The Ring
Chapter III
Two Years Ago
The black town car slowed to a crawl as it approached the mansion, flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the black tinted windows as a sea of black SUV’s came into view.
“Sir?” The driver looked into the back, unsure of what to do.
“Shit!” the man in the back hissed, pulling out his phone. “Those mother fuckers!”
“What would you like me to do?” The driver asked, almost at a stop.
“Turn the fuck around Donald. Get me the hell out of here while I get to the bottom of this!” He was already making a call, pressing his phone to his ear.
The driver put the car in reverse, only for a pair of big black SUVs to pull up behind them, pinning them in the driveway.
“Hello! What the— drive! —what the fuck is going on, my house is crawling with feds!”
Donald’s loyalty to Kirk Brentwood only extended so far. He put the car in park and put up the partition to the back, turned off the car, and put his hands on the wheel in plain sight. He was paid well, but not well enough to risk going to jail too. He listened to his employer’s muffled raving and banging on the window while he watched out his side mirror.
Agent Elizabeth Harper climbed out of the lead SUV. A smug smirk crossed her lips as she advanced on her quarry. She strode right up to the back door, her reflection mirrored back at her in the black tinted windows. Her bulletproof vest proudly proclaimed “FBI” in big yellow letters.
“Remember that warrant you told me to get?” She held up a piece of paper to the glass. “I got it.”
The door on the opposite side opened and Kirk got out, running on foot. Donald jumped as the FBI agent vaulted over the hood of the car, sliding gracefully into a sprint on the other side. Donald leaned forward and watched with mild amusement as the agent tackled his boss and put him in handcuffs. It was time for a new job anyways.
“You bitch,” Kirk spat.
“Kirk Brentwood, you’re under arrest.”
Kirk grunted as she roughly hauled him to his feet. “This won’t stick.”
“That’s not my call, I’m just here to arrest you,” she said, frog marching him back towards her vehicle.
“Ellie! Before you go, there’s something you need to see.” Another agent ran up to her as she pushed Kirk into the back seat.
“I got what I’m here for. Just bring it in Marcus,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, you need to see this.”
She looked at her scowling prisoner. “What did you do?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“I want to speak to my lawyer.”
“I’ll bet you do,” she said before slamming the door. “Keep an eye on him,” she told another agent. “What’ve you got for me Marcus?”
“Better you see for yourself.”
He took her inside, where Kirk’s mansion was crawling with FBI agents, cataloguing everything. The CFO had embezzled millions and defrauded investors; everything would go.
“What am I looking at?” she asked as he took her into one of the guest bedrooms. She walked over to the bed, noting the cuffs affixed to the corners of the four-poster bed. “He and his wife are into some kinky stuff.”
“Oh, that’s not the half of it,” Marcus said, opening the closet door. He swept aside a myriad of sexy costumes and negligees, reaching for the back wall. Elizabeth peered over his shoulder as he pushed. There was a clicking noise, and then he slid the back panel to the side, revealing another room.
“What the hell?”
Marcus stood back and let her push through the closet and duck into the small, windowless hidden room.
A small mattress was on the floor in corner of the room, and a toilet stood in the other. A heavy chain was bolted to the bare cement floor in the center of a room, about the length of the small room itself, ending in an open manacle.
“Was there...” she trailed off, unable to take her attention off exploring the small space. A single, dim lightbulb lit the room. There was a tray with some crumbs and a big stainless steel bowl of water on the floor by the door.
“Someone in here?” Marcus finished for her.
She looked back at him, eyebrows raised incredulously. He nodded. “Christ. Who?”
Marcus shrugged. “His slave? She’s waiting outside for the paramedics. I just wanted to show you this before letting you talk to her.”
“Is she okay?”
“Like, physically, she looked alright, but,” he gestured around the tiny room. “Would you be?”
Elizabeth shuddered. “No, no I would not. But you know what this means right?”
“What?”
“It means that bastard is never getting out of jail,” she said, her smug smile returning to her lips as she ducked back through the closet, taking one last look back at the hidden room.
The paramedics had arrived when Ellie and Marcus made it outside. Ellie was greeted with the sight of a young woman, probably in her early twenties, sitting in the back of the ambulance. She was wrapped in a blanket while one of the paramedics was taking her blood pressure.
“Mind if we have a moment?” she asked the paramedic.
