Chapter 3

Amanda’s heels clicked against the penthouse marble, her reflection warping in the floor-to-ceiling windows as Berry lounged on a sofa. “Entertain me,” he said, swirling a drink that cost more than her car. No, please, no preamble. Just three syllables that turned her spine to ice.

Berry’s fingers drummed against the crystal tumbler, the sound like a metronome counting down. His eyes—flat and assessing—didn’t blink when she reached behind her neck to unfasten the clasp of her dress. The silk sighed as it slid down her arms, pooling at her wrists for a breath before she let it drop. His drink didn’t pause mid-sip.

She stepped out of the puddle of fabric, one foot at a time, toes curling against the cold floor. The dress had been armor. Without it, her skin prickled under his gaze. Berry crossed his legs, the movement lazy, and took another sip. “Keep going,” he said. The ice in his glass clinked like a punctuation mark.

Amanda’s hands drifted to the clasp of her bra, fingers trembling just enough for Berry to notice; she knew he would. The penthouse lights caught the sweat beading along her collarbone as she arched her back, letting the straps slide down her arms with deliberate slowness. Berry’s exhale fogged the rim of his glass, his gaze tracking the way the lace clung to her skin before finally surrendering to gravity. The bra hit the floor with a whisper, and Amanda resisted the urge to cover herself, instead rolling her shoulders back like she’d seen the dancers do at the club.

She turned, presenting him with the curve of her spine, the dimples above her ass. Her thumbs hooked into the waistband of her thong, nails scraping lightly against her hipbones. “Eyes on me,” Berry murmured, and she obeyed, pivoting to face him again as she peeled the fabric down her thighs.

The scars were a day old, red and purple lines crisscrossing her back. Berry’s glass froze halfway to his lips when he saw them. Amanda held her breath as his gaze dragged over the marks, his nostrils flaring slightly like a collector appraising damaged goods. He set the tumbler down with deliberate precision. “Turn around,” he said, and this time his voice had teeth.

Amanda pivoted slowly, her pulse hammering against her throat. The worst of them spanned her shoulder blades, thick, ropey welts that spoke of something kink. Berry’s fingers twitched against his thigh before he reached out, tracing one with the tip of his pinky. The touch was clinical, calculating. “Who did this?” Berry said.

“I ... I don’t know his name.”

Berry’s hand withdrew. Behind her, she heard the clink of ice cubes as he drained his drink in one swallow. When he spoke again, his voice was silk over steel. “Tell me how he marked you.”

Amanda’s knees threatened to buckle. She stared at a smudge on the window—some distant skyscraper’s reflection warped by condensation—as the memories unspooled.

Amanda’s fingers twitched at her sides. “It wasn’t Vic,” she said, her voice thin as the penthouse glass separating them from the city below. Berry’s eyebrow arched. She swallowed. “It was—” The words knotted in her throat, thick as the scars on her back.

“A man,” she forced out. “Bigger than Vic. Blacker than midnight.” She remembered the way his shadow had swallowed hers whole on the stage in the club, how the hot lights glinted off his belt buckle when he’d unhooked it with one practiced twist. “He had a belt. Thick. With a—” Her breath hitched. “—a silver tip that caught the light when he swung.”

Berry’s knuckles whitened around his empty glass. The silence stretched. She didn’t move. Couldn’t. The memory was a live wire in her head—the coppery tang of blood from where she’d bitten her lips, the wet slap of leather on sweat-slick skin, the way the man had grunted with each swing like he was splitting logs.

Berry stood abruptly, his shadow falling across her. Amanda flinched before she could stop herself. His fingers grazed the worst of the scars, tracing the raised flesh with something like reverence. “He made you count,” Berry murmured, not a question.

“No,” Amanda whispered, the word cracking like thin ice over dark water. Berry’s fingers stilled on her scars. The penthouse hummed with silence, the kind that comes before a storm.

She expected fury; Berry’s temper was legendary in the circles where billionaires played gods, but his exhale was almost amused. “Are you saying no to me?” His thumb pressed into the ridge of a scar, the pressure just shy of pain. “After I bought you from Vic like a fucking thoroughbred?”

Amanda’s knees locked. She could smell the bourbon on his breath and could count the threads in the Persian rug beneath her bare toes. Somewhere forty floors below, traffic blared like a distant, irrelevant world. “I’m saying,” she forced her chin up, “he didn’t make me count.”

