To My Gentle Dictator – Chapter 010

Vasily wordlessly gestured with his fingers, beckoning her down.

Sasha, frozen in place, hesitated.

The sight of it only stoked the fire of the man whose patience had already snapped.

She had always obeyed immediately, without question.

And yet now—suddenly—she hesitated, as if she had some hidden source of confidence, some ridiculous sense of security. It was laughable.

Vasily let out a sharp scoff and made a show of checking his watch.

At that, Sasha, still paralyzed with fear, forced her stiff limbs to move.

The moment she opened the balcony doors, the frigid morning air slashed against her bare skin.

Shivering violently, she descended the steps with hesitant steps—only for Vasily’s rough hand to seize her wrist in a crushing grip.

“Come with me.”

Before anyone could see them, Vasily yanked her forward, practically shoving her into the wagon’s passenger seat before slamming the door shut.

The moment he started the engine, the vehicle lurched forward at a reckless speed.

The brutal acceleration sent Sasha’s body jerking against the seat, tossed about as though she were nothing more than a rag doll.

She barely had the presence of mind to question how Vasily had appeared so suddenly.

She couldn’t even lift a hand to cradle the throbbing pain in her head from where she had slammed into the seat frame.

Instead, she just gasped through trembling lips.

“V-Vasily…”

“What, were you planning on becoming a real whore?”

His voice dripped with venom, his gaze locked straight ahead as he spat out the words.

“What, did that bastard promise to fix everything? Told you that if you became his personal fucktoy, he’d get your brother out?”

The words were so repulsively crude that Sasha felt her mind go blank.

“T-That’s not true…! Ulrich doesn’t know anything, he was just—”

Before she could finish, Vasily’s hand shot out.

The back of his hand struck her cheek with full force, sending her head whipping to the side.

A burst of white light exploded in her vision as her skull collided with the car window.

A thin trickle of blood dripped from her nose, staining the hem of her white dress in deep red.

“That damn Ulrich, Ulrich! You stupid bitch—do you really think he’d care if your brother suddenly dropped dead in that cell?”

Vasily snarled, pressing his foot down hard on the accelerator.

The car roared as it sped forward, the cityscape blurring outside the window.

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, curling in on herself, her entire body shaking violently.

If the car crashed at this speed, she would die instantly.

And if it didn’t crash, she would still die—at the hands of the madman behind the wheel.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Sasha had known that if Vasily ever found out she had gone to Ulrich for help, things wouldn’t end well.

Anything involving Ulrich always sent him into a deranged frenzy, like a jealous husband suffering from paranoid delusions.

‘They’re all insane.’

She couldn’t understand Vasily in the slightest. It felt as if the entire world had lost its mind.

The car screeched to a stop with a deafening noise as they reached a narrow alley lined with five-story apartment buildings, packed together like matchboxes.

For a moment, her heart felt as though it had exploded inside her chest.

“Get out.”

Vasily stepped out of the driver’s seat and yanked open the passenger door. Half-conscious from exhaustion and fear, Sasha was dragged out with brute force.

“Ah…!”

A sharp cry tore from her lips as his grip crushed her wrist, squeezing so hard it felt as if the bones might shatter.

Like a soaked paper doll, she was dragged up the stairs of the decrepit apartment building. The rough edges of the steps scraped cruelly against her flailing shins.

“V-Vasily, please… Ahh!”

“You’re a disgrace to the regime.”

Vasily muttered, his grip unwavering as he hauled her forward, ignoring her desperate pleas.

“I actually thought you might have an ounce of remorse. But I must have forgotten—you’re just a filthy whore who throws herself at any man who might help her family. I shouldn’t be surprised. Your mother was the same way. Where else would you get it from?”

As he pulled out the apartment key, Sasha swallowed back the sobs that kept threatening to escape her throat.

The sound of the lock turning felt like the gates of hell swinging open.

She prayed, please don’t open, please don’t open, but the battered old door clicked open with infuriating ease.