She nodded, pulling the velcro sleeve off the very pale blonde girl’s thin arm. “I’ll be right outside,” the paramedic said as she hopped out of the ambulance and the agent climbed in to replace her.
“I’m agent Elizabeth Harper.” Ellie studied the girl. Her big blue eyes conveyed a mix of terror and confusion.
The girl nodded.
“I’m here to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
“He called me his flower,” she said softly.
Ellie’s stomach churned. “Did you have a name before that? One that he didn’t give you?”
“I was 221–” she stopped, catching herself. “I used to be Lauren. Lauren Margaret Redding.”
“Lauren, do you have any family? Any people that might be looking for you?”
Lauren burst into tears. Outside the ambulance Ellie could see Marcus mouthing “smooth.”
The agent ignored him and tentatively put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. The crying girl shied away from her touch. “It’s going to be okay. You’re safe now. I’m going to make sure he goes to jail, for a long time. They’re going to take you to the hospital now, but later, if you’re up to it, I’d like to talk to you. With your help, I can make sure he never, ever gets out of jail.”
Lauren nodded, sniffling.
“It’s going to be okay.” Ellie put her hand out again and placed it on the back of her hand, and this time the girl didn’t cringe away. “I promise.”
Lauren nodded, looking at least a little reassured.
“I’ve gotta wrap some things up here, but I’ll come check on you soon, alright?”
Lauren again nodded. “Alright,” she said, her voice wavering.
Ellie got out and rejoined her partner. “You the one who found her?”
“Nah, it was Hernandez, found the secret door in the closet while doing a sweep. She was chained up in there, completely naked and gagged. It’s some fucked up shit,” Marcus said.
Ellie nodded. “Yeah. Let’s take him in.”
Kirk was glaring at her from the back seat when they returned. She got in the driver’s seat and Marcus got in on the other side.
“You wanna guess what we found?” she asked, angling the rear view mirror so she could look him in the eyes.
“I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“Maybe we should give him a hint,” Marcus said, turning in his seat.
“Lawyer,” he repeated.
“You can call your lawyer as soon as we book you, I promise. This is just us chatting as we drive,” she said as she started the car.
Kirk was silent.
“Give him a hint,” Ellie told Marcus.
“About five and a half feet tall, give or take. Blonde hair. Blue eyes.”
Kirk shifted uncomfortably in the back seat.
“Ringing any bells?” Ellie asked.
He stared daggers at her reflection in the rear view.
“How about this for a hint,” she said. “It means you can forget about a comfy stint in white collar prison. Add kidnapping, sexual assault and human trafficking to your list of charges, and I’m sure there’s more than a few others.”
There was a long pause, and then he spoke. “I want a make a deal.”
“You don’t want your lawyer for that?” Marcus asked.
“For what?” Ellie asked, incredulous.
“Immunity.”
She slammed on the brakes and whipped the car onto the side of the road. Ellie unbuckled and turned around to face him.
“I’m sorry, this I have to hear. You think you have something we want so bad there’s a judge in this state who would offer you immunity?”
He stared at her. All the anger and fear were gone from his face. “I’ll give you the people who sold her to me.”
“The lowlife you paid to kidnap a girl for you to play with isn’t worth immunity, sorry.”
“Trust me, you want these people. A massive, international organization dedicated to kidnapping, training and selling women.”
Ellie turned back around and got the SUV moving again. Marcus could read his partner. She was done humoring this pig. They had worked hard to build a case against Kirk Brentwood, and finally bringing him in was big. Ellie wouldn’t hear of him getting anything other than the full justice he deserved.
“I can give you names, bank details, every thread you need to pull on to unravel The Ring.”
“It’s THE RING, is it?” Marcus asked. “Your good at hiding money, but creativity isn’t your strong suit.”
“Laugh all you want. It’s real, and you’re not going to get a better shot than me.”
“You embezzle from them too?” Marcus asked.
“I’m not telling you anything else without a deal in place. Full immunity,” he repeated.
“Never gonna happen,” Ellie said, her grip tightening around the steering wheel as she brought in her prisoner.
***
Ellie didn’t know where she was. Wherever she was it was dark, and that wasn’t just attributed to the blindfold. She’d not managed to get the fitted leather strapped to her face off entirely, but after a lot of rubbing against her shoulder, it had loosened enough to get glimpses under the edges, to reveal wherever she was being kept, it was pitch black.
