Cold Betrayal

RIGA, LATVIA

CHAPTER 1

“Eda, I know it’s been awhile, but I need your help and I need it fast.”

Eda immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the phone line, but she had never heard it so frantic. She and Nika had been friends a long time but hadn’t spoken for several years after it became clear to Eda that Nika did not reciprocate her desire to become more than just friends. Eda had also grown frustrated by Nika’s aloofness when it came to confiding about her life, particularly her occupation.

“I work in the export business and have to travel a lot,” was all that Nika would say to explain why she seemed to disappear from Eda’s life for lengthy periods of time without prior notice or later explanation.

“It was just another one of those times when I was out of the country,” was Nika’s canned response. Of course, all forms of modern communication have reached around the world for many years now, so being out of the country was a pretty feeble excuse for Nika to forget for months that Eda even existed.

“What do you need?” Eda was surprised at her response to Nika’s desperation. A firm “no” would have been a much better reply, a “yes” was the weakest. But Eda needed time to process the situation. The woman she had most desired for years was suddenly begging for her help and the emotions that her pleas generated in Eda were too complicated for a quick decision.

“Let me stay at your place. It’s just for tonight, I promise.”

That this is what Nika needed from her only added to Eda’s turmoil. Nika’s place was a small one-bedroom apartment with one four-poster queen-size bed. Could Eda stand this proximity to Nika if she still wasn’t interested in being more than her friend? And of late, Nika hardly had demonstrated any desire for friendship with Eda.

After a brief pause that must have seemed much longer to Nika than to Eda, Eda answered. “I’ll let you stay here, but only if you explain what’s going on. Is that understood?” Eda tried to maintain control of the situation… and her emotions.

“Deal.” Nika’s answer was immediate. “You are still at the same place, right?”

“Yes.”

“See you in 15 minutes.” The phone clicked.

Eda took a deep breath. She had never been able to control Nika in any way. Now, after so much time apart, she wanted to believe that she had moved on, as she often told herself she had. But she wasn’t confident that this was really true. She didn’t know what the chances were that seeing Nika after so long would set her heart on fire again, causing her to lose control once again.

CHAPTER 2

It was only 10 minutes before Eda heard the knock on her door. There stood Nika, looking more stunning than ever in a stylish grey duffel coat and expensive black heels. She slipped off the jacket to reveal the black pencil skirt and white blouse she wore underneath. She was carrying a small purse that matched her outfit. Her gold necklace and bracelet were surprisingly tasteful and restrained.

Classic boardroom appearance, Eda thought – sleek, elegant and sporting perfectly coiffed, shoulder length blonde hair. Nika’s toned legs needed no stockings, and she seemed even taller than Eda remembered. She towered nearly four inches over Eda, who was a modest five foot five without heels. Nika looked totally professional, while Eda, barefoot and dressed only in shorts and a t-shirt, felt entirely out of place even in her own apartment,

“OK. I am going to be totally upfront with you,” Nika promised as she walked in and the two sat down at Eda’s small kitchen table.

“That would be a first,” Eda thought, but Nika’s fear was so apparent that Eda resisted her impulse to chide her.

“I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Some bad people are after me.”

“What did you do?”

“They think I stole from them. A large sum of… er… money.”

“Did you?” If she had, Eda feared these bad people might harm her if they learned that she had harbored Nika, even for a single day.

“No. Well, yes. But no. Not really. It wasn’t exactly money.” Nika knew that Eda could not possibly understand her response. “Let me explain. I was… doing some work for these people, but I decided to change jobs and I took some of their business with me to my new company. I think I had a right to do that, but my former employers don’t agree. And they are wealthy, powerful people who don’t wait to have their disputes decided by court of law, if you know what I mean.”

“This sounds pretty serious.” Eda observed the obvious. “Why don’t you go to the police?”

“I can’t… not without incriminating myself. Besides, they’d get me long before the police could do anything.” Eda could see Nika’s chest heaving. She was in obvious distress. “I learned less than an hour ago,” Nika continued, “that Dmitri... my former boss… wants to talk with me face to face, and I know from his history that is not a good thing for the person he wants to talk with. He has sent several of his people to find me. They will be watching my place, so I can’t go back there. Which is why I only have the clothes on my back.”

Nika paused to gather her thoughts and slow her panicked breathing. “I just need a day for my new boss to work things out, which includes keeping me safe from my old boss. I called you because you’ve never had anything to do with my business and we haven’t seen each other in a long time, so no one will know to look for me here. Please, let me stay. Just for tonight. Things should settle down by end-of-day tomorrow. If not, I’m going to leave town anyway, so, one way or the other, I’ll be out of your hair soon. Promise.”

Eda paused again, even longer this time, before giving her answer to Nika. “All right. You can stay. You’re exhausted. Go take a shower and get some rest. You’ll be able to think more clearly in the morning.”

Nika sighed with relief, then leaned over the table and kissed Eda on the lips. Eda immediately felt her body shudder in the same way it had every time Nika teased her with a “platonic” kiss. Nika stood and walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and closed the door.

Eda leaned back in her chair. This was far more than Nika had ever told her about her work. Still, Eda already began to regret her weakness.

On the negative side, Nika’s situation did seem dangerous and Eda had allowed herself to be dragged into that danger. On the positive side, the woman who still owned Eda’s heart and whom she had not seen in so long was now taking a shower in her apartment, where the two of them were going to spend the night together. Although she was still uncertain about how together they would spend it. Maybe she should weigh that on the negative side, too. Eda was very confused.

CHAPTER 3

Nika exited the bathroom wearing only a large towel covering her from her shoulders to her knees.

“I know I’ve already imposed on you more than I should, but do you think I could borrow a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt… oh, and an old pair of winter boots? We’re about the same size, aren’t we? And you can keep the clothes that I wore here. That seems like a fair trade for you, doesn’t it? I can’t move well in those clothes. I’ll be much better off with a more practical outfit.”

“And one you won’t be recognized in,” Eda thought to herself. She nodded and told Nika, “Take what you want from the top two drawers. And my boots are in the front closet.”

“Thanks.” Nika headed to the bedroom. Eda pouted. Yes, they wore the same size clothes, except, well, Nika certainly filled them out better than she did. Nika probably still had that personal trainer. And hadn’t she once mentioned that her office had a private chef? Much easier to stay fit with that kind of support. Nonetheless, Eda hoped that Nika’s expensive clothes might actually look good on her, even if not as good as they looked on Nika, who also knew how to wear them. Still, with everything that she had going for her, Nika now had a major problem in her life... a problem about which Eda thought Nika had revealed more than she had intended.

Nika returned to the kitchen dressed in only a pair of shorts she had chosen to wear in Eda’s apartment. “It’s quite hot in here,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind if I just wear these for now.” Oh great… now Eda was reminded that topless Nika’s breasts were a cup larger than her own, and just as firm. But God the woman was beautiful standing nearly naked in front of her.

“Sorry. The heating system tends to run high in the winter.”

Eda saw Nika pause in thought for several seconds. “Look, I realize it’s been a long time. And I don’t know how you feel about me, whether, you know, you still … well, I just don’t know. But, if you don’t, and it would just be… it wouldn’t be emotionally complicated… and it wouldn’t hurt you … we could… well, I wouldn’t mind… if we made love tonight. For old time’s sake. What do you think?”

Why must everything be so complicated, Eda cried inside. This was what she had wanted more than anything for so long… but not the way it was being presented to her. Nika wanted to fuck Eda only if Eda wasn’t in love with her. Nika didn’t want Eda. Nika wanted sex, and that night Eda was the only one who could give it to her. The woman was so selfish. She just toyed with Eda’s emotions. And she probably was too self-centered even to know she was doing it.

Eda knew that the worst thing she could do was agree to have sex with Nika. It meant absolutely nothing to Nika under the pretext that it also meant nothing to Eda. Despite this message from her brain, and without a word, Eda nodded “yes” to her desire, took Nika by the hand and walked with her into the bedroom.

CHAPTER 4

More than anything, it was Nika’s unflagging confidence that got under Eda’s skin. The coy act to lure Eda into bed was designed to make Nika appear just as vulnerable as her would-be lover, but in fact, the canny blonde knew that with a touch of false diffidence her mark would succumb to her desires. Asking to borrow Eda’s clothes, then choosing to showcase her ample attributes by wearing only shorts would make Nika irresistible to her sexual prey. Eda was well aware of this – mindful of her own weaknesses. And though she hated herself for being a pushover, she knew that Nika’s confidence was indomitable, and so, as always Eda did not resist.

She wondered why Nika had even bothered to put on the shorts. During the few steps from the bedroom door to the bed, she managed to remove the only thing she was wearing and fling the garment aside in a single, sexy maneuver. Seconds later, she was on the bed naked, laying on her back and pulling Eda on top of her.

Helpless and at the mercy of her cold-hearted seductress, Eda let herself collapse on Nika’s soft body. Thanks to the heat, both thermal and erotic, Nika was covered from head to toe in a sheen of perspiration, causing Eda to slide limply over her paramour as she felt passionate hands claw at her t-shirt and shorts. Soon she too was naked, pressing her own sweaty skin onto Nika’s.

“No panties?” laughed Nika. “Were you expecting me?”

Eda felt her breasts push against the soft, swollen mounds on Nika’s chest and once again became self-conscious of the considerable size disparity between their respective endowments. She wondered if her taut, modest bosom detracted from her femininity, especially when crushed against the abundant superstructure of her lover. As usual, she felt inferior, even unworthy of Nika’s carnal attentions.

But Eda had no reason to be concerned – at least not about her breasts. Nika did not care if the woman she was fucking had the chest of a porn star or that of a young boy. In fact, she was barely aware of Eda at all. What she craved was a smooth, lush, warm body – man or woman, it didn’t matter – a body she could use to relieve the sexual tension that had been accumulating inside her for weeks. The vibrators she had been playing with made very poor substitutes for the real thing.

Of course Eda craved release as well. It had been over a year since she had last felt the caress of any hands except her own. But unlike Nika, she also longed for a respite from loneliness… from a life which had grown mundane and repetitive, especially with no one to share it with. Her financial situation was marginal at best, and there were few potential suitors available in the limited social circle in which she travelled. In short, Eda desperately wanted someone like Nika in her life – someone exciting, willing to take risks, and with Nika’s perfect body and supermodel features.

Nika, on the other hand, wanted sex. Period.

Eda could put up with a selfish lover if at least it was someone who would hang around after the night-time romps and be a friend as well as a half-decent lay. But Nika had never been like that; she had been a lousy friend – which is why Eda had decided never to see her again after the blonde temptress had left the last time. Still, here they were, once again naked, in bed and wrapped in each other’s arms. “Shit.” Eda said softly as Nika grunted obliviously beneath her. “Shit, shit, shit, shit… Aaaiieeghhh…”

Nika had raised one leg and deftly positioned her kneecap against Eda’s pussy. Eda screamed with pleasure as she felt the sudden pressure against her clitoris. “Oh God!!” she yelled as Nika repeated the motion once more, sliding her leg between Eda’s wet labia. And then she did it again. And again, and again, and again… each time drawing a guttural cry from Eda’s throat.

Nika knew full well that Eda enjoyed rough sex, though she had never been willing to play the bondage games Eda so much wanted to act out. Despite her edgy lifestyle, Nika thought all “the props” as she called them – the ropes, handcuffs, gags, whips and other S&M paraphernalia Eda had collected – were silly. She was willing to become a bit boisterous in bed, but to Eda’s disappointment, sex with Nika, though comforting, was relatively vanilla. A sudden knee to the pussy was likely as rough as things would get.

Mistaking Eda’s lusty cries for orgasms, Nika arched upwards and twisted her body around, flipping Eda onto her back and landing on top of her. Their positions were now reversed, and Eda knew what she had to do. Imitating Nika’s motions (as was expected), she too raised her leg, and somewhat more softly – the way Nika liked it – she massaged the blonde’s pussy, feeling it grow wetter as her moaning grew more intense.

“Aaaieeeghhh!!” Nika’s scream was much louder than Eda’s and her climax was unmistakable. Eda felt a stream of warm liquid flow down her thigh. It had taken Nika less than a minute to come, a talent Eda found enviable. They lay still for a moment as Nika panted and recovered from her orgasm, then (as usual) they contorted their bodies into a standard 69 position and began using their tongues on each other’s clits.

“Aaaaauuuughhh!!” Again it was Nika’s unmistakable shriek which signaled Eda (thanks to practice in the past) had caused her lover to reach another powerful climax. A third and a fourth soon followed, leaving Nika gasping, her head wedged at Eda’s crotch, her tongue barely moving.

Eda moaned sensually, and faked a few shakes and shivers to imply she too had come, but it was hardly a convincing performance. Nika, lost in her own post coital reverie, remained ignorant of her partner’s lack of satisfaction. Eda needed more. Much more. She needed a type of love Nika could never provide – a type of love most women and men did not understand.

As the two women spooned and savored the warmth and wetness of each other’s bodies, Eda looked longingly at the “toy chest” in the corner of her room. When was the last time it had been opened? When was the last time she had enjoyed the feel of the cuffs around her wrists and ankles? The ropes across her breasts? The blindfolds over her eyes? The whip biting into her flesh? The studded dildo pushed deep inside her? She sighed, and recalled the tattered history of her love life.

Of the few partners who had been willing to even look inside the toy chest, most of those who tried to provide Eda with the pleasure she desired had been so afraid, they played their roles as gingerly as month-old kittens. “Is it okay if I use the cuffs now?” they would ask to make sure that… well… it was okay to use the cuffs. One woman ran screaming from Eda’s apartment when she naively opened the chest and caught a glimpse of the contents. No wonder Eda felt so alone.

Only one of her lovers, a German author she had met many years ago, understood her fantasy and managed to fulfill it. Sadly, after the last – and perhaps only – love-making session that had truly satisfied her, he had moved to Europe to write some ridiculous expressionist, erotic novel. They still corresponded occasionally, but she knew they would never see each other again.

A tear rolled down Eda’s cheek. Next to her, she could hear Nika breathe deeply, most likely dreaming of fucking in an ice cream parlor that served only one flavor – everyone’s favorite. And then, her sadness slowly waned and was replaced by another less familiar emotion.

Anger.

CHAPTER 5

Nika was surprised when she opened her eyes and saw that the clock next to the bed display 10:45 a.m. She had never slept so late in the morning.

