And then they were in the elevator together. All five of them. She kept her eyes averted from Olly, who’d finally gotten more life in him. He smelled absolutely disgusting, having soiled himself in the trunk. She moved closer to Nicholas, and then wondered if she did so out of a ridiculous loyalty that was only minutes away from being betrayed.
The elevator ride seemed to take forever and yet also be too short. Beside her, Nicholas asked the other men something in another language. Russian.
And then, before she was ready, the elevator dinged and the men holding Olly between them stepped out, dragging him between them. He started struggling, though Sloane had no clue why. What good did he think it would do him at this point?
For her sake, she tried to walk with as much dignity as she could. She’d didn’t know if there was some way that was smarter to play this. All Nicholas said was not to speak—no worries there. She looked down at herself. She was wearing one of Nicholas’s oversized button up shirts, leggings, and ballet flats. Her hair was disheveled, she hadn’t even had time to tie it back or comb it. She had no clue what kind of impression she was trying to make or if it mattered at all.
She was almost sure she was walking into something where her entire future was about to be determined and she had no say about anything, in a world and situation she didn’t understand. Yet some instinct for self-preservation kept her from going into a full-blown freakout—something she frankly hadn’t known she was capable of. Turned out when she was scared enough…
They walked down a seemingly endless hallway and then one of the men who’d been holding up Olly knocked on a door. “Boss? It’s us. We’re here with the package.”
The door opened and the two went in with Olly. Nicholas took a firm grip on Sloane’s upper arm and tugged her forward as they followed them in.
Sloane wasn’t sure what she was expecting when they got inside. But it wasn’t a man sitting on a huge, throne-like chair with a woman on her knees in front of him sucking him off.
Sloane immediately averted her eyes but no one else batted an eye. Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. She’d been so proud of herself for not hyperventilating before she’d gotten in the room, but if this was the kind of place where they expected their women to—
Stable of whores. Stable of whores.
Her heart started racing so hard she heard the rushing in her ears. Oh God, she was so screwed.
“Papa Dimitri, sir. I bring you Olezka Tereshchenko, as promised,” Nicholas intoned, his voice full of deference. The other two men dragged Olly forward.
“Take the tape off his mouth,” Dimitri said.
The man on the left ripped the tape off and Olly immediately began gushing words. “I know who you are and if it’s ransom you’re looking for, my father will pay. Just let me talk to him. Get him on the phone. We can work something out. You let me live this long so obviously you want something from us. Let’s talk, I know we can work out a deal—”
The man they called Papa made a motion with his hand and the guy shoved the tape back over a still speaking Olly. Sloane had glanced up enough to see what was going on. Papa Dimitri did all this while the woman continued sucking him off. In fact, he’d grabbed her head and shoved her more roughly down on him.
Sloane struggled not to pull back from Nicholas’s grip at the scene in front of her.
“Give him a phone, let him dial,” Papa Dimitri ordered with no more urgency than if he was ordering a pizza. He continued with his hand on the woman’s head, fist in her hair, pumping her up and down on his cock.
They cut his hands free just enough so he could dial on a cell phone one of the men produced.
“Make it a video call,” the boss ordered. “Show Tereshchenko I have his son.”
One of the men pushed the call button and Sloane could only watch on, horrified, as the scene in front of her played out.
An older man’s voice came on the line. “Olezka!” called out a heavily accented voice.
Olly fought and tried to get free, screaming against the tape at his mouth, but the two thugs on either side of him held him tight.
They handed off the cell phone to Nicholas and he held it without saying a word when Papa Dimitri called, “now pan to me.”
Nicholas did. “Hello, Tereshchenko, my old friend. Look, your son came to visit.”
“You fucking son of a whore, let my son go!”
Dimitri tut tutted, never once letting up on the girl’s head. From where Nicholas held the phone, Sloane could see she was in frame. No doubt he knew his boss well enough to know that was the way the man wanted it.