30
Sara
By the time the second month of my captivity transitions into the third, I find my resentment slowly lessening, the desperate longing for my old life transforming into a kind of bittersweet ache. I continue to look for opportunities to escape, but someone’s always in the house, watching me, and as the days bleed into one another, I stop worrying about the impossibility of getting away and begin to enjoy some parts of my leisurely routine. The warm weather helps—we’re in the hottest month of summer now, and there’s a lot more to do outside—and so does the fact that outside of a few supply runs, Peter has been spending pretty much all his time with me.
“You haven’t had a job in a while,” I comment as we head down to a mountain stream where we’ve been swimming on particularly warm days. “Is it because of what happened to Ilya the last time, or you just don’t get clients that often?”
“We get contacted all the time, but we’re selective in the work we take on,” Peter says, raising a low-hanging branch to let me pass underneath. “The risk-reward ratio has to be just right, especially now.”
He doesn’t say why, but he doesn’t have to. From what he’s told me, and from what I’ve gleaned from my brief conversations with my parents, the authorities are intensifying their manhunt, throwing all their resources at the problem that is Peter. Partially, it’s because of my disappearance; even with my twice-weekly calls, my parents are convinced I’m in danger and spend their days harassing the FBI for updates. But the main issue is the last target on Peter’s list, a former US general who’s proving to be as elusive in his own way as Peter and his team.
“Wally Henderson is highly connected,” Peter explained to me a couple of weeks ago. “He caught wind of what’s going on long before anyone else on my list, and he staged a disappearance worthy of Houdini. So far, every lead our hackers have followed has led exactly nowhere. As far as we can tell, he’s not in contact with anyone from his former life—neither friends nor coworkers nor distant relatives—and he hasn’t made a single slip. No appearances on social media by his teenagers, no credit card use, nothing. A lot of his background is classified, but rumor has it, he was a CIA operative at some point, possibly a field agent working deep under cover. And while we haven’t been able to discover the specifics of how he’s doing it, it seems he’s been pressuring the authorities to turn up the heat from wherever he’s hiding.”
“You think he knows he’s the last name on your list?” I asked.
“I’m sure he does,” Peter replied. “Like I said, he’s connected, and not just in Washington D.C. He knows everyone in the international intelligence community, and he’s leveraging that to make me as high priority as any ISIS leader.”
I’ve been trying not to think about the implications of that, but it’s impossible. I can’t put my worry for Peter out of my mind. By all rights, I should cheer for the general and hope the authorities find my captor, liberating me in the process, but rational thinking seems to be beyond me these days.
“Why don’t you stop these jobs altogether?” I ask now as we approach the stream. “You must have enough money already.”
Peter shoots me an oblique look. “There’s no such thing as enough money when you’re on the run,” he says and pulls off his T-shirt, exposing a powerfully muscled torso. “Private planes and helicopters don’t come cheap.”
I look away to avoid flushing as he steps out of his shorts—he’s commando underneath—and wades into the stream after kicking off his boots. I see him naked all the time, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of his tautly muscled body on my senses. Nature has blessed my captor with a perfectly proportioned male frame—broad shoulders, narrow hips, long, strong-boned limbs—and intense military training has given him a physique Olympic athletes would envy. But it’s not his looks that fill my veins with liquid heat; it’s the knowledge that if I so much as glance at him in a certain way, the dark fire that always simmers between us will blaze out of control, and I’ll end up in his arms, screaming his name as he takes me against the slippery rocks.
“You know, you wouldn’t need all those planes and helicopters if you didn’t venture out as much,” I point out when he’s safely covered by the water. My voice is huskier than I would’ve liked, but at least my face is not bright red. “You’d be safer, and you wouldn’t have to… you know.”
“Kill people?” he suggests dryly.
“Right.” I busy myself by stripping down to my swimsuit as Peter turns to float on his back, leisurely moving his arms to offset the current. I don’t like thinking about the gruesome reality of Peter’s profession, not in any kind of depth, at least. I’m obviously aware that he’s a killer, but as long as I don’t dwell on it, it’s more of an abstract concept than something that’s constantly at the forefront of my mind.