She’d failed. She should have seen through the old man’s ruse. The agent had been blindsided by the sheer scale of the operation, so much so that she hadn’t noticed the head of the snake, proudly showing off its body.
She shook in a fit of frustration. She knew her bonds wouldn’t budge, but she couldn’t help herself. Her wrists and ankles were securely strapped down, keeping the naked agent spread eagle on her back on a hard surface. She’d been helpless like that for at least an hour since she woke up, and who knew how long while she was still unconscious after that old bastard had chloroformed her.
And now he had her. Wesley.
She hadn’t even considered this catastrophic level of failure. She’d been worried that Grace would spook them or she’d call in back up prematurely and they’d just round up a couple of flunkies and the head of the operation would keep on running his business of kidnapping and selling women. The possibility that she might end up as one of those captured women hadn’t even occurred to her. Die, maybe, but not be enslaved. Death was always a risk in her line of work. She’d been shot twice before and shot at more times than she could remember. But this was new. She thought about 7023, the detective that had managed to shoot Wesley, who he kept with him like a trophy, for years and years.
Failure or not, Ellie wasn’t ready to give up hope. The FBI knew what she and Grace were working on. When they didn’t report back, the investigation would open up and the FBI would actually invest some resources into breaking this sex trafficking ring. Imagining her coworkers finding her like one of the girls on display was mortifying. None of them would ever be able to look at her the same way again, but that was better than the alternative.
***
Two Years Ago
The flashing lights out front of the hospital weren’t out of the ordinary, but still Agent Harper was on edge the moment she pulled up. She was tired and after months and months of putting work first, she was looking forward to taking some time to herself. It wasn’t a done deal yet, but the case against Kirk had pleased her superiors, and it was almost guaranteed that she was looking at a promotion, so she had a couple weeks to relax and take time off before she was even more married to her job, but with better benefits.
There was just one thing she had to do first.
“What do you think is up?” Marcus asked as he got out, eyeing the fleet of police cruisers parked at the front of the building.
“I don’t know. Nothing good,” she said, grabbing her FBI windbreaker from the back seat and throwing it on.
“Fingers crossed it’s not our problem.”
“I think our string of good fortune is at an end. Let’s go.”
The two agents cut through the crowd to a uniformed officer posted at the doors.
“Agent Harper, Agent Davenport. What’s going on?” Ellie and Marcus flashed their badges.
“Someone impersonated a doctor and took a patient.”
Both Ellie and Marcus stiffened. “Who?” they asked in unison.
The officer shrugged. “I’m not sure. You should talk to Sergeant Hansen.” He ushered them into the hospital and pointed them towards the elevator. “Second floor.”
“Thanks.” They got onto the elevator. Marcus watched as she hit the “2” button over and over in rapid succession. “You think it’s our witness?”
“Of course it is. Fuck!”
“You think Kirk’s behind this?”
She gave him a look.
“Fair enough. Question is, is it him trying to get leverage, or is his mysterious slavery ring real?”
The elevator doors opened before she could answer. The floor was teaming with more cops, interviewing patients, nurses and doctors. Ellie scanned the room, spotting the sergeant, a large, gray haired man talking to a frazzled looking woman in scrubs.
“Sergeant Hansen?”
“Yes?”
“Agent Elizabeth Harper and Agent Marcus Davenport, FBI. What’s happened?”
He shook their hands, explaining, “Someone drugged Doctor Kim here,” he gestured to the woman in scrubs, “impersonated her and checked out a patient.”
Ellie scrutinized the Doctor. Her eyes were puffy, and the skin around her mouth was red. She tugged the sleeves of her scrubs lower, trying to hide the deep impressions made by plastic ties in her wrists.
“What patient?” Ellie asked.
“Lauren Redding. She was checked in today.”
“We know,” Marcus said. “She was a witness of ours.”
“Is there security footage?” Ellie asked. She was already looking around, clocking the cameras hanging from the ceiling at the corners of the hallways.
Sergeant Hansen nodded. “We’ve got copies sent in for a more detailed look, but I already looked them over. Whoever it was was good, knew where they were, kept their head down. Got the Doc here in a blind spot, got her into a supply closet and tied her up.” He gestured down the hall. The doctor blushed. “Went into the patient’s room then, got her into a wheelchair, from the looks of it sedated her too, and wheeled her right into the elevator there and then right on out the door, and of course their vehicle was also just outside of camera range. We’ve been asking around for witnesses, we’ve got eye witness reports of maybe a white minivan, but no license plates.”
