Chapter 3: Deep Water

Iskander pulled out mid-thrust. The sudden absence made Elara gasp, her body trying to follow him up. He didn't look at her. He zipped his pants with one hand and slapped her thigh with the other, hard enough to leave a palm-shaped welt that flushed red against her pale skin. She flinched, drawing her legs together. He climbed over the tarp bundle, careful not to kneel on the wet spot where Victor's blood had seeped through the plastic. The van's suspension creaked as he shifted his weight forward into the passenger seat.

The driver glanced over, waiting for instruction. Iskander nodded toward the road. "Coordinates are live. Move."

The engine turned over. They rolled forward, bumping over the uneven shoulder before hitting asphalt again. Iskander checked the rearview mirror. Elara had curled into the corner where the cargo wall met the floor, knees drawn up to her chest. Her skirt was torn at the seam, hanging open to expose her thighs. She stared at the tarp beside her. Blood had seeped through in one spot near the middle, darkening the blue plastic to black. Iskander adjusted the mirror so he didn't have to see her face. He thought about the offshore accounts they'd stripped from the couple's drives. Twenty million credits, plus the real estate in the outer district. The captain had been right. Dead accountants couldn't sign transfer documents.

They drove twenty minutes through industrial zones where the streetlights were broken or had never been installed in the first place. The fog thickened near the docks, rolling in from the bay to cover the stench of rotting fish and iron oxide. The sedan followed close behind, headlights off now that they were clear of main thoroughfares. Iskander watched the GPS count down the meters to the coordinates. His captain had selected this spot last month for a different disposal, some meth cook who'd been sampling the product. The current ran fast here, deep enough to keep secrets for decades. The tide was going out. Perfect timing.

The van stopped on crumbling asphalt near a derelict pier. Wooden pilings jutted from the water like rotting teeth, green with algae and barnacles. Iskander stepped out first, boots crunching on gravel mixed with broken glass. The sedan pulled alongside. Two guards emerged, rifles slung low across their chests. One carried a heavy spotlight, the kind used for construction sites. Iskander walked to the van's rear and flung the doors open.

The smell hit him immediately - copper and shit and the particular sourness of death that clung to the back of the throat. Victor had voided himself at some point, probably when the bullet hit. The tarp masked most of it, but not enough.

"Out," Iskander said.

Elara crawled forward on her hands and knees, legs unsteady. She stepped down onto the concrete, bare feet scraping against rough aggregate. One of her shoes was still back at the warehouse. Iskander pointed toward the water's edge, where the concrete crumbled into the dark channel. "You handle it. Solo. The guards watch, they don't work."

She looked at the three men. They spaced themselves ten paces back in a loose semicircle. One raised the spotlight and clicked it on. The beam hit her full in the face, forcing her to raise a hand to shield her eyes. Then it dropped to the tarp bundle, illuminating the task ahead. She squinted against the glare, looking small and washed out in the harsh light.

Iskander leaned against the van's bumper and crossed his arms. "You want to live, you work. Nobody's carrying him for you. Drag him."

Elara moved to the tarp. She gripped the rope ties, fingers slipping on the nylon cord until she found purchase. The bundle was heavy, probably ninety kilos of dead weight plus the plastic sheeting and the blood that had pooled inside. She heaved, inching it toward the pier. The tarp caught on a rusted bolt protruding from the concrete and she had to stop, adjust her grip, pull again from a different angle. Her breath came in short bursts, visible in the cold night air, turning to mist that glowed in the spotlight's beam. Iskander watched her struggle without emotion. The spotlight followed her progress across the concrete, creating a theater of her effort, her shadow stretching long behind her.

She reached the splintered pilings. The water lapped below, black and oily, reflecting the city lights in fractured patterns. She tried to lift the bundle over the edge. It was too heavy. She gripped the plastic and pulled, her feet skidding on the slick concrete. She looked back at Iskander, eyes wide with pleading.

