Let's Play Dirty
The whip cracked.
The dry snap of leather biting into flesh echoed through the room. Anastasia savored the weight of the riding crop in her palm and swung again. Crack. A fresh red welt bloomed across the back of the woman kneeling on the floor. The woman hunched her shoulders and sobbed, but she didn’t dare scream.
“Hic… Kk…”
She had once been a fairly famous actress. Anastasia could no longer remember her name. All she recalled was that this foolish bitch had once declared herself the empire’s greatest beauty and subtly mocked her as a washed-up whore. Now she was nothing but a drug-addled bitch drowning in debt, groveling at her feet and begging for her life.
Crack. Crack. The whipping continued. The sound was pleasant. But it did nothing to ease the rage boiling inside her. The stress that had piled up recently could not be washed away by such lukewarm violence.
In the church, those pathetic priests used sermons as an excuse to harass her people. The greenhorns in Clement’s faction kept picking childish fights, prattling on about “a noble’s duty.”
“Kk… Ah…”
Anastasia hurled the whip to the floor. She seized the woman’s chin and yanked her head up. Eyes glazed from narcotics stared back at her, wide with terror.
“Shhh…”
Anastasia gently stroked the leather collar circling the woman’s throat, then grabbed the iron chain attached to it. She jerked it with all her strength.
“Gack! Cough…!”
The woman’s airway collapsed with a wet choke. She clawed desperately at her neck, but her ruined body had no power left. Her face flushed crimson, then turned a sickly blue. Her struggles grew frantic.
As Anastasia watched the helpless thrashing, another man’s face flashed through her mind. Big Jack Horner. The last night they had spent together before his imprisonment. That massive body devouring her with raw, passionate heat. He had been such a loyal dog.
He had sent his daughter far away to the Alba region and, claiming he could not burden the faction, took every crime upon himself and walked into prison.
‘I don’t want to trouble the person I love, so I’ll be back after a short while.’
With those words.
Yet who had stolen that loyal dog from her? Dmitri. That idiot son abandoned even by his own mother had dared to use flimsy charges of smuggling and tax evasion to cut off her money supply. What should have ended with a token fine—because she, an imperial princess, stood behind it—he had turned into a full prison sentence by mobilizing judges and tax officials.
Fury surged through her again. Jack Horner was hers. Her dog.
Anastasia tightened her grip on the chain until her knuckles whitened.
“Cough… Hack… Mercy…”
A faint plea finally slipped from the woman’s lips. Only then did Anastasia release the collar and slam her high-heeled foot down on the woman’s back.
“Khuk!”
A sound like a soul being crushed burst from the woman’s throat. Ignoring it, Anastasia shifted her full weight onto the heel and began grinding—back, waist, shoulders, anywhere her foot could reach.
“Ugh, ah… It hurts…!”
“Please… Please…!”
The sweet agony in those pleas only sharpened Anastasia’s rage toward everyone who had betrayed her. Promising herself a thorough purge of all who dared oppose her, she stomped harder.
“Aaaaaagh!!!”
The woman’s scream peaked, then dissolved into wet choking. Her flailing limbs gradually lost strength and fell limp. When the screams finally died and even the moans disappeared, Anastasia lifted her foot.
Breathing hard, she stared down at the motionless lump of flesh beneath her. A piece of meat that still drew shallow, uncertain breaths.
Physical exhaustion and a familiar, sick satisfaction washed over her in equal measure.
Anastasia brushed her disheveled hair back from her face. A languid smile spread across her lips.
“Good. Let’s play dirty.”
The newspaper boy’s raw-throated shouts sliced through the bustling morning streets of the capital. The stack of papers in his arms disappeared at a frightening speed. Gentlemen waiting for carriages, maids on errands, even housewives lined up at the bakery—all of them tossed coins and snatched newspapers as though they had rehearsed it.
Today’s front page of the Imperial Capital News was pure detonation. A gigantic headline screamed across the top, while a blatantly satirical cartoon devoured half the page. It showed a voluptuous noblewoman lounging coquettishly on an opulent bed. At her feet, a young man groveled, pressing his lips to her shoe while she dangled a document labeled “Local Administrator Appointment” above his head.
Nor was the Capital News alone. Every paper competed with ever more lurid headlines.
Of course, beyond these major scandals, the society pages and gossip columns overflowed with trivial tales of affairs and adultery. A certain marchioness had eloped with her coachman. A famous opera singer was rumored to be the mistress of several powerful nobles. A ducal family’s ugly brawl over inheritance. The scandals multiplied daily. When one included the unverified trash from rags like and , the numbers became uncountable.
Distinguishing truth from malicious fabrication had long since become pointless. People simply craved more stimulation, more filth. The empire was turning into one giant circus.
“All sold out! I’ll bring more right away!”
The newspaper boy abandoned his empty stand and sprinted toward the printing house. Behind him, citizens buried their faces in the fresh papers, greedily devouring every line.
“Man… the high-and-mighty really know how to live.”
A low whistle broke the quiet of the office. Mikhail lay sprawled across the sofa, newspaper in hand. His shoulders trembled with suppressed laughter.
“Ah, this is a masterpiece!”
He finally burst out laughing and tossed the paper aside. At the noise, Laura and Josepina looked up from the documents they were reviewing at the opposite desk.
“Come here and look at this. It’s pure art, I’m telling you.”
Mikhail waved them over and tapped a corner of the social page. The two women approached and peered down.
“Look at this. ‘The two who were fiercely making love on a pile of hay…’ Kkuk! They basically wrote a whole damn novel.”
Mikhail chuckled, shoulders shaking. The paper was packed with scandals involving famous nobles, high officials, and even respected scholars. It was as if someone had dumped a cart of sewage over the entire capital.
“They’re ripping each other to shreds. Good. Keep it up.”
Mikhail crossed his arms, thoroughly satisfied.
“Anyway, there’s nothing we can do from this remote backwater, right? Let’s just pop some popcorn and enjoy the show.”
Josepina nodded with a perfectly blank face.
“Caramel flavor, please.”
“Oh, you’ve got good taste.”
Mikhail gave her a pleased grin, then turned to Laura.
“Laura, you should take a break too. You’ve done plenty today.”
He rose from the sofa and moved to Josepina’s side. Without hesitation he reached out and gently stroked her silver hair.
“……”
Josepina’s shoulders stiffened a fraction. She did not pull away, but murmured softly.
“It will mess up my hair.”
“Since when have you cared about that?”
Mikhail grinned mischievously and ruffled her hair even more.
“Fine, fine. I’ll comb it for you later.”
Josepina looked up at him. Her blue eyes blinked once, indifferent.
“Then it’s fine.”
Mikhail snorted with laughter.
Laura, watching the exchange, let out a quiet sigh. She picked up the small bell on the desk. A clear ding rang through the office.
“After you finish your popcorn, please review these approval documents, Your Highness.”
Laura gestured toward the towering stack with her chin, then offered Josepina a gentle smile.
“And Miss Jugashvili, I will comb your hair for you.”