Ellie was rubbing the bridge of her nose. Marcus looked at the doctor. “Are you alright?” he asked her.
“I think so. I felt someone grab me from behind, and then the pinch of a needle, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a closet. I’d been tied up and gagged. I was unconscious for at least an hour, and probably struggling for another twenty minutes before someone heard me and found me.”
“I want to follow up with the paramedics who brought her in, and I want a list of everyone who saw her today,” Ellie said. She turned to Marcus. “We need to bring Kirk’s lawyer in.”
“What for?”
“Kirk must’ve had him arrange this. How else would they know she was here?”
“Um, I might have an explanation for that,” the doctor said timidly.
“What?”
“We x-rayed her when she came in. It didn’t make much sense when I saw it, but now it might.”
“What is it?” Ellie asked.
“She had a microchip implanted in her.”
“Like you’d put in a dog?” Marcus asked.
The doctor nodded. “Yeah, this one was a bit bigger. The microchips they put in pets store information that the vet can read, so if they find an animal that’s been chipped, they can see who the owner is. But they can’t be tracked remotely. But a larger one like this, it’s possible it was a tracking chip.”
“Do you have those X-rays?”
Doctor Kim nodded.
“Get them for me.”
Sergeant Hansen thought about pointing out that the police had jurisdiction over the case as of that moment, but he could tell from the look in Agent Harper’s eye that he was about to lose the case to the FBI.
***
The rhythmic tapping of a cane on hard floors drew her from her thoughts, and she looked around blindly in the direction of the sound, her heartbeat speeding up and her breath coming quicker.
“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Maddox. Though I suppose that’s not your real name.”
“You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.” She could sense him. He was close, and she was elevated off the ground, probably on a table.
“Depends. At times, Pembroke suits me. To many I am Wesley. And to you, to the women I take, the girls I make helpless and break, I am simply Master.”
“You’re just a pathetic piece of shit who couldn’t get a girl to suck your dick willingly so you had to resort to the fact that you’re bigger and stronger to force them to do what you want. You can go on and on about your fancy technology and business, but you’re nothing but a caveman, a savage brute who’s still dragging women by the hair back to your cave to rape them.”
He laughed. “Is that what you get from all your criminal profiling training in the FBI?”
She kept silent, trying not to betray herself with any reaction that she was surprised he knew she was FBI.
“Oh yes, I know you’re FBI. They raided my warehouse, but by then you and all the other goods were already boxed up on a truck 100 miles away.”
She was frantically doing the math in her head. Conservatively, the FBI would have arrived two hours after they left. But of course, they could still have traveled after that point. There was no way of knowing how much further or how much time had passed.
And of course, the fact remained that everything he told her could be complete and utter bullshit.
“They didn’t find anything,” he continued. “But it was nice to know who’s been sniffing around after me. And it’s only a matter of time until I find out who you really are.” She flinched as he finished his sentence by touching her bare stomach.
Her nostrils flared, but she kept her mouth shut, refusing to play his game.
“It’s a shame you were unconscious when I searched you.” His fingers spread out until his palm cupped her toned stomach. “I didn’t find anything.” His hand drifted lower, his fingertips running through her pubic hair. “And I was very thorough.” His fingers were cold against her sensitive flesh as he spread her lower lips. “I could always search you again.”
“Go ahead.” She had to say something, to mask her revulsion and growing fear with stoicism.
He chuckled. She could feel his other hand on her breast, his cold fingers twisting around her nipple. “Even if you had brought in any surveillance or communication devices, the warehouse had a signal dampener,” he explained as he groped her. “But it’s always a good idea to check. As I’m sure you know, all my products are microchipped.”
She remembered Lauren well.
“You’ll be given your own, soon enough.”
She gasped as he plunged his fingers into her. First two, then a third, then a thumb before they spread, painfully opening her. She exhaled harshly through gritted teeth, but refused to give him the satisfaction of making her cry out, even though she knew she was in store for much, much worse.
***
Two Years Ago
Ellie couldn’t hide her frustration as she stormed out of the Deputy Director’s office. Marcus followed after her, dragging his feet, his head hung low.
