one another. I had also been expecting a lawsuit after Penelope’s threats at the reading of the will, but nothing seems to have eventuated from that. I’m not sure if she was told she had no case or if she’s biding her time. Both have been quiet, too quiet, and it has us worried, but all we can do is wait and handle the fallout if it happens.
* * *
The club is hopping tonight when I walk through the doors and down the set of stairs. My mask and wig are firmly in place, and my Russo tattoo has been covered by heavy stage makeup. No one would ever know that the woman wearing the slinky red lingerie under the fake black fur coat is Victoria Russo, coheir to the Russo empire.
I have a playdate with a new sub who practically begged me to take him on after watching a public scene I did with one of my female subs. Normally I don’t look twice at men, but there was something about this one. He’s all smooth planes and golden skin, so he has so much more landscape for me to draw my blade across. There was also something in his blue eyes that resonated with me, a pain that needed an outlet, and I happily agreed to give it to him. I was pleasantly surprised when I enjoyed it the first time and eagerly agreed when he asked for another session.
Striding through the crowd, I make my way to the bar and order myself a drink, turning to lean against it and watch everything that’s going on around me. While some sex clubs are apparently pretty tame, this one definitely caters to the wilder patrons. Although there are private rooms, there are no fucks given about anything happening out in the open either. There’s a large center stage surrounded by lounges and booths, and a scene is taking place at this moment. Darkness surrounds the stage except for the spotlight shining down over the participants. A young redheaded woman is bent over with her hands and head in the stocks, unable to move as one man fucks her face and the other one fucks her from behind. All of them are wearing the required mask, but theirs match, so I assume they are together. Patrons are allowed to wear whatever mask they want so long as they don’t remove it while in the club. Anonymity is respected here, and though there are those who are in relationships and have dealings outside the club, in here, they must follow the rules.
The sounds of her passion are intoxicating, so I move deeper into the room in the hope that I can get a better look.
The man at her head is choking her on his dick, his ass and leg muscles flexing deliciously with each thrust. I move around to have a look at the man behind her. He’s got her hips gripped in both hands and is powering into her as hard as the man in front of her. The tattoos on his arms catch my eye, but before I can make out any detail, I’m tapped on the shoulder.
“Mistress V, your room is ready and Romeo is waiting for you,” the staff member informs me, and I lose all interest in the scene behind me. As I make my way through the crowd to the back of the club, I think back to how I ended up here in the first place.
“Fucking hell, Tori,” Gio growls with frustration, grabbing his head in his hands as the latest person we brought in for interrogation passes out from blood loss.
When he looks up at me again, I flinch at what I see. His annoyance at me and the fury he felt for the person we had been questioning has been replaced by pity.
“Tori, you need help or a better outlet. You can’t keep killing all the people we bring in here just because you like to see them bleed. It’s gone too far, sweetie.” He comes over to me, takes the knife out of my hand, and leads me out of the interrogation room. “You are banned until you get some semblance of control. If you want to make someone bleed, I’ve found a place where you can do that and they will enjoy it. It might be better to have people enjoying you cutting them as opposed to not getting any satisfaction because all they do is scream. Maybe you will find more pleasure in it if they get off on it.”
I was so confused when he told me to dress up, and he and Sage took me to my first sex club, one that dealt with a darker side of pleasure. I mentored with a Dom for a few weeks to learn the ropes and get a grip on my control that really had disappeared. There was no choice, killing people at the club was frowned upon. Now I get a rush from the fact that I can control my need for violence and the look in my subs’ eyes when I give them exactly what they need.
Blood play is a very specific form of pleasure, and there weren’t a lot of Doms who offered it at the club, so when I expressed my enjoyment, it wasn’t long before I had a regular rotation of women wanting to feel the steel of my knife—women who don’t shy away from the tightly coiled violence in my eyes. Instead, they get wet and purr like kittens as I bring them to orgasm after orgasm.
My own orgasms that I experience as I drag my knife across the smooth skin of my subs and watch their blood bloom on the surface are beyond transcendent.
But my new male sub has been an eye-opening experience. While Sage and I have flirted and exchanged a kiss, it hasn’t gone any further than that. There’s a level of trust that I hesitate to ruin by making our relationship sexual. He gives me something on another level that I need so badly—emotional stability in a world ruled by chaos. It’s something I thought I had with Stacey, and she proved me so wrong.
My new male sub mostly likes me to rub my naked body over his while he bleeds, and he does beg so prettily for my knife. It turns me on something fierce like no man, other than Sage, ever has before, but I worry it’s actually the blood and not the man.
I quietly enter the door to my private room where Romeo is waiting for me. The bed is a wrought iron four-poster that allows me to tie my subs up in creative ways. The lighting is dim, and there’s a cupboard of new, packaged toys to be used at my pleasure. There’s also a little corner with some seating, but I never use it.
The staff knows my requirements for my subs, so he is restrained nicely. The cuffs, which are attached to chains bolted into the ceiling, circle his wrists, suspending him spread-eagle for me. He’s naked apart from a pair of tight black briefs that do nothing to hide his delicious buttocks. He’s facing away from me, and although he briefly stiffened when he heard me come in, he’s relaxed, waiting silently and patiently as he should while I admire his form. Romeo, which is a false name much like my Mistress V, is muscular and has nicely defined thigh and calf muscles, as well as biceps and pecs—all favorite spots of mine to use my knife on. While I love to see the blood well upon his skin, I’m not here to do damage to him, in fact, quite the opposite. My subs bring a feeling of peace to my mind when I am allowed to cut them, and for that alone, I will cherish them and take care of their needs.
I walk forward, the sound of my heels deafening in the room, which is soundproofed from the outside. There is a camera that monitors everything that goes on in the room for the sub’s safety, but I ensure that when I leave, the footage is erased. I run my finger along Romeo’s back, and a shiver flows through his body.
“Hello, Romeo,” I whisper as I lean over him. The soft fur of my coat brushing across his skin, combined with my breath sweeping across his ear, causes goosebumps to cover his body, and I smile. He is so reactive.
“Mistress,” he sighs like it’s a relief that I’m here.
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” I move around to the front of him and step back so we can look at one another. Romeo’s body is free of any adornment, which makes it an absolute landscape for my knife.
I reach into my pocket and feel for my special knife, the one Aunt Carla gifted to me at the very start of all of this. It’s sitting next to my gun, which I refuse to go anywhere without. I slide it out, leaving the gun hidden, before shrugging out of my fur coat and leaving it to pool at my feet. I watch his eyes widen as he takes in my lingerie-clad body. My bra cups barely cover my nipples, and what little bit of fabric exists is sheer, same with the tiny black thong. I wanted to wear stockings and a garter because I know Romeo enjoys how I look, but I like to kick off my heels, so there’s no real point anyway.
My eyes trail down his body and stop at the thick bulge in his briefs. “That looks uncomfortable,” I say, gesturing to it with my knife. Any lesser person would have flinched, but I swear his nipples get harder and his dick pulses.
“Are you ready for me, Romeo?” I ask.
“Yes, please.” His voice is filled with longing.
