Punished by the Dictator's Daughter (The Initiation 3, Book 3) (5 page)

So you see, Max keeps me guessing. Any
relationship that any girl has with Max is going to be a
rollercoaster – forever on the balls of your feet.

But Greg. Solid, dependable Greg. Predictable
Greg, who will love me more than I love him.

Ahhh, I know I didn’t want showdowns, but
he’s going to give me one too.

When Max isn’t looking, Greg pulls me
aside.

“Did you tell him about us?” he says
urgently.

“I’m not even sure there’s an ‘us’.” Now that
I’m surrounded by people, including Max, I’m suddenly unsure
again.

I wince at the look of hurt in his eyes.

“What about Alice?” I challenge him.

“What about her?” he challenges back. “You
know I’d leave her in a heartbeat for you.”

“And give up all this wealth, privilege, and
opportunity?”

“Oh, I see,” he says bitterly. “So it’s about
all that for you too, I suppose.”

Now he has gotten me in a quandary. The truth
is that I didn’t think of that – not even once – when Greg declared
his love for me. I’ll admit to having thought of it before. But not
anymore. I have decided that no money in the world can make me go
through Ursk again.

“No, Greg, it isn’t.” I close my eyes. “It’s
just too complicated to deal with right now, so let’s all just get
out of here, OK?”

I’m aware that I am behaving like a total
bitch. But my mind is run all ragged and I just want to get my boys
and myself out of this place.

There isn’t long to wait. Exactly twenty-four
hours after we arrived here at this brick farmhouse, Mansk comes to
us.

“It is time,” he says.

We have the least baggage, I suppose, of his
entire clan. Under the cover of of night, we leave the farmhouse.
There are nine of us altogether, and frankly, I wonder if we will
ever make it out alive. There’s Mansk and his brood, his brother
and wife, and the three of us. No member of Mansk’s family will be
left behind. His parents are already dead, and he has no other
kin.

“They’ll torture anyone who is left behind,”
he explains as a matter-of-factly.

I don’t doubt this. I’m not sure they won’t
torture the neighbors though. Or cousins. Or friends. No one
related to Mansk will be safe here.

I’m beginning to feel really scared about all
this.

What if I’m making a mistake? What if I am
needlessly putting everyone in danger? What if Potchenko will honor
the contract after all – despite Aimelie’s threats – and return us
intact?

I should have waited. I’m rash, I know that
now. Perhaps my rashness will doom everyone to an early death. But
it’s too late to go back and change anything. I made a decision
without consulting anyone, and we are all paying the price for it
now.

I do not share with anyone my fears as we
pile into Mansk’s truck. Yes, he does have a truck. A Hungarian
model that must have been twenty years old. Mansk’s family has
brought the bare minimum with them. A battered suitcase for each
person – needful things for the journey, gold and whatever foreign
money they have managed to come up with.

I have confirmed the ten million with Max,
and he has agreed.

Sensing my consternation, he says, “Gina, you
did the right thing for all of us. Everyone says Aimelie wasn’t
going to let us go. My father would never risk an international
incident . . . especially the uncomfortable revelations that would
come with it.”

“You mean he would rather let you die?” I am
incredulous.

In the darkness, his profile is troubled. “I
don’t know, Gina. Sometimes I don’t know. You have no idea what it
is like growing up in that family. I’m the eldest son. In most
families, I would have been the favored one. But no. No one ever
gave me the time of day, especially when those three were
around.”

I know he means Alice and the twins.
Normally, I would say something comforting and reassuring, even
though it is probably meaningless. But today, I don’t. Max’s family
is just too strange for me to comprehend.

I reach out for his hand to clasp it. This
gesture is not lost on Greg, who says nothing.

We finally stop by the side of the road, near
another farmhouse. Here, some men are loading large crates onto a
large truck. They have no benefit of a forklift, but have managed
to rig some sort of rudimentary pulley system. The crates contain
some sort of farm machinery, as far as I can see.

Everyone climbs out of our truck, and we
follow suit.

“Two people in one crate,” Mansk says. “No
talking now.”

Oh, I see.

We get onto the truck, climbing two by two
into several empty crates which have been conveniently placed on
top. I get into one together with Max, yet another gesture not lost
on Greg. It isn’t as if I want to exclude Greg for any reason. It
just seems like the natural thing to do to get into a crate with my
boyfriend. And besides, I wasn’t thinking about it – at least not
in any conscious way.

The crates are sealed, hammered shut. We are
completely in the dark. Max and I cling to each other – our sweaty
hands gripping one another’s in a tight clutch that has the air of
finality in it. We are only able to guess at what is happening
around us from the sounds. We gather that all the crates are
finally on the truck – the ones containing people intermingling
with the ones containing machinery.