“Obviously we couldn’t offer him immunity, but we could have done made some sort of deal to get him to talk.” Her fists were clenched, hanging straight down at her sides as she briskly made her way back towards their offices.
“It’s not our call.” He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Ellie stopped and spun to face him, her ire turned towards him.
“Maybe if you had had my back! What the hell Marcus?”
They were both tired. Ellie had kept him up all night, texting while they waited to talk to the Deputy Director in the morning about cutting a deal with Kirk to get him to give them information on the slavery ring he claimed to have purchased Lauren Redding from. It was still the only lead they had on her disappearance, but that little fact had not been enough to get Deputy Director Johnson to change his mind.
“Look, he was never going to agree to any sort of deal. Better he only be annoyed at one of us.”
“So you’re just a coward.”
“A day ago, neither of us would have considered any sort of deal.”
“A day ago an innocent woman hadn’t been kidnapped right out from under us!”
Marcus sighed, putting his head in his hand. “It sucks, Ellie. It really does. But we also put a guy in jail yesterday that belongs there.”
“Oh, all those poor stockholders he swindled are really suffering,” she said, sarcasm masking her rage.
“How did you go completely 180 on this? Yeah, embezzling isn’t human trafficking, but Kirk’s guilty of sexual harassment, underpaying and exploiting his employees, discrimination.”
“I promised that girl she was safe Marcus! I looked her in the eyes and told her everything was going to be okay!” Her voice trembled. Heads had popped out of their offices around them to see what the commotion was. Ellie didn’t care. She wiped at her eye with her sleeve.
“I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “What do we do?”
“I dunno. We investigate it. We find another lead if Kirk won’t talk. Maybe there’s something else he wants.”
“Ellie, go on that vacation you were planning. You earned it. See how you feel when you get back...”
She just glared at him.
“This is career suicide, you know that, right?”
“Screw you, Marcus.”
“I just don’t want to see you do anything you’ll regret later.”
“You don’t get to decide what I’ll regret.” She turned and walked away.
***
“Technology is a wonderful thing,” Wesley explained casually as he violated her. “So many ways to track and record and document.” He pulled his fingers out of her. She could smell herself on him as he grabbed her blindfold and pulled it off.
Ellie blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. She was in a large octagonal, room, empty save for the table she was restrained on. Three of the walls were dominated by huge windows, but she couldn’t see anything but darkness through them. Between the windows on either side of her directly in front of her was a large screen, almost as big as the windows. It glowed faintly, but displayed nothing.
Wesley stood over her. The tailored gray suit was gone, and he wore a pressed black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black slacks. He flashed his white teeth as he smiled down at her in a predatory grin. “Have a look,” he said, picking up his tablet from where it sat on the table next to her. Curiosity got the better of her and she craned her neck to try and see, but the screen was held out of her view. It didn’t matter; a few seconds later the big screen mounted in front of her lit up. She recognized the lobby of the warehouse, shown from different angles on the split screen. Ellie had assumed there had been cameras, even though she hadn’t been able to see them.
“So you’re just going to show me my capture again?” she asked. She remembered the dancer, the panicked look in her eyes as she was forced to rewatch her own kidnapping, the little desperate noises she made into her ballgag as she tried in vain to warn her past self.
“Yes. We both might find it, enlightening.”
As much as she loathed watching an instant replay of her failure, he was right, and the agent planned on using the opportunity to find clues that could help her. Arrogance would be her captor’s downfall. She’d thought him a fool when he first showed her that they kept recordings of all their abductions, and she intended to prove herself right. There would be something, some minor detail, that would bring this whole operation down. She just had to stay focused and not let him break her before she found it.
On the screens, she watched herself and Grace being lead inside by the man who had taken their phones and searched them. It was the same man who had captured Grace, right before she had passed out. What had they done with her? Was she given this same treatment?
“Ah, here we are,” Wesley said, tapping his tablet. On screen, she and Grace were being given their ID badges, and suddenly there was audio.
“Thank you very much,” she heard herself say.
“Mr. Pembroke will be with you shortly,” the man said, his voice more distant.
Ellie tensed up, listening intently to the swishing noises and faint thumping. She recognized that thumping, and as she did the beating of her own heart sped up.
“Forgive the audio quality,” he said, reaching down and putting his hand on her chest, right over where the ID badge had rested. “It’s hard to filter out all the movement, but it does pick up what’s important. You just have to know how to listen for it.”
