He yanks the thing out, whacking her one last time for good measure while she curls into herself. Her shoulders now shake with silent cries.
“What are you?” Issac says.
She sobs, her voice cracks like she’s incapable of speaking above a whisper now. “I’m… nothing.”
“What is your name?”
I can’t. I can’t…
I gasp with the word on the tip of my tongue, as the syllables scream in my head to be spoken.
But it hurts so much.
My body throbs with a pain I can barely process.
I just want to sleep, to eat, to be treated like a human being and not a…
“Dog. You are a dog.” The man says before shocking me again, and I twist into such a position my back screams in protest.
“Dog.” I repeat, sobbing.
My throat is so sore now, my body too broken. I know I’m a disgrace, that I should have fought better, fought harder. If I had my father’s courage, if I had my mother’s strength… but I have none of those things.
I am not brave.
I am not courageous.
I am a fool. A stupid fucking fool.
I sob harder and the sound is wrong, it’s distorted. My hands reach up to that awful tearing in my throat and I wonder if I did something serious, something permanent.
I keep my face down, keep my eyes averted. The man beat me again today.
He fucked me too, fucked me with that thing. He shoved it up my arse too. He brutalised me so badly it hurts to breathe. I don’t know how to process it, how to reconcile myself with the fact that this is my life.This.
Why did Antonio even buy me if this was all he wanted? Surely my pain and suffering was not worth the fortune he paid?
I shudder, curling up into the dirt. That’s what I am now. Dirt. Less than dirt.
I am nothing.
The cold rain mists my face while I stand motionless, waiting.
I left Grace to her training, but my mind keeps going back to it; the cold, clinical gleam of the cattle probe in Issac’s hand, the way her body would arch in a perfect, agonized bow as he fucked her over and over with it.
I wonder if she’s there right now, muscles locked, her scream a silent thing as we beat the disobedience out of her. Is the line beginning to blur for her? Is the shock still pure punishment, or has the searing jolt started to carry a different charge?
“Perimeter is clear,” Marco’s voice whispers in my ear, bringing me back out of my head.
Around me are the subtle, efficient sounds of my men preparing for violence. The rustle of tactical gear, the muted click of safeties being thumbed off, the low hiss of communication through earpieces.
They are my instruments. Twelve of them, all former Carabinieri or special forces, men who traded a faded flag for the clear, uncomplicated currency I provide.
They are good.
They are quiet.
And most importantly, they are mine.