She heard noises coming from the kitchen, and got out of bed, still naked. “Eda, I’m sorry for sleeping so late. I was obviously more exhausted than I thought. I hope you enjoyed last night as much as I did.” Nika opened the bedroom door and walked into the kitchen, where Eda was seated at the table dressed in a thin, cotton bathrobe which fell just barely past her hips.

Suddenly, Nika noticed movement to one side. She turned and saw two men standing in front of her. She turned back toward the bedroom and saw two more men blocking her way to it. These four men were quickly joined by two others who had been in the living room.

“I’m sorry, Nika,” Eda said, then reconsidered. “No, I’m not really sorry. My choice was simple: Continue to pine for you and be rejected and asked to fuck you only if I didn’t love you. Or make enough money to be comfortable for a long time. I know you would have done it to me… since you’ve always thought only about yourself.”

As Eda spoke, Nika felt the two men behind her grab her elbows, bend her arms behind her back, securing her wrists with metal handcuffs which the men tightened before cuffing her elbows together as well. This forced Nika’s chest out. God, she was beautiful, Eda thought, then tried to put this out of her mind and convince herself again that she had done the right thing, the only thing that she could do under the circumstances.

“You fucking bitch!!” Nika screamed at her. “I trusted you…” Her screams quickly ended as a cloth gag was thrust deep down her throat and secured with duct tape across her lips, after which a thick black hood was pulled over her face and secured at her neck.

“If once in your life you had thought about me instead of yourself… everything was always about you,” Eda screamed back at her. “Well, today I thought about myself for a change. And not about you!”

Two of the men opened the front door to the apartment, looked down the empty hall, and led the naked Nika out. A third man followed to protect them from behind. Nika’s muffled screams attracted no attention – most of the tenants in the apartment complex were away at work at this time of day.

Eda found herself in the kitchen with the remaining three men.

“Do you want to count the money?” One of the men nodded toward an open suitcase filled with cash on the kitchen counter. “$20,000. The agreed price.”

“No need for me to count it. I’m sure it’s right.” No reason to make the men think she didn’t trust them.

Eda knew that what she had done that morning was impulsive. Nika had let slip the name of the boss she had betrayed. Dmitri. Eda had easily confirmed with a few internet searches on her cell phone that this Dmitri had to be Dmitri Kolnikoff, head of the faction of the Russian Mafia controlling a large part of the drug, gambling and prostitution trade in Riga. He was also rumored to be engaged in white slave trafficking. To cover his tracks, Dmitri ran some legitimate businesses as well, including the city’s largest waste disposal operation.

After realizing this, everything Nika had said had suddenly clicked. “Changing jobs.” “Taking business.” For whatever reason – likely pure greed – Nika had switched her allegiance from Dmitri’s Russian Mafia – taking with her illicit funds or something valuable – to its main rival in Riga – the Japanese Yakuza. Nika was probably waiting to hear from her new employers – most likely for directions to the nearest safe house.

Presumably, she was expecting the call today. But till then, she had to stay with someone who had no connection to any of her past illegal activities. Eda was perfect for the task. Apparently, Nika had no concern that her plan would also put Eda in grave danger from the Russians. If somehow they found the treacherous blonde, they would certainly deal with whoever was sheltering her as well. Betraying her former friend would provide not only retribution and financial gain, it also would preserve her safety.

Eda found a phone number for Dmitri’s legitimate business – the waste disposal company he used to launder his illicit funds – just by typing his name into an internet search. Without further thought, she made the call, telling the man who answered, “I can tell you where a woman named Nika Stern is in return for a reasonable fee for my service.” After a long pause – Eda wasn’t sure whether the man on the other end of the line was himself thinking of a figure to propose for such service or was asking someone higher up. He responded, “$20,000.”

That was a lot more than she had expected. “It wasn’t exactly money,” Nika had said when first explaining what she had stolen from the Russians. But whatever it was, it sure was worth a lot to Dmitri to offer so much for the woman who betrayed him. Eda quickly agreed to the reward and gave the man her address.

Eda knew that what would happen to Nika was not going to be pleasant. No, it would be pretty brutal, perhaps – or likely – even fatal. But Nika had enjoyed so many highs in her life – with money and power – more than Eda would ever have, so why shouldn’t Nika now suffer some equally extreme lows… while Eda enjoyed her own high – to balance the scales somewhat. And to end, once and for all, the desire for Nika that Eda seemed never to be able to shake.

CHAPTER 6

The hallway outside Eda’s apartment was long. It ran the length of the aging, five floor building in which she’d lived for the last six years. The three men escorting the terrified Nika hesitated, suddenly aware they had to get their rather conspicuous captive – a tall, naked blonde – to a black sedan parked in a visitor’s spot out front – without drawing attention to themselves.

At one end of the hallway was the main elevator, which led down to the lobby, just a hundred yards from the parking lot. Although the quickest route, it was unlikely they could take it without being spotted, even if few other residents were around. Riding the elevator would be a major fiasco if someone joined them.

At the other end of the hallway was the exit to an external fire escape, a much safer option, but one which involved walking around the building to get to the car. Still, if one of them went ahead and drove the vehicle in front of the side alley to load their cargo, the chances of being seen were slim.

They walked to the fire escape. Nestor, the largest of the three men, looked out the window. They were on the fourth floor – not very high up – and behind the building was a large snow-covered recreation area which was deserted at this time of year. Directly below them was an icy walkway which circled the apartment block.

“Someone could still see us,” said Pavel, a squat, balding fire plug. “We need to get this bitch something to wear so she doesn’t, you know, stand out. I can run back to the snitch’s apartment and…”

“No,” said Nestor. He had opened a closet door on the side wall and was rummaging through some janitorial supplies inside. He pulled out a grimy, frayed rag and held it up. At one time it had been a child’s t-shirt; now it was some caretaker’s filthy cleaning towel. “This will do.” He handed it to Pavel, who uncuffed Nika’s wrists and told her to put it on.

Nika was revolted by the filthy, foul-smelling garment, but did as she was told. She struggled to pull the undersized top over her hood and across her torso. In the end, she was only partially successful at covering herself. The thin fabric stretched tightly across her bulging breasts, leaving her nipples partially exposed, and the hem only descending to her waist. From the hips down, she remained naked.

“At least it looks like she’s wearing something,” Nestor said. “But it’s not enough. Pavel, give her your coat.”

Pavel, who had just finished re-cuffing Nika’s hands behind her back, grumbled in protest. “No way. It’s below freezing out there. Let Erik give the bitch his coat.” Erik, the third of the trio, held up his hands and shook his head.

“Just do it,” snarled Nestor at Pavel. “It’s only for a few minutes.”

Pavel grunted and wrapped his bomber jacket over Nika’s shoulders. He wasn’t about to take off her cuffs again.

“Erik, go ahead and bring the car in front of the walkway… nice and close.” Nestor threw Erik the keys and motioned for him to take the elevator and exit through the lobby. Erik jogged down the hall while Nestor turned to open the door to the fire escape. It had not been used for some time, and it took the two remaining men several pulls to loosen the iced-up latches and yank the door free. A bitterly cold gust blew in.

“Okay you thieving cunt…” Nestor pulled out his Grach sidearm and pushed the muzzle into her lower back. “You first. Nice and slow. Pavel will stay at your side, and on the off-chance that someone sees us, let’s hope they don’t look at you too close… especially from the waist down.”

Nika stepped outside onto the freezing cold metal stairway. Like everything else around her, it was covered with snow. She gritted her teeth and tried not to scream out. Pavel and Nestor followed her closely. Nika felt the gun thrusting into her back.

The two Russians pushed Nika down the fire escape and along the ice cold path circling the building. Her forced march went undetected. By the time they reached the black sedan Erik had parked at the end of the walkway, Nika’s body was already beginning to turn blue. Pavel snatched his coat from her shoulders, leaving her clad once again in only the threadbare shirt and hood.

“Christ, it’s cold,” he said. “Fuckin’ bitch has had my duds long enough!”

Nika shuddered fiercely due the stinging chill and her frantic terror, but the three men didn’t care. Erik opened the trunk of the car and looked on callously as Pavel and Nestor heaved the blonde, arms still cuffed behind her, into the opening before closing the lid.

Nika’s captors climbed into the sedan, and with Nestor at the wheel, drove away from Eda’s building.

CHAPTER 7

Eda looked at the three men still in her apartment. “I told you I didn’t need to count the money. So you can go.”

“Actually, ma’am, we cannot.” Eda was surprised at the politeness of this member of the Russian Mafia, who no doubt had murdered and tortured many. “There is a real possibility over the next several hours that others may also come looking for your friend. If they do, we want to know who they are and what they know about the… situation. So, like it or not, we are going to be your guests awhile longer.”

Eda was surprised when she realized that, when she thought about Nika’s fate, she was actually… aroused. That damn bitch had belittled Eda’s kink for bondage whenever Eda had gotten up the nerve to suggest it to her. That was not Nika’s thing, she had made clear. But now, well, wasn’t it ironic that Nika no longer could refuse such an invitation? She’d learn about bondage, and a whole lot more about sadism, even if she had no masochistic tendencies herself.

The thought of what was in store for her ex-lover sparked Eda’s darkest fantasies, and she could not help but feel her libido surge. Nika’s lovemaking had been perfunctory as always – geared mainly to satisfy the blonde’s traditional desires – but despite Eda’s lust for Nika’s spectacular body, the session ended with her own unique appetites unfulfilled.

Now, surrounded by three strapping men who likely abused women on a daily basis, she could not help but feel the urge to let them provide the sort of “love” she craved… the sort of love Nika and so many others denied her. After all, she was a “captive”. Should these mobsters not be allowed to take advantage of their prisoner? Eda realized that provoking the Russians was dangerous, but that made the situation even more tempting. It was time to take a few risks, she thought.

They were all on the same “side” – she had helped Dmitri after all – so Eda felt reasonably safe. Besides, when would she have another opportunity like this one… three powerful men who likely enjoyed bondage and rough sex alone with her, and with little to do as they waited for their next targets to arrive.

Eda leaned back in her chair and carelessly loosened the tie around her waist. The robe fell open enough to expose her breasts and conspicuously engorged nipples. She felt flattered that all three of the Russians instantly focused their gaze on her. She had clearly drawn their attention.

“Look,” Eda addressed the trio as a group, “it doesn’t take three of you to watch the front door.” She walked to the entrance to her bedroom. “So why don’t two of you join me? I think it will be a lot more fun in this room than in that one.” She walked into the middle of her bedroom and waited to see if any of the men followed her. Two quickly appeared in the doorway. Eda let the bathrobe fall to the floor, leaving her svelte, slim body completely nude.

“Are either of you into… bondage?” she asked, opening her toy box and pulling out an assortment of cuffs, gags, blindfolds and clamps. The two men smiled at each other as Eda lay down on her back on the bed and spread her limbs to its four corners.

“You take her arms, Ivan, and I’ll take her legs,” one said to the other. Ivan cuffed her wrists to the two posts at the top of the bed. His companion secured her ankles to the poles at the bottom. The two men stared at her body. No, it was not Nika’s body. But it was more than nice enough – trim with firm, if average-sized, breasts – for her to see that each of the men had already developed a bulge in his pants.

“Leon, you can go first,” Ivan deferred. Leon lost no time pulling his pants and undershorts down below his knees and mounting the naked woman lying before him. Eda was pleased that he seemed to be of a nice size, and it wasn’t long before he proved that to her as his erection continued to grow as his penis hardened.

Eda grunted while he rhythmically thrust into her, deeper each time, until she screamed with excitement, feeling the onset of an orgasm. Instinctively she started to scream “yes,” but then thought that the situation more appropriately called for her to scream “no,” which she then shouted over and over. Her excitement seemed contagious, as Leon could not hold himself back for as long as she needed for a full orgasm. When he withdrew from her, she was only partially satisfied.

Ivan followed. Eda was pleased that he was as large as Leon, and she hoped that he would finish what his comrade had started. But, to her disappointment, Ivan sat on her chest, then raised himself, leaned forward and thrust his fully engorged member deep into her mouth.

She started to choke at first but managed to gain control and use her lips and tongue and teeth on him. His moans of pleasure grew nearly as loud as her earlier screams had been. He was easily excited by her lithe and helpless body – maybe these men had never before fucked a bound woman, she wondered – and half of his hot liquid soon shot down her throat, after which the other half sprayed over her face as he withdrew from her mouth. Her chest heaved. She was exhausted, but still largely unsatisfied.

No sooner had Ivan moved off the bed, than the third man entered the bedroom. “Leon, you take over the watch.” From the way he spoke, Eda assumed he was the one in charge of the three.

“Your turn, Andre.” Leon smiled, and left the room as instructed.

CHAPTER 8

“I don’t want a turn,” Andre replied, staring at Eda, who was testing the cuffs to confirm that they held her tightly spread-eagled. “At least not that kind of turn.”

Andre picked up two of the nipple clamps and fastened them to Eda’s nipples, slowly tightening them beyond what she had ever done to herself when playing with them. She let out a scream – and also thought she would have orgasmed several times if one of the first two had done this to her while they fucked her. Maybe the third time would be the charm. But what did this Andre mean when he said that he didn’t want “that kind of turn”? Eda continued to squirm in her bonds.

“No. I wouldn’t fuck this piece of shit,” Andre continued. “I wouldn’t want to contaminate my prick with her juices.” Eda stopped squirming and lifted her head to look at the man making these horrible statements about her.

“I hate spies,” Andre was now ranting at her. “I hate traitors. And so that big-boobed blonde who was just dragged out of here, she deserves whatever the boss decides to do to her. She is a fucking piece of shit, too. But this one,” he squeezed her left breast tightly until Eda let out a gasp, “she’s a snitch, and I hate snitches. She turned in a woman who apparently trusted her in return for a bag of gold.” He released his grip and moved to the foot of the bed.

“What I did helped you and your boss,” Eda screamed at him. “You wouldn’t have found her without me!!”

“That is true,” Andre responded. “But what you did says who you are and whether you can be trusted in the future. If you would betray a woman you once considered a friend, why should any of us believe that you wouldn’t betray us as soon as someone else offers you another bag of gold? No, once a snitch, always a snitch. Once not to be trusted, always not to be trusted.” Andre pulled a small revolver from his pocket.

Eda’s eyes widened and fixated on it. “What are you doing? I helped you!! That’s all I did! She was a spy and a traitor and I helped you stop her! She was never a true friend of mine!! She only thought about herself!!”