Berry stepped back. For a heartbeat, Amanda thought she’d miscalculated; then he laughed, rich and dark, tossing his glass onto the sofa, where it sank into the leather without a sound. “Christ, you’re almost worth the hassle.” He reached into his jacket, pulling out a phone as sleek as a razor. “I’m calling Vic to see how much it would cost to do the same thing.”

The screen illuminated his face in cold blue. Amanda’s pulse stuttered. She knew that look, and she was scared.

The phone’s glow carved shadows under Berry’s cheekbones as Vic’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Sure,” came the reply, tinny and amused, “but nothing permanent. And nothing on her face.” A pause, then the wet sound of a cigar being rolled between teeth. “Fifty grand more, and I want it recorded to be sold.”

Berry’s thumb hovered over the screen. Amanda’s reflection in the window was a pale smudge between skyscrapers, her shoulders rigid. “She’s already marked,” Berry said, dragging a fingernail down the length of her spine. The raised scars burned under his touch. “I want them freshened up. Same tool, same ... enthusiasm.”

Vic’s chuckle rattled through the speaker like loose change in a tin can. “I’ll send out the camera team to film it.” The line went dead before Berry could reply, leaving Amanda staring at the phone’s black screen as if it might sprout teeth. Berry tossed the device onto the sofa beside his abandoned glass. The leather sighed under its weight.

Amanda’s breath hitched when Berry’s fingers closed around her wrist, his grip firm enough to bruise. He dragged her toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, her bare feet skidding against marble. The city sprawled beneath them. Berry pressed her palm flat against the glass; it was as cold as a morgue slab. He then leaned in, his breath hot against her ear. “I want you to smile for the cameras, darling.” His other hand slid down her spine, pausing at the first scar. “They’ll want to see you beg.”

Amanda’s fingers splayed against the glass, her breath fogging a small circle on the surface. Forty stories of empty air between her naked body and the indifferent pavement. Berry’s grip tightened, his thumb digging into the pulse point of her wrist. “They like it when you cry,” he murmured, dragging his tongue along the shell of her ear. “But only after the third strike.”

The penthouse door hissed open behind them. Amanda didn’t turn, couldn’t, with Berry’s body caging her against the window, but she heard the squeak of rubber soles on marble, the clatter of equipment being set down. A voice, nasal and bored: “We’ll need her facing the north window for the best light.”

Amanda’s breath fogged the glass in uneven bursts. The reflection showed three men, two adjusting tripods, and the third coiling thick cables. And one girl with big breasts, but her eyes caught on Berry’s smirk in the warped pane. His fingers tightened around her wrist, forcing her body to flush against the cold surface. “North window,” a man called, his voice dripping with mock sincerity.

Rubber soles squeaked closer. A hand yanked her hair back, exposing her throat to the room. The grip smelled of nicotine and spearmint gum. “Christ, Berry,” the cameraman muttered, “you didn’t say she’d be this young and bruised already.” His thumb prodded the yellowing marks along Amanda’s ribs. The camera lens whirred as it focused.

The dog collar around the girl’s neck jingled faintly as she knelt behind Amanda, her fingers surprisingly warm against the chilled skin of Amanda’s back. “Hold still,” the girl murmured in accented English, her breath smelling of green tea. The brush tickled as it dragged across the raised marks, the bristles firm yet oddly gentle, like the girl was painting a watercolor instead of covering bruises. Berry watched from the sofa, swirling a fresh drink as the Japanese girl’s tiny hands worked with clinical precision, blending foundation over Amanda’s welts until they disappeared under layers of beige and taupe.

“You missed a spot,” Berry said, pointing his glass toward the deepest mark, the one that curved like a sickle moon between Amanda’s shoulder blades. The girl’s fingers stilled for a heartbeat before she dipped her brush into a pot of something thick and waxy. Amanda flinched when the cold substance touched her skin, but the girl’s grip tightened on her hip, nails pressing half-moons into flesh. “No move,” she whispered, her voice suddenly sharp. The dog collar shifted against her throat, the metal tag flashing Momo in the penthouse lights.

Momo’s brush flicked over the sickle scar with quick, practiced strokes—the bristles stiff enough to make Amanda’s muscles twitch. “Still,” Momo murmured again, this time pressing her knee between Amanda’s thighs to pin her in place. The dog tag jingled against Amanda’s spine as Momo leaned closer, her breath hitching slightly when Berry’s shadow fell across them both.

The cameraman circled them like a vulture, his lens catching the way Momo’s fingers trembled just once, so briefly, before smoothing the wax into Amanda’s skin. “She’s ready,” Momo announced, stepping back so abruptly the collar’s bell gave a startled chime.