They’d been bugged. From the moment she and Grace had stepped inside, they were listening to them. Her mind raced, trying to recall what they’d said in the bathroom.
“This is weird, right?” Grace was saying. She was looking at the bugged badge. Ellie should have listened to her.
“You two played quite the characters,” he said. “Some of you were better actors than the other.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “Even without listening in, her performance gave you all away almost immediately. She couldn’t hide her disdain.”
He was right, and she had known it at the time too. Grace let herself get too personally invested in what they were doing.
“But what I find particularly useful is being able to listen to your heartbeat. It says so much, even more than a hushed conversation when you think you can’t be heard. But we’ll get to that later.” He clenched his hand over her chest, feeling her heartbeat as he tapped a couple of times on the tablet, isolating the audio of her heartbeat while the voices faded into the background. On screen Wesley was entering as Mr. Pembroke.
“Your heart rate is elevated. You’re nervous, not as nervous as her, of course,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure that’s just disgust,” Ellie said.
The old man chuckled. “You can lie with your words, but not with this.” He patted her chest and then cupped her breast, squeezing her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “It betrays you when you’re nervous... And when you’re excited.”
The captive agent regulated her breathing. She couldn’t do anything about the recorded beating of her heart, but she could at least keep calm in the moment. On screen, Wesley was showing them the first slave girl, the girl in the maid uniform.
“What is that?” he asked. Her recorded heartbeat sped up as she approached the glass.
“I was surprised.” She knew what she said to him didn’t matter, he’d spin it however he wanted, but she felt compelled to defend herself anyways.
“Are you sure? You seem very intrigued. Long before I had all this tech, I was just reading people myself. The video and the audio help, but I’ve always been adept at seeing the cues. The facial expression, the body language, the little tics, the breathing. Look at her.” He pointed to her on the screen. “How she presses herself up to the glass, how she looks at the slave on the other side. How her heart races with excitement.”
At first Ellie thought he was talking about the slave girl, but then she realized he was referring to her. “I was acting.”
“So defensive,” he said. “At least one of you was.” Seeing it now from above, Ellie was even more painfully aware of how poorly Grace was hiding her absolute disgust for what they were doing. “Though transparency is not always bad.”
Part of her had known at the time. She’d risked that little conversation in the bathroom in an attempt to salvage an operation she already suspected was in jeopardy.
“But you,” he continued. “Undercover or not, you liked what you saw.”
Even if she denied it, it wouldn’t matter to him. She kept her mouth shut, silently cursing him for doing this to her, Grace for getting them into this situation, and her own traitorous nipple, which was responding to his attention.
“How much research did you do before coming to me? How many hours did you spend looking at women just like that one? How much of what we’re watching is the character you played, and how much of it is you?” He set the tablet back down and his hand touched her inner thigh. His fingers were still cold, but unlike before, his touch was gentle, teasing.
“Go to hell.”
He ignored her, his hands continuing to toy with his helpless plaything. “I don’t want to skip ahead, but what was it you said in the bathroom?”
“Screw you!”
“Something about ‘just because you’re into girls doesn’t mean you liked this?’ Something to that effect. Your partner certainly seemed to think you liked all the helpless girls. I think you did too.” He caressed her slit lightly, his fingertip just barely grazing her clit.
She clenched her teeth, fighting not to respond to the unwanted pleasure. Ellie knew that her body was hardwired to respond to stimulation. She knew that even if it felt good, it didn’t mean she was enjoying her treatment. Even still she couldn’t help but try to resist.
“All those spikes in your heart rate while I was showing you the merchandise? If you were still surprised after the first, was it a pleasant surprise?” His fingers worked faster, edging her closer. “It’s one thing to look at pictures and videos of girls in bondage, but it’s another to see them in person.”
She shut her eyes, blocking out the footage of her looking at the helpless former dancer and yoga instructor dancing for her in a sexy harem girl outfit. It didn’t help. His voice was in her head, his fingers inside her box.
“Was it really part of the act when you wanted to touch them? To pet them?” He leaned over her, two fingers deep inside her, his thumb massaging her clit. A moan escaped her lips and he knew he’d hit the spot. “Were you imagining your partner tied up like one of my girls?”
Her eyes shot open again, remembering Grace. Stupid Grace who’d gotten them into this mess. But then his fingers curled inward, striking that spot in just the right place and she threw her head back.
