A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

“You didn’t need to fuck them,” I said on a rasp. “Not with some of their kinks. They came to us because prostitutes didn’t cut it. They needed women that were depraved. Soulless almost.” I licked my lips. “I was their most valuable fucking employee.”

I let him digest that part about me, still drawing circles on his pec. There was nothing for me to be ashamed of. Not when I’d managed to claw my way out of a trailer park with a high school diploma and shitty grades.

“There weren’t many women who could cater to some of the men’s darker desires. They thought I was working for them, when in fact, they were working for me. They fed me. For years.”

My mind ran through the nights with the men. Always older. Sometimes only one. Usually more. They would do things to me. To each other while they were doing things to me. Others would watch. Rich couples trying to save a dying marriage. Women with similar needs to mine who were too scared to go all the way.

“While I was doing that, I put myself through college. I wanted to be a lawyer. Not out of any kind of lifelong dream, I just wanted to make money. The price of law school forced me to put that off, though. Even with the money I was making, I would’ve put myself in debt.”

My brow furrowed at the mere idea of the money I would’ve owed. What could’ve been hanging over my head.

Then my mind focused on just how many of my words were circling throughout this space.

“Everyone at my trailer park was in debt up to their eyeballs,” I pressed on. “They’d be driving fifty-thousand-dollar cars yet barely able to pay their electric bills. Loans, credit cards, payment plans … all made with the poor in mind. To keep them poor. Like I mentioned, I was not going to stay poor. I didn’t exactly plan to go about it the way I did, but the opportunity presented itself.”

He was still silent, still underneath me. But his arms were tight around me, a lock of my hair twisting around his finger, pulling my scalp to the point of pain. It was comforting, that pain. I couldn’t be sure but I took it as a sign that he was engaged with the conversation even though he was contributing little. His profile was etched out of the shadows.

“Keep going, Sienna,” he said, voice iron. “I’m not going to let you fucking stop until you’ve told me everything about yourself. Until I’m the only person on Earth who truly knows you.”

My skin prickled with discomfort and excitement at his words. This wasn’t something that happened with a one-night stand. Most men wanted my body. Wanted to feel like they owned it. Like they were the only fucking person on the planet who had touched me that way, like they owned my body.

But they did not want to know me. That would destroy whatever fantasy they’d created about the situation. About me. It would ruin their perception of themselves too.

This man, the one who had his arms around me to the point of pain owned my body in a way like every other man wished they could, he was unlike anyone I’d come across.

He wasn’t satisfied with my body.

He wanted my fucking soul too. I could hear the hunger for it in his voice.

I didn’t speak immediately. Maybe so I could lie to myself about the power he had over me. So I could pretend I was considering his order, like I had the option to refuse it. Refuse him.

“Edwin Pike came into the club. Requested me,” I sighed, a clock ticking in the room the only other thing puncturing the heavy silence that had descended after his demand.

“At the time, I didn’t know who he was, but I quickly learned. A name partner at one of the most powerful firms in the city. He was also married. Again, I didn’t know this at the time. But he liked to talk. I got to know him and got to know he wasn’t a good man. You don’t get to be in his position by being a good man. So I didn’t trouble myself with being a good woman. I blackmailed him,” I stated bluntly.

There was no reason to sugarcoat it, to try to make it palatable, acceptable. I wasn’t bothered by the morality of it, and I didn’t give a fuck whether this man was or not. I was testing him, on some level, giving him all of this information. I was seeing if he measured up to the man I’d created inside my head. Just how depraved was he? Would the truth of who I was disgust or excite him?

“I’ve been working at the firm for years now,” I added. “I earn more than enough money, so I don’t see the point in becoming a lawyer.”