Page 75 of Black Ledger

Blackwood wore a black mask and a perfectly tailored suit every time he visited, and he refused to show me his face.

Some of the men wore masks.

Others never did.

So when the door opened today, I hoped it would be Blackwood again. But it wasn’t. It was a new man.

One without a mask.

He stepped into my cell and beckoned me toward him with a finger wrapped in a black leather glove.

I obeyed.

What choice did I have?

My feet hit the cold concrete floor, and my diaphanous blue dress swung around my knees with the movement. Slowly, I stepped toward him.

What would it be this time?

As I reached him, I looked up into his bright, arctic-blue eyes. This man was beautiful—chiseled face, as if carved by one of the great artists of antiquity. Muscular frame. A tailored black suit. Everything he wore, from his socks to his cufflinks, was solid black.

Without touching me, he guided me out to the larger concrete room, covered in cameras and always changing decor. It depended on what the Order wanted. If they wanted an obstacle course for me to run through as they shot BB gun pellets at me, so be it. If they wanted a sex dungeon, so be it. Whatever they wanted, they got.

Today it was empty—just a chair and several buckets.

The Man in Black walked over to the chair, sat down, and motioned for me to stand in front of him.

I obeyed.

Silently, he stared at me.

The only sound was the wind whistling through the trees outside.

I had no idea how long we stayed like that, but eventually, I felt a cramp in my foot and stretched it out to relieve it.

And finally, he stood, picked up one of the buckets, and threw the contents at me.

I flinched, and my hands came up to protect my face. It could have been acid. It could have been anything.

It was ice water.

Freezing ice water.

My nipples hardened, and my already see-through dress clung to my skin.

All he did was stare until I wanted to claw my skin off.

When my dress got too dry, he threw another bucket of water on me. And so it went.

For hours.

Hours.

During that first visit, he never touched me, and he never spoke. That might have been more terrifying than all my other visits combined.

The memory cleared, and I knocked over my tray. Apparently, I had grabbed it while the vision hit me. The contents fell to the ground with clinks and clangs.

“Fuck,” I said as Aleksandr began to laugh… maniacally.