The scent of fine tobacco filled Alexander's office, blending with the aroma of his cologne which had come to dwell within the very pores of my skin, stifling my breath. I sat behind the small secretarial desk inside his vast office, feeling his grey eyes tracking the movement of my pen across the papers. The office was no longer a place for work; it had become an extension of the palace bed. The doors were always sealed with the electronic lock, and the curtains were drawn to block the sunlight, creating an atmosphere of absolute isolation that invoked terror and lust simultaneously.
Alexander rose from behind his great desk with heavy, measured strides. He slowly undid the top buttons of his shirt as he advanced toward me, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light. He stopped directly behind me, and I felt the heat of his body brushing my back. He placed his massive hands on my shoulders and leaned down to whisper in my ear, his sonorous voice making my body recoil: "Do you think this formal suit hides what is beneath it, Ayla? I can smell the scent of your poisoned desire from here... I hear your heartbeats striking the tattoo I placed above it, demanding the touch you pretend to hate."
He did not wait for my reply; instead, he gripped the chair with force and spun me toward him. He shackled my wrists with one hand, hoisting them above my head, while his other hand began to explore the contours of my body beneath the thin white shirt. He tore the buttons with a sadistic slowness, watching every tremor in my skin as it was exposed to the cold air before being scorched by his fingers. When he uncovered the tattoo, he leaned down and kissed it with a harshness that made me arch beneath his power.
He lifted me and threw me across his wide desk, carelessly scattering important papers and files. He loomed over me with his massive frame, caging me between his steel arms. His touches transcended the boundaries of tenderness; he was possessing me with a violence that expressed his desire to completely erase my dignity. He buried his fingers in my hair and forced me to look into his eyes while he stripped me of what remained of my clothes in the middle of the office. His hand began to feel every inch of my body with excessive boldness, exploring the weak points he knew by heart. He overwhelmed me, drowning me in an overpowering lust that left my breath coming in broken gasps. He was not satisfied with the flesh alone; he whispered obscene words, describing how I would remain a prisoner of his desire, and how this office would bear witness to my daily humiliation under his weight. He sank into me with a violence that made me forget where I was, and forget my hatred for him, transforming me into a mere mass of ignited sensations fueled by his cruelty and his pitiless brand.
On the Dark Side of the City... The Shadow's Rebellion
Sophia thought she had found a sanctuary from Ivan's obsession in a nightclub downtown. She believed the loud lights and the crowd of drunks would hide her from his icy eyes. She wore a very short black dress that revealed her allure as she moved between tables, serving glasses with a faint smile through which she tried to hide her internal terror.
But silence suddenly fell in the dark corner of the bar. She saw the glasses trembling on the tables before she glimpsed his shadow. Ivan wore his long black coat, standing like the Angel of Death amidst the club's din. His blue eyes burned with a fire she had never seen before; a blind jealousy that turned his usual coldness into total madness.
He did not speak a word. He advanced toward her with steps that terrified the patrons and gripped her wrist with a force that made her bones groan. He dragged her behind him like a captive toward the back exit, into the narrow, dark alley that reeked of rain and rust.
He shoved her against the stone wall with a force that made her head spin, circling her neck with his massive hand. "Have you lost your mind?" he roared in a terrifying low voice, his eyes piercing her panicked face. "Did you think I would allow this scum to look at you? To touch the hem of your dress with their filthy gazes?"
"I am free! I want to work, I don't want to stay in my prison!" Sophia screamed, trying to push him away, but he was like a mountain.
He grabbed her dress and tore it from the top with a roar of rage, exposing her shoulders and breasts to the cold night air. "You are mine!" he shouted as he pressed against her with his hard body, burying his head in her neck and leaving the marks of his teeth upon her delicate skin with wild abandon. "Your only job is to be mine, to wait for my return in your bed, shivering with longing. If I see you smiling at another again, I will burn this club and everyone in it, and I will make your friend Ayla pay for your rebellion in blood."
He began to possess her there, in that dark alley, with a sadistic violence no less than Alexander's. He forced her to feel his jealousy in every movement, stamping his marks upon her trembling body to remind her to whom she belonged. Sophia sobbed in collapse, feeling the loss of her dignity under the dominion of this man who had turned his desire for her into an unbreakable iron shackle.
