Yelena barely registered the reality of Sergei’s words, the emotion behind the cruel taunts reaching her terrified mind more easily than the individual sentences themselves. Maybe it was a sort of defense mechanism - her mind now deciding to block out her surroundings like this - but she wasn’t sure. She’d never been this scared, this threatened before in her life, not even at the hands of Maksim. He’d never been this physical.<br/><br/>She tried, in vain, to force herself to block out whatever was happening and focus solely on the physical, to calm her breathing and try to ignore the tight confines of the mask obscuring every breath. Despite her inner encouragement to relax, Madame Naumov’s breaths still came in deep, gasping gulps, her body almost beyond her control now.  Her nipples perked to firmness beneath her form-fitting leotard as Sergei toyed with her full breasts, now on prominent display with the hogtied position Madeleine had forced her into. She whimpered with the unwelcome treatment to her full breasts and the strain to her limbs when she was tied together, like a calf at a rodeo. It was humiliating, being treated like an animal, and a few more sobs escaped her bound lips.<br/><br/>She’d never been tied in this way, but Yelena could tell she would be in pain if she were not untied shortly - although she doubted her captors would care what discomforts she suffered. From the signs of things, they’d probably enjoy knowing they made her miserable. And they probably already knew it. These were no amateurs.<br/><br/>Still, the pain from being shoved unceremoniously into a car trunk and bound tightly barely reached her dulled senses - that is until she heard Sergei and Madeleine speak of burning the studio.<br/><br/><em>God, no…not her studio!</em>Yelena had spent most of her life forging a career for herself in this new country, and the studio was the physical symbol of all she’d achieved, of her freedom…<br/><br/>Her freedom that had now been taken forcefully away, and Lila’s too.<br/><br/>It was a small comfort, but at least she couldn’t<em>see</em>her dreams and labor of twenty years burning to the ground. Its destruction was the final blow that quieted Madame Naumov’s struggles for the time being, though, and she fell quiet in the car’s trunk, no longer fighting her bonds in vain.<br/><br/>Mentally, she prayed.