Chapter Seven

 

Once upon a time, those words would have meant everything to me. They would have colored my life like a masterful oil painting. They would have filled the yearning, empty spaces inside me, making me feel as if I were finally whole.

From the moment I set eyes on Sergei, I wanted him to claim me. Love me. Protect me.

But now that he finally has – it’s much too late.

“How pathetic do you think I am?” I shout at him, so loudly it tears at my throat.

He runs his thumb slowly over the back of my hand. “You’re not pathetic at all, Willow. You’re strong. You’re smart. You’re perfect. And you’re mine.”

Pretty words won’t fix this. He’s broken what we had. I will not let him shred my heart again; I couldn’t survive it. “I fulfilled my end of the bargain,” I snap. “The thirty days are long in the past.”

He nods. “Yes. And I have come to realize that thirty days would never be enough. I need forever. With you by my side.”

I am so furious at this that I rip my hand from his grasp and throw the nearest thing I can grab. A salt shaker. It bounces off his forehead and clatters on the table, and he doesn’t even blink.

Because he can hurt me until my heart shrivels and dies, but I can’t even scratch his steel surface.

“You son of a bitch!” I leap up and turn to run out of the room, and he’s on me like a flash, spinning me around, his massive arms wrapping around me, pulling me up against his massive bulk.

I’m trapped. I kick and claw at his hands, and squirm, but his arms just tighten, pinning me like a butterfly in a collector’s glass case.

“You know what happens when you fight me?” he breathes into my ear, his warm breath fanning the flames of my sick desire. “It turns me on. Is that what you want? Shall I fuck you right now?”

Of course that’s what I want.

It’s what I always want, with him. It never stops. Hot tears burn my eyes and spill down my cheeks.

He can’t do this to me. I won’t let him! He can’t smash me to pieces and leave me crushed and crying…and then casually claim ownership of me, like I’m a pet that he can buy and sell.

“I would have given you anything before!” I cry. “I told you I loved you, and you all but spit in my face!”

He just looks down at me with love and pity. And doesn’t let go. “I can tell you why I had to leave you behind,” he says. “But it’s easier if I show you. Come on, we’re going for a ride.”

He releases me, and I stumble back, away from him. I hug myself, trying to hold in all the hurt and hate and confusion that’s stewing inside me.

“Like hell I’m going with you.”

He gives me a look. “Oh, I’m pretty sure you are. You can walk, or I can carry you.” He stands there, waiting.

I manage a shaky, hysterical laugh. “You want me to go out dressed like this?”

“I’ve got clothing waiting for you back in our room.” Of course he does. Because Sergei orchestrates every facet of my life. And I didn’t miss out on the fact that he said “our” room. He’s the lord high king of emotional manipulation.

But as usual, I have no choice in the matter. What Sergei wants, Sergei gets. So I march back to “our” room and dress in thermal underwear, white wool pants, a silk turtleneck, a white cable-knit sweater, and knee-high boots. He grabs a heavy wool coat and knit cap from his closet for himself, and hands me a puffy white down coat.

As the closet door shuts, I see that there’s a keypad by the door. He’s actually controlling access to the closet. He’s the biggest control freak I’ve ever met.

Sullenly, I follow him to the garage.

“By the way, in case you’re wondering if Stockholm Syndrome is setting in yet? It isn’t,” I snap at him as we climb into a black Bentley in his garage.

“Give it time.” His lips curl in a smile as the car pulls out into the cold, white sunlight.

I look out the car window. Sergei’s home is a big, ugly red brick monstrosity that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is – a compound for a mob boss. There are no decorative columns or shutters to pretty up the house. The windows are barred and the gates are laced with razor-wire. There are guard towers with men watching us as we go.

As we drive, I see that that there are three cars ahead of us, three behind us – and a helicopter hovering overhead.

“A chopper? Really? Bit of a drama queen, aren’t we?” I snap at him.

“You’ll see,” he says.

The rest of the ride is made in silence. We bounce over the potholed road through one of the poorer suburbs of Pevlovagrad, past tiny roadside tea shops and shuttered stores and sagging tin shacks. We glide by graffiti-sprayed walls and empty buildings whose shattered windows seem to watch us like hollowed eyes.

So much poverty here, so much hunger and cold and despair. I understand why girls make foolish choices, why they fall for the traffickers’ promises.

Half an hour later, we arrive at our destination – a funeral home.

My stomach clenches in on itself.

He’s going to show me more human trafficking victims.

I don’t want to see. Why is he doing this to me?

God help me, I already know what a dead, tortured woman looks like. Ludmilla has shown me pictures of Cataha’s victims. And Sergei made us watch that video of the woman being hanged. He’s already made his point – the traffickers are evil beyond all human reckoning, and trying to stop them is a dangerous pursuit.

A silent man in a dark suit nods at us as we walk through the doors, trailed by a small mob of Sergei’s men.

He tries to avoid my gaze. I’m so sick of the corruption and hypocrisy here. I step right in front of him.

