REGENCY: Loved by the Duke (Historical Billionaire Military Romance) (19th Century Victorian Short Stories) (57 page)

It took only a few seconds, but he nodded.

Now she had him by the balls inside and out.

“Good.  We’re getting started right away.”

Chapter 4

The first order of business had been pretty simple: Alexi couldn’t clean up his personal image if he didn’t start cleaning his place up first.  Plus, it made her feel better to know that the suite was getting a bit of a makeover. 

The rest would take time, she was sure of that much.  She’d begin by setting his boundaries: where he could go and when.  Then it would be on to his liberties: what he could and couldn’t do. 

She’d start by setting his boundaries in the places that were all too familiar to him; things that he’d taken for granted as his own.  She’d begin by taking over his bed.  She’d sleep in the very thing she’d made him fix first: his own bedroom.

He’d changed the sheets, replaced the blankets, and even fixed the bed like a pro.  She’d even gone so far as to make him fold the top blankets and sheets over in a style worthy of a five-star hotel.  It had been a good start and the look on his face had been livid when she’d told him she’d be sleeping there tonight while he slept on the floor.

The psychological blow would was tremendous to him but she couldn’t reason him doing anything to harm her for it.  She knew that he wanted to, but he was unable to do so.  The floor, she noticed, though it was made of marble would not shield a person’s footsteps from sound.  If he tried to move off, she would hear it.  If he took his shoes off and tried to sneak away – or attempted to murder her in her sleep – she would still hear it coming.

Best not to take any chances
, she thought after dropping the bomb of their sleeping arrangements on him.

“Oh, and by the way,” she’d added while he fumed at her once he realized he’d be sleeping on a marble slab, “the guards have instructions to open the door for no one but me.  And there’s no one standing by the doors watching to see if I need them or not.  There’s a summons code that I have to press into the keypad to get the elevator to come up and it changes every day and only I know it.  So if you kill me – and considering the fact that there’s already no food in this place – you’d be in for a very slow death.  Got it?”

He said nothing, but she could see the dashed hope behind his eyes.  He was alone and screaming for help would do him no good.  She was willing to believe that he thought she was bluffing, but it wasn’t a risk he was willing to put to the test. 

“I’m going to be following you every minute of every day, Alexi.  Just think of me as your new shadow.  I’ll know all your dirty little secrets.  I’ll be watching every move you make.  And yes, I’ll even be sleeping in the same room as you.  You’ve had entirely too much time to yourself already.  If you want it back, then you’ll get your shit squared away and you’ll–”

“I know!  I know!” he barked at her as he mopped his floor, the fresh shiner under his right eye seeming to throb.  “I’ll convince my father that I’ve
cleaned
up.”

She gave another loud laugh.  “Your father?  Hell no… you have to convince the
world
, kid.  Your father is just the first one you have to convince that you’re sobered and grown up.  And it’s all up hill from here to get to there.”

He scowled at her as he continued to mop. 

Chapter 5

Over the next three days she made a habit of driving the last of any potential resistance in Alexi from his body and spirit.  She deprived him of rest, waking him up sporadically with a miniature fog horn that she’d had tucked away in her bag while he was in the deepest cycle of his sleep and making him recite the reason she was here.  She made him recite it at length twenty times until she was satisfied that he understood.

“I need to clean up,” he recited for the twentieth time, the bags under his eyes heavy.

“Good,” she replied, putting the fog horn away and turning out the lights to go back to sleep herself.

When morning came she made good on her threat about keeping him starved.  She needed to prove to him that she was willing to follow through on her threats if she made them and she saw to it that only she was allowed to leave the suite for twenty minutes at a time, three times a day.  During those twenty minutes Alexi was monitored in all of the rooms by a series of surveillance cameras that his father had installed secretly at her request.

The cameras themselves were small, the smallest of them was the size of the eye of a needle, the largest the size of her pinky nail and they were hidden in every room of the penthouse where Alexi thought it was likely he might find some privacy.  It was a low thing to do, she knew, but she had to know him inside and out.  What his father told her and what she’d read in the tabloids and magazines could only take her so far.  She needed to see how he reacted when he was alone, even if it was only for a few minutes.

The first day she stepped away for her meals he did as she thought he would.  He went to his kitchen, scouring the refrigerator, pantry, and every cupboard that he had looking for some tiny morsel that may have been missed by him and his throngs of party-goers.  But Janice had made sure that the place was scrubbed clean of food.  To further his plight she’d made good on her second threat that she would reduce him to drinking from the toilet and had the water turned off in his entire suite except for the toilet.  If he wanted water – a necessary thing to live – he would have to follow her orders.