“Did you imagine your redheaded friend would make a better dog than a partner?” His face was inches from hers, his breath hot on the side of her neck.
She hadn’t before, but he put the image in her head now, Grace on all fours, her hands leather mittens, a bone gag in her mouth, a tail coming out of her—
Ellie shrieked as he stuck a finger up her ass. She bucked and struggled, but the restraints held.
“Or perhaps you thought someone so immature ought not to be in the field, but would be better off spanked and diapered,” he suggested, rubbing and thrusting faster.
She imagined the runaway girl in the box, but it was Grace’s red hair and green eyes and button nose under the bonnet, moaning for her into the pacifier gag.
“Or maybe,” he leaned closer. She could feel the vibration of his words as his lips touched her ear, “you really just wanted it to be you all tied up and helpless.”
No fantasies sprang to her mind unbidden this time, just the stark reality of her, naked, helpless, strapped to a table and about to orgasm for the man who had kidnapped her.
He stopped, right as she was on the edge, and grabbed her clit between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed her supersensitive nub, simultaneously pushing her over the edge and ruining her orgasm as quickly as it started.
Ellie screamed. Pain, pleasure and confusion in a primal roar as her brain momentarily failed to process what had just happened.
“Fuh—fuh—fuck!” she panted. Stars were still exploding across her vision.
He laughed, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. “Deep down, all women crave subjugation. It’s what makes you so easy to enslave.”
“Damn you,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. She rolled her head to the side, unable to even look at him.
“I was going to ask you some questions, but I think I’ll wait.” He folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket, pulling something else out. Ellie looked up again, watching him out of the corner of her eye. It was a pair of panties. Not hers. She’d done enough research to know what was coming next. There was no point in trying to fight it, but even still, it took a lot to willingly open her mouth.
“Good girl. Already so submissive.” Her cheeks burned as he fed her the panties, working them into her mouth. She was positive they weren’t clean.
“They were hers.”
She wanted to ask ‘who’s?’ but that was impossible now. She’d never been gagged before, and she didn’t like it. Having her power of speech taken from her, and to add insult to injury it was by some woman’s panties. She struggled to keep the fabric from the back of her throat while he grabbed her hair and lifted her head up so he could tie another strip of cloth tightly between her teeth.
“I’ll be back for you.” He picked up his tablet. “Enjoy the show.”
He swiped at the tablet, and a light came on in the window to the left of the screen. Ellie’s eyes widened and she gasped into her gag. She knew immediately whose panties were in her mouth when she saw Grace, her partner, completely naked, suspended upside down, hanging from her ankles. Her wrists were bound behind her and tethered to the floor, contorting her into a brutal strappado. A huge ballgag was strapped in her mouth, and Ellie could see her partner snorting to keep the drool running up from her lips from going up her nose. She looked like she was in pure agony.
“Just remember,” Welsey said as he walked towards the door. “It’s her fault you’re here.”
***
Two Years Ago
Grace O’Conner had her head buried in paperwork when there was a knock on her office door. “Office” was a generous term for the tiny storage space someone had a squeezed a desk into between the cluster of filing cabinets.
“Just add it to the pile.” The junior agent said without looking up, gesturing to the mountain of paperwork overflowing from the trays on the edge of her cluttered desk.
“Grace O’Conner?”
Grace looked up, brushing aside the curtain of red hair from her face to look at the woman at her door. She recognized her immediately. “Yes, that’s me.”
“I’m—”
“Special Agent Elizabeth Harper! I know who you are.”
“Have we met before?”
“ I know you by your reputation,” Grace said. “All good things,” she blurted quickly.
“Alright, we’re on even footing then. I’ve looked into you and your work.”
Grace looked around at the stacks of paperwork.
“Not that work. You’ve been investigating disappearances. Specifically women that go missing.”
Grace gulped. It wasn’t exactly an on the books investigation that she was conducting in between her duties as a glorified file clerk.
“I’m not here to bust you. I’m here because I think you might be able to help me.”
Grace’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Ellie pushed aside the papers on Grace’s desk and slid a folder in front of her.
Grace flipped it open before Ellie had finished letting go, her eyes darting back and forth as she read everything Ellie had compiled.
“You’re looking for her?”
“Not just her. I’m looking for the people who took her. And everyone else they took. Is that something you think you can help me with?”
Grace nodded rapidly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can do that.”
“Good.”