“I talked to the doctors and guards.” I sighed. “It’s a fucking disaster. I’ve never seen so much fucking blood in my life. T-that... poor—girl.” I grabbed his little garbage pail and vomited into it, wiped my mouth with my sleeve, then placed the can outside the door. When I returned to his office, he handed me a small bottle of water as I sat back down.
“Sir…”
I was used to everyone else in the training center referring to me by my title but not Ben.
With swollen, tearful red eyes, I met his gaze for the first time. “Are you sure you… Are you sure you want to do this… Give up all this leverage for her? I mean, are you sure it’s… worth it?” He almost flinched on the last two words.
“It’s done. I honestly don’t know, but it’s done. The cleaning crew has been sent to the office. You know what to do, right?” He knew I needed him to get rid of any recorded evidence that it was her who killed Callum, of me killing the real Elizabeth, and to switch their information on the files.
“Of course.”
I waited before placing the files on his desk—Magdalena’s and Elizabeth’s. He opened them and met my gaze.
“D-do you want to… watch it first?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and letting them fall a few times, with a grin on his face.
I burst out laughing. I’d needed the joke. “Do you realize you’re a closeted sick puppy?”
“That’s what Macy said last night.”
I laughed harder. God, I’d needed it, because in a few minutes, I would have to go back upstairs to deal with the drama queen of all drama queens. He didn’t love them. That was the fuckingproblem with both Mael and Callum—they always knew their father would only hate them, but for show’s sake, he’d be “grieving” for the next three months.
First, Ben served us half a glass of whiskey, neat.
Masterleftthatverynight with Callum’s body back to Monaco. He was beyond pissed at me that I had waited all day to tell him. “They killed each other,” I explained to him. “She’d stabbed him, and he shot her for it.” Dr. Laurent confirmed my story. I didn’t get to tell him that another slave had been executed by a serial killer in our facilities because, honestly, I forgot that whole part of my morning.
Magdalena took over every single cell of my body the minute I realized she was coming, especially the ones in my brain. There was a side of me that was jumping off the walls in excitement, wanting to see her. I was finally in a position where I could do anything I wanted with her body. Anything. But then there was another side of me who was beyond enraged at her even though I knew it was unreasonable to blame her. She didn’t even know what was going on, what she’d allowed to find her. Still, no matter how many days I waited, my anger wouldn’t calm. Several times I visited her in the medical unit while she was in a coma, but quickly left. As time passed, I finally came to accept most of my rage was at myself for being so obsessed with her.
Then the day came. I was in my office when my phone rang. “Sir, Dr. Avery has informed me that your slave has completely recuperated and is ready to start training.”
“I’ll be down there in a minute. Thank you, Manolo.” The minute I hung up the phone, I stopped being able to think. She was awake, under my care and training, now what? I finally had her all to myself to do with as I pleased for at least a year. I dropped everything and held my head while resting my elbows on the desk, raking my hair back while closing my eyes and remembering her that night in her dorm room, so defiant, violent, but carefree. How would she be after a coma in my training center? I stood and left my office, walking through the halls to the stairs, resisting the anxiousness I had to see her awake as soon as possible. The medical unit was only three floors below. I took long strides, determined to get there the very next second.
When I walked in, she was still asleep. The heart rate monitor had a consistent speed. I took her chart off the railing of the bed and read it while pacing. I already knew everything they’d put her through. Out of passive-aggressive spite and to force memory erasure, Dr. Laurent had ordered her drowned for too many minutes, pushing her into a coma. I wanted to yell at him and wring his neck for it, but I also didn’t blame him. Once she’d woken, they’d tattooed her and sealed her fate by injecting the tracer. Not every slave had their nails yanked off, but I had to let them do it to please the guards into silence. There was only so much leverage I could afford to lose for her. Because of her, I was in the phase of rebuilding relationships in my position. Then I saw the name on her chart,Dr. Lansbury. Fuck.He’d actually snuck into her care? I had hoped he wouldn’t be involved at all, but I had been too distracted with the mess she’d made and my anger to keep on top of it.
I walked out to the nurse’s desk with her chart. “How many days has the slave spent awake and ready for training?”
There were three male nurses at the station, and one had just exited another room across the room. They all stopped everything they were doing and looked at me with wide eyes. “Do I need to repeat my question?”
“It has been a week, Sir.” I turned around to find Henry behind me. He didn’t have a pleased expression. I scanned the area and all their faces. “And now is when I’m being notified?”
“Dr. Lansbury was in charge, Sir. Uhhh… He just left this early morning. Dr. Avery took over today.”
Once again that sick motherfucker had scurried away. I ground my teeth but resisted showing my anger and just nodded.
“I understand. When your shift ends, I’d appreciate it if you meet me in my office today.”
“My shift ends at three a.m, Sir.”
“Well then call me at three a.m.” I was giving him the stare that seemed to freak everyone out. I watched the anxiety rising in his eyes when I answered him, but in the end he nodded.
“Of course, Sir.”
I returned to her room and reread her chart for the fifth time, confirming they’d done as I’d asked and given her birth control. Some trainers liked torturing the slaves by breeding them. Hell, a lot of buyers loved buying slaves that were already on their third trimester, but that was not my jam at all.
I wanted to enjoy her body, sure, punish her for bewitching me the way she had, of course, but I wasn’t going to put my own baby in her so that someone could torture both of them without my supervision. And that was the best-case scenario in suchcases. As I again paced, waiting for her to wake, I wondered how much she’d remember about the last time I saw her.
When I finally turned to her, I found eyes widened by terror. Part of me was disappointed that the drugs I’d given her had worked so efficiently. She didn’t remember the night in her dorm room. Instead of radiating anger she radiated pure terror. Her mouth was stuffed so she would not speak, her wrists apprehended so she could not fight or move. It was all a punishment. Almost no other slave had ever been welcomed to our facilities like this. My gaze dropped to her chest as it collapsed faster and faster, and then the heart-rate machine went off. The beeping stabbed at my ears.God, how could people stand that abhorrent sound?I rushed to it and pushed the button to silence it, then returned my attention to her, nearing her. Apparently my presence terrified her to the point of hysterics. She started shaking her head and trying to pull as far from me as possible. My gaze dropped to the gag ball muffling her screams.
“Stop it.” My tone didn’t carry a drop of empathy. I was her trainer, nothing else. That meant I could no longer speak to her like a human being because she wasn’t one. She was just a slave. Subhuman. I was grateful when she stopped screaming and waited for her to calm herself.
