‘Oh now, that’s insubordination,’ Bruno said, not deterred in his journey. ‘You haven’t understood your job yet… I’m going to give you another chance to think about it.’

When he got to the corner Bruno snatched a handful of the girl’s hair on the top of her head and toppled her off her feet to drag her, screaming and scrambling, away from Dax’s bedroom and back to the basement. The deeper into the bowels of the building that they got, the quieter the feminine cries became. Dax sat on his bed to unlace his boots thinking of how he’d spend the night alone… with that image of her enticing figure imprinted in his mind.

Chapter Four

After another four days of isolation, Ivy could barely open her eyes and by now it seemed there was no point in trying. Putting up a fight, resisting these men, was only going to end in her death. She had to get out of this room. As demoralising as it was to exist in this dark space she found the sapping of her energy through lack of food and water worse. If these men abandoned her here she would die and if they brought her upstairs and she found a chance of escape she would never be strong enough to make it.

She had to get upstairs and live there, even if it meant being nude in the company of those thugs. Her survival instinct, the drive to see the sun and be free, was overwhelming. There was too much that she still wanted to do. Escape was necessary but it would take time, days or weeks, maybe months, but she would bide her time and take the first available opening she saw to get out of here.

Letting them touch her, or have sex with her, might be needed to gain her strength and freedom. Tears would no longer come, she had spent the first week pitying herself and the three days after that angry, now she was weak and broken and alone. She needed to detach herself, to build a shell around the truth of who she was and for now she’d be what they wanted while she gained her strength. When she was back to her full power she’d form a plan.

She’d known hookers and roomed with them on and off for years. Throughout that time, Ivy had become close with some of them and they’d coached her on how to switch themselves off and give their body to even the most disgusting of men. Once or twice she’d come close to working the streets herself, luckily she’d never had to. It was bad enough that in her younger years she’d had to swing herself around a pole or two, but stripping was not the same as hooking, not even close.

Despite her decision to play along with her captors, Ivy knew that telling herself not to be contrary was easy. In reality it would be a fight not to let the truth of her personality come out. If she wanted to survive she’d have to quash her usual rebellious nature. She would become a robot, go through the motions and comply until the moment was right.

After her decision was made all she could do was wait to put her plan into action. She knew that someone came down once a day to the gym, which occupied the space beyond her cage that Bruno had frequently dragged her through. With nothing better to do she had tried to time how long the person exercised for. Sometimes it seemed to be an hour and other times for much longer.

It had to be Dax, he had to be the one next door working up a sweat. She’d suspected as much, but now that she’d seen his torso she was sure. She had touched his solid six pack and seen his defined pecs, yes he worked out.

His thick arms were tattooed; the left arm had a tribal pattern with Celtic elements that covered his shoulder to his elbow. On the other arm was a dragon emerging from tangling vines. Both were done in black ink and made his already foreboding form all the more menacing.

The kicker of this situation was that what he’d said upstairs in his bedroom was true. In Vegas, before the incident with Trystan, she had noticed Dax. She’d looked at him and she had thought, sex. Now that she knew the truth of who he associated with his sex appeal plummeted, but she still had to acknowledge that in purely physical terms he had a fine form. Certainly if she was going to be forced into someone’s bed she would rather it was his than Bruno’s.

Bruno was rough, he liked to manhandle her and had doled out a few slaps. Ivy got the sense that he enjoyed exerting that power over her. Four days ago, when Bruno had last brought her down, he’d smacked her around a bit and the tender bruises she winced against had helped her to come to the conclusion that, enough was enough. If she ever wanted to be free again then she had to play along. Letting them win in the short term was the only way to guarantee she could have any kind of long term herself.

Eager to get away from here, out of this space, she was piqued by every creak and squeak that she heard. Anticipating Dax’s arrival in the gym was excruciating. Relief pounded through her ringing inner ear, that only subsided when she identified the unmistakable reverberation of footsteps coming down the stairs. Licking her lips, she prayed that he hadn’t put earbuds in to accompany his workout because she needed to be heard. Doing her best to sit up, she coughed to clear her throat before she spoke.

‘Dax,’ she said, trying to get strength in her voice so she could get volume. ‘Dax.’ It wasn’t enough. ‘Dax!’

A tense score of seconds passed and she wasn’t sure she’d been heard until she heard the click of the lock. The door took its time to open, then eventually a topless Dax came in wrapping his hand with a long strip of narrow fabric. He took his time observing the bars caging her, the bare concrete floor, the single foam mattress and her bucket also known as her toilet. After he took in the details, he examined the chain on her ankle and the one on her wrist.

‘I didn’t say it before, but it’s quite the place you have,’ he said.

‘Minus the chains I’ve actually lived in worse,’ she said and his expression flickered like he hadn’t expected a response.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ll do what I’m told.’

‘You will?’ he asked, leaning against the doorframe, crossing his arms and ankles now that both hands were wrapped.

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got another day of this to think about whether or not you’re sure.’

He began to head out and her panic forced her forward onto her knees, jangling the chains in the process. ‘No Dax, please, don’t leave me here.’

‘Not so easy is it,’ he said, peering over his shoulder. ‘To admit when you’re wrong.’

‘Me staying down here isn’t getting any of us anywhere… I know now that…’

‘You know now, what?’ he said, and the sinister curl of his lip made her want to lash out.

Only that would get her nowhere. If he left her here again, it could be days before he was back. The basement was making her ill, just being here was a symbol of her fragility and Ivy resented that humiliation. Fighting for her freedom would mean making sacrifices, like letting this depraved duo believe that they’d broken her, but it would be worth it if it got her away from here.

Good sense didn’t trounce years of conditioning, she bit back her impulse to curse at him. It took her some time to garner the will to respond, and in that time his focus switched back to the exit.

‘I know now that I was wrong,’ she made herself say. ‘You have the power here. You have power over me and I’m asking you to please let me out of this room.’

‘What do I get?’ he asked, without turning to look at her. ‘You get free and what do I get?’

‘Anything,’ she said. ‘Everything you want.’

When he turned, his new victorious smile said it all. ‘Now you’ve got it.’

Dax gave her a bottle of water to drink on their ascent of the basement stairs and then she was allowed to eat at the table in the kitchen while the men lurked in the sliding glass doorway that led out to a covered deck. When they decided that she had eaten enough, she was commanded to clean up in the kitchen. From the looks of things, neither had washed a dish or clean a surface since they arrived, but they’d somehow managed to ensure that every knife and sharp utensil was locked away in a corner drawer of the kitchen.