“No matter who she was, you snitched on her. Which means you can’t be trusted.” Andre pushed the nose of the revolver against Eda’s sex. Still wet with unfulfilled anticipation, her spread pussy readily received the barrel of the gun as Andre thrust it inside her. “And what do we do with those we can’t trust?”

Eda screamed even before Andre pulled the trigger. Her body rose as far as her bonds allowed as Andre released the hammer, and then fell back onto the bed, her head tilted to the side, her eyes closed.

Ivan approached the bed and put his hand on Eda’s neck to feel for a pulse.

CHAPTER 9

The Previous Day

It was a routine job.

Nika had been working for Dmitri for over three years and in that time had proven herself to be a competent and loyal employee of the Russian mob. Dmitri paid her to run relatively minor errands and handle low-risk tasks, usually those requiring an attractive young woman to take care of business.

Nika did not provide sexual services like the much higher paid prostitutes and honey trap girls, nor did she get involved in the more violent pursuits such as revenge attacks and internal discipline. She had made her limits clear when she joined the syndicate and Dmitri had always respected them. As a result, Nika’s work was neither challenging nor dangerous, but neither was she compensated as well as her comrades in the organization. And that suited Nika just fine – at least up till now.

She didn’t even accept the relatively easy courier missions, though the compensation supposedly included a cut of the shipment – which often ran into five-figure pay-outs. But Nika had heard some nasty rumors about the fate of drug runners, so she turned down these gigs as well.

Instead, she took on the pick-up operations, which involved nothing more than meeting the mule at the airport and driving her (almost all mules were female) to the drop location. In this role, Nika was a glorified chauffeur and chaperone, responsible for safe delivery of the goods and their emissaries, some of who surely were tempted to claim their cargo for themselves.

Though mules were generally compliant, Nika had had to settle some confrontations in the past. Most of the women were not pleased to be led from the airport, and a few might have had plans of their own, but Nika kept them on a tight leash as she drove them away. For this reason, she carried a baby Glock in her purse.

She had never had to use it.

Nika’s charges arrived with only carry-on baggage, and so were sure to be unarmed. The drive to “the depot”, where the pick-up crew awaited the consignment was about 40 minutes. Her car was a very reliable BMW 530. The assignments were short, safe, and simple – just the way Nika liked them.

Today’s pick-up was a knock-out named Marina. Nika was in the Bimmer with her go-between Iosif. She rarely met with Dmitri in person. Iosif had given her a head shot of a stunning brunette whose features were those of a model. He assured Nika the woman was just as impressive from the neck down… five foot eight with a small yet curvy frame, especially where it counts.

“You really don’t need the photo,” said Iosif with a laugh. “Marina stands out, if you know what I mean.”

Nika rolled her eyes. She was suddenly self-conscious of her own rather typical outfit – the smart, yet prim business attire she wore for all her pick-up assignments: white blouse, tight black skirt, three inch heels… and a mid-length duffel coat to ward off the cold.

“What’s she carrying?” Nika asked. Normally, what the mules were carrying made little difference to her, but this time it did.

“LSD. Big bucks and low risk. You can hide a hundred thousand blots in a few paperbacks where the stuff is virtually undetectable, even by sniffer dogs. Besides, Marina will have no trouble distracting the inspectors, both men and women. It’s why we hire chicks like her to make these runs.”

“I’m sure that’s the only reason,” said Nika under her breath. She was far from lacking in the looks department herself, but she really disliked the vacuous, narcissistic mules she had to ferry around like royalty.

“Marina arrives at 16:45, gate 15, terminal 2. You know what to do.” Iosif left Marina’s picture on the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. Nika sighed unhappily as she watched him walk away, then keyed the ignition and drove toward the airport.

It was a routine job.

CHAPTER 10

Marina’s flight was on time, but Nika arrived thirty minutes early to mull over her plan. As she waited on the arrivals deck, she considered backing out. Most likely that was no longer an option as she had already promised Tanaka a substantial bonus if he accepted her application. Who knows how he would react if she decided not to honor their deal.

As Dmitri’s counterpart in the rival Japanese mob, Tanaka stood a lot to gain from a defector who had worked for the Russians enough to understand their operations. He also knew that Nika was a solid, and – up till now – reliable member of Dmitri’s organization. He could easily afford to pay her what she wanted, and as a result she could be trusted by the Yakuza. After all, where else could she go?

Just one day earlier, Nika had approached Tanaka through one of his underlings. She explained that she felt underappreciated and underpaid by her current boss, and was looking for “other opportunities”. There were not many to choose from, unless she moved out of the city. To seal the deal, Tanaka demanded Nika provide something that only she could offer – her body.

Nika was not about to sleep with the short, wiry, bespectacled boss, no matter how rich and powerful he was. It would undoubtedly lead to more such requests in the future, and Nika wanted to ensure that her relationship with Tanaka would be business only. Instead, she offered to divert Dmitri’s next drug shipment to the Japanese. It was an impulsive proposal to get out of a sticky situation, but even without knowing the value of the goods he would receive, Tanaka accepted with a laugh. He had dozens of sexy bitches to fuck, but the thought of whatever lay behind door #2 was too tempting to resist.

“Once I have the shipment and have confirmed its value,” Tanaka said, “I will set you up in my operation and ensure your safety. When can I expect to receive the delivery?”

Nika was scheduled to escort a mule from the airport the following day, late afternoon. The timing was ideal – she couldn’t wait to get away from Dmitri and his Russian goons.

“You’ll have the merchandise by this time tomorrow.”

“Excellent.” Tanaka seemed pleased. “24 hours after I have received the shipment, I will contact you at this number and give you further instructions. Until then you must fend for yourself.”

It seemed simple enough. Dmitri had no idea of her intentions, and though she wished she could receive Yakuza protection immediately, she understood that arrangements would have to be made first. Still, Nika had not had time to fully work out a scheme to carry out her impetuous proposition. What would her employers do when the drugs did not arrive at the depot? She would have to hide from them for a day… but where?

Now it was too late to back out, and Nika realized fearfully that she had not worked out all the details of her plan.

The half hour passed quickly and soon Nika spied the exquisite Marina saunter through the gateway. Iosif had been right. The mule definitely stood out from the other passengers. Dressed in a red, barely-there miniskirt, stiletto boots, and a clingy white top, Marina made sure to accentuate her splendid figure. She walked upright, with a regal stride that emphasized her abundant breasts which threatened to pop the buttons of her bodice.

The instant Nika glimpsed the brunette beauty, she felt better about her decision. The fact that this over-endowed bitch was being paid God-knows-how-much for her looks and willingness to smuggle drugs reinforced Nika’s resentment. She was sure she could do better with Tanaka and his crew.

“Ah… you must be Nika,” Marina greeted her pick-up with a polished, oversized and insincere grin. She was carrying only a small carry-on bag, in which the drug shipment likely was hidden, and a clutch purse. As expected, she had sailed through customs, all systems go.

“Yes, I’m here to drive you to the depot,” Nika replied, not smiling and making no attempt to hide her frosty demeanor. “Follow me to the car.”

CHAPTER 11

Marina, riding in the back of the spacious vehicle, tried to make small talk with her surly driver, but Nika did little to encourage any conversation. She kept a close eye on the bag which Marina clutched tightly on her lap. It was the mule’s first assignment, which meant she had never been to the depot, or likely even to Latvia. Despite the cold temperature, she had not bothered to pack a coat, forcing Nika to keep the car’s heater on maximum.

The woman was even more clueless than Nika had expected. Marina had no idea that she was being driven along dark rural roads which took her further and further from her intended destination. She bragged how easy it was to evade the customs officers and then went on about her feminine charms until Nika was ready pull out her gun and finish the bitch.

But she restrained herself from revealing her true intentions. At least until they pulled down a snow-covered lane which led to a dilapidated shed. Nika parked the BMW next to the derelict structure and motioned for her passenger to get out. It had been 25 minutes since they left the airport.

“What the fuck?” Marina’s eyes were wide with surprise. “This isn’t the depot… is it? We’re in the middle of nowhere! And it’s freezing out there. You can’t expect me to…”

Nika pulled the tiny Glock from an inside pocket of her jacket and pointed it at the brunette. “Move, or I’ll plug one of those bolt-ons of yours.”

Marina stepped out of the car, still clutching her carry-on bag and the purse. Nika followed her. Both women stumbled toward the shed, their heels, especially Marina’s, no match for the uneven ground. Nika opened a sliding door and pushed her captive into the small barn, which was illuminated by a single bare bulb and was empty except for a few farm implements. She closed the entryway and barred it with a latch. Inside it was a little warmer, but Marina was shaking uncontrollably – partly because of the cold but also out of pure unadulterated fear.

“Please…” she whimpered, not even sure what she was begging for.

“Drop the gear.” Marina did as she was told, leaving the bag and the purse to fall to the floor. “Now, first things first.” Nika reached into her coat pocket and took out a plastic zip-tie. With little effort, she forced the shivering woman up against a wooden support column, pulling her arms behind her back and around the post. Nika tied Marina’s wrists together, making sure the woman was secured against the column.

“Wh… what’s this about?” Marina mewled in a squeaky voice. “What do you want?”

“What do you think, you dumb cunt? The merchandise. The oh-so-precious shipment in your bag.” Nika opened the small case and rummaged through it. There was a single change of clothes, a bikini, a sleep shirt, a make-up kit, but nothing that obviously could conceal blotter paper. Nika continued looking, tearing out the lining and feeling for hidden compartments. Nothing. No tablets, crystals, gel packs or liquids either – though any of these would be foolish ways to smuggle acid.

Nika’s final recourse was to check Marina’s purse, even though it seemed far too small to conceal much of anything. Still, even a deck of cards could carry a few thousand blots, though that hardly seemed worth the effort. Nika picked up the diminutive tote and opened it. Inside she found only the woman’s cell phone.

“Damn it!” Nika held the phone up to Marina’s face. “Does this thing have a tracer app? Do Dmitri’s thugs have the number?”

“Of course,” Marina muttered. “All of us… couriers that is… we carry a phone that can be tracked. It’s just more... you know… insurance, so the guys can find us in case… in case something goes wrong.”

Nika should have known. When millions of bucks are at stake, these mobsters don’t take chances. Her heart skipped a beat, but then she realized there was no reason to worry. They weren’t due at the depot for another ten minutes, so it was unlikely that the phone was being traced yet.

No one had called either. But just to be safe, Nika had Marina tell her the contact number. She texted the depot, letting the delivery team know that everything was fine, and that they would be fifteen minutes late because of a flight delay. Nika waited for a reassuring “k” to arrive and figured she’d bought herself some extra time.

She would need it to find out where the bitch was hiding the acid. But first, she found a hammer on a nearby workbench and smashed Marina’s cell phone to bits. ”

CHAPTER 12

“Fucking hell!!” Nika shouted. She walked over to Marina and stood in front of her. “Now then, I’m not in the mood for hide and seek, so why don’t you just tell me where the goods are.” She pulled off her coat, draped it across the workbench, and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse as far as she could.

“I… I don’t know,” Marina sobbed. “They didn’t tell me. I was told to deliver the bag and that was it. The clothes… the stuff inside the case… it isn’t even mine… I can’t… Aaaaiiieeghhh!!”

Nika delivered a hard punch to Marina’s midriff, smashing her body against the wooden post. As her victim gasped for air, Nika grabbed her skintight top and ripped it apart, sending buttons flying in all directions. Another strong yank and the garment was torn away completely, leaving Marina attired in only a skimpy, sheer bra above the waist. The bra was at least three sizes too small, leaving Marina’s rock-hard nipples exposed to the frigid air.

“No… no… I really can’t tell you where… Aaaaeeeaghh!!” Nika thrust her fist into Marina’s stomach a second time, then followed up with two blows to her face. Blood trickled from between her botox enhanced lips. She struggled to stay upright by leaning against the post.

“Listen bitch! You are in for a world of hurt if you don’t tell me where I can find the shipment!”

Marina fought for breath and struggled to speak, but all she could do was shake her head. Predictably, Nika let loose with a flurry of punches, clenching both hands and slamming them repeatedly into the luscious brunette’s body. The shed was filled with fleshy thuds as Nika connected with her target again and again.

A sickening crack, followed soon after by another, signaled the breaking of Marina’s ribs. More blood spewed from her mouth and formed a small puddle on the floor. Unable to resist the squishy mounds strapped to Marina’s chest, Nika raised one arm and thrust her fist deep into the battered mule’s left tit. The impact snapped the stays of the overstressed bra, which sprung free and completely exposed Nika’s breasts for further abuse.

“NOOO!!!” she screamed. “Not there… not there! Please!! You’ll kill me. I’ll tell… I’ll tell you where the stuff is… how the Russians are smuggling it.”

Nika looked confused and more than a little doubtful, but she stopped beating Marina and waited for her to explain.

“The LSD… it’s dissolved in liquid… ethanol gel,” Marina muttered. “They dilute it – 500 grams per liter for transport, then reduce it ten to one to infuse the blotter squares. A gram costs $3000 on the street once it’s processed, so a liter of infused ethanol is worth one and a half million dollars…”

“That’s all very interesting, but where is it?” Nika was growing impatient. “I didn’t see any ethanol in your carry-on.”

“Well…” Marina was reluctant to explain further, but realized she had no choice. “The ethanol gel has about the same consistency as silicone… so…” she looked down at her impressive bosom, leaving her tormentor to figure out the rest.

“Jesus Christ!!” Nika was aghast. “So that’s why those knockers are so big… and why your bra and top don’t fit. You’ve had implants… and instead of silicone, they’re filled with this LSD infused ethanol.” Nika stopped to take this in. “It’s ingenious. Tell me, just how big are those suckers?”

“800 cc’s,” said Marina quietly, then added somewhat unnecessarily, “Each.”

“Fuck!! That’s over two million bucks.” Nika whistled and tried to contain her excitement. It was over four times what she was expecting the goods to be worth. But it also added an unexpected complication. “And just how were you expecting to extract the merchandise – I mean without getting killed?”

“Another operation,” said Marina. “Dmitri’s team said they could remove the LSD implants safely and replace them with ones filled with silicone.”

Nika shook her head, thinking this bubble-brained bimbo had the IQ of a chipmunk. Does she really think she’s getting a free boob job on top of whatever these mobsters are paying her? Would Dmitri really bother to have his men operate on this bitch and let her live?

Well, maybe if he thought he could use her again. Women this stupid were hard to find, especially ones with looks like hers. Still, whatever Marina’s fate would have been, this odd turn of events left Nika with problems of her own.

