Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (33 page)

I tried booting up my
computer, and the same thing happened---nothing. It was dead. You couldn’t even switch the thing on, it had been fried from the inside. I even detected a slight hint of ozone emanating from the surge protector when I crawled under the desk to check the power.

What
the hell had just happened? There wasn’t a thunderstorm or a power outage. And how does an iPad with a wireless Internet connection just suddenly up and die? There was only one explanation.

I’d been hacked. Peter had warned me that
Blushencko’s people were good at that sort of thing. They’d even managed to get past a NASA-grade firewall and Rostovich’s supposedly clean tablet with top-notch encryption software.

I crawled back out from underneath the desk and found myself facing a pair of shiny black boots and black suit pants. I gazed upward and recognized one of my German guards.
Rolf or Wilhelm, I didn’t know which---they were kind of hard to tell apart. “Um, I think I just got hacked,” I said, resting back on my haunches.

“
Yesdzt. I know.” One of the black boots rose and kicked me hard across the temple. I saw stars, and then the whole world went black.

ELEVEN

I came to in the back of a moving
box truck. My hands and feet were tightly bound with duct tape, and I was gagged with something that tasted like greasy dust. The truck was old and dirty, a cargo van of some kind. No light, no windows. I heard some rattling, and I was tied to something that felt rough and splintery. Storage pallets, maybe a crate. I had no idea how long I’d been out cold---it could have been hours or days.

“Is anyone else here?” I called out. Or tried to, anyway. All that came out from around the gag was a muffled “
Mrrghjwerhhere?”

I heard a muffled reply from the other end of the truck. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Hannah. I struggled against my restraints, trying to scuttle my bound body towards the sound, but couldn’t budge more than an inch or two. I moved my mouth against the gag, trying to block the awful taste from my senses as I attempted to say something intelligible. I didn’t manage much, only a series of grunts and moans, which were soon met with more grunts and moans from the other side of the truck, louder this time. Now I was sure the other voice belonged to Hannah.
I’d dragged her into this mess whether I liked it or not. Or you could argue we’d dragged each other into it.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t see. But I could still think, even though I had a splitting headache, especially on the side that had tangoed with the security guard’s boot.

Security guard
, I mused.
Hmph.
Some security guard. More like a hired goon.

Hired goon.
That sent my thoughts racing back to my mother and father in Boston. Hired goons had visited Mom already. What was happening to her now? Could they have returned? Was she bound and gagged in the back of a truck now too? I didn’t want to imagine the possibility.

And where did Peter fit into all of this? He’d sent those two guards over to my house to protect me, not to knock me unconscious and kidnap me. He’d seemed genuinely concerned for my safety and well-being
and had taken careful steps to protect me, or so I’d thought. He’d done everything he’d said he was going to do, there were no empty promises. Not that he made a lot of promises, but still---I’d never gotten any inkling that he was ever being insincere. And in my heart I knew he wasn’t. He must have gotten bamboozled somehow, just as I had.

.
How had I ended up here? Where had Peter’s plan to protect me gone awry? My reporter’s instincts took over and I mentally connected the dots.

Rolf and Wilhelm might have been working for Peter
Rostovich. But they were also working for someone else. Someone who wasn’t Peter’s friend.

Richard Darling’s words rang out in my throbbing brain.
Watch your back.
I hadn’t expected to heed that warning quite so soon----and it was already too late.

There was no point in trying to escape my restraints. Whoever had tied me had done too good a job. There was no point in trying to figure out where I was, either. I had no way of knowing how long we’d been on the road, or in which direction. All I could do was mull over my opt
ions, which weren’t many.

When I got to wherever it was they were taking me, I could do one of three things--- nothing, fight, or try to escape. None of them were particularly good options, especially since I knew there was a very real chance I’d be killed no matter which option I chose. Or maybe even something worse than being killed. Made a sex slave, perhaps? Sol
d? Beaten senseless? I’d likely choose death over those three options.

I finally decided on a fourth option of sorts. I was a reporter, so I decided to observe and ask as many questions as possible. If I got out of this ordeal alive, it would make a great story.

If
I got out alive.

This is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,
Delaney
, I told my inner self. Why couldn’t I be satisfied with just going to class and having a no-brainer part-time job, like normal college students? Why did I have to push the envelope so much? Why hadn’t I just done what my parents said and stayed behind in Boston, living at home and going to Beverly College on their employee tuition benefits for free? What would have been wrong with that?

Well, I’d have had to be around my mother
full-time for four more years, for one. I could not get away from my parents fast enough after high school. Staying in the same state as Mom and Dad had seemed like a fate worse than death at the time, let alone staying in the same house. I’m sure I’d have gone off to the loony bin long ago if I had.

Moreover, w
hy was I so ambitious? Why had I been so set on getting my professional clips portfolio built up before I’d even managed to graduate? What good had that ambition really done me, anyway? It had gotten me bound and gagged in the back of a moving truck, that’s what. And God only knew what was waiting for me at our destination.

Our
destination. I was already thinking of myself in terms of my captors. What was that called again? Stockholm Syndrome? Would I just obey their orders blindly no matter what? Would I join them in their criminal escapades, like Patty Hearst had with hers? Who were my captors, anyway?

