Free Yield by Cari Silverwood Page B

room with no visible windows. Well lit. White walls. Whips, ropes, and chains hung from the wall behind the gagged and naked man tied to a timber St. Andrews cross.
    I’d never been there but it was almost familiar due to the resemblance to a room at one of my play parties. Such small differences could color a room fun or evil – such as a sharp knife and an unwilling tied up victim. I had no doubt this room was evil, because I’d made it so.
    “Guilty,” proclaimed a man off to the left. At his nod, another man applied a circular clamp to the base of the former guard’s balls and cock, as a tourniquet. His screams were muffled. With the efficiency of a stock hand castrating a bull, my manager used a knife on the guard. Only a few drops of blood spattered to the floor. After a few minutes of agony, the maimed man was executed by strangling him with a garrote cord. Shooting was too normal and never had the same deterrent.
    This whole scene was to stop others copying what the guilty man had done. He had no use for his balls in Hell and the brutality was an effective deterrent. Better than simply killing. That it worked was all I needed to know.
    The next vid was of a new technique for breaking in a girl. I okayed it, moved on.
    This third one was a routine vid automatically gathered from the house Chris and his comfy ménage a quatre occupied. Chris, my naughty, kinky, immoral accountant. One day I would hand over some of my business to another. The only way I knew to make a man trustworthy was to have him by the balls first. Chris was looking interesting. Protégée potential. Only he was a bit of a pussy when it came to his little submissive family. I had enough evidence of the man fucking a woman who had been reported kidnapped to put him away for his whole life, if I chose to use it. I didn’t. It was merely leverage. Chris had a history of being able to see sideways and around corners, where crime was concerned. No one could do my taxation books for years without knowing something of what they were getting into.
    “Come to me, said the spider to the fly,” I murmured then clicked on stop. I’d seen him screwing his women a hundred times. Only Chris wasn’t a fly. He was more another big hairy spider with a liking for a particular kidnapped woman. Ideal really. Smart and flawed.
    Was he was aware I was still taping him? I doubted it. The wiring of the house he’d bought from his former boss had been done in secret while he was away acquiring his victims. Planning ahead was one of my fortes.
    Yes. It was.
    I cleared my throat and closed that video window. Nothing new, just blond-haired, pretty Chris and his partner in crime fucking their slaves.
    Next.
    My desire, itch, whatever it was, to watch this fourth video annoyed me. Fucking Wren. Maybe I should go visit House Two incognito and get this new fetish out of my system. If I wanted reality, I could find some there.
    Unwise. Very unwise. I couldn’t do that.
    I sifted through the email info. Glass was a retired former SAS officer. Richard Oakham. Starting a war with a man who commanded his own semi private army was not wise either. I focused on a line of data. The name of one of his men was familiar – a Pieter. Pieter was one of his mercs...
    Well, well, well. I’d lay bets this Glass had something to do with the assault on and elimination of my first House. He’d cost me a lot of money if that were true. That explained his interest in Wren and her one-woman crusade to solve her father’s murder. A smart man would’ve led her astray without contacting her. Or he’d dispose of her. Did his desire for her money exceed his common sense?
    I had a private army of sorts also. Using them would be like drawing a big red arrow in the sky saying I was worried he’d find me.
    I shook my head. No. Not going there. I never ever guided my business with revenge in mind. Not unless he looked to be capable of, or inclined to, interfere with my business again.
    Then,