Nika’s plan to switch her allegiances to the Yakuza was admittedly sketchy, but she had not expected to murder anyone as she carried it out.

CHAPTER 13

Back to the Present

Nika, still hooded, gagged and cuffed, bounced about awkwardly in the trunk of the black sedan, sustaining bruises all over her body. Dressed in only the scanty shreds of the discarded shirt, she was chilled to the bone, but at least the car provided enough warmth to ward off frostbite. Still it was far from a comfortable ride.

The sedan drove on for quite a while, giving Nika time to reflect on her dire situation. She wondered how much Dmitri knew – whether he had found the shipment. She guessed he hadn’t. Why else was she still alive? Nika figured she was being taken somewhere so the Russians could make her talk. It was a terrifying prospect.

She had covered her tracks all too well. Since the mule’s phone had been destroyed Dmitri’s men did not know about the shed where Nika had taken Marina. Nika had driven the BMW (also equipped with GPS tracking) back to the airport and abandoned it there. Dmitri had no way of finding his mule or her cargo.

Nika’s only hope was Tanaka. Before leaving the shed, she had contacted one of his men using a phone she had bought solely to communicate with her Japanese contacts. She had hidden this phone at the shed and let the Yakuza know they could trace it to find the drug shipment. Of course, this made it impossible for Tanaka to contact her as planned – but not expecting to be abducted by Dmitri, Nika figured she could call him after she laid low for a day at Eda’s.

That was before she was betrayed by the one person she trusted, someone who was not even involved in this mess. Although it was almost impossible to find the shed without GPS coordinates, the hidden phone would surely lead Tanaka’s men to the drugs. By now, they likely had the shipment, and were two million dollars richer.

Would they even care about what happened to Nika? She did not tell anyone she was staying at Eda’s, so her new Japanese employers would not notice anything was awry until they tried to contact her with instructions for switching to their side. If they did – and that in itself was a big if – would they make any effort to find her when all they heard was a voice mail message?

Nika began sobbing. It was hopeless. Dmitri’s goons would be vicious. Suspecting she was responsible for, or complicit in the loss of a two million dollar delivery, they would go to the most brutal lengths to find out what happened to the LSD. At least they did not suspect she had rerouted the shipment to the Yakuza. Yet. If they did, that would make matters even worse, if that were possible.

But what could she do? Even if Nika managed to tell the Russians what she had done and somehow lead them to the isolated shed, it would be too late. If the Yakuza had traced her phone, they certainly had the drugs by now, and Dmitri’s thugs would find nothing…

…except perhaps the comely corpse of a young woman who had undergone an involuntary breast reduction.

CHAPTER 14

The world around Eda was dark. She blinked and felt her lashes rub against something. A cloth. She realized she was blindfolded.

And everything around her smelled dank and musty. Where was she? Some kind of basement? Wherever it was, it was very, very cold.

She listened carefully. She could hear nothing. She wondered why she could not.

She tried to move her mouth, but felt a cloth filling it. She realized she was gagged.

She felt her arms had been pulled above her head. She could not lower them, and assumed they were chained to the wall behind her – a wall of freezing stone against which her back was pressed.

Eda could feel she was sitting on a dirt floor, her legs spread wide and extending at a 90-degree angle from her waist. She tried to close them but could not. She tried to bend her knees and bring her legs toward her body. Again, she could not. She realized that her ankles were chained wide apart to shackles imbedded in the floor.

She felt no cloth rubbing against any part of her body when she twisted it the little she could. She could feel the bare skin of her legs against the floor and the back of her uncovered arms against the stone wall. She realized that she was naked. Totally naked.

Suddenly she felt something removed from her right ear. Wax? And then she heard a voice whisper into it.

“You thought you were going to die, didn’t you? In fact, you thought that you were dead.” Eda recognized the voice as Andre’s, the horrible man in her bedroom who stuck his gun up her pussy and pulled the trigger. “And you very well might have been dead,” Andre explained. “You see, I put two live bullets into the gun’s chamber before I spun it. Two out of six. But the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. So you lived, but probably not to fight another day. Although you did faint from terror and pissed yourself at the same time.”

Andre examined the chains holding Eda to make sure they all were secure. “You are still a worthless snitch. That hasn’t changed. I’ll be back in an hour or so. I need some time to think about what to do with a snitch like you. But don’t worry. I’m sure I can come up with some good ideas.”

Andre watched as Eda’s chest heaved in terror. Despite the chill, her body soon glistened with the sweat of fear. Her protests through her gag were unintelligible.

“Oh, before I go,” Andre sounded like a man who just had remembered something important, “you should know that we consider your time here part of the lifetime entertainment service we are providing you as a kinky woman who loves bondage. For this service we are charging you the very reasonable fee of $20,000. Remind me to give you a receipt.”

Eda felt Andre reinsert the wax in her right ear. Her world was once again silent … and dark … and dank … and cold.

CHAPTER 15

Still lost in regrets and self-pity, Nika was jolted back to reality when the already rough ride in the black sedan’s trunk suddenly grew even more bumpy. Apparently the car had turned off the main road and onto a very badly maintained trail or pathway. Nika’s nearly naked body was tossed about like a rag doll, bouncing up against the trunk lid then crashing back to the floor or against the sides of the metal enclosure.

Fortunately, this part of her journey was relatively short, lasting only a few minutes. At last the vehicle came to a stop, and the trunk was opened. Someone, probably Nestor, pulled the hood off Nika’s head. The gag remained in place.

Although it was a dark, cloudy day, Nika was momentarily blinded by the light after having been in total darkness for well over an hour. She looked up to see three men leaning over her – obviously the trio who had captured her – but the backlit figures were indistinguishable.

“Take the slut to the pit and tie her to the railing.” Nika recognized Nestor’s voice commanding the other two mobsters. She moaned as Pavel and Erik grabbed her by her upper arms and clumsily pulled her out of the trunk. The pair paid virtually no heed to the assorted bruises and cuts marring her smooth skin, nor did they acknowledge her gag-muffled, anguished moans as they dragged her limp body across the frozen ground.

Growing accustomed to the light, Nika looked around to survey her unfamiliar surroundings. She was in an open field which stretched to the horizon on all sides. No buildings were in sight; she recognized only the car, a well-worn dump truck and a similarly dilapidated front-end loader. In the distance, a line of trees marked the edge of a forest. The sedan had stopped at the end of an overgrown laneway which was no more than an unmarked turn-off from a side road barely visible on one horizon. Wherever these men had taken her, it was far from the city – even more remote than the shed where Nika had left Marina.

Nika cried out as she felt her feet scrape over the jagged ground, it’s icy surface tearing into her flesh. It took less than a minute for Pavel and Erik to reach their destination, but in that time, they had contributed even more to their captive’s contusions.

They had come to what was little more than a rickety fence – a dozen four-foot high wooden posts forming a circle about twenty feet in diameter. Joining the posts were two rows of four inch wide planks, one running along the top of the poles and another midway up, about two feet from the ground.

Erik and Pavel dropped Nika, who fell to her knees and supported herself against the makeshift middle railing. On the other side of the ramshackle fence was a pit. Nika leaned forward to get a better look, and almost choked on the odors rising from inside the excavation. The fumes of rotting garbage and assorted refuse filled her nostrils and burned her lungs. She coughed and gagged and turned her head away from the source of the smells.

“Stupid bitch!” Pavel laughed. He grabbed her head and forced her to look into the pit. Like the wooden fence surrounding it, the opening was about twenty feet across, but it was filled with so much decomposing trash, it was impossible to tell how deep it was. There was a ten foot slope from the edge, which meant there was room for quite a bit more refuse before the pit was full.

“We should just throw you in there,” said Erik menacingly. “After all, you’re nothing but rubbish yourself. But lucky for you, we need to keep you alive and conscious until you tell us what happened to the shipment that arrived yesterday. You might think that’s a good reason to keep quiet, but believe me, you’ll soon be begging us to be tossed into the garbage if you don’t cooperate.”

Nika shuddered. As she knew all too well, Dmitri ran a waste disposal operation as a legit business to cover his assorted criminal activities. Several of his men handled weekly pick-ups along a collection of routes and dumped the trash at this secluded patch of countryside. There were at least a dozen other pits scattered in the field, though the only one that mattered to Nika was the one she had been dragged to.

“You’re lucky you’re here in the winter,” Pavel said with a smile. “The stench is unbearable in the summer heat. Comparatively speaking,” he flared his nostrils to sample a whiff of two, “this isn’t all that bad, though it seems there’s been a few recent deliveries here.”

“Less chat and more action,” said Nestor impatiently. “Get this twat roped to the boards.”

“But boss,” said Erik, shrugging his shoulders, “we ain’t got no rope…”

“Fuck that,” Nestor snarled. “Just get her up against one of the fence posts.” The two men hoisted Nika and turned her around so her back was against one of the stakes. They pulled her arms, which were still cuffed behind her back, over the top of the pole and across the adjoining planks so her weight was supported by her underarms. It was a start, but it was not enough to keep their victim in place.

A grumbling Nestor looked around and walked to a large wooden spindle, one of several which had been left lying on the site. He had hoped to find it girdled with rope or chains, but laughed out loud when he discovered something much better.

He returned a few minutes later with a long coil of rusted barbed wire. He handed it to Pavel and Erik, who quickly went to work.

“It looks like this is not going to be your lucky day, you treacherous whore,” Nestor said, savoring the fear in Nika’s eyes as she watched Erik and Pavel uncoil the wire and wrap it around her. They started just below her neck, tightly encircling the spiked, metal strand around her body, digging the jagged barbs into her butter-soft flesh.

Loop after loop, the intractable wire bound Nika to the post. It dug deep into her generous breasts, the undersized, gauzy shirt providing virtually no protection. Her arms felt the bite of the prongs as they were pulled over the upper railing and lashed against the back of the post. The men continued down the length of the lovely blonde’s body, curling the seemingly endless strand of bristling steel across her midsection, waist, thighs and finally her calves. When they were finished, poor Nika had been virtually fused to the fence, unable to move anything but her head and fingers.

The barbed wire had ensnared her so tightly, that her already battered body was now crisscrossed with thin rivulets of blood flowing from dozens of punctures where Nika’s delicate skin had been perforated. Unable to scream out, she moaned desperately as a flow of throbbing pain flooded her nervous system. Any attempt to struggle against her brutal bondage only increased her agony, so Nika forced herself to remain immobile while her captors savored her torment.

At last, Nestor pulled away the duct tape from Nika’s mouth and removed the cloth gag from her throat. At first she gasped for breath, only to retch up bile when the vile scent of putrefying refuse filled her nostrils and lungs.

“You cock-sucking bastards!” she screamed when at last she had recovered enough to let out her fear-driven anger. “I haven’t done anything! Why… why are you doing this to me? I swear, when Dmitri finds out about this, you fuckers will be in so much shit…”

“Since Dmitri sent us to interrogate you,” said Nestor with a grin, “I don’t think he’ll mind if we take some… er… liberties.” Because of the cold, Nestor was wearing thick, winter gloves, but he slowly removed one so he could savor some of Nika’s charms. With his ungloved hand Nestor fondled the woman’s large, partially covered breasts, careful to avoid the barbed wire biting into them. They were unusually hard and cold.

“Like a witch’s tits…” he laughed. Nika’s nipples, mostly exposed despite the now blood-streaked and tattered t-shirt, had swollen to twice their normal size and were stiff as stone. Nestor wondered if they could still feel pain. He squeezed one of the turgid buds between his thumb and forefinger until a tiny spurt of blood erupted from its tip.

“Aaaiieeegh!!” Nika screamed. “You bastard! Stop! Please! Let me go!”

“Perhaps.” Nestor offered some hope, though Nika doubted his sincerity. “But first you will tell me what I want to know…”

CHAPTER 16

Eda had no idea how long she remained in her quiet, dark, musty world. She wasn’t even sure if she had nodded off at all. Time just didn’t seem to exist.

Her naked body shivered uncontrollably as the frigid air seemed to permeate her flesh right down to her bones. Of course, she trembled as much from sheer dread and panic as from the cold. The sweat of anxiety continued to ooze from her pores, leaving her smooth skin gleaming from head to toe.

After what could have been minutes or, more likely hours, Eda felt the wax removed from her right ear once again. She heard Andre’s voice, this time spoken at a normal volume, not a whisper, so he didn’t have to stay so close to her.

“So, my dear snitch, I see you must like your current position, since you have remained exactly as you were when I last saw you…” he paused, looking at his watch with mild surprise,” …what… I see that was over an hour ago! I guess I just had other things to attend to and lost track of the time. But at least you didn’t mind.”

Eda tried to speak through the gag, but quickly knew that any effort to make herself understood was hopeless. She could only listen.

“I have decided to bring you a friend, and, if you behave yourself, I shall bring you more friends.” Eda felt a small creature placed on her stomach. Her body jolted as much as her bonds would allow.

“No one should be alone,” Andre said, smiling at his prisoner. “And you should be sharing your fun.” Eda groaned loudly through the gag as she felt the small feet of her “friend” crawl up her chest to her neck.

“Yes, Eda, it is a small black rat. Well, not actually all that small.” In fact, its body was over eight inches long, and that didn’t include the rodent’s revolting six inch tail. “Like you, it is hungry. But with that gag in your mouth, I can’t feed you, so instead I will feed your new companion with what I have here.”

Andre held under Eda’s nose a jar of rancid peanut butter. It was the first thing she had smelled for hours, other than the dankness of the dungeon she was in. “Did you know that black rats love peanut butter? Yes, they do.”

Eda shrieked through her gag as she felt Andre begin to rub the peanut butter between her legs. He used his fingers to mold the clammy spread over Eda’s neatly trimmed pussy like a sculptor working with clay. She felt the surprisingly cold substance pressed against her sex and the inside of her thighs. Desperately she tried to pull away from Andre’s touch, but there was nothing she could do to evade his handiwork.

The peanut butter was quite firm, but just moist and sticky enough to cling to Eda’s sensitive flesh without dropping off. She had expected the man to push some of the substance between her vulva, forcing it into her vagina where there was little risk of it being dislodged, but that was not his intent. When Andre had finished his task, only the area around her external genitalia had been coated with the stuff.

“Now you can feel that this peanut butter is rather hard,” he said. “It just came out of the refrigerator, so it will take some chewing to soften it up enough to swallow.”