Once or twice she thought that he just might do as she’d instructed and drink from out of the toilet bowl, but every time he looked as though he might, his pride overcame him and he angrily turned his back on his only source of fluid.  She had thought that perhaps he might try and drink from his saltwater fish tank but it seemed he had sense enough to avoid such an option.  Still, that he was willing to turn his back on the toilet water showed that he still had some pride and that he was holding onto it with both hands.

When she returned from each of her meals she made Alexi recite what would eventually become his mantra.  “I need to clean up,” he would say.  And every time he hesitated in his response, she would make him begin again.  Every time he spoke in a manner that was unpleasing to her, she made him start over.  Every time he gave her a negative look, she made him start over.  Every time he looked away from her, she made him start over.  Every time he sneezed in the middle of the simple sentence, he began again.  Every time he farted audibly, she made him begin again.

The next necessary thing was to begin establishing the pecking order as it were.  She and he were the only two birds in this house, but she was determined to prove herself the rooster that ran it. 

She got him to start cleaning his suite with cleaning supplies that were brought up at her request.  She made him use common household cleaners, ones that were potent in the scents that they left behind and she didn’t allow him to wear gloves so that the scent lingered on his skin.  She wanted him to be reminded that clean was the objective here. 

He cleaned his living room, literally sweeping away the partially destroyed pyramid.  She caught him looking inside the pizza boxes and the cartons of forgotten Chinese noodles for something that might have been overlooked to eat.  But she was pleased when what had been left behind was so pungent or spoiled that even he wasn’t desperate enough to eat it. 

She made him clean up the small library of his suite, which at some point during his nefarious career someone had pulled the books from off the shelves and used them like bricks to make small forts that looked like they had been used for some kind of a paintball game. 

She made him scrub the paint from off of the spines and covers of the leather books until they looked pristine.  And every time he cleaned one book, she made him read the title on the cover.

“
Catcher in the Rye
,” he said.

“Excuse me?  What was it called?” she asked pointedly.

He looked at the cover as if he could have misinterpreted.  “
Catcher in the Rye
,” he repeated with more certainty.  “It was written by–”

“
What
is it called?” she repeatedly hotly.

He paused and realization washed over his face as the point of the exercise struck home.  “I need to clean up,” he replied, “By Alexi Volkov.”

“
What
is it called?” she replied angrily, the sound squashing his sarcasm.

He looked bitter but he swallowed his pride before he replied properly.  “I need to clean up.” 

She nodded approvingly and he kept restoring his books.

By the end of the first day he was so exhausted from lack of sleep and from hunger that she was certain that he was beginning to realize that resistance was not in his best interest.  His stomach had grumbled so loudly that she could hear it from across a quiet room.  But his fatigue was genuine and it was enough to convince her that he didn’t have any fight in him.  Not today at any rate.

“Tomorrow, if you’re good,” she said as she prepared herself to sleep, “I’ll see to it that you get something to eat.  Good night.”

She let him sleep for an hour before she again greeted him with the fog horn and made him recite his mantra a hundred times before she let him curl up on the rug at the foot of the bed. 

The following morning he offered no resistance to her in the slightest as she made him resume his work.  It amazed her how quickly he had succumbed to her authority and she made a note to be wary.  Others had tried to feigned compliance before in an effort to get her to go away, but she maintained her vigil.  She had him clean up the kitchen, the guest room, and the small sun room that he had before she went down to breakfast.

When she came back up she found him sitting on the floor beside the elevator doors, reminding her of a dog awaiting the return of its master on the front porch.  The look of hunger on his face was dominant and she reevaluated his willingness to comply with her commands. 

He hadn’t eaten anything long before I showed up
, she judged. 
That’s why he’s being so submissive.

“You’ve been good,” she said with a smile.  “I brought you something to eat.”

He perked up excitedly.

She reached into her pocket and removed a single cherry that she had carefully folded inside of a napkin in her pocket.   “Here you go,” she said, dropping the small morsel into his palm. 

The look he wore was one of confusion and pure hatred.  And when his eyes traveled up to look at her she saw the rage behind his features.

“I can always take it back,” she said, her voice daring and unconcerned if he didn’t eat it.  She knew health and nutrition well enough to know that she could keep from feeding him at all for days before things got dangerous for him.  And she could already see that his anger was costing him precious energy.

He hastily changed his mind and swallowed the cherry, stem and all.

She cupped a hand and put it to her ear as if straining to hear something far off.  But what she wanted to hear was no less than an arm’s length from her. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff.

