I laughed outright. “I like a girl with some fire,” I said as I slid my fingers into the waistband of her panties. “These have to go.”

She struggled violently until I smacked her ass with the flat of my hand. “I said don’t fucking move.”

“Please.”

“That won’t work every time, honey.” I tugged them off, watching them drop to the floor. Gia squeezed her legs together, clenching her ass as she tried to get away from me.

“Please,” she tried again.

I dug my fingernails into her hips to keep her still. “Do you need the crop to stop fucking moving?”

“No! Just don’t…please don’t—”

I felt her struggle to stop moving, and I knew what she was afraid of. I knew exactly what she was afraid of.

“Still.” My voice came as a low, dark warning.

She shuddered in my grasp and hung her head, her breathing loud and uneven.

That was when my thumb rubbed against a thick scabbing of skin. It was about two inches all around and when I pressed against it, she sucked in a breath. I leaned down to have a closer look. The circular scar stood on the side of her left hip. It was an intentional marking, a burn.

“What’s this?”

She just made a sound.

“What is it?” I asked again after smacking her other hip.

“He didn’t exactly bother telling me when he fucking branded me.” She swallowed a loud sobbing breath.

I straightened. It couldn’t have been more than a few days, maybe a week old. I’d see what it was once the scab healed. In the meantime, I had work to do.

When I didn’t hold her steady, she wobbled from foot to foot, unable to get any sort of a foothold considering her height. She couldn’t be more than five feet five. She’d barely come to the middle of my chest when she’d stood on flat feet. I walked around her a few times, just circling, taking my time as she tried to follow my movements, her eyes watching me closely.

“You really do stink,” I said, stopping to face her. “Did you piss yourself, or did they piss on you?” I couldn’t help it. One corner of my mouth lifted at the question. At the callousness of it.

The girl’s eyes narrowed. A brief look of shame flashed through them.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked finally. “If you are, just do it. Just get it over with.”

She wasn’t begging for her freedom, or her life, for that matter. Hadn’t offered a single bribe—they usually did. Offered all the money they had. Their families had. They didn’t have a clue that what I’d be paid would far exceed what most families of these lost girls could earn in a year.