Amanda looked at Berry; he had put on a mask. Not the kind you’d wear to a masquerade, but something sleek and black, molded to the contours of his face like a second skin. It left only his eyes exposed, glinting like wet stones in the penthouse lights. The mask’s surface was matte, absorbing reflections rather than reflecting them. He didn’t want his face in the movie. That means a lot of people will see her naked and being whipped.

Behind her, the cameraman adjusted his lens with a mechanical whir. “We’re rolling,” he announced, his voice devoid of inflection. Amanda’s breath hitched as Berry stepped closer, the mask making his voice sound muffled, distant, as if he were speaking through a wall. “You remember the rules,” he said, flexing his fingers into leather gloves. The material creaked. “Three strikes before you’re allowed to cry.

The gloves were black, the leather smooth and shiny under the penthouse lights, like they’d been oiled just for this moment. Amanda watched Berry flex his fingers. The cameraman’s lens whirred again, focusing on her face, on the way her eyelashes fluttered when Berry’s gloved hand brushed her bare shoulder.

Momo knelt beside the tripod, her dog tag flashing Obedience on the reverse side as she adjusted a reflector. The silver disc caught the city lights and threw them back at Amanda, a dozen miniature suns dancing across her skin. Berry’s fingers trailed down her arm, slow as a spider descending its thread, until his palm pressed flat against the small of her back, over the sickle scar Momo had painted over. The wax was still tacky under his touch.

Amanda felt Berry’s gloved fingers press into the wax-covered scar, the tacky substance yielding slightly beneath the pressure. The city lights reflected in Momo’s silver disc made the sweat on Amanda’s collarbone gleam like scattered diamonds. Berry leaned in, his mask absorbing the sound of his breath until all she heard was the click of the cameraman’s shutter.

Momo’s breath caught audibly from where she knelt by the tripod, her dog tag jingling against her collarbone.

“Focus,” Berry said, not to Amanda but to the cameraman, whose lens had drifted toward Momo’s trembling hands. The Japanese girl stiffened, her fingers curling into fists against her thighs. Amanda watched her reflection in the window, the way Momo’s shoulders hunched forward, making the Obedience tag disappear into the folds of her oversized sweater.

Amanda’s breath fogged the glass in uneven bursts. Behind her, the cameraman’s equipment whirred, capturing the way Berry’s knuckles flexed around the belt he’d pulled from his waistband. Black, thick, silver-tipped. Similar to the one she’d described.

The first strike landed before she could brace. Amanda’s knees buckled, her palms squeaking against the glass as the belt snapped across her lower back. The pain was bright, electric, a lightning bolt that lit up every nerve ending from spine to fingertips. Berry exhaled sharply through his mask. The cameraman circled them, his rubber soles silent on marble.

Amanda’s reflection in the window fractured. Her mouth was a dark oval, her fingers splayed like starfish against the glass. The second strike caught her across the thighs, the leather kissing skin with a wet snap that echoed off the penthouse walls. Momo’s dog tag jingled wildly as she flinched, her small hands clutching the reflector so tight her knuckles blanched.

Berry’s breathing had changed, shallow and rhythmic, each exhale timed to the swing of his arm. The belt’s silver tip flashed in the city lights like a strobe, freezing each moment in jagged still frames: Amanda’s shoulders hunching, Berry’s gloved fingers tightening around the belt’s buckle, and Momo’s lips moving silently as she counted the strikes under her breath.

Amanda’s vision blurred, her breath fogging the glass in erratic bursts.

The third strike never came; instead, Berry’s belt buckle clinked against marble as he dropped it. The sound echoed like a coin tossed into an empty well. Momo’s dog tag had gone still, her lips pressed into a bloodless line. The cameraman lowered his lens, his bored expression cracking for the first time. “That’s two,” he muttered, as if keeping score at a tennis match.

Berry’s pupils were dilated, black swallowing blue. “Look at me,” he commanded, but Amanda kept her forehead pressed to the window, her reflection warped by condensation. The city below was a smear of light, indifferent to the penthouse theater. Berry’s fingers tangled in her hair, yanking her head back. “I said, look at me!” Amanda’s scalp burned where Berry’s fingers twisted tighter, her neck arching backward at an angle that made her vertebrae pop. The city’s skyline tilted dizzyingly in her vision, upside-down now. Berry’s masked face hovered above hers, his breath fogging the black material with each exhale. “Third rule,” he whispered, the words vibrating through the mask like a wasp trapped in a jar. “You don’t get to hide.”