I twisted away from him, trying to get closer to Luka. He laughed and squatted down near our bound feet. I knew he was the equivalent of Vasiliy and must be about the same age. But time hadn’t been so kind to the head of the Ralavich family. Where Vasiliy had maintained his muscles, Olaf was flabby. And where Vasiliy radiated a kind of cold, calculated charm, Olaf was all swagger and brutish violence. A thug, not a criminal.
And he was staring right at me with those dark little deep-set eyes.
“So you’re the one who saved my son,” he said to me. His English surprised me—it was at least the equal of Vasiliy’s or Luka’s. But he spoke with a sneer I couldn’t imagine either of them using. Vasiliy might have hated me—maybe still did—but he’d never sounded like this. Olaf spoke as if I was a lower species, as if all women were.
He turned to Luka. “I heard you were letting some blyadischa order you around,” he said, glancing at me as he casually called me a whore. “But I didn’t believe it until now. What is it she’s got between her legs, Luka, that gives her such power? Shall we see?”
Luka kicked out viciously, but Olaf dodged it easily, laughing. My blood ran cold. We were all alone here, tied up and powerless. Easy targets for whatever Olaf and his men wanted to do to us.
Olaf walked around to our heads and squatted down again. “My son is still in the hospital. They may not be able to fix his face. Only the whores will want to fuck him, now.”
“He was chaining up women,” said Luka in a low growl. Even bound on the floor, he managed to exude menace. If he was scared, he didn’t show it. “Letting men pay to rape them. I should have killed him.”
“If you had,” said Olaf mildly, “I would have killed you already. But since you just made him suffer, I’ll just make you suffer. I’m going to teach you a lesson, Luka. About how you and your father can’t just steal our business.”
Shit! This wasn’t just about Luka beating Olaf’s son. This was about the gun deal. But how did they even know about that? I stared at Luka, terrified. Now they’d beat him, right in front of me.
Two men stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Luka’s shoulders, then hauled him up to his knees. He struggled, but they knelt behind him, their knees grinding painfully into the backs of his legs, pinning him there. Then they wound their fingers into his hair so that his head was held still.
Olaf pulled out a knife and my blood turned to ice water. But then he crouched down and cut the zip-tie that bound my ankles. I looked up at him in confusion and hope.
Olaf grinned. “She’s going to have to open her legs,” he explained.
I remember screaming—a single, long wail of horror that left my throat raw. Then I started shuffling away from him across the filthy concrete floor.
Someone behind me put their boot against my shoulder, stopping me from moving any further.
“Don’t you touch her!” screamed Luka. For the first time, there was fear in his eyes. He hadn’t cared what they did to him. But this...I knew this would tear him apart.
I tried to struggle to my feet, but my hands were still bound behind my back. Olaf grabbed the front of my dress and pulled it away from my body, as if he was going to lift me up by it. Then he slashed with the knife again, cutting it all the way down the front. My bra strap was sliced through and then I felt the cold of the knife against my groin and my panties were cut.
I writhed in disgust, trying to hide my nakedness from him, trying to turn over. He put his shoe on my bare shoulder and slammed me back down onto my back, then hunkered down over me. He stared into my eyes, but spoke to Luka.
“First,” he said, “I’m going to fuck her. Then my men will fuck her. Then we’re going to take her to one of our places—you know the sort, Luka. The ones that made you so angry. We’ll chain her up and let the suits play with her. They’ll like a nice American girl. We’ll get her some new dresses, so they can rip them off. Again and again.”
Luka thrashed and pulled at the men holding him, almost tearing his hair out by his roots. But they held him fast.
I stared up at Olaf. This wasn’t anything like the games I’d played with Luka. All I felt was sick, cold fear.
Olaf unfastened his belt. “Hold her down.”
The room suddenly burst into light and noise. It was as if dawn had broken in fast-forward, a slice of light sweeping across the floor until it filled the whole room. It was so bright, after the darkness, that I couldn’t see a thing. There was a rumbling like the end of the world and the roar of car engines. I twisted and tried to cover myself, screwing my eyes closed and pulling myself into a tight little ball on my side. For long seconds, all I could hear was gunfire. I prayed for death. That would be better than what they’d been going to do to me.
Running footsteps and shouting in Russian. Then a voice I recognized.
Yuri.
Something soft dropped over me. I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was a man I didn’t recognize—one of Olaf’s men, I presumed—lying on the floor just a few feet away. He’d been shot through the head.
I turned away from him, trying not to throw up.
Yuri was standing behind Luka, cutting him free. The last time I’d seen the head bodyguard had been in the car, after the crash. “I thought you were dead,” I croaked.
Yuri grimaced. “Death would have been less painful,” he said. He was bleeding from a cut on his head and I saw that he was using only one arm, the other hanging at an odd angle. Somehow, though, he’d managed to pull off his suit jacket to lay over me.
Free at last, Luka got to his feet and ran to me, sweeping me up into his arms. I looked around, blinking in the sudden light.
We were in a warehouse, as I’d suspected. But now the huge door at one end was open, letting in daylight. Two black SUVs were parked just inside. The whole place was swarming with men in black combat fatigues. Vasiliy had sent an army.
I looked back to Yuri. “How did you…?”
Yuri snorted. “Idiots think I’m dead in car and don’t put bullet in my head. I wake up and you and Luka are gone.” He nodded at Luka. “I track his cell phone and call Vasiliy for backup.”
I looked up at him in wonder. I’d always thought of Yuri as just a big, dumb lunk. I was just realizing he was a superb bodyguard, something he hid behind his dour manner. Probably deliberately.
Yuri caught my look. “Is not—how you say it?—is not my first rodeo.”
Luka looked down at me and tenderly stroked my cheek. He didn’t ask if I was okay—I think he could see that I wasn’t. He just stared into my eyes, his own full of guilt and pain.
One of Vasiliy’s men staggered up to us. “Olaf got out the back.”
Yuri swore and kicked one of the dead bodies. Then he nodded us towards the SUVs. “We go. Before police arrive.”
Luka carried me towards one of the SUVs. I looked around at the devastation as we went. Six dead, two of them Vasiliy’s men. I started to shake in Luka’s arms.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
I knew it wouldn’t be. I saw now just how brutal his world could be. Tomorrow, I’d escape it forever...and lose Luka forever. And with Olaf gunning for him like this, I knew it was only a matter of time until this world killed him.