Without hesitation, Vasily shoved her inside.

Sasha’s body hit the cold wooden floor hard, rolling from the force.

Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact, sending a burst of agony shooting through her. For a moment, her vision went completely white.

And then, she heard something unexpected.

“I was wrong.”

Curled up like a pill bug, Sasha barely processed the words that reached her ears.

“That’s right. You don’t need settlement money at all—your brother’s better off here than in a detention center, don’t you think?”

Sasha wiped the blood caked around her nose and lips with the back of her hand, lifting her head shakily.

Vasily tossed his gloves and keys onto the worn-out table and flashed a cruel smile. His green, serpent-like eyes glimmered with icy mockery.

“If he gets to watch his sister take her punishment every single day, I bet he’ll come to his senses real fast. Don’t you think?”

Sasha swallowed hard.

Her lilac eyes, brimming with tears, trembled violently with horror.

“N-No, please… anything but that…”

“What? Spreading your legs for that bastard in exchange for settlement money is fine, but getting beaten in front of your brother is too embarrassing? That’s an odd set of morals you’ve got there.”

“I-I won’t do it again. I swear—I won’t overstep my place ever again. I won’t go to Ulrich. I won’t go to anyone.”

Her hoarse voice cracked as it spilled through her trembling lips.

Pain wasn’t the worst part of violence. The real horror was seeing herself—

Seeing herself crawl on the floor like an animal, sobbing and broken.

If Kiril had to witness his only sister like this…

“I don’t believe you. What should I do about that?”

Vasily cocked an eyebrow, smirking as he clamped a cigarette between his teeth.

As he stepped closer, Sasha flinched violently, squeezing her eyes shut in terror.

But his rough hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back.

“You think your idiot brother is the only problem here?”

Forced to meet his gaze, Sasha stared into the green depths of his eyes, burning with something close to madness.

She couldn’t understand it.

She would never understand it.

The blind hatred of strangers was easier to grasp—people who despised her simply for being a symbol of the old world, for being born imperial.

That, she could at least rationalize.

But this—

This was a man she had been engaged to since childhood.

Yes, it had been a political arrangement. Yes, their statuses hadn’t matched. Yes, the age gap had been too wide. No, he had never made her heart flutter.

And yet, once upon a time, she had believed that if they were to build a family together, she would do her best.

But now…

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead in the streets or rotting in a labor camp by now. Do you have any idea how many men out there would love to get their hands on a fallen imperial whore? Should I send you to them right now?”

What had turned them into this?

What had turned these men—these rulers—into nothing more than gangsters from the slums?

People always said that life was better now than before the coup.

That the world had improved now that the aristocrats and capitalists—who had done nothing but exploit the people like a pack of gangsters—had been overthrown.

That even the animals lived better than they had back then.

But was that really true?

“P-Please, Vasily, don’t… please don’t do this…”

Sasha could do nothing but beg, over and over, her voice raw with desperation.

A single tear, caught on her lashes, rolled down her cheek—passing over the small beauty mark beneath her left eye before falling.

“Oh? So you don’t want this, and you don’t want that? How long do I have to keep bending over backwards to meet your expectations? Huh? When you don’t even have the decency to be grateful—instead, you go wagging your tail like a bitch in heat, clinging to just any man who might listen to your sob story.”

“I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… It’s all my fault… Please, forgive me…”

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, clasping her hands together as if in prayer.

Had it been a mistake to seek help from anyone in the first place?

Maybe she was being punished for daring to hope, when she wasn’t even worthy of standing on her own two feet, of breathing freely.

Not only had she put herself in danger—she had made things worse for Kiril. She had dragged Ulrich into trouble, too.

Vasily, his eyes blazing with fury, suddenly let go of her hair, shoving her aside as he turned away.

“No, that’s not right. Even a beast learns to obey when it’s beaten enough.”

Click.

A metallic sound echoed through the room.

Sasha didn’t even have time to wonder what it was.

“You really are a lost cause.”

 

 

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