Return to the Palace... The Meeting of Monsters
In the evening, the palace was drowning in a thick fog. I sat in the salon, my body still aching from the confrontation in the office, when Ivan entered. His features still bore the traces of the storm he had lived with Sophia; his clothes were slightly disheveled and his eyes shone with a suppressed madness.
"Where is Sophia?" I screamed, rushing toward him frantically. "I know you did something to her! What do you want from us?"
Ivan smiled a terrifying, icy smile and drew close until I could smell the rain and tobacco emanating from him. "Your friend learned her lesson, Ayla. She thought nightclubs would hide her from me, but she is in her apartment now... bound by my jealousy and my orders. She will not step out of there again without my permission."
"You are a monster! Alexander, tell him something!" I turned toward Alexander, who was watching the scene coldly as he sipped from his glass.
"Ivan protects his property, Ayla," Alexander said stonily. He set down his glass and stepped toward me, pulling me by the waist with force to bring me face-to-face with him in front of Ivan. "Perhaps you should realize that we are not joking. The world outside is not for you, nor for Sophia. You both belong to us."
Alexander leaned in and began to kiss me wildly in front of Ivan, as if showcasing his ownership of me. The kiss carried the taste of challenge and control. Then he lifted me and carried me up to the suite, where a new chapter of violation began.
The night in the palace was steeped in blackness. Alexander, provoked by Ivan's jealousy, was more brutal and obsessive. He forced me to undress slowly under his gaze, then began using my body to discharge all the charges of rage and possession within him. He possessed me in ways that invoked terror and forbidden ecstasy at once, forcing me to admit to his absolute sovereignty, whispering in my ear the details of what he would do to me in the coming days. He pressed upon the tattoo over my heart harshly, reminding me that I was the pulse he had bought, and that I had no right to breathe without him.
I remained all night at the mercy of his insatiable desire, feeling the loss of my soul and Sophia's soul in this dark labyrinth. We had become mere tattooed bodies, shaped by the hands of these men however they pleased, drowning in a sea of poisoned pleasure and endless servitude.
After the physical storm between Alexander and me had died down, his power left me splayed like a lifeless corpse atop the scattered silk, while he stood by the window, lighting his fine cigar. The dim light highlighted the muscles of his hard back, which bore scars as mysterious as the mystery of his soul. The room was not silent; it was teeming with the noise of the defeat that dwelt deep within me. I looked at my trembling hands, then at the tattoo pulsing beneath my skin with a delicious and humiliating ache, and I realized I no longer recognized the woman I saw in the mirror.
"You know, Ayla," Alexander spoke without turning to me, his deep voice cutting the silence like a cold dagger, "Ivan didn't plan to possess Sophia this way, but her rebellion is what woke the beast in him. Just as you did with me. You women think that escape is the solution, but escape does nothing but tighten the noose around your necks."
I turned my face into the pillow and let out a muffled sob. "We are not property, Alexander... we are human beings."
He let out a low, mocking laugh, then returned and sat on the edge of the bed, running his cold fingers along my spine, making me recoil despite myself. "Humans have choices, my love. As for you, you exhausted all your choices the moment you entered this palace. Sophia is realizing this truth in her apartment now, and Ivan will teach her how to breathe only through his desire. As for you, you will remain here, under the microscope of my obsession, until the idea of 'freedom' becomes just a word you don't understand."
He leaned down and kissed my forehead harshly, then rose to leave the room, leaving behind the scent of tobacco and threat. "Prepare for a long day tomorrow at the company. Ivan will be there too, and we shall see if your 'obedient' friend dares to send any more messages."
He locked the door behind him, and I felt the walls closing in on me. I was drowning in a sea of disgust and forced pleasure, imagining Sophia at that moment—was she also looking at the ceiling, wondering how our lives had turned into this gilded hell? There was no way out, no hope, only the beats of my tattooed heart declaring with every throb that I had become, now and forever, a handmaiden in the altar of Alexander Volkov.