“I’m being kidnapped,” I say. “I am not here of my own free will. I don’t suppose you care, though, do you?”

“Have a nice day, ma’am,” he says, nodding politely and moving away from me.

Sergei laughs harshly, pushing me through the lobby. “Did you think that would work?”

“A girl can hope. For the love of God, Sergei, is everybody for sale here in this rotten stinking hellhole?”

“Pretty much.” His lip quirks with grim humor. “And if they can’t be bought, they can be killed.”

He steers me down a hall and into a back room. It’s ice cold in here; I can see my breath. The fluorescent lights overhead are blindingly harsh. There’s a wall with metal drawers built in.

“What is the point of this? I know what the traffickers do. I’ve seen dead bodies before,” I protest faintly, but it’s no good, he’s pushing me towards the wall.

“You haven’t seen this one,” he says coldly, and he grabs the handle and yanks it open, sliding out the drawer.

“Oh, my God!” I cry, and stumble before falling back against Sergei.

It’s Maks. With half his head blown away.

The other half of his head is perfectly intact. One eye, staring in horror. A mouth gaping open.

“Oh, no,” I gasp. “No, no, no.”

Poor Maks. I know Maks always hated me, but I never hated him.

I pitied him.

He hated me because of what my family had done to him. My father and uncle owned the whorehouse for little boys where he was raped and abused for months as a child. Sodomized. Made to perform sex acts for food. Beaten, burned, starved.

Unlike Sergei, he let hatred consume him until there was nothing human left. He lived for vengeance and nothing else.

A waste of a life. And now his miserable life has ended.

I’m sobbing so hard I can’t speak.

Sergei puts his arm around me and guides me out of the room. He leads me back out of the funeral home, to his car.

As we drive away, he pulls a handkerchief from his coat pocket and hands it to me. I scrub at my face and gradually my sobs quiet.

When we get back to his house, after I shed my coat and surrender it to the butler, Sergei takes me into a media room with a giant TV screen on one wall, and pours both of us a glass of vodka from a well-stocked bar.

Then we sit on overstuffed chairs, facing a fireplace with a crackling fire that I can barely feel.

“What happened to Maks?” I ask, my voice hoarse with sorrow.

Sergei looks straight ahead. I see a muscle jump in his jaw. It’s the only indication that Maks’ death has touched him at all. “He was driving down the street, in broad daylight, in a shopping district on the border of the Pevlova Oblast. Families everywhere. A group of men pulled up next to him and opened fire. Three bystanders were killed by stray gunfire, and five injured.”

“Did the police ever catch them?”

He turns to look at me, his eyes gone winter-gray. “It was the police who killed him. They were in a dark van, but wearing uniforms. They were from the Ruvniya Oblast. The Ruvniya police chief claimed that some of their uniforms had been stolen by thugs, but he lied.”

“Isn’t it possible that really happened?” I hate suspecting everybody. I hate feeling like there’s nowhere safe, no one to turn to.

“Anything’s possible.” He leans back in his seat, his gloved hands clenching into fists. “But I paid a small fortune to find out the truth, and it turns out that the police chief’s brother and two of his top lieutenants took a bribe from Cataha.”

“So you just had to let it go?” I’m horrified at the thought of those bastards getting away with murdering Maks.

Sergei’s laugh is bitter. “Please.”

“Right, of course. You killed every last one of the murderers.”

“Yes. And that just made it worse. Because now there’s a police department only two hours from here that has a target painted on my back. They can come into this district any time they want to. If they try to pull me or my men over and we run, they are justified in shooting us. If we let them take us into custody, we die. That is our life now.” He heaves a sigh, his big shoulders rolling. “Here’s the problem. Even among criminals, there’s a code. You don’t renege on your deals, you don’t fuck over your partners. And that is exactly what I did when I ran that enormous sting operation on the traffickers last year. Not only that, but I made it very hard for any corrupt police in the area to make a profit anymore. There was a wave of reforms, of raids, dozens of police officers and politicians arrested, and revenue streams turned off. There’s so much heat on them now that they’re afraid to continue with their trafficking of drugs and guns and humans.”

“That’s good, though!”

He shrugs. “It’s good and bad. It means that literally everybody is gunning for me, and anyone close to me. That’s why Maks died. That’s what I was trying to save you from. When I decided to go after Cataha, I knew there was only one way to save you, and that was to make you stay away from me.”

My heart sinks. Then it occurs to me to ask, “Where is Slavik? Did something happen to him too?”

“Recuperating. In Sweden. He went out to buy clothing one day. He was pulled from the store by a mob of Cataha’s men and beaten so badly that he was in a coma for a month. While he was comatose in the hospital, a nurse tried to kill him and was only stopped because I had a bodyguard watching him, so I had him flown to hospital in Sweden on a private plane. He’ll be back here soon. With dents in his skull and walking with a limp for the rest of his life.”

“An assassin dressed as a nurse?” How terrifying.