“And…?” she prompted.

He sighed, “I need to clean up.”

By the end of the third day Alexi was so out of sorts that she allowed him to sleep for three hours before she blasted him with the horn again, making him recite his new motto three hundred times.  Then she let him sleep another hour before waking him up again and reciting his new mission, but this time she made him do it a thousand times.

Janice prided herself for being able to go long stretches of time without sleep.  It was one of the things that gave her an edge over most people and it was handy for circumstances like these.  When her clients were without their finer senses, when they were vulnerable from lack of rest, it made them more open to suggestion. 

Some people called it brain washing.  History was full of such things but she’d never viewed what she did as anything negative.  Not when the outcome was positive.  It was a violation of morality, perhaps, but she wasn’t being paid to feel bad about what she did.  She was being paid to deliver results and that was all there was to it.  Someone else could argue the morality of it when she was sitting on a beach somewhere enjoying a well-earned vacation. 

It has to be done
, she told herself. 

She carried on.

Chapter 6

By the end of the first week Alexi’s resistance to the will of his father was just as thin as Alexi himself was becoming.  He looked leaner and she made sure to get some screen captures from the surveillance cameras for coverage of his progress.

“I’ve not seen him look so skinny for a long time,” Mr. Volkov said one day while she was eating her sandwich for lunch and watching the camera footage of his son while she was absent.  “Are you sure the damage will not be lasting?”

She nodded confidently.  “Positive.  The human body can survive for three weeks on its own fat if it doesn’t have a morsel to eat.  Yesterday he had a bag of chips and the day before I gave him a candy bar.  But today, I think he’s finally earned a full meal.”  She picked up a plastic bag that held a submarine sandwich, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water. 

Mr. Volkov nodded approvingly as he watched his son through the cameras that she had had installed.  “And you’re sure we do not need to put any of this out in public?  A few pictures might convince the press—”

“That you’re holding your own son prisoner while he’s supposed to be in a rehab center somewhere?  Mr. Volkov, I know rehab facilities well enough to know that each of them has a system.  There is always some orderly or doctor that can be bribed to provide the substances that patients shouldn’t have access to.  Sometimes it’s the patients themselves that steal or manipulate their way into getting what they want to avoid cleansing themselves.  But done like this, we control the environment and every stimulus he has access to.  And in all honesty, Mr. Volkov, it’s not illegal.  He is
still
your dependent after all.”

He looked at her sideways but gave a comprehensive grunt.  “You’re being hard on the boy… I approve.  It’s like he could be back in Russia.”  He straightened his suit.  “So by today you will have established that proper behavior yields rewards.  What comes next?”

She smiled at him.  “Physical therapy.”

“Physical therapy?”

“Once I get him eating again, I need to see how much of his body is willing to follow through on getting back into shape.  The food that I get him will strengthen his immune system, enrich circulation, and clean out everything that he was smoking or drinking before now.  Weights… cardio… whatever I need him to do.”

Mr. Volkov nodded.  “Very well, however I do have another issue that I wish to discuss with you.”

“Yes?”

“The press is hounding me for updates on his well-being.  I tell them that not even
I
have access to my son at his rehab facility as per my instructions until he is cleansed.”  He looked at her interestedly.  “I am uncertain as to how to respond.”

She nodded.  “Make a public statement.  Tell them that you’re in regular contact with his caregiver – that’s crucial, Mr. Volkov, tell them
caregiver
– and that he’s doing fine and that you hope to be reunited with him by Christmas.”

“Why is this important?”

“Because doctors run rehab facilities… people that can be reached or inspected.  But caregivers, on the other hand, could mean that he’s anywhere there’s a private compound.  That is to say, he could be anywhere in the country and you could certainly afford that.  The press keeps hounding you because they’re fishing for clues as to where he could be… it might even be some of his own friends that are trying to see him.  The last place they would expect to look for him while he’s “recovering” is in his own home.  But if you tell them his caregivers are taking care of him… well, then they have an entire country to scour looking for him.”

He shook his head.  “That is a dangerous gambit, Ms. Roe.  The press is well-connected.  Sooner or later – later, hopefully – they will have determined that my son is not at
any
of the facilities in the country.”

“And how many facilities are there, Mr. Volkov?”

He was quiet.

“There are hundreds of thousands of them.  How long do you think it would take for them, even the major league press corps, to check each and every one of them for your son?  Alexi was great headline material, sure… but he’s not so juicy a thing that someone is going to kidnap and interrogate your staff trying to get the truth out.”

God, I hope I’m not lying
, she thought.