Page 231 of Deep Cover

Which meant my own men had done a good job. But it left me at loose ends. And again I'd think about endings, full circles, stories finished. And again I'd think of the money that would be wasted sitting in his accounts, waiting for whatever caretakers were given charge of it to decide no one was watching and make it disappear, too.

It could be going to a good cause. Though I now wondered if Vincent had actually made his will to assert that the bulk of his estate go to fighting trafficking. He'd lied about so much and been insane from what I could tell.

Or maybe insane is only a useful term for My kink is fine but yours is frightening and weird.

He would have killed Annie.

That was the truth I spent every day trying not to know. In my pride of putting her up in the auction in the first place – look what I have, a disgraced police officer, so vulnerable and new to the scene, so desperate to make up for what she did undercover even if she doesn't recognize this need in herself; what will you give me for her? – I put her in the position to attract Vincent's malignant attention.

I couldn't forgive myself for that. But I was never the one who was punished.

And so it had to be Annie.

"Eleven, sir, thank you!"

She was on her knees in the room behind her cell, the room where I took her to punish, correct or care for her.

On her stomach on the bed, bent over it, minutes after the dozen cane strikes were over, and I’d told her to be silent while I used the crop on every welt building up from the canes, snapping it down with all the strength I could.

Until she screamed. Until she begged. Until she promised whatever I needed from her, she would do.

There wasn't anything she could do.

"I want to be inside you." My voice was as raw as hers was.

It galvanized her. She shoved herself off the bed and knelt on the floor at my feet. "Please. Not yet. I can still smell him."

Reaching down, I grabbed her chin and forced her head up. "You mean that you need to be cleaner for me. Is that what you mean?"

She kept her gaze down. She nodded, her chin bouncing in my hand. "Yes. Sir." It was a whisper.

I backhanded her and left her sprawled on the floor before I could succumb to something as stupid as compassion.

Compassion would not heal her.

I would.

---