Trapped With The Untouchable CEO Chapter 01
I was drugged and locked up with a man.
Every move we made was being streamed on the dark web through HD cameras.
The viewers were going wild, placing bets on how long we could hold out.
I had two choices.
Let the drug burn me alive from the inside out.
Or be forced to have sex with a stranger in front of thousands of viewers.
***
“Well, well. Welcome to tonight’s show: How Long Can You Last?”
“One is an untouchable illustrator. The other is a CEO famous for his self-control.”
“We’ve spent a whole year preparing for this! Hope you all enjoy it!”
The distorted electronic voice echoed through the room, and a massive screen on the wall clicked on.
Four industrial spotlights snapped on, stabbing white-hot light into my eyes, making me hiss in pain.
“You’re awake?” The man’s voice had a rough, gravelly texture.
I turned my head, and my breath hitched.
It was Alexander Sterling. The heir to the Sterling Group in New York, known for being impossible to get close to.
We had met twice at a cocktail party for an art exhibition collaboration. The packaging art I’d done for their new pharmaceutical line had just passed final review, but we’d barely spoken more than a few words.
“Mr. Sterling, where are we?”
“An underground warehouse. We’re being live-streamed.”
As he spoke, he shifted backward, putting as much distance between us as he could, his breathing heavy.
“Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?” I fanned myself with my hand while looking around.
He shot me a strange look, with something like embarrassment in his eyes. His lips moved, but ultimately he said nothing.
Weirdo.
But he wasn’t wrong. It was indeed a live stream; high-definition cameras were mounted in all four corners of the warehouse. They looked like black-market HD-800s—short-range, encrypted, hard to trace.
A strange heat crawled under my skin. I forced myself to take deep breaths and tried to make conversation to to distract myself from the heat building in my body.
“Mr. Sterling, how did you get caught in this too?”
Someone like me would have been easy to grab. But Alexander Sterling always had bodyguards around him; taking him down was no easy feat. Why was it the two of us?
A suppressed groan escaped Alexander’s throat. “I was betrayed…”
“Who’s the mastermind behind this?”
Anyone bold enough to go after Alexander Sterling on the dark web must have paid a fortune.
“I don’t know.” Alexander gritted his teeth, each word forced through clenched teeth. “But I will find out.”
Comments flooded the screen.
“Holy shit! Isn’t that Chloe Bennett, the illustrator who turns everyone down?”
“I heard half the city’s most eligible men chased after her, but she rejected them all.”
“Yeah, notoriously hard to get!”
“And the other one is that ascetic CEO from New York, Alexander? They’re playing this big?”
“Damn, I’m so excited!”
“The dark web is insane! They actually managed to get these kinds of people for a live stream!”
“Rumor has it they prepared for this live stream for a whole year!”
“An ice queen and a monk. What a pairing.”
“Hehe, I just love watching ‘prudes’ do ‘dirty deeds’…”
Those words crawled over my skin like dirty hands, stripping me bare for strangers to stare at.
“Let us out right now! You’re kidnapping us. You’re filming us. This is a crime.”
I instinctively curled up, but I couldn’t stop my voice from trembling.
The synthesized electronic voice let out an exaggerated laugh. “Help! I’m so scared!”
“Hehe, friends, guests! The 30-minute countdown starts now. Place your bets, everyone! Let’s see just how long they can hold out. And… who will break first.”
The comments became even more brazen.
“Why play hard to get? When the drug kicks in, you’ll be crying and begging for it.”
“They’ve been locked in for almost half an hour, why hasn’t it started yet?”
“Is this fake?!”
“I bet twenty minutes, the drug hasn’t hit the woman yet.”
“Both of them are drop-dead gorgeous, this money is well spent!”
“Stop dawdling! Get right to it! I bet 30,000 dollars they won’t be able to hold back!”
Drug? An aphrodisiac? Like in the movies?
I glanced at Alexander; his condition was much worse than mine.
Cold sweat rolled down his forehead. He leaned against the wall with one hand, his knuckles white.
The muscles in his bare forearms stood out, tight and trembling, as if he were wrestling an invisible beast.