Eda’s shrieks grew louder, and she pulled as hard as she could on the restraining cuffs, hopelessly trying to free herself. Of course, by now she knew it was impossible and managed only to rub her wrists and ankles raw.

“Oh, come on, my snitch,” Andre taunted. “I am merciful, as you can tell. I could have rubbed it deep into your pussy, but I have not. Don’t you want to thank me for that?” Andre finished his work and stood up, responding to Eda’s continuing efforts to scream with a polite, “Yes, you are welcome.”

As the rat sniffed and slowly crawled back down Eda’s chest toward its meal, Andre whispered into Eda’s ear, “I will try to be back in an hour, but, like last time, I can’t promise that other things won’t delay me.” He pushed the wax back into her ear and left the room, pausing at its door to listen to the screaming woman.

Eda was not screaming because she was in pain. At least not yet. It was the mere thought of some unseen creature – a disgusting, sewer-dwelling vermin – assaulting her that filled her with horror. She had felt the rat clamber up and down her torso, and though she could neither see nor hear it, she could feel its sharp claws dig into her flesh. It was surprisingly heavy, leaving Eda to fear it was not the “small” animal Andre claimed it to be. In her mind, it was a monster, no matter how big it was.

Instantly attracted to the peanut butter lathered across Eda’s groin, the rat positioned itself comfortably on her lower abdomen and began feasting on the pungent fare. To Eda, the beast felt heavier than ever, and the tickling sensation of its snout rubbing across her tender skin heightened her panic.

She squirmed against her restraints in a futile effort to shake the furry attacker off her body, but this only caused the rat to bury its claws deeper into her flesh to get a firmer grip. Eda felt a sharp, stinging pain, which further increased her terror. When she realized she could not shake off the creature, her shrieks of anguish grew louder still.

Soon, the famished rodent had chewed its way through much of the peanut butter. Because the refrigerated spread had about the same consistency as Eda’s flesh, the rat continued its feast by biting into the living tissue which lay beneath. As far as the animal was concerned, it made little difference, though it did take a bit more effort to tear away a reasonable chunk of the woman’s meat.

For Eda, the rat’s powerful incisors slashing into her made all the difference in the world. Her cries of agony rose to deafening levels each time the beast punctured the most intimate and sensitive part of her anatomy. It felt as if someone was hammering carpet nails into her pussy. Tiny rivulets of blood began to run along her labia and drip to the floor.

Unperturbed by the chilling screams of its meal, the rat continued to satisfy its carnivorous craving by gorging on the succulent, moist flesh of Eda’s sex. Still tempted by the scent of the peanut butter, it limited itself to nipping away only the oily patches where Andre had smeared the spread. For this rat, it was enough for now.

For Eda, it was the beginning of a trip into hell.

CHAPTER 17

“It was Marina… you know, the mule. It must have been her because I didn’t see her arrive at the airport. Maybe she never took the flight.” Nika was trying for the third time to convince Nestor she was innocent of stealing the shipment. The bare-skinned blonde shuddered in the cold, her flesh growing more and more numb with each frigid gust of wind blowing across the desolate field. Her barbed-wire bondage made it impossible for her to move, leaving her body unable to generate even a modicum of heat. Nika was in agony, but she knew if she told the truth, she would be made to suffer far worse. She had to make these men believe her lies.

“Don’t be stupid,” Nestor sneered. “Of course the bimbo was on the flight. Not only did your counterpart at the departure point ensure she got on the plane, the airline admins confirmed every seat was full. As for her giving you the slip at the arrival gate, that’s impossible – there is no way you could have missed a woman like Marina, unless you weren’t doing your job. And that means, most likely the two of you were in this together.”

“No, no, no,” sobbed Nika. “You have to believe me. I didn’t see Marina exit the gate. I waited a half hour, then left…”

“So why did we get a text from the courier’s phone around that time? She, or someone using her phone, said the flight had been late but the goods were on the way. Come to think of it, why did we not hear from you? Why did you run?”

“I… I… panicked. I knew if I went to Dmitri, he would suspect I stole the drugs… that he would interrogate me and at the very least punish me for screwing up the job. So I split. I went to my friend’s… to Eda’s place, where I thought I would be safe.”

“Bullshit.” Nestor clearly wasn’t convinced. He balled one hand into a fist and thrust it into Nika’s midsection.

“Aaaiieegh!!” Nika screamed. Unable to double forward, she took the full force of the punch into her abdomen, which was squashed against the post to which she was tied. Nika gasped for air and looked on in horror as Nestor cut off another length of barbed wire from the spindle. He replaced the lambskin glove on his right hand with a thick, padded work mitt he found lying on the ground. He wrapped one end of the metal strand several times around the protective covering to get a good grip, then looped the remaining ten feet into a coil.

“NOOO!!!” Nika screamed. “Please… don’t!!” Already, she could see what Nestor was planning to do. Pavel and Erik could tell as well. They grinned in anticipation, then stood a few yards away from Nika, one on each side, to get a good view. Nestor walked toward his hapless victim and stood seven feet directly in front of her. He held the barbed wire coiled up in his protected hand, then let it unspool, the free end falling to the ground.

He had fashioned a somewhat rudimentary but nonetheless savage and lethal whip.

“By now, you must know how painful this rusted barbed wire is when it bites into your flesh.” Nestor raised his voice to make sure Nika could hear him. “The blood trickling across those exquisite curves of yours proves its effectiveness. Now imagine how it will feel if I slice it repeatedly over your body until you are whipped to shreds?” He raised the makeshift lash high. “This is your last chance to talk, bitch!”

Nika was too terrified to speak. She shivered with fright as well as from the cold, managing only to shake her head pathetically from side to side. She lost control of her bladder, letting a steady stream of urine flow down her trussed legs to form a yellow puddle in the snow at her feet.

Erik and Pavel laughed, but Nestor only frowned. “Very well,” he said, and thrust the barbed whip forward with all his might.

Nika’s shriek of anguish carried across the open countryside like that of a mortally wounded beast. Nestor had taken careful aim, and curled the wire around Nika’s chest, gouging it into her voluptuous breasts before circling behind her to dig into her upper arms and back. When he drew back the metal knout, the prongs slashed through Nika’s flesh, sending a spray of blood through the brisk, wintry air.

“Talk, you cunt!” Nestor yelled as he pulled on the wire and yanked it back.

Nika wanted to cry out that she knew nothing, but again, the pain running through her body was too great. Again she urinated, this time releasing a fountain of piss which cascaded lewdly from her pussy. She emitted a guttural moan and reflexively shook her head once more – a signal for Nestor to continue.

The second blow landed lower than the first, coiling around Nika just below her ample bosom. As before, her tormentor used the force of his stroke to snake the spiked strand around her torso, ripping into her from all sides. Once again, blood and bits of flesh spattered about as Nestor withdrew the rusty thong. Another inhuman wail followed.

And so it went on. Nika was too weak, too afraid and too cold to resist, serving only to anger her interrogator with her stubbornness. With each lash, Nestor barked at the tormented blonde traitor, but it soon became apparent that she would not, or could not, cooperate.

He worked his way down Nika’s body. After tearing into her tits both across and below their magnificent swell, he struck her several times over her flat midriff, then around her hips to rip into her groin and buttocks, at least where the post to which she was tied did not offer protection. Relentlessly, Nestor whipped Nika’s thighs, before deciding he could inflict more damage to her breasts by unleashing two further devastating strokes to cut into her bulging tits.

Along the way, the fierce metal knout shredded the already tattered t-shirt which had done little to conceal her abundant womanhood. The sharp prongs slit the skimpy material like razor blades, leaving only bits of cloth clinging to Nika’s bloody skin.

Nestor had expertly landed the heinous barbed wire on Nika’s flesh exactly twelve times. When at last he chose to end the punishment, the blonde’s formerly enticing body was covered with a web of crimson streaks. Benefitting from the ruthless barbs which ran the length of the improvised weapon, Nestor’s whip had carved deep welts all across Nika’s shapely form. With each pump of her heart, blood surged from these lacerations, running along her body to join the pool of piss at her feet.

Amazingly, Nika remained not only alive, but conscious as well. For a moment, Nestor feared he had gone too far – torturing his victim to death. But when he examined the woman, still tightly lashed to the fence, he was pleased to hear her chattering teeth and gurgling breath.

Now totally naked, Nika shivered in the cold. She raised her head to look at the sadistic man who had maimed her. Her eyes were wide, glazed over, and consumed with fear and despair.

“I told you… I told you I didn’t know anything, Nika muttered. “Now please… please let me go…”

“You’re one tough bitch,” Nestor replied, shaking his head in awe. “But you know… I still don’t believe you.” He removed the work mitt he was wearing and pulled his Grach automatic from under his coat. He pushed the muzzle directly against the side of Nika’s right breast. She yelped as she felt the cold steel push against her skin.

“Please…” she begged again. “I can offer you… anything…” she added, trying to adopt a seductive voice.

“I think we’re a little past that, you dumb slut,” Nestor laughed, looking at the blonde’s bloody body. “No… all I want is the location of the shipment… otherwise I’ll shoot you through the tits – both of them with one bullet. Nice trick, eh?”

“Okay… okay…” Nika sobbed. “I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you where you can find the drugs… at least where I left them yesterday.” A sudden surge of freezing wind caused her to hesitate. She shuddered and caught her breath.

“The location… it’s too hard for me to give you directions, but I left a phone at the site. You can track it if I give you the number.” Nika prayed that the phone was still there… that Tanaka’s men had not taken it away. Given where she hid it, there was a good chance it was gone.

Nestor had taken out his own cell and started the tracker app. “Yeah? Talk bitch,” he prompted his captive impatiently.

Nika shuddered. She knew she was throwing away her only bargaining chip. “416-555-9293,” she whispered.

Nestor entered the number and transferred the coordinates to Google Maps. After a few seconds, his phone displayed a barren patch of land a short drive from the airport. He showed it to Nika. “This look familiar?”

Nika breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes… yes… that’s the place. But I can’t guarantee that the ship…”

Nestor cut her off by pulling the trigger of his Grach. As promised, the bullet perforated first her right breast, then traversed her cleavage before ripping through the left one. Nika looked down at her chest, not quite believing what Nestor had done to her.

At first there was no pain, but then she was overwhelmed by incredible agony. She tried to scream… but she was too injured, too cold and too despairing to emit anything more than a pitiful whine. She watched in horror as more blood poured from the holes in breasts while pinkish fluid squirted from her nipples.

“Stupid fucking cunt,” were the last words she heard.

Nika released the remaining contents of her bladder… and then everything went black.

CHAPTER 18

When he next returned to check on his captive, Andre found the rat contentedly asleep in a bloody puddle between her spread thighs. Andre checked to see that the rat had devoured most of its food, its teeth sinking into Eda’s sensitive flesh in at least a dozen places. He winced at the teeth marks and bloody lacerations in Eda’s groin. With his middle two fingers, he probed Eda to find her insides had survived intact. Her external genitals however were somewhat worse for wear.

As she stirred, he removed the wax. “I trust you enjoyed that. I’m sorry that I had to return so quickly, but don’t worry, your fun is not yet over. Your lover, you see… well, he has friends.” Andre tested her blindfold and gag to confirm that they were still in place. Then he dabbed his fingers in the still cold peanut butter, again recently removed from the refrigerator. This time he smeared it over her breasts. Immediately, Eda’s head shot up and she pulled on her bonds with the little strength she had left, shaking her head back and forth over and over. Even through the gag it was clear that she had already screamed herself hoarse, as the pained sounds that escaped her throat were more raspy than loud.

“Oh, stop thanking me already. You are making me blush,” Andre teased. “But, yes, I have again shown you mercy that you do not deserve. I have not covered your nipples. Let’s see in another hour if they have survived.”

He pushed the wax back into her ear. A second later, Eda felt two more rats crawling over her, one on each of her thighs. They joined the third one at her partly devoured pussy where they stopped briefly before moving on to the new fodder Andre had left for them. They trundled up her stomach to their main objective… Eda’s peanut butter coated breasts.

Once again, Andre left the dungeon chamber so his captive could suffer her ordeal alone with the terrifying rodents. Still unable to see or hear, Eda’s other senses became more astute, allowing her to suffer her torture with greater intensity.

At first, she was struck by the acrid smell of the rancid substance slathered on her tits. This was soon joined by the foul stench of the mangy rats as they clawed their way over her upper torso. Once again, she first felt the soft brushing of the creatures’ snouts as they slowly nibbled away the layer of peanut butter.

This time, it took only a few minutes for the nasty beasts to exhaust this part of their meal before gnawing at the oily skin which was all that now covered the succulent mounds on Eda’s chest. Though her muffled voice was weak and raw, Eda still managed to croak an inhuman wail of torment when the rats began to rip into the fatty tissue of her burgeoning breasts.

With three sets of mandibles making short work of her butter-soft flesh, the pain was thrice what Eda had experienced earlier when only one rat had feasted on her supple body. The two newcomers were ravenous, and ripped at the peanut-scented tissue with wild abandon. The third rodent, having at least partly sated its hunger at Eda’s pussy, was not quite as eager as its comrades, but still managed to do its share of the damage.

Once more, it seemed to Eda that someone was driving countless small spikes into her most delicate flesh – sending waves of agony through her body. So great was her pain that for the first time since her capture, she wanted to die.

Silently, she pleaded for the rats to turn into man-eating tigers which would devour her quickly, ending her torture before she would suffer any more. But in horror, Eda realized that the unbearable anguish Andre was forcing her to endure was exactly the point – he wanted her demise to be slow, brutal and relentless. After all, he made it clear how much he hated snitches. And there was no doubt that he really, really hated her.

Eda felt the blood stream across her body – over her breasts, down her sternum, along the sides of her torso. She could not see it of course, but she imagined the warm liquid flow across her naked curves, leaving crimson streaks as evidence of her abominable defilement.

When Andre returned, the sight of Eda’s violation would certainly make him happy.

And then, she sobbed, there would be more. Much more.

CHAPTER 19

Nika had no idea how long she had been unconscious. When her eyes fluttered open to survey her dreary surroundings, it felt like hours had passed since Nestor had fired a bullet through her breasts. She looked down at the damage. There were four perforations – two entrance wounds and two exits. Because of the cold weather, the bleeding had slowed considerably, and to Nika’s relief, it seemed her injuries would not prove fatal. Neither would the lacerations caused by Nestor’s brutal flogging with the barbed wire lash. Nika was suffering excruciating pain of course, but she had survived her torture with non-lethal afflictions – “merely” lacerations, contusions, blood loss and a lurid gunshot through both tits.

