Page 73 of The Life of Anna-Tenth Anniversary Edition: Act 1

He let her think for a moment, but he needed to learn more about her past. “When did you move in with Jack?”

“After my parents died. Right after, actually. I was in his car when their car—when they died.”

Alex frowned. Her story was far more complicated than he’d thought. “Why don’t you start from the night your parents died and tell me how Jack raised you?”

Anna nodded and began speaking, her voice devoid of any emotion. “We were driving home after opening night of Nutcracker when my parent’s car flipped off the bridge. I was in the car with Jack. He took me home with him and I stayed with him from then on. After the funeral, Jack and Devin... They...” Her voice cracked and she swallowed. Then she shook her head and continued in the same emotionless voice as before. “They touched me and it felt good. It made my heart not hurt so bad. It gave me relief from missing my parents.”

“Touched you how?”

“They kissed me and played with my pussy. Devin gave me my first orgasm with his mouth that afternoon. After that, they were constantly giving me orgasms. It felt good and I liked it. A lot. From things they’ve said, I’m pretty sure he did stuff when I was a baby too, but I don’t remember that.”

As Alex’s stomach churned, the bitter taste of bile filled his mouth. The thought of a young Anna being molested by those men made him want to kill someone. He growled but regretted it when she jerked away and fear filled her eyes once more. He forced himself to relax, and she continued, staring at his chest. Her only movement was a slow twisting of the sheet around her fingers.

“They did it a lot. Several times a day. Two girls lived with us that Ma—er, that Jack was training. I didn’t know what that meant until later.” She shuddered and closed her eyes, then inhaled deeply. “The day before my sixteenth birthday, Ma—Jack brought me here, to the Manor. They undressed me and tied me to a bed and left me alone.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She paused. “They didn’t just touch me sexually. They’d hold me and hug me and stuff, too.” She paused again and blinked. A single tear slid down her cheek, but she swiped it away. “But they tied me to that bed and I was alone for hours. My body started to ache for touch. It started to hurt.” Her brows twitched. “I remember screaming and crying for someone to come to me. I couldn’t sleep and I got really... My brain got all mushy, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I thought I was in hell.”

She’d twisted her fingers into the sheets and pulled at them, but couldn’t get free. Alex untangled them with gentle movements and then kept hold of her hands. Both of hers fit into one of his. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and he gave her a gentle smile.

She swallowed and looked back at his chest. “Finally, I felt someone touching me. When I could think straight, I realized it was Devin on top of me, kissing me and touching me all over my body. It felt so good. He was naked and...” She swallowed and frowned. “He had sex with me. It hurt. A lot.” She chewed her lip. “Then Jack and Devin changed.”

“Changed how?” He fought against his desire to track Devin down and beat his face in.

Her brows twitched and she swallowed before answering. “They came to see me the next day and they had changed. They were mean. Cruel. Devin hit me. Ma—I mean, Jack, too. They told me how my life was going to be different and that they were now my Masters and I had to obey them.” She played with the sheet again. “Jack took me home and started training me. He trained me until last week when he brought me here to Devin.” She looked up at him and offered a wry smile.

“He trained you to . . . what? Please men?”

She inhaled and closed her eyes, the corners of her mouth tightening. When she opened her eyes again, she stared at his chest once more, her eyes filled with sadness. “My purpose in life is to provide sexual pleasure to men, according to their desires,” she whispered. “My pain is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether or not I am pleasing them.”

Alex’s mouth dropped open. What the hell had Jack and Devin done to her to make her believe such terrible, untrue things?

“Mas—I mean, Jack taught me to do that in lots of different ways.” She blinked several times, but Alex could see the tears in her eyes. “It was hard. And painful.” She sniffed and gave a tight smile. “But I eventually learned what I needed to, so I’d be ready to help Devin.”

“Give me an example.”

She lifted her gaze to look at him, seemingly pleading with him to not have to tell him. He didn’t want to upset her, but his gut told him he needed to know.

“Please tell me.”

Her jaw trembled before she spoke. “He...” She bit her lip and swallowed. “He would chain me to the discipline arch and whip my breasts until I couldn’t scream anymore, then make me orgasm.”

“What else?” Why had he asked that? Did he really want to know? Despite feeling nauseous from the image in his mind, he knew he had to know to understand her better.

She licked her lips. “He’d have a bunch of his friends come over and let them do whatever they wanted to me, and if I didn’t orgasm, he’d punish me.” She shuddered, then sucked in a breath and lowered her voice. “The purpose of my orgasm is to enhance the pleasure of the man I’m having sex with.”

They had filled her head with lies! “What else?”

She stared at him, eyes filled with questions. He was about to tell her to forget he’d asked when she spoke again.

“Once, he took me to a hotel room in a bad part of town and chained me to the middle of the room. Men came in, one after the other, and were allowed to do whatever they wanted to me.” She shuddered. “I don’t know how long I was there.”

Alex stared at her. Not only had they tortured and raped her, but they’d brainwashed her into believing her only purpose in life was to be a sex toy. No wonder she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t let her touch him. “What does all that have to do with training?” He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he saw her looking at him, confused.

After a long moment, she answered. “I suppose I had a hard time accepting that my body was not my own, but belonged to whatever man wanted me.” She chewed the inside of her cheek and blinked several times, but a tear escaped anyway.

Alex’s heart ached as he tenderly wiped away the tear and softly stroked her cheek. He opened his mouth to say... something. But what could he say to that? These were mere snapshots of what she’d lived through for years. What hadn’t she told him?

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