She looks directly at the camera then, and I freeze. Can she see the red light? Or does she just know instinctively where the surveillance would be? Those blue eyes stare right at me, and for a sick moment, I imagine she can see me with my dick in my hand, watching her like a fucking pervert.
I jerk my hand away, disgusted with myself. With her. With whatever this twisted game is between us.
But I can’t force myself to look away from the monitors. Sofia has settled back in the chair, legs crossed at the ankle, looking for all the world like she's waiting patiently for a dinner reservation rather than sitting in a torture chamber. The calm is unnerving. Calculated.
I'm sick. Disgusted with myself. But I can't take my eyes off her, and soon my hand is stroking my cock again. I come hard in my hand, shame burning through me like acid.
6 - Sofia
The basement is cold. That’s the first thing. The kind of cold that seeps into bone and settles there like it owns the place.
My left wrist throbs where the leather restraint still bites into skin, and my body remembers the warmth of Alexei's fingers when he secured it. He cut my right hand free before storming out, leaving me half-bound to this torture chair like some unfinished thought. The knife I had strapped to my thigh lies on the concrete floor, just beyond reach of my free hand. He must have tossed it there after discovering it, after examining it with those pale eyes that miss nothing.
But not before his fingers brushed my thigh, and I had to bite back a gasp that had nothing to do with fear.
Testing the angle, I lean as far as the restraint allows. My fingertips brush the blade's handle but can't grasp it. The leather digs deeper into my wrist with each attempt, already leaving marks that will purple by evening.
There's another way. One that will hurt.
I grip my left thumb with my right hand, take a breath, and pull. The joint resists, then gives with a wet pop that echoes off concrete walls. Pain shoots up my arm, bright and immediate, but I've done this before. Nico taught me the technique years ago, though he never imagined I'd use it to escape from a Russian torture chamber.
Or that I'd be fighting the insane urge to stay.
My hand slips free of the restraint, thumb hanging at an unnatural angle. I grasp it again and pop it back into place with a hiss that I can't quite swallow. The joint throbs, already swelling, but it works when I flex my fingers.
The knife's weight in my palm grounds me, though my pulse quickens at the thought of Alexei discovering me gone. Not from fear. Something darker, more disturbing. Something that makes me press my thighs together despite the cold concrete beneath my bare feet.
I could leave now. Pick the lock, slip through his compound like the ghost I've trained to be. But running means abandoning answers about Mikhail, about the Russian words that haunt my dreams. About why Alexei's grief feels like my own, twisted and wrong and undeniable.
No.I stay. But on my terms.
The nightdress hangs on me like a potato sack. Rough cotton, shapeless, designed to strip away dignity along with style. The message is clear: you're nothing here. Not the Rosetti princess. Not even worth proper clothes.
My skin still burns where he looked at me in it this morning, his gaze dragging over the thin fabric like a physical touch.
The metal table bolted to the center of the room gleams under fluorescent lights, and I work around it, using its surface as a makeshift workspace. I select a small blade from his wall of tools. The edge gleams, recently sharpened, probably used for precision work of the kind that would interest Luca. The metal is cold in my hand, and I wonder whose blood it last tasted. The thought sends a dark thrill down my spine. This is what he does, who he is. And I'm using his own tools to remake myself.
The first cut transforms the neckline, creating a subtle V that actually flatters instead of strangles. I work methodically, each slice deliberate, but my mind keeps circling back to his fingers at my throat, the careful pressure that made me wet instead ofafraid. My hands shake as I cut another seam, and I tell myself it's from the cold.
Lies. Even to myself, I lie.
Taking in the waist requires multiple adjustments. Pinching fabric, cutting, knotting the excess into decorative gathers at my sides. Each modification is an act of defiance, but also something else. As the dress takes shape, clinging to curves instead of hiding them, I imagine his reaction. The way his pale eyes will darken, how his control might crack.
The thought makes heat pool between my legs, and I hate myself for it.
The hem gets shortened slightly to mid-thigh. Not scandalous, but enough to show I have legs, that I'm a woman and not a sack of flour. A slit up one side allows for movement, practical and subtly elegant. Hours pass as I work, the repetitive motion almost meditative, though every adjustment makes me hyperaware of my body. The way the rough cotton drags across my nipples. The bare skin now exposed to cold air.
I catch my reflection in the metal of a surgical instrument. Hair wild, cheeks flushed from exertion, the dress now clinging to curves I shouldn't want him to notice. I look like what I am: a woman playing a dangerous game with a man who could destroy me.
The worst part? Some dark, broken part of me wants him to try.
When I finally stand back to assess, the transformation is complete. What was meant to diminish has become armor. The rough cotton now hugs my curves, the improvised design making me look like I chose this outfit rather than had it forced on me.
But my fingers tremble against the fabric, remembering how easily he lifted me, carried me, overpowered me. How my body betrayed me by wanting more.
The door opens without warning. A guard enters, young, maybe twenty-five, with the kind of rigid posture that screams military training. He carries a tray: black bread, water, some kind of grey meat that might have been food in a previous life.
He sets it on the floor near the chair, careful to stay beyond arm's reach. Smart. Or trained. His eyes stay fixed on the wall behind me with an intensity that speaks of consequences.