Today, though, I can’t push it out of my thoughts, and as I wade into the deeper portion of the stream next to Peter, I find myself asking, “Do you like it? Is that why you do what you do?”
I expect him to deny it, to claim necessity or upbringing as the driving force behind his career choice, but he turns upright to face me, a dark smile curving his lips as he answers, “Of course I do, ptichka. Did you ever imagine otherwise?”
I stare at him, my skin pebbling with goosebumps as the current rushes around me, the water covering me up to my chest. The stream that felt refreshing a moment ago now feels like liquid ice, as chilling as that storm we were caught in. “You like killing?”
He nods, his eyes bright silver in the sunlight. “Death, like life, has its own allure,” he says softly, stepping closer to draw me against his large, warm body. “It’s a dark allure, but it’s there, and every soldier knows it. As a doctor, you must’ve seen it sometimes: the way pain transforms into the bliss of nothingness, agony into the peace of nonexistence. Death ends all struggles, heals all hurts. And dealing death… there’s nothing quite like it. You feel it: the vulnerability of yourself and everything surrounding you, but also the power. The control. It’s addictive, once you’ve experienced it… once you’ve held someone’s life in your hands and extinguished it on purpose.”
His words wash over me like a dark wave, terrifying and fascinating at the same time. I have seen some of what he’s talking about, have even felt the power he’s describing. Only for me, it was when I would save a life, not take one. I can’t imagine the lack of empathy it takes to use that power to destroy instead of healing, to take away someone’s very existence.
I was right to think him a monster. He is one, yet that realization doesn’t repulse me as it should. His admission, as horrifying as it is, doesn’t lessen the heat growing inside me as he molds my lower body against his, one hand gripping my hip and the other reaching up to frame my face. He’s already turned on, his erection hard against my stomach, and as he leans in, his lips pressing hungrily against mine, I close my eyes and wind my arms around his muscled neck, letting his touch burn away the chill of knowing what he is.
I’m in bed with the devil, and at this moment, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
That evening, we have dinner, all five of us, and as has been the case since the Nigeria job, Peter’s men converse with me throughout the meal, telling me a bunch of amusing stories about Russia and some of the former Soviet Republics. I’m still not completely comfortable around the mercenaries—I’m keenly aware that they’d kill me or anyone else without hesitation if Peter were to order it—but they’ve been excessively friendly since I treated Ilya and Anton’s wounds. It’s during meals like these that I learn about the customs of my captors’ country—they do consider it polite to remove shoes when entering someone’s home—and even pick up a few words in Russian.
“Vkusno. V-koos-nah.” Ilya repeats the word for me slowly, softening the “v” so it sounds like an “f.” “That means delicious, or tasty. So if you want to tell Peter you like something, you can point at that dish and say, ‘Vkusno.’”
“Vikusno,” I try, pointing at the roast chicken Peter prepared. “Fi-koos-nah.”
“There’s no ‘i’ in there,” Yan says, looking amused. “And don’t emphasize the first consonant so much. Just say it quickly, without breaking it up into three syllables. Vkusno. Try it.”
“Vkusno,” I parrot to the best of my ability, and all the guys, including Peter, laugh.
“That’s pretty good, ptichka,” he says, cutting more of the chicken for me. “They might make a Russian speaker out of you yet.”
I grin at him, absurdly pleased, and when he urges me to sing for them after dinner, as he often does with no success, I agree for once and belt out one of my favorite Beyoncé songs, the one I’ve been practicing in the recording studio he set up for me. Peter’s men listen, open-mouthed, and when I’m done, they clap and cheer so hard the dishes rattle on the table.
It’s the best evening I’ve had in months, and when Peter leads me upstairs, I embrace him willingly, even eagerly. We make love, and afterward, I don’t think of George and the fact that I’m sleeping with his killer. I don’t even think of my parents.
For that night, I belong to Peter and no one else.