Nikolai
My phone buzzed in my breast pocket just as Maxim began reviewing the updated import figures from the harbor. I listened to him talk about some issue with the warehouse manifests that didn’t match the numbers from our Polish distributor. Sergei was beside him, nodding as he flipped through the digitized logs. I didn’t even glance down the first time it vibrated. Just let it sit against my chest, assuming it wasn’t anything important.
Then it buzzed again.
I reached for it slowly, already knowing what it would say.
It was from Ivan.
I unlocked the encrypted thread and read the message with a breath that never made it to my lungs.
Ivan: She’s gone. Left twenty minutes ago. Had one of our men follow her to the gym.
I didn’t react, didn’t lift my head or stiffen my shoulders or do anything that would give away the fire blooming low in my gut. My pulse didn’t spike, it settled. Heavy. Dark. A slow, grinding knot of possession squeezing tight behind my ribs. It wasn’t rage and it wasn’t surprise either.
It was anticipation.
I stared at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering above the reply. I didn’t send anything. I didn’t need to, because this—this—was exactly what I’d been waiting for. My cock was already rock-hard imagining what would come next.
I closed my eyes for just a second and let the fantasy take hold.
Her, slinking back into the penthouse, eyes wide, breath catching in that beautiful throat. Caught mid-step, halfway into some flippant excuse she hadn’t finished rehearsing. And me, already standing there. Already waiting.
The sound of the leather sliding through the loops of my slacks—snick—ominous and inescapable, the kind of sound that didn’t just echo, it would reverberate throughout the room.
She would think she could take it, that she was brave and strong, that she could handle it.
But she’d never been truly punished before.
Not by me.
I’d bend her over the edge of the bed, where she’d begged for mercy the night before, the sheets still carrying her scent. I’d press her cheek down into them, fingers tangled in her hair, and bare every inch of her ass to the open air.
And I’d belt her.
Not hard at first, not cruel, but hard enough to teach her what happens to naughty little girls who explicitly defy Daddy’s instructions.
The first strike would make her gasp because it would be harder than she expected. The second would make her moan, hips twitching, thighs already slick. By the third, she’d be trembling, breathing heavy as she started to question whether she could take it all without crying.
I’d talk her through the next several strikes and she would tell herself that she could survive this.
“Count for me, baby girl.”
“You disobeyed me.”
“You asked this, now take it.”
And she would. For at least a little while.
Eventually, the pain would build and I’d belt her hard enough and she’d begin to cry. She’d take it with those gorgeous tears streaming down her cheeks, with her lip trembling, with her whole body quivering as I whipped that defiant little bottom harder than she ever thought possible.
She would beg, I would make certain of it, and when she was sobbing and pliant and clinging to the sheets like they were the only thing keeping her grounded, I would not stop.
No.
That would only be the beginning, because a punishment wasn’t just about pain. It was about much more than that. It was about taking control, not to strip her of power, but to give it structure, boundaries, to tame the storm without extinguishing it.
And I was the only man who could do it for her.
She could claw and bite and scream all she wanted, but when it was over—when she was wrecked and spent and trembling in my lap—she’d look up at me with those tear-glossed eyes, and she’d know. She’d know that everything I did, I did because I saw the truth of her, because I understood her.
I wouldn’t hesitate to give her exactly what she needed, even when she didn’t know how to ask for it. I would love her the only way a man like me could: hard, without apology and without restraint.
I exhaled once, every cell in my body already strung tight with arousal.
Me: Don’t worry about it.
My phone buzzed again.
Ivan: You sure?
I could hear the subtext in his question, that careful, clinical detachment he always used when he was letting me make the call. He didn’t care about rules; he cared about outcomes. That’s what made him invaluable. That’s what made him dangerous.
I smirked and looked out the window.
I typed the response without thinking.
Me: Let her stay. I’ll handle it.
And I would.
With my belt.
It was after sunset when I returned to the penthouse.
The city below pulsed with light, the skyline jagged and endless. Boston breathed differently at night—slower, darker, honest in a way daylight refused to be.
I stepped out of the elevator into silence. She was already at the dining table, sitting with one leg crossed over the other. A half-finished glass of red wine sat near her hand, fingers curled around the stem like she needed something to hold onto. She didn’t look up when I entered, but her shoulders pulled back just a bit. Her entire body flexed a little too hard.
She knew I knew.
I crossed the room without hurry. Pulled out my chair across from her and sat with deliberate calm, letting the silence stretch out like a rope between us, tightening with every second. I didn’t speak. I didn’t demand anything. I just watched her.
She shifted in her seat, her chin lifted slightly. Still so very proud. To be honest, it was kind of adorable.
Her eyes met mine, and that was when she cracked. Just a little. Just enough.
“I went to the gym,” she confessed, voice clear and composed, like she was daring me to get angry or yell or do anything really.
I didn’t answer right away, simply looked at her, my gaze steady on her, and let that truth sink in between us.
“I went because I wanted to, because I didn’t want to be stuck here all day.”
Without you.
She didn’t say it, but the words hung between us anyway. My fingers wound around the top of the chair.
“And I found something,” she said. “One of your fighters, Mikhail. He knows something about my dad and Stillwell. He wouldn’t say what though. He wouldn’t talk unless you were there.”
I leaned back, exhaled slowly, and let my arm stretch across the top of the chair beside me.
“You disobeyed me.”
She nodded once. Not sorry. Not sorry at all.
“I told you not to leave the penthouse.”
“I know.”
She said it like it didn’t matter, like she’d do it again.
“I should punish you right now,” I said, my voice even, the words curling forebodingly around the space between us. “I should drag you into the bedroom, bend you over the bed, and whip that defiant little ass with my belt until you’re sore and sobbing and very sorry.”
She stilled.
“And I will,” I added, letting it land like a promise. “Tonight.”
Her mouth parted slightly. Eyes wide. She was breathing harder now, wine forgotten beside her. Her whole body was reacting before her mind could catch up.
“You’re really going to…”
“Yes,” I said. “You’re getting Daddy’s belt, Sloane. Not because I’m angry, but because you need it.”
She exhaled a shaky breath. Her gaze dropped. Fuck, the way she shifted in that chair, lip caught between her teeth, I almost hauled her to her feet then and there. Almost bent her over the arm of the nearest couch, tore off her clothes, and spanked her bare ass right then and there, but I stopped myself.
“Before that,” I said, my voice dropping now, more dangerous for it, “we’re going to talk to Mikhail. Together.”
Her eyes flicked back up, wide with concern, her breath uneven as she tried to calm herself. “You think he’ll talk with both of us there?”
“He will,” I said. “He’s loyal. If he’s holding back, there’s a reason, and I want to know what the fuck it is.”
She nodded slowly, but her body betrayed her. Her posture might have been composed, but her fingers twitched where they rested on the table. Her throat flexed on a swallow. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths a little too fast.
I could see it, plain as day. It wasn’t Mikhail she was thinking about now. It was me, and the punishment she had coming when the two of us got home later that night.