"Figure it out," he said. "I'm not helping."

She returned to the van, moving to the toolkit mounted on the side panel. She found two cinder blocks, the kind used for construction sites, each probably fifteen kilos. She carried them one by one, arms shaking visibly under the weight, and set them by the tarp. She untied the ropes securing the plastic and wedged the blocks inside, arranging them against Victor's torso to distribute the ballast. Smart. She retied the knots, pulling them tight enough that her knuckles went white and the rope cut into her palms.

Dragging the weighted bundle back to the edge took longer. Her heels left dark skid marks on the concrete. At the pilings, she squatted low, getting leverage with her legs. She lifted, her face contorting with effort, and shoved. The bundle tipped and fell, hitting the water with a heavy splash that sprayed her legs and the hem of her skirt. It bobbed once, twice, then sank as the blocks did their work. Bubbles rose for a few seconds, then stopped. The surface smoothed out, returning to its blank, dark sheen.

Elara stood there, looking down at the water where her husband had disappeared. She wiped her hands on her torn skirt, smearing blood and dirt across the fabric in wide arcs. Iskander pushed off the bumper and walked over. He looked down. No body visible. The current had already taken it out toward the bay. He grabbed her upper arm, his fingers digging into the muscle, and pulled her toward the van.

They drove away from the docks, leaving the spotlight and the guards to secure the area and wipe down any obvious traces. The van moved through the city in silence. Iskander sat in the front, checking his phone for encrypted messages about the liquidation of Victor and Elara's assets. Behind him, he could hear Elara breathing, still ragged from the exertion of disposing of the body. She hadn't spoken since they left the water. Good. He didn't want conversation. He wanted compliance. He thought about the men she'd helped kill with her codes, the families that would never see those soldiers again. This was mercy.

The drive to the city edge took forty minutes through traffic that thinned as they moved toward the industrial fringe. The complex was a brutalist concrete block from the seventies, built for factory workers when the textile mills still ran three shifts. Now it housed Iskander's people, his inventory, his loose ends who needed watching but not killing. Yet.

Iskander marched her up three flights of stairs that smelled of mildew and urine. The hallway on the third floor was lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube. At unit 304, he unlocked the door with a key from his pocket - not his master key, just a copy for this unit - and shoved her inside. She stumbled, catching herself on a bare mattress that sat directly on the concrete floor. The room was maybe twelve square meters, walls painted institutional beige that had grayed with grime. One window, painted shut from the outside, overlooked an air shaft that carried echoes from the street below. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling on a twisted wire, already on, casting yellow light on water stains that patterned the ceiling like continents. There was a toilet behind a flimsy plastic screen, a sink with a single tap that dripped, and a mini-fridge in the corner that hummed with a padlock securing its door.

"Your new home," Iskander said.

He tossed a single key onto the mattress. It landed near her knee with a small metallic sound. She looked at it, then at him, confusion evident. She probably expected a cage, or a basement.

"Food comes when you earn it," he said. "Water's in the tap. Don't break anything. Don't try the window. It's three floors down and the glass is reinforced. Twenty-four hours. Then we start your real training."

He stepped out and slammed the door. The lock clicked from the outside, a heavy deadbolt sliding home. He walked away, her passport and the evidence files already secure in his safe downtown. She wasn't going anywhere. Not with his seed drying on her thighs and her husband feeding crabs at the bottom of the channel.

The next night, precisely at 2200 hours, one of his senior guards - a man with a scar dividing his left eyebrow - banged on the door of unit 304 with the butt of his sidearm. Iskander had sent him with specific instructions. The guard waited, listening to movement inside. The lock clicked. Elara opened the door a crack. She had cleaned up somewhat, wearing a different skirt and blouse that one of the housekeepers had dropped off. The blouse was too large, hanging off one shoulder. The guard pushed the door wide and grabbed her wrists. He snapped cuffs on them, the metal tight enough to bite.

"Boss wants you," the guard said. "Now."