“No. Worse. A nurse who took a bribe. The bitch is dead now, of course.” He looks away. “I sent Kris and Marya to Sweden, too, with Lukas. It’s too dangerous for them here.”

The thought of someone hurting sweet, gentle Lukas fills me with terror. “Why don’t you just leave this area? Go back to America?”

“Why don’t you?” he retorts.

I take an enormous swig of vodka before I answer him. “Because I owe a debt of restitution. Because my vile family ruined countless lives, and I have to try to make up for that. I wore designer clothing that was purchased from exploiting child sex slaves. That’s a guilt I’ll never get over.” I shudder and involuntarily rub my arms. I do that often these days – I try to scrub the very memory of those outfits off my skin, sometimes until my skin is red.

“You aren’t responsible for what they did. I know I blamed you once. I was a fool.”

I set the vodka glass down on a coaster and turn to face him. “I’m not giving up.”

He nods. “I know.”

Hope flutters inside me. Is it possible? Will he let me have my life back? “You…you know and you’re okay with it? You’ll let me go back to trying to save girls?”

Sergei laughs at me. “Oh, absolutely not. You are staying under lock and key until you can look me in the eye and tell me you won’t go after any more traffickers. You can work with me in the meantime, you can write articles for the anti-trafficking website that I run, you can do office work for them, but that’s it.”

I huff out an exasperated breath and turn away. It’s infuriating that Sergei is still running my life. I’m not a child, I’m not a slave. I should be able to do whatever the hell I want.

But fighting with him, deliberately defying him, is the wrong way to go about this.

Finally I look back at him, meeting his eyes. “Fine. I won’t pursue traffickers anymore. I’m done, I quit. Okay?”

In response, he grabs me, flips me over his lap, and brings his hand down on my butt cheek, harder than he ever has before.

And again. And again.

The first smack snatches my breath away. In the past, when he spanked me, I thought it hurt. I didn’t know what pain was until now.

His blows are vicious, meant to bruise.

I scream in agony with every strike. Every time his hand comes down on my ass cheek, I feel an explosion of fire that hurts so much, it shoots through my entire body. He’s hitting hard enough to bruise. I frantically push at his legs, trying to free myself. My legs thrash involuntarily, I writhe and shriek, and he keeps hitting me.

My back arches. I can’t control my body.

He pauses after each blow, just enough to let the agony spread like a raging wildfire, before he brings down his hand again. There’s a violent explosion of pain every single time, and it’s getting worse and worse. He’s hitting the places he already hit, and it feels as if my skin’s going to split open.

“Please!” I cry out. “Please, stop!”

He hits me four more times, wrenching a wordless, gargling scream of pain from me every time.

Then he lets me go. He’s breathing hard, furious. I squirm off his lap and scramble to my feet. Waves of fire radiate through my body, pulsing with every heartbeat.

“Wh– wh– why…” I wail. I struggle for breath, frantically rubbing the throbbing skin of my butt. “Why did you do that to me? How can you say you love me and then hurt me like that?”

“Because you just lied to me!” Sergei roars. He leaps to his feet, and he’s standing inches away from me, and I gasp for breath. “I always know when you’re lying. And because this isn’t a fucking game, Willow! Those men will gang rape you and then carve little pieces off you and feed them to hogs while you watch, until there is nothing of you left. Does that turn you on somehow? Is that what you fucking want?”

I’m crying so hard I’m shaking.

“No!” I scream at him. “It isn’t what I want! And I don’t want it to happen to anyone else, either, and that’s why I’m willing to risk my life! Damn you, Sergei, damn you!”

“Can’t you see that I love you, you idiot?” He grabs me by the shoulders, his fingers sinking into my soft flesh. “It’s a sick love, it’s a terrible love, but I love you with my whole heart and soul, if I even possess such things. I can’t live without you. I couldn’t live with myself if you were killed. So if I have to keep you under lock and key until the day you die, to protect you from your foolish morals and your noble heart, I will do that.”

Oh, my God, I am furious. He’s telling me that even after he lied to me and ripped me apart last year, I don’t have the right to leave him. He’s doing what traffickers do. Stealing a woman, hiding her away from the world, and bending her to his will.

And I’m supposed to believe that he’s not a trafficker?

“I hate you! I want you to die!” I cry out. It’s true, but it’s only half the truth, and he knows it.

In answer, he grabs my hair and twines his fingers in it. He tips my head back, forcing me to look at him.

“I know. But you love me too,” he murmurs. “And I have always loved you, no matter how hard I tried to fight it. I will never send you away from me again. We will work through this together.”

“No, we won’t.” I claw at his hand, trying to free myself.

“As long as you do what I say, and don’t try to escape, I’ll treat you like gold,” he says. “Try to run away from me again, and you’ll be punished.” He tightens his grip in my hair until I whimper in pain. “Are we clear?”

“You’re hurting me!”

“I know. Are we clear?”

“So I’m just supposed to sit here behind these walls and do nothing?”

“No, you’re supposed to start planning our wedding. It’s one month from today.”