If anything would kill her, it was the frigid temperature, which seemed to be dropping with each passing minute. It was obvious the three men had left her to die slowly of exposure, sparing her a quick demise so she would suffer for her treachery. Nestor could just as well have shot her in the head as in the breasts, but he knew that once Nika had cracked, Dmitri would want her execution to be as agonizing and drawn out as possible.

Though it felt like she’d been out for hours, Nika guessed the men had abandoned her no more than ten or fifteen minutes ago. If she’d been left tied to the fence for much longer, she would have frozen to death by now. She had no idea how much longer she could endure the bitter weather and icy winds, but the numbness spreading through her body meant her time was running out.

Nika had to get free. Ironically, the cold invigorated her and gave her strength she might otherwise have lost. Perhaps she still had a chance to save herself. The chill deadened her pain and congested her wounds. If she could fight her suffering and somehow disentangle herself from the barbed wire binding her to the fence, then she could… she could what? Walk naked in mid-winter for miles to safety?

She looked around. The sedan was gone of course, driven away by the Russian trio. But there was a truck. If Nika could get loose; if she could crawl to the vehicle; if it was unlocked with the keys left in the ignition; and if she could figure out how to drive the damn thing… then maybe she had a chance. There were a lot of ifs, but she had to try.

Nika pushed forward with all her might. She howled in anguish as the corroded barbed wire cut deeper into her flesh, but she forced herself to continue adding pressure against her bonds, hoping the rickety fence would begin to splinter apart.

She could hear the upper boards creak, and in time the strands wrapping her to the post began to loosen. Desperately Nika persevered, enduring the pain until she thought she would pass out. Then, just as she swooned on the brink of unconsciousness, the top planks broke away from the post when the shoddy nails pulled out of the rotting timber. This caused the steel coils to slacken and left Nika to fall forward until her cuffed wrists were obstructed by the post.

With her arms ensnared behind the pole, she had no chance of extricating herself, no matter how much she loosened the wire. Somehow she had to get her hands through the steel cuffs. There was only one way to do this. Once more resisting the intense pain, this time shooting from her left thumb, she slowly pulled her hand against the metal shackle.

Again, Nika was consumed by torment. The sounds of her thumb and forefinger first dislocating, then snapping altogether made her scream out anew. She could feel the half-frozen skin of her hand peel away as she gradually made progress. There was blood of course, but this time it proved beneficial by lubricating her efforts.

Clenching her teeth, Nika wrenched her hand against the gyve with as firm a yank as she could muster. She let out one last cry. Remarkably, she had liberated herself from the cuffs, though they remained fastened to her right wrist. With her hands free, it now was a simple albeit painful matter for Nika to disentangle herself from the bloody barbed wire. She barely noticed the distress caused by ripping the prongs from her skin with her bare hands – Nika was too focused on freeing herself to care.

Gasping with relief, she thrust herself away from the fence and the abominable pit behind it. She fell forward, sprawling face down on the frozen ground. Nika was still in agony, but at least now she had a chance.

CHAPTER 20

This time Andre found Eda’s head slumped to her chest, her body shaking uncontrollably. One of the two new rats was asleep near the first one. The other was still nibbling at the underside of her right breast. Both tits were bloody and covered in teeth marks, leaving their formerly silky smooth surface in tatters. Once again the rats had chewed only on the flesh which had been covered in peanut butter – Eda’s exposed nipples remained oddly untouched. Andre rightly assumed it was the pungent scent which attracted the creatures to those areas of his captive’s body he had coated.

He pulled the third rat off Eda, removed the wax from both her ears and pulled off her blindfold. He grabbed her hair to raise her head and saw that her eyes were closed. He checked her neck for a pulse and found it. He touched her breasts to see the extent of the damage. Eda immediately cringed in pain. He undid the tape holding her gag in place and pulled it out of her mouth. He slapped her face a few times, and heard her moan, but her head sunk to her chest as soon as he released her hair.

“Well, it looks like your playmates have worn you out.” Andre spoke more to himself than to Eda. “But I have even more fun in store for you.” He unchained her wrists from the shackles in the wall and her ankles from those in the floor. He turned her around and pushed her ass against the wall so her legs spread awkwardly upwards against the stones. He cuffed her ankles to where her wrists had been and her wrists in place of her ankles, leaving her back flat against the dirt floor.

“I’m sorry that you’re not conscious to enjoy your further entertainment,” he smirked, as he rubbed more solidified peanut butter on her maimed pussy, making sure this time to stuff a considerable amount deep inside her. He left a trail running up the front of her body, covering her from her abdomen to her chest. Next, he again turned to Eda’s breasts, using the substance to coat her already shredded bosom along with her still undamaged nipples.

Finally, Andre shoved an O-ring gag into Eda’s mouth, securing it behind her teeth, and expanding it until her jaws were open as wide as possible, almost dislocating them. Then he forced the remaining peanut butter into her mouth and over her tongue, careful not to suffocate her. To his disappointment, Eda remained unconscious.

“I wish I could stay, but I do have other work to do.” He approached the door without putting the wax back in her ears, and without blindfolding her. “This time I want you to see and hear what you’ve been missing – to savor the full experience, so to speak.”

He lifted the latch on a cage which had been placed against one side of the chamber, releasing a dozen starving rats. Andre stayed just long enough to watch them scamper toward their long desired meal, then left the room. Seconds after closing the heavy iron door, he heard raspy screams of horror and pain.

“It would seem the despicable snitch has recovered just in time to delight in her final amusement,” he laughed as he walked away.

CHAPTER 21

Nika was just twenty feet from the truck. It had taken her over a half hour to crawl, no… more like slither her way toward it. She had underestimated how much damage had been inflicted while she was subject to Nestor’s savage persecution. She had lost considerable amounts of blood and stamina. Her entire body was burning with physical torment, and yet the frigid weather stiffened her joints, making it a mammoth struggle to move. As if to add to her woes, the skies had darkened and burgeoning snow squalls signaled an approaching storm.

Nika realized that freeing herself from her barbed-wire bondage was only half the battle she faced. For a moment, she lay prostrate, barely able to move her limbs. Granted, her hands were no longer constrained behind her, but the handcuffs remained clumsily attached to her right wrist and her left hand was all but sacrificed during her ordeal to extricate herself.

She tried to pull herself up onto her hands and knees, and for a moment she succeeded. But after wobbling just a few feet forward, Nika hit an icy patch and her arms and legs slipped out from under her, leaving her once again spread out face down. Her breasts were flattened against the relatively smooth ice, and surprisingly the extreme cold helped numb the pulsing pain of her bullet wounds. It was small comfort, but it inspired Nika to slide, rather than crawl to the truck – which seemed miles away.

By wriggling her body and kicking her legs in a swimming motion, Nika was able to move forward, albeit very slowly. The slippery ice facilitated her progress, though it did little to warm her ever cooling body. She figured she would likely lose her nipples to frostbite, but by now, that was the least of her worries.

Unfortunately, the ice was not a skating rink, and there were many rough patches along the way. She tried to avoid them, but sometimes the rock-hard ground poked through unexpectedly and made her journey all the more miserable by inflicting further scrapes and cuts. But she forced herself to continue, squirming like a wounded snake, leaving behind a growing trail of blood to mark her path.

After the half hour which seemed like an eternity, Nika realized the truck was no longer that far away. She was going to make it. Panting desperately, she struggled onwards to cover the short distance remaining.

And then there was a noise. Since Dmitri’s goons had left, Nika had heard only the blustering wind as it whipped around her. She turned her head toward the sound, which came from the path leading to the pit. Her heart filled with dread as she recognized the black sedan driving along the lane. Nika had thought her captors had left her to die. But now, for some unknown reason, they had returned.

The car stopped near the pit, and all three men stepped out. Nika convulsed in terror as she watched Nestor point to the broken railing and barbed wire coils from which she had escaped. She was too far away to hear them, but knew it would only take them a moment to track her down. The blood which had oozed from her body as she had slithered along the ice was an obvious clue – not that they wouldn’t have found her without it. After all, she was less than seventy yards away.

When the men spotted her, Nika could just barely make out their laughter over the howling winds. Nestor pointed toward her and stayed behind as Pavel and Erik followed her blood spoor. Along the way, Erik picked up a discarded metal pipe, about two inches around and four feet long. He thumped it menacing against his free hand. Nika realized she was doomed.

In the distance, Nestor walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. She wondered if they were going to take her on another ride, but this made no sense. If they were going to kill her, surely they would do it here. The pipe Erik had picked up was enough evidence of that.

“You retarded, cock-sucking piece of shit!” Erik barked when he and Pavel walked up to Nika as she lay on the ground. “You had the audacity to try to escape? You were supposed to freeze to death, you slimy cooze!”

Nika was still squirming and weakly moving her legs. She was also crying in despair. Angrily, Erik kicked her in the side.

“Gggyyaaaahhhh!!” Nika screamed hoarsely. “No… please… I… I was just… Aaaaaaiighh!!”

She absorbed another kick, this one from Pavel. “You were trying to get to that dumper to drive off, that’s what you were doing.” Pavel took a few steps to the truck and looked into the window. “Doors are open and the key’s in the ignition. You almost made it, bitch. Just a few more feet. Too bad you went to all this trouble for nothing.” He looked along the long wake of blood leading back to the fence.

“Enough,” Erik said to Pavel. “You know why we’re here.”

“But she’s supposed to be a corpse.” Pavel pointed to the naked blonde at their feet.

“Does it matter?”

“She can still move… well, sort of. Nestor told us to make sure she doesn’t try something like this again… just in case.”

“Why do you think I grabbed this pipe, dumbass?” Erik rolled his eyes at his comrade, who furrowed his brow and looked away.

Erik stood to one side of Nika, who had finally given up her writhing about. She lay still, her face to the ground so she could not see what Erik was about to do. He kicked her legs together, aligning Nika’s shapely thighs side by side.

Then he raised the heavy pipe overhead.

CHAPTER 22

“Aaaeeeiiggghhh!!” It was a bestial scream of anguish – certainly not Nika’s first, but easily among the loudest. It was accompanied by two intense snaps, as if someone were breaking a pair of thick branches across his knee. Erik had used both arms to thrust the pipe downward, landing it forcefully across the back of Nika’s thighs. With one blow, he smashed both the young beauty’s femurs to kindling about midway between her knees and ass.

“That takes care of the legs,” said Erik with satisfaction, raising his voice above Nika’s continuing cries. He examined his handiwork. Both the woman’s thighs were deformed and spread slightly at odd angles. “I think this twat’s walking days are over.”

Pavel looked a bit squeamish. “I don’t think she could walk anyway,” he said.

“Well, now we’re sure. Let’s get the slobbering slut to Nestor so we can finish off this mess.” Erik and Pavel lifted the quivering body of Nika up by the shoulders and dragged her between them back to the pit. Nika looked down in misery as her incredibly strenuous escape attempt, which had come so close to succeeding, was erased in under a minute.

By the time Pavel and Erik had hauled Nika back to where she had been tied to the fence, Nestor had finished pulling out whatever was in the trunk of the sedan. Nika gasped aloud – it was Marina! He shuffled the limp body forward and held it upright in front of the horrified blonde.

The statuesque brunette was as stunning as ever, except that she had been rendered less well-endowed than she had been earlier. As Nika had feared, someone had gone after the two drug-filled implants, removing them at the expense of Marina’s magnificent bosom. Considerately slicing along the surgical scars which ran along the underside of the woman’s breasts, her assailants carved into the soft tissue and pulled out the contraband hidden in her chest. The incisions had released not only the implants, but also a torrent of blood and fatty flesh which had gushed from her sternum down to her toes. Though perhaps not as badly wounded as Nika, Marina, at least from the front, was just as bloody.

“As you can see,” said Nestor, “Dmitri’s mule has surrendered her consignment, albeit somewhat involuntarily. We found her tied to the support column in the shed – which I assume is how you left her – but this…” He pulled her right breast upward to reveal the deep gash carved into its base. “…this I don’t believe is your handiwork.”

Nika shook her head. Had she had the guts to extract the shipment instead of leaving it for Tanaka’s men to find later, things may have played out more to her advantage. Instead, by leaving the dirty work for others, she had nothing of value to offer on her own behalf. Even if the Japanese were still willing to accept her application, there was little they could do to save her now.

“I’d like to say that we were the ones who hacked into this bitch’s jugs and got the shipment, but someone else beat us to it.” Nestor let go of Marina, whose naked, crimson streaked body dropped to the ground with a thud. She fell on her back in an oddly seductive pose. Her eyes were closed and it seemed she was dead, most likely from blood loss.

“But… but why bring her back here? Just to show me?” Nika asked between clattering teeth.

Nestor laughed. “You really are an idiot. Did you think we would just leave your sorry dead ass wired to that fence? I mean this is a legit dumping site. Murdered nudes tend to bring unwanted attention. And since we discovered this carcass as well,” he kicked Marina lightly, “it’s gonna be a two-fer.”

Nika realized she had only delayed her execution, and that soon she and Marina would be buried forever in this desolate dumping ground. She made one last desperate attempt to bargain with her captors.

“But… but the drugs. I know who took them. I know where they are.” She shuddered in the cold, still hanging between Erik and Pavel. “I can… I can get them back for you.”

This time all three men laughed.

“The drugs? The so-called LSD?” Nestor said mockingly. “I’m afraid the joke is on you. Well, to be honest, the joke is on all of us – but you’re the one who’s going to pay for your treachery. And Tanaka – yes we know you were working for him – he’s now the owner of two 800cc implants filled with high-grade… silicone.”

“Wh… what?”

“What do you think? Dmitri has a few spies in the local Yakuza, and one of them caught you dealing with the Japs to set up this double-cross. But Dmitri trusted you and didn’t believe you were the traitor. So he set up the transfer to make sure. It would be just like a regular shipment, except there’d be no LSD. All of us thought it was business as usual… the shippers, the plastic surgeon, Marina, even us. It wasn’t until we called Dmitri from that shed after finding this chick with her tits cut open that he told us. Because you led us to her, that left no doubt.”

“So… so all of this… all of this was for nothing…” Nika sniveled. “I… I never had a chance…”

“Yeah… it was a sting. And you fell right into it. At least you lived long enough to find out what a fool you’ve been.” Nestor grinned as he watched the naked blonde slump forward in the grasp of the two men.