He marched her down to the black sedan waiting at the curb. They drove across town to the gated community where Iskander kept his primary residence. Ten-foot walls topped with glass shards, private security at the gate who waved them through without inspection, the kind of place that policed itself and answered to higher authorities than the municipal cops. The guard led her through the marble foyer, past the staircase that curved like a vertebra, to the master suite on the second floor.

Iskander stood by the window when they entered, looking out at the city lights spread below like a circuit board. He'd spent the day confirming the transfers from Victor's hidden caches, watching the money flow through shell companies into his legitimate holdings. Elara's debt was technically paid, but debts like hers weren't settled with currency. He turned when the door clicked shut behind the guard. He wore a silk robe, black, untied at the waist. He dismissed the scarred guard with a jerk of his chin. The man uncuffed Elara and left, locking the door from the outside with a key.

Iskander let the robe fall. He stood there naked, fully aroused, his cock thick and heavy against his stomach. Elara looked, then looked away quickly. Victor had been adequate but modest, a banker in all things. The comparison was inevitable and useless. She swallowed visibly.

"Knees," Iskander said.

She hesitated only a second before sinking down onto the thick carpet. It was Persian, probably cost more than her previous monthly salary. She reached for him tentatively, fingers shaking. He grabbed her hair at the crown of her head and guided her mouth onto him without ceremony. She gagged immediately, adjusting to the size and the angle, her throat closing around the intrusion. He set the pace, hips moving in shallow thrusts, hands keeping her head immobile. The room was quiet except for her wet breathing and the slap of skin. He went deep, holding her there until she tapped his thigh frantically for air, then releasing her only to push in again.

After several minutes of this, he pulled her up by the hair, wrenching her head back until her neck strained. He threw her onto the bed. She landed on her back, bouncing once on the mattress. He climbed over her, flipping her easily so she faced his groin while he positioned himself at her legs. The 69 position. He pulled her hips down onto his face, his mouth finding her clit immediately, tongue working rough and fast against the sensitive flesh. She gasped around him, the vibration traveling through his shaft. He thrust up into her mouth while licking her, grunting commands between laps.

"Take it deeper. Swallow. Don't just hold it there."

She tried. Her body jerked as his tongue hit a nerve cluster. He didn't let up. He used his fingers too, rough penetration that made her moan around his cock, the sound muffled and desperate. He made her stop moving twice when he felt her tension building, just to extend the torment, then resumed his assault on her clit until she was shaking. The room filled with sloppy, wet sounds - his tongue on her, her mouth on him, their breathing. He kept her on the edge, backing off whenever she got close to climax, then pushing her toward it again with renewed aggression.

When he decided he'd had enough of her mouth, he flipped her onto her back again. He positioned himself between her legs and drove into her in one stroke, filling her completely. No warning, no build-up. She cried out, a sharp sound that cut off when he clamped his hand over her mouth. Her legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, heels digging into his lower back. He settled into a brutal rhythm, pounding against her hips with force that moved the bed inch by inch across the floor. The bedframe creaked, a rhythmic protest. He leaned down, breath hot and sour in her ear, his weight pressing her into the mattress.

"You're my slave now. My personal fucktoy. Say it."

She whimpered beneath his palm. He thrust harder, punishing, angled to hit deep.

"Say it."

"Your slave," she gasped when he removed his hand. "I'm your slave. Please."

He kept going, each stroke hitting the end of her, filling her completely. He talked through it, degrading her, listing what she'd do tomorrow, next week, for the foreseeable future, referencing what she'd done at the docks, what she'd lost, who she belonged to now. She convulsed beneath him after a few more minutes, orgasm hitting sharp and unexpected, her back arching off the bed. Her body tightened around him, muscles fluttering. He felt it and let himself go, climaxing inside her with a final brutal thrust, holding himself deep as he emptied into her in pulses. She shook under him, still convulsing, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes onto the silk sheets, her body accepting everything he gave her.