Rolf and Wilhelm, probably. Or maybe Rolf and Wilhelm had just been sent as errand boys to fetch me. And who had sent them, really? I’d assumed Peter had, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe Rolf and Wilhelm
had met my real private security team off at the pass somewhere, intercepted the iPad, and then came to me under false pretense. Either that or they were double agents, working for someone else, maybe Blushencko. It all sounded like something out of a spy novel, but it made a lot more sense than Peter sending his own security guards to kidnap me. If Peter had really wanted to kidnap me, he’d have done it back at the Ritz-Carlton, when I was tied up and naked in his bed. No, Peter wasn’t behind this himself directly, he couldn’t be---that would be far too convoluted for words. I remembered Occam’s Razor---the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

My thought
s drifted back to my heady romp with Peter. It had happened only a day or so before, but now it seemed a distant memory, as if I were gazing back at myself through months or even years of haze and time. My crotch quickened and warmed as I remembered every detail of what had happened. The feel of silk and then of leather bindings against my skin, the fullness of his cock inside me. The thrust and pull, pull and thrust of pounding sex. The earth-splitting moment when I came, and came again.

I was bound and tied once more, but under different---and terrible---circumstances. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel excited as my limbs strained against the layers of tape. The feeling reminded me of the control I had surrendered---willingly---to Peter, and how incredible that had felt. Now I wasn’t just bound, tied, and gagged---I was blind, too, sitting there in the pitch blackness. I hadn’t consented to this,
of course, so it wasn’t the same. But it still made me think hard about the decisions I’d made over the past few days, and whether they were the right ones.

The more I thought about it though, the more I decided that if I had to do everything over again, I’d do everything the exact same way. I wouldn’t pass up any of these opportunities for the world, even if it meant I ended up dying in an alley somewhere. The experiences I’d had with Peter so far had been worth it. Who knew if I’d ever have had the
chance to feel the way I had back in that luxurious hotel bed otherwise? I might have ended up dying a virgin or a crazy cat lady. At least this way, I had a chance to die as a woman who knew what enormous pleasures her body was capable of feeling. So many women went through life never once knowing that, or even having the opportunity to learn.

Plus I had stumbled onto a potentially great story. Reporters fantas
ized about things like this one, not to mention getting “embedded” in with their high-risk, high-profile subjects. Being kidnapped by a mysterious international criminal syndicate when all I’d actually signed up for was a simple art review had to be one for the record books. Journalism students might read about me in class someday, whether I survived the ordeal or not. I had to make the most out of this opportunity, too. Even if I didn’t make it out of here alive, I’d still do my damndest to get my copy out, even if I had to send it via carrier pigeon.

My reporter’s brain ran through all the possible scenarios based on the facts I knew
so far. Peter had a prior association with Bluschencko, who was probably some kind of international crime figure. That association had gone bad, and someone----the redheaded woman in the photo, I guessed---associated with Peter was now dead. Richard Darling was mixed up in it somehow, too, likely through his association with Peter. Bluschencko’s people had been tailing me, and were interested in me for the same reasons that the mysterious redheaded woman---who if those photos where she appeared as a distorted shadow really had been taken in Sevastopol was somehow capable of in being two places at once, on opposite sides of the planet, even after she was dead. Either that, or she had an identical twin. Or maybe somebody out there was just really, really good at Photoshop.

Or maybe I was just losing my mind.

Stay focused, Delaney
, I ordered myself.
Whatever happens next can make you or break you.

The van bumped along for what seemed like hours, but I honestly had no way of knowing how long it actually was. Being bound and gagged in pitch darkness was like being suspended in a sensory deprivation chamber.
I had to work hard to keep from losing my grip on reality. Before long, I was hallucinating.

I’m in a room that is covered floor, walls and ceiling in studded black leather. In the center of the room is a long, low table, also upholstered in studded black leather. The silver studs decorate the edge of the table, while the flat surface is smooth and supple. The leather is of extraordinarily high quality---Spanish calfskin, double-tanned
until it’s buttery soft. To the right of the table is a rack made of polished mahogany with shiny brass trimmings. On the rack are an assortment of canes.

Not the kind of canes used for walking, mind you.
Another kind.

They are all hewn of sanded bamboo, in varying thicknesses----save one. That one is wood wrapped in leather, with the
leather thong ends dangling loose. A riding crop, some would call it, only longer and thicker. This riding crop wasn’t meant for quelling horses, however, but for bucking men and women. Or rather, to keep those bucking men and women in line.

I look down at myself and see that I am naked. I lie down on the table. It is twice as wide as it is long, and there are leather loops at each corner. I slip my feet and then my hands into each loop, and an unseen person tightens the loops against my skin. The leather cuts in hard, leaving red marks on contact. I am immobilized and spread wide, waiting to meet my fate.

The unseen person who tightened my restraints appears.  He is naked too, but masked. He wears a black feathered domino with a pointed nose and open mouth, reminiscent of the old Venetian Carnivale. Although he is masked, I know exactly who the man is, and what he intends to do to me.

The man is
Rostovich, and he plans to fuck me hard. But there is something else he must do first.

The man behind the domino goes to the mahogany rack. His hand pauses before the selection of canes. He picks up each one and inspects it closely, two of them twice. He finally settles on the riding crop. Longer and thinner than the type used on horses, he whacks it hard thrice against his palm, testing its heft and quality. Three resounding
cracks
echo through the air, their impact dulled somewhat by the abundant soft calfskin that covers everything in the room. I strain against my restraints, writhing and moaning as anticipation builds throughout my body. My sex is glistening and spread wide, a rose covered with early morning dew. But it is not enough. My sex requires more than just this light dusting of rain, it cries out for a torrential downpour, like the desert cries out for the thunderous springtime rains that sweep flash floods across the parched land.