“Now what?” Pavel asked impatiently as squalls of snow swirled around them. “This storm is picking up and it’s freezing. The ground is hard as rock so there’s no way we can bury these bitches.” He stomped his foot a few times to make his point. “Don’t tell me we have to take them somewhere else.”

“Relax,” Nestor said. “We’ve got the perfect place to dump them.” He pointed at the pit. “Ten feet down and surrounded by garbage. Tailor made.” He laughed. “After all, they’re nothing but trash.”

“But someone might spot the bodies.” Erik wasn’t sure he agreed with Nestor.

“Are you kidding me? The collectors just back up their trucks and dump the loads. No one steps out to check that rotting pile of rubbish – the stink alone would knock ‘em out. Besides, in ten minutes, these two will be covered in snow, and once the next truck comes along, they’ll be under a ton of litter. Trust me, it’s perfect.”

Pavel and Erik nodded, dragged Nika a few more yards to the edge of the crater, then flung her over the brink. She cried out as she somersaulted into the chasm, releasing a guttural grunt as she landed face up and spread-eagle on the pile of waste. At first she was overcome by the staggering stench, retching and choking as bile rose in her throat. And then she felt a new surge of pain as the sharp edges of broken glass and metal debris cut into her back and fractured legs.

Why hadn’t Nestor killed her first, she thought. Did they want to make her suffer even more? They knew she was on the verge of succumbing to exposure. Perhaps they would let the elements do their work while she endured even further agonies. Nika did not want to die… but at the same time she begged for her torment to end.

A minute later, the men heaved Marina’s body into the pit as well. It landed face down directly on top of Nika, the weight forcing the jagged pieces of trash further into her back. Above her, standing at the perimeter of the pit, the three men chortled as if they’d heard a bawdy joke. Nika realized it was the sight of the brunette beauty sprawled on top of her in such an obviously coital position that amused them.

For Nika, having Marina draped over her was anything but amusing, but she was surprised how warm the woman’s body was. She could feel Marina’s maimed breasts press against her own, and the blood which continued to pump from the courier’s gruesome wounds was oddly comforting as it streamed across Nika’s frozen skin. Lying face-to-face, Marina and Nika did indeed look like a couple in the throes of a torrid embrace. As Nika turned her head slightly, she felt Marina’s puffy lips slide across hers in a bizarre, lurid kiss of death.

The blonde was momentarily repulsed, yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but become slightly aroused by the close contact of a warm human body pressing against her, even while she was on the threshold of death. Nika embraced her “partner” and pushed their lips together, using her tongue to reach into Marina’s mouth.

And then, as she thought she was consummating a perverse sexual union with a corpse, Nika felt Marina’s hot breath waft down her throat.

The beguiling female lying on top of her was still alive!

CHAPTER 23

It took less than half a minute for the pack of rats to reach its destination. It took less than five seconds for Eda to come to as she felt the now familiar sensation of the tiny claws digging into her flesh. And then, when she realized there were a dozen of the filthy critters assaulting her, she summoned up as much energy as she could muster to release a throaty wail of agony.

Eda could no longer shriek and squeal like the real-life scream queen she had become. Her ordeal had already taken her past the point where she could emit high-pitched, feminine cries, let alone articulate pleas for mercy. Instead, all that rose from between her wide-spread lips was a husky, feral sound – like the yelping of a mortally wounded fox at the end of a hunt. Even if she had the strength to scream louder, the moldy peanut butter pushed into her mouth would have rendered her attempts futile.

Like most women, Eda was deathly afraid of rats. But never had she imagined being desecrated by a dozen of the beasts at once, all while stripped naked and shackled to the dirt floor of a cold, dark dungeon. Now bound in an inverted position, with her upper body splayed out on the ground, Eda was more helpless than ever. The most vulnerable parts of her sumptuous anatomy were displayed to best advantage for the famished rodents. They clambered over their squirming prey like carnivorous Lilliputians attacking a distaff Gulliver. It was a scene not for the squeamish.

She felt the weight of the little monsters as they crawled over her, their snouts digging into the peanut butter which now covered a good deal of her torso. As before, there was a momentary respite as the creatures sampled the fetid spread and slowly ate away the thin layer of sticky crud, which this time did little to satiate the much larger contingent. To make matters worse, the three rats which had previously enjoyed the fruits of Eda’s tempting flesh, decided they were not yet full and joined there new friends for more of the same.

Eda tried to put mind over matter in futile attempts to clear her thoughts of the perverse torment she was suffering. Instead, she closed her eyes and imagined the heft of the rats was a savage but benevolent lover who was fucking her bound body with a combination of ruthless lust and affection – satisfying her masochistic desires as no one else could.

Her nervous system was already running amuck, so for a moment, her fantasy took her away from the cold, desperate reality she faced. But Eda could not erase the thoughts of the these loathsome devils intent on tearing into her like a giant pork roast, especially now that she could raise her head and see them flocking over her. With her ears clear of the wax, she could even hear the hideous clicking of their mandibles as the rats chomped away with their oversized incisors.

The truth of her predicament was too barbaric – too vicious – for Eda to ignore – and any attempt to block it with sexual delusions worked about as well as could be expected. Which was to say, not at all.

Inevitably, Eda’s initial respite was over. The rats had made their way through the peanut butter slathered on her body, and now they had only the similarly scented flesh beneath to continue their banquet. This time, her nipples would not be spared, and as if to make up for their predecessors’ oversight, it was here that the mob of rodents extended their gustatory journey. Eda gasped in unmitigated pain as three of the creatures simultaneously sunk their teeth into the nerve-ridden tips of her tattered breasts.

It took several minutes, but in time, Eda’s nipples were gone – as were sizeable chunks of what remained of her tits. A small crevasse had been gnawed along the length of her midsection, and a pair of enterprising rodents had managed to tear away her labia, securing for themselves two of the most tender morsels on the poor woman’s body.

As the slow, relentless evisceration of Eda’s body continued, the worst was yet to come. Lured by the few chunks of peanut butter still available, the rats began exploring what was buried inside their prey. It took some additional work, but the vermin who made the effort, were well rewarded.

In stunned disbelief, Eda felt several rats clamber on her head, their pointed claws gouging into her face and neck to maintain a foothold. Their goal was to reach the peanut butter which Andre had crammed into her mouth, and it did not take them long to find it. With Eda’s jaws forced wide apart by the O-ring gag, no less than three of the creatures were able to thrust their furry heads in her gaping maw to reach the moldy treat.

As the rats chewed away the slimy contents within, they crawled ever deeper into Eda’s mouth. She gagged and retched, almost choking to death on clumps of vomit heaving up from her stomach. Once the peanut butter was gone, as always, the insatiable brutes dined on Eda’s flesh, this time ripping into her from the inside. Those rats not able to get into her mouth made do by nibbling on her swollen lips and tongue, which also carried the acrid scent of their preferred food.

At the same time, another group of the brutes scratched around a second entrance to Eda’s body, the one which now contained the last vestiges of peanut butter. It had been pushed inside her pussy, but with their quarry’s labia severed and lots of blood flowing to provide lubrication, even the larger rats were able to squeeze into her vaginal canal.

To Eda, the sensation of these repulsive creatures tunneling within her womanhood was far beyond her most ghastly nightmares. She writhed more desperately than ever against the chains, gasping out her pathetic moans of anguish. She had reached the absolute pit of peredition, she thought. Her ordeal could not get any worse…

…at least not until the last of the peanut butter inside her was gone, and she felt the rat’s teeth tear into her cervix.

CHAPTER 24

“The blonde bitch is still alive,” said Pavel, the most cautious of the three men. They had watched with amusement as Nika wrapped her arms around Marina to caress the warm body of her seemingly expired “paramour”. “We can’t leave without making sure they are both dead.”

“Jeez, Pavel,” sighed Erik. “Like I said, she won’t last another half hour. Why waste ammo?”

“But it’s not like we’re paying for the bullets,” said Nestor. “I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry. She almost made it to that truck earlier, so maybe Pavel’s right. Let’s finish the cunts…”

Standing at the edge of the pit, the three men pulled out their handguns and aimed the weapons down at the naked women. Nika was mostly covered by the prostate brunette, but at such close range, the rounds would easily penetrate both torsos.

“On three,” said Nestor.

“Noooo… Pl… please…” Nika moaned in a barely audible whisper. She had heard the men’s conversation, and through gaps in the blowing snow, she could see them pointing their guns at her. If any hope remained, she thought, it now was gone.

“One… two… three…” Nestor counted.

Between them, the mobsters fired eight times. Three slugs punched into Marina’s buttocks, two into her lower back and three into her shoulders. Nika’s arms remained fortuitously unscathed. As each projectile drilled into its target, Nika felt Marina’s body buck and skid on top of her, the blood seeping between them like oil. But after the final shot, all was still.

Erik, Pavel and Nestor waited for a minute. The bodies were less than fifteen feet away, and though the swirling squalls made it difficult to detect any movement, they could see the entrance wounds along the brunette’s back leaking blood. Pavel suggested someone climb into the pit and make absolutely sure that Nika was gone for good, but even he didn’t volunteer to step through the fetid pile of garbage.

“Enough already,” Nestor said. “They’re wasted. Now let’s get out of here and end this sorry business.”

The three men returned to the black sedan and drove back to the city.

CHAPTER 25

Andre slowly opened the door and took a step inside the chamber. He raised one hand to cover his mouth and nose, knowing that whatever he found inside would not be pleasant to the senses. It had been at least three hours. He had not rushed back because he was certain that whether he returned in one hour or three hours, it would not make any difference.

He looked across the room to the chained figure on her back with her legs spread against the wall. He turned his eyes away quickly, but he had seen more than enough. The rats were all over and around Eda’s body. Some were resting. Some were still feasting. There were rat droppings eveywhere.

Andre was glad that he had underlings to clean up the room – as well as to dispose of Eda’s remains. “Remains,” he knew, was the proper word. Based on a short glimpse, he could tell her body was virtually unrecognizable.

Andre hated snitches. But maybe this one had paid a greater price than her betrayal warranted. Yet unlike spies and traitors, who sometimes had a chance to earn a quick death by telling all they knew, this offender never had any useful information to allow her that option. Instead, her torturous demise was not only slow and brutal, it was inevitable – meted out purely as punishment… retribution as determined by Andre’s twisted code of honor. It was a code wherein betrayal was a crime far greater than any other, one which justified the extreme penalty Eda endured.

Andre took a last glance at what was left of the treacherous wench. The rats had done their work well. Though Eda’s delicate facial features were remarkably intact, from the neck down none of her former beauty remained. The once firm, sylphlike breasts were gone, replaced by ragged craters of bloody adipose tissue. Similar cavities pocketed her midsection, one of which served as a passageway through her abdomen, leading to the obliterated remnants of her pussy, which had once sheathed the threatening barrel of Andre’s gun.

In hindsight Andre knew that during her torment Eda must have deeply regretted that the weapon’s chamber was empty when he had pulled the trigger earlier that day.

Andre stepped back outside the chamber and closed the door. He knew that it would be a while before he would be able to set foot in it again. Fortunately, there were several rooms that he could continue to use. In the meantime, he called the head of Dmitri’s clean-up crew and requested that Eda’s masticated corpse be disposed of in the usual manner.

CHAPTER 26

“Nnnnggghhh…” A soft, breathy murmur of pain was barely audible above the wailing winds. It rose from the squalid depression and faded away with no one to hear it. Apparently the protracted torment of Nika had not come to an end. She had not been “wasted” after all. Not yet.

Only two rounds had entered her body. One bullet had run completely through her lower abdomen, just inches above her pussy. It had first entered Marina’s right buttock before exiting her hip and skewering the blonde. A second slug hit Marina just below the shoulder blade and ended up perforating Nika’s left breast until it lodged against her rib cage. Both wounds caused intense agony, but neither was instantly lethal.

Nika had been spared because only Pavel had fired standard rounds, easily capable of penetrating more than one body. The six projectiles Erik and Nestor had discharged were, unknown to them, hollow points, all of which mushroomed harmlessly in Marina’s torso. Well, harmlessly as far as Nika was concerned. For Marina, the results were catastrophic.

As Nika fought against the added pain of being shot, expecting to die at any second, she realized her latest injuries, which she could not see, were perhaps not fatal. She could feel the two wounds, but knew there had been eight rounds fired. She assumed the remaining six bullets had either missed their targets, or more likely, were imbedded in Marina’s flesh.

Despite the repeated volleys, the brunette courier’s lips were still perversely locked against Nika’s, but the woman’s faint breath was now impossible to detect. Her eyes remained closed, but her expression had changed. Her lips were beginning to cool, as was the blood that continued to pump from the savage cuts in her half-severed breasts.

There was no longer any doubt. Marina the mule was dead.

CHAPTER 27

“Jesus fucking Christ!” exclaimed the heavyset man wearing a hoodless, orange hazmat suit. There was a patch stitched with the name “Marv” on the left side of his chest. Marv, along with his auburn haired, similarly attired coworker Lucy had just entered the stone walled chamber which for the moment served as a crypt for Eda. As members of the Kolnikoff clean-up crew, they had been assigned to dispose of the body and tidy the place up – not the most pleasant of tasks.

Marv took one look at Eda’s body and could not help but blurt out an expletive. He’d worked as one of Dmitri’s cleaners for over a year, but had never come across anything quite this gruesome. Usually, the corpses were riddled with bullets, not chewed apart by starving rodents. Thankfully, someone had already come by and recovered the rats. Perhaps they were needed elsewhere.

“Yech!” Lucy looked at the bloody mess jackknifed against the wall and echoed Marv’s sentiments. She had no cleaning experience at all, and had earned the job as punishment for screwing up a hit on some Yakuza boss named Tanaka. She was supposed to play the honey trap in the set-up, but she let her cover slip, tipping off the target. Lucy was lucky to be alive. Were it not her first offence, and were she not among Dmitri’s hottest employees, her penance would have been far more severe than being demoted to dumping whack-jobs.

“I knew it was going to be bad when Andre suggested the suits,” said Marv. “But, shit… what did the bitch do to deserve this?”

“I dunno,” said Lucy. “It’s probably best not to speculate.” She did not want to think that it could well have been her in Eda’s position. Instead, she was fortunate to be getting rid of the woman’s remains.

“Nice looking face though,” Marv commented appreciatively while taking a closer look at their subject. “I’ll bet she had a foxy body to match… before all this happened anyway.” His gaze drifted down to what was left of Eda’s chest. “I’ll bet she was stacked.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be daft. She’s Asian. They’re not known for having big tits. Bitch probably was a 34B at best. Hardly worth your time.” Lucy’s own chest had been considerably enhanced, and she tended to be competitive when comparing herself to other women, even dead ones whose boobs were virtually decimated.