And then we are off again, the truck rumbling
into motion. The crates bump and jostle each other on the uneven
road. Our bones are jarred and our muscles ache. After about an
hour, we arrive at some sort of train station, which I can decipher
once again from the shrieks and whistles and general activity
outside. Our crates are offloaded and loaded onto a waiting
carriage. I can smell sawdust and steam around us.

More time elapses. My head is a powder keg
waiting to explode, and my heart has exhausted its percussive
power. Any time now, I expect the shouts of guards outside, the
metallic cocking of rifles pointing at our car. Everyone at the
castle must have surely realized we have gone, and that Mansk is
the perpetrator.

Max grips me so hard that my palms feel
flattened. I think he is every bit as afraid as I am.

But miracle of miracles. There’s the blare of
a whistle, and the train’s wheels start to churn – axles and gears
grinding in a familiar rotational interplay that floods me with
relief.

And we are off! Going to Hungary on a cargo
train filled with farm produce. Ursk maintains minimal trade ties
with some of its neighbors, against the wrath of Uncle Sam. But we
are very far from America in this part of the world, and not
everyone thinks in the terms of sanctions against despotic
dictators. With every mile the train traverses out of this
terrifying nation, my chest grows a little lighter.

And then it happens.

With a massive screech of brakes, the train
excruciatingly skids to a halt. Have we reached our destination? My
intuition tells me no. Something has happened. Something bad.

After an interminable time, there comes the
clatter of boots outside our carriage. Voices ring in the
stillness. The thumping of my heart almost drowns out everything
else. Max is holding me so hard that I can feel the indentations of
his fingernails in my flesh.

Footsteps on the floor of our carriage.
Crates being hauled out. More voices in Urskan. More crates being
dragged, toppled and thrown out of the carriage. Red spots dot my
vision, and I have to bite my knuckles to keep myself from
screaming. Everything seems to happen in a flash, although minutes
and minutes must have passed.

And then . . . the inevitable. Our crate has
been discovered. The prizing out of nails. The pulling out of the
front board.

Max and I blink in the sudden light.
Flashlights shine on our faces, dazzling us. In the glare, I can
make out the gleaming silhouettes of guards and the shiny butts of
their rifles.

Get out,
the menacing command is
unmistakable in Urskan.

The vivid image of the Guillotine blade cuts
across my mind in a sweep of terror.

EROTICA BY APHRODITE HUNT

The ‘Bound
and Shackled
to
the Billionaire’ series

His Indecent Proposition

His Indecent Demands

His Indecent Desires

His Indecent Secrets

His Indecent Revelations

The ‘Initiation’ series

Open Your Legs for Me

Blindfolded and Spread-eagled

Thighs Wide Apart

Teacher, Please Spread my Pussy

The Final Initiation

The Initiation: A Bundle of 5 Stories

The ‘Initiation 2’ series

Open Your Legs for my Family

Bend Over for my Family

Publicly Display Yourself for Me

Sex Slave at Sea

Paraded before the Billionaires

Sex Slave at the Auction

The ‘Initiation 3’ series

Sex Slave to the Dictator

Shackled by the Dictator

Punished by the Dictator’s Daughter

‘
The Royal Captive’ series

Prince Miro’s Capture

Prince Miro’s Submission

Prince Miro’s Enslavement

Prince Miro’s Punishment

Prince Miro’s Escape

Prince Miro’s Final Confrontation

The Royal Captive: Vol 1 to 3

The Royal Captive: Vol 4 to 6

The ‘Naughty Nymphomaniac’ series

I was a Naughty Nymphomaniac

Officer, Please Spread and Cuff Me

Gang Banged by the Chain Gang

Tempting the Hot Navy SEAL

The ‘Delicate Piercings’ series

Her First Clit Ring

Her First Clit Ring 2: Menage

Her First Clit Ring 3: Desensitization

The ‘Undercover’ series

Undercover: Exposing the Bad Doctor

Undercover: Stealing from the Sexy CEO

The ‘Alien’ series

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens 2

Hot, Wet and Steamy
(individual
stories)

When He’s Inside You

My Stepson is a Naughty Stripper

The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter
(Erotic Suspense)

WORKS BY ARTEMIS HUNT

EROTIC ROMANCES

The ‘Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed
Alpha Male’ series

A Virgin Enslaved

The Pretend Boyfriend

The Pretend Boyfriend 2

The ‘Maid for the Billionaire Prince’
series

Mysterious Desire

Forbidden Desire

Infamous Desire

Royal Desire

Maid for the Billionaire Prince

ROMANCES

The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick

Snow White and the Alien

Dear reader, as this list is not always
comprehensive due to more stories being churned out after this
point in publishing, please visit
http://artemishunt.blogspot.com/
and
http://aphroditehunt.blogspot.com/
for more stories and updates. I write as Artemis Hunt for erotic
romances with a more romance feel and Aphrodite Hunt for pure
erotica and erotic romances which are slightly kinkier. So please
be aware of what you’re getting into, dear reader, when you read
one of my stories. Thank you so much for your support.