“Suppose so,” sighed Marv. “Not that it matters now.” He paused a moment, shaking his head sadly. “Oh well, let’s get her to the chute. Do you know when the next truck is coming by?”

“Three on the dot,” said Lucy. “We’d better get a move on. It’s the last pick-up of the day.”

“Right then.” The pair undid Eda’s shackles, removed her wrists and ankles from the cuffs, then laid her flat out on the dirt floor. They unfolded a portable stretcher they had brought along, and rolled the body face-up onto the canvas.

“That bastard Dmitri is too cheap to buy body bags, so we gotta keep looking at this pile of slop,” Lucy muttered as she and Marv lifted the stretcher by its handles. “It’s enough to make you wanna pu… Yeaahhh!! God!!” She screamed and dropped her end of the carrier. She pointed at the cadaver. “Marv… look!!”

Surprised by his partner’s yell, Marv also dropped the stretcher, leaving Eda crashing to the floor. He saw what Lucy was pointing at. A large, black rat, its fur covered in blood and bits of gore, was emerging from the shredded scraps of Eda’s pussy. At least one of the creatures had hidden inside the corpse, and was overlooked by the rat wranglers who had come by earlier.

“That’s pretty fucking sick…” said Marv, his voice trailing off. For a moment, there was disbelieving silence. He kicked the slimy animal off the stretcher, and watched it scurry to a corner of the room.

“Marv… there could be more of those things inside her,” Lucy said uneasily. She was reluctant to pick up the carrier again. It was obvious that more than just one – or even a few – animals were responsible for turning Eda’s flesh into hamburger.

“It’s only a rat,” said Marv with a sigh. “If there were more, it looks like they’re gone now. So buck up and let’s get this over with. This dead twat is creeping me out.”

Once again, Lucy and Marv lifted the stretcher, this time successfully carrying Eda’s body out of the room and down a dimly lit hallway.

CHAPTER 28

As the worsening weather grew colder, so did Marina’s corpse. This was bad news for Nika, who had been relying on the faint heat emanating from Marina’s body to stay alive. Now that the dead brunette was almost as frigid as the surrounding garbage, she served little purpose.

Nika tried desperately to extricate herself from under the stiffening carcass, but discovered to her own horror, that she could barely move. Her broken legs were useless, and the rest of her battered body erupted with unabated pain with even the slightest motion. All she could do was use her arms, still barely mobile, in an attempt to slide Marina off.

The women’s blood was beginning to freeze, but it was still slippery enough to abet Nika’s efforts. Thanks to a slight incline, Marina’s corpse slid forward across Nika’s torso. Her congealing breasts slithered over the blonde’s face, followed by her abdomen, before the cadaver slipped to one side, leaving Nika now partially pinned beneath it.

Despite the pain, Nika bucked and pushed against the body, but still, she was unable to free herself. Her limbs had become completely numb, and she realized most of her muscles had seized up from the cold. Snow settled on her naked skin, and fell so thick, she could no longer see the edge of the pit or the fence surrounding it. Everything was turning white as Nika’s breathing grew labored.

Suddenly, the chirping ring tone of a phone rose above the howling wind. Nika’s heart skipped a beat. It was her cell – not the one she normally used, which she had discarded – but the burner she acquired specifically to contact Tanaka. She had hidden it in a drawer at the shed after leaving Marina and her “contraband” implants for the Yakuza. Tanaka had the number, and she had told him to use it as a GPS beacon so his men could find Marina and the supposed drug shipment.

Because of Dmitri’s ruse, they had found nothing but the comely courier and her impressive, but effectively worthless artificial boobs – as well as the phone which led them to the ill-fated woman. Having no further use for the device, Nika would have guessed the men would have left it behind along with Marina’s mangled body.

So how did the phone get to the pit? And where was it? Nika waited for it to ring again, and when it did, this time she also felt it vibrate – against her left nipple! She struggled to raise her head and saw that Marina’s buxom backside now lay across her chest. Her groin was facing down and pushing directly against Nika’s breast. When the cell rang again, Marina’s pubis quivered, pulsating against the blonde’s sensitive nipple.

“The bastards,” Nika croaked. “They… they put it… inside her.”

Whether as a joke, or for sexual amusement, or some unknown purpose, Tanaka’s men had stuffed Nika’s burner phone into Marina’s pussy, deep enough to lodge it in place, where it remained up till now… jammed into a corpse.

Though she was not at all fond of the once desirable Marina, Nika was repulsed by the depravity of the Yakuza. But when the phone rang a fourth time, she realized Tanaka’s thugs inadvertently left her one last chance to survive. If the device was still working, she could use it to call for help. All she needed to do was stay alive long enough for rescue services to trace the signal.

Of course first she had to retrieve the phone.

CHAPTER 29

“Is the truck still there?” Marv asked anxiously. He and Lucy had hauled their grisly cargo up two flights of stairs to a small room marked “Garbage”. Inside, behind a hinged door on the far wall, was a two foot square opening to an enclosed metal chute which sloped downwards at 45 degrees outside the building. The opposite end of the chute opened twelve feet above a back alley.

“Yeah…” Lucy replied. She was peering through a window overlooking the alley and spied an orange dump truck parked with its hopper under the trough. A “Kolnikoff Waste Disposal” logo was visible on the driver’s door. “It’s just after three,” she noted, looking at her watch, “and it usually waits for five or ten minutes before heading out. We’ve got time.”

“Is the dumper in position?”

“Yep… but criminy, it’s already loaded with… with… I dunno, it looks like dead animal guts. I think I can see a pig's head or two in there. God… if I have to see one more disgusting sight today, I’ll heave for sure.”

“The driver probably stopped at the rendering plant before coming here,” said Marv. He looked at Eda lying on the stretcher, then added with a laugh, “she’ll fit right in. Just one more sow carcass for the rubbish bin.”

Lucy chuckled. “Damn right.”

“Now help me throw the bitch down the chute. This place smells to high heaven.” The room was crammed with filled trash bags and other detritus which still awaited disposal. Some of it had been there for days, even weeks. But Lucy and Marv were concerned with discarding only one item.

Together they maneuvered the stretcher so that one end rested against the chute entrance and the other was tilted upwards until Eda’s corpse skidded off the canvas. It continued to slide headfirst along the filthy duct until it spilled out of the other side, sprawling luridly across the pile of organic waste in the hopper.

Marv was right. She fit right in.

CHAPTER 30

Nika rallied the last of her declining strength to bend her gelid left arm upward between Marina’s thighs. With numb, frostbitten fingers, she pushed against the dead courier’s icy crotch until she was able to force all five digits between the woman’s labia. The flesh was frigid, but still pliant enough for Nika to gradually slip her hand into Marina’s sex. The inside of her pussy remained moist enough for Nika to slide her forearm along the canal until at last she was able to reach the phone, which had been cruelly stabbed deep into Marina’s vagina.

The cell had long stopped ringing of course. The tone had sounded six times before transferring the caller to voice mail, long before Nika had splayed Marina’s vulva to retrieve the apparatus. But this hardly mattered. Nika had no intention of answering. She knew who the caller was, as only one person knew the phone’s number… Tanaka.

And Tanaka, by now most certainly aware that he had been duped, would be calling Nika for only one purpose – to get revenge for being betrayed by the Russians. To do so, meant finding the sultry, blonde double crosser who had set him up. Once again, the phone would lead him to his target.

Little did Tanaka know that Dmitri had been equally intent on ensuring Nika paid for her transgressions. As far as the Russian mobster was concerned, that debt had been settled – and though Nika still clung to life, in a way it had. As for the Yakuza, there was little hope that they would be able to augment the ravishing traitor’s torment.

Nika was as good as gone. Unless…

The meager amount of warmth inside Marina’s vaginal canal was just enough to loosen Nika’s frozen fingers so that she could claw them around the phone and drag it along the slimy orifice. At last, she managed to pop the device from its fleshy sheath. Unable to hold it steady, Nika wedged the cell between Marina’s buttocks and used her frozen index finger to launch a keypad and dial 911.

Despite the cold, the phone was still working. Nika heard the detached voice of the emergency call operator. But by now, she was far too weak to answer the questions which followed. She summoned as much breath as she could, and coughed out a single word.

“H… hheeelllp…” It was no more than a guttural moan, but it was all she could muster. Nika prayed that her desperate gasp and the phone’s fading GPS signal would be sufficient for responders to find her in time.

CHAPTER 31

Nika was bereft of almost all her senses. Her vision was obscured by a swirling mass of snow, revealing nothing but a flickering white vista. Except for the pulsing pain which engulfed her nerves, her body was numb from head to toe. Even her sense of smell had been ravaged by the noxious fumes rising from the mound of detritus on which she lay. Only her hearing remained intact, but there was nothing to be heard except the blistering wind.

Nothing… until an oddly familiar sound rang in Nika’s ears. At first she thought she was imagining it, but as the repeating tone grew steadily louder, she recognized the recurring warning beep made by utility vehicles when backing up.

Nika felt a rush of hope. Someone was driving toward the pit. Someone had come to rescue her!

Envisioning an ambulance staffed with paramedics arriving just in time, Nika tried desperately to scream out to help them locate her. But she could no longer utter a sound – her throat and tongue were swollen in a frozen torpor. Yet surely she would be found. After all, the GPS signal had led the rescue team close enough to discover this isolated field and the prominent pit at the end of the lane.

Yet the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the vehicle continued. Nika heard no voices, no footsteps, nothing to indicate someone was approaching. A minute passed and the beeping stopped, followed shortly afterward by a metallic thunk and the distinct whine of a hydraulic lift.

No, Nika thought. It can’t be.

But it was.

What she could not see was the large, orange dump truck which had slowly backed up to the edge of the pit. Faded lettering on the cab doors read “Kolnikoff Waste Disposal”. Behind the cab, the fully loaded hopper began to tilt upwards to allow its contents to slide through the rear tailgate and into the pit.

The truck’s driver had worked for the legitimate arm of Dmitri’s organization for almost ten years, and had run this route countless times. He knew exactly where to stop his truck, and given the disagreeable weather, he was not about to leave the comfortable confines of his heated cab. Moreover, though his payload varied, it was always unpleasant. This was still more reason to stay in the truck and let the automatic dumper do the dirty work.

Earlier that day, he had picked up some particularly foul contents – over a ton of putrefying detritus from the Riga’s rendering plant. The hopper was filled with assorted entrails, bones, rotted flesh and other organic scraps from diseased pigs which were too contaminated to serve further use, not even for fertilizer. The fetid heap of decaying animal waste had grown cold, but was still covered with slime and glutinous fluids.

Unbeknownst to the driver, on his last stop, another carcass had been dropped onto his load – this one human. It added about a hundred pounds to the total weight of his putrid payload, but otherwise made no difference. In fact, it was all but unrecognizable amidst the animal remains surrounding it.

As if congealed into a single mass of reeking tissue, the carrion, both porcine and human, easily skidded along the hopper bed as the mechanism tilted upward, pushing through the rear gate of the box and dropping into the pit.

Though Nika had already been overwhelmed by the vile odors of the existing debris surrounding her, what remained of her sense of smell was instantly obliterated by the unbearable stench of what was falling towards her. She felt bile rise in her throat and gasped for air. Seconds later, the first streams of liquid slopped over her exposed flesh.

And then Nika was engulfed by a torrent of entrails, splintered bones and decaying waste matter. It fell on her with such force that Marina’s corpse, which still lay across her torso, was swept away as if caught up in a flooding river. Nika too felt her body arch upwards and thrust back by the deluge which crashed down on her.

Just moments after anticipating salvation, she was forced to endure an abominable torment beyond what even Dmitri’s goons inflicted on her. Her nude, battered body was being crushed under a seemingly limitless mass of decomposing excrement. The weight of the toxic load squashed Nika’s organs and broke her bones. The sludge seeped into her mouth, ears and nostrils. The force of the impact twisted her limbs into odd positions, almost ripping them away from her body. Throughout her ordeal, Nika suffered agonies beyond what any woman – or man – could imagine.

It took less than a minute for the driver to dump his cargo. When he was finished, he lowered the now empty hopper and drove away, leaving the frigid field deserted once again.

Nika, barely alive, was left buried from head to foot in dismembered carcasses, one of which was her treacherous friend Eda – an apt coincidence she was unable to appreciate.

Nika squirmed desperately under the congealed mass of refuse which was crushing her. She struggled to breathe. She felt the cold and indescribable pain consume her.

If only she could hang on a little longer…

EPILOGUE

“This is Unit 32 reporting to base… Unit 32 reporting to base.” A female paramedic bundled in a thick, down-filled jacket emblazoned with EMT insignia stood next to a waste disposal pit in the middle of a barren, wintry expanse. The sun was setting and a bleak blizzard was swelling around her. She established contact with her unit dispatcher using the portable 2-way radio strapped to her utility belt.

“This is St. Joe’s, Unit 32… go ahead…” came a crackling reply.

“Regarding call AG-342333, we have reached the source coordinates and thoroughly searched the site for any indication of distress. There’s nobody here… no activity whatsoever, and no sign of an emergency. We’re standing in a snowstorm next to a pile of trash in an open field about ten miles out of town. Looks like a crank call.”

“Sorry to hear that, 32. Have you tried another call-back?”

“Yes. No ring… no new coordinates. Straight to a generic VM message. The phone battery could have gone dead, or maybe the prankster disabled the device so it couldn’t be traced.”

“Okay. Looks like you and Bill can hit the road.”

The woman ended the call and signaled Bill, her partner, who was circling the pit for the third time looking for clues.

“Not a thing,” he said as the pair walked back to their emergency response vehicle. “If there’s anything on the ground, the snow’s covered it up by now, and there sure ain’t no people anywhere near here.”

“What about that orange truck turning onto the road just as we pulled in?”

“Barely noticed it,” said Bill. “Kol… Kowal… Kowalski’s Waste… something like that. I really doubt the driver made the call. He probably just dumped a load of garbage before we got here. The top layer of shit in that hole didn’t have much snow on it, so it’s probably his delivery. Looked like… I dunno… ground up pigs or something.”

“Care to dig through it to see if you can find a cell phone?”

Bill just laughed and climbed in the ERV passenger seat. His partner got in as well and drove the white truck along the lane through the freshly fallen snow.