In the sober light of morning, the little star is no longer under my spell. Cool amber eyes find mine in the reflection of her mirror, disinterested in my presence. I left her in the darkness of night, stealing away to the sanctuary of my own room. And now she is wearing her armor, but she should know it won’t do her any good. I will blow it up or burn it down. Whatever I have to do to show her that she is mine.
Freshly bathed, she prepares herself for the day. It’s the same ritual I’ve watched her execute from the monitor in my office more times than I can count. She brushes her hair. Applies her makeup. And then she castigates herself in the mirror for twenty minutes, a slave to her disease.
I don’t know if she wishes she was perfect, or if it’s only her obsession. But either way, she is perfect to me.
This morning, a black silk robe hangs loosely off her shoulders. And despite the cold reception on her face, her nipples are hard for me. I hope she is sore. I hope that every time she moves today, she feels my cock inside her. I want her to crave it. I want more than anything to demand she never thinks of any other man but me.
“Where are my sheets?” she asks.
“Gone.”
Her eyes pinch together. “To my father?”
I don’t answer. If she expects remorse, she should know I have none. I don’t regret taking her, nor am I sorry for the evidence delivered to her father. It’s the way things are done, and she knows this.
She cinches the belt around her robe and crosses her arms. “It’s a disgusting tradition.”
I want to do all manner of disgusting things to her. For example, right now, I’d like nothing better than to shove my cock into her mouth to shut her up. I could easily spend the day buried inside her, brutalizing her tender pussy to remind her of her place. However, I have other pressing matters to attend to. With this in mind, I toss the morning-after pill onto her vanity, along with the birth control pills the doctor provided.
She picks them up and examines them, relief flooding her eyes when she sees the first package, only to be washed away with panic at the second.
Her eyes shoot up to mine. “I can’t go on the pill.”
“Why?”
“It causes weight gain.”
“So does a baby.” I walk toward the door.
“You’ve fulfilled your duty,” she says. “You ruined me. I see no further need for protection—”
“You can either take the pills or take a baby inside you, but either way, you will be taking my cock, zvezda. Don’t fool yourself by pretending otherwise.”
I find Mischa at Kosmos, half-drunk with a stripper grinding on his lap. It’s not even ten a.m., and I’d be hard pressed to determine whether he’s been at it all night or he’s just getting started.
He lives the life of a perpetual bachelor, enjoying all the perks the brotherhood has to offer. Unlimited booze and women have satisfied many a Vor, myself included. But when I look at him this morning, it is not envy or amusement I feel. There is only pity.
Over the past few years, I have indulged my baser desires often and with whomever I please. But it has been a fleeting satisfaction. This morning, I am a changed man. I have tasted honey, and I can’t ever imagine settling for anything less again. Knowing that Nakya waits for me back at my home is a privilege unlike any other.
Considering the facts, it’s a foolish notion. Soon, I will be engaged to Ana, and Nakya will be returned to her father. It’s the only way this can work. The only way I can save her. Our paths were not meant to parallel forever. Logically, I know I’ll be forced to give her up, but it doesn’t make the decision easier to accept.
Like many of the Vor, marriage is a natural step for me. I have thought about it from time to time, believing it would happen on its own schedule. But I never imagined the face of my wife or my unborn children because there wasn’t an instinctive fit. The molds were empty, something yet to be determined. But now the pressure to fill them is bearing down on me, and it isn’t Ana’s face that I see as my wife or even the mother of my children.
The face that I see is sharper. High cheekbones and honeyed eyes. After this morning, how could I not imagine Nakya swollen with my children? They would have her tenacity. Mocha skin and my strong Russian genes. They would be unstoppable.
If it was meant to be.
Mischa opens his eyes at half-mast, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face. “Kolyan.” He makes a sloppy gesture with his hand. “Come and join us, won’t you?”
I look at the stripper. Bare tits bounce around as she grinds on Mischa’s lap, her tiny red thong swallowed up by her ass cheeks. She does nothing for me. In fact, when I look around at the variety of naked women ready and willing to please, none of them do anything for me. Brunettes, redheads, blondes. Women of all flavors and shapes. Natural or perfectly sculpted silicone. There isn’t a club in this city that boasts a better selection, yet not a single one of them inspires an erection. It only fuels my frustration as I snap my fingers at the stripper.
“Go away. We have business.”
She pouts but does as she’s told. Mischa grunts and pulls out his cigarettes, extending one in offer. I light up and allow the much-needed nicotine to soak into my lungs.
“You said you wanted to show me something.”
Mischa takes a long drag and nods, exhaling through his nose. “You still pissed at me?”
“I never was.”
He laughs, and I want to punch him. Of course, it’s a lie, but it’s better than the truth.
“You told me to have a go,” he says. “You said we needed to follow Viktor’s orders.”
“I know what I fucking said.”
“She’s trouble, Kolyan,” he slurs. “You should cut and run now while you still can. Before you get any more invested.”
“I’m not invested.”
Another lie, and a pointless one at that. Mischa can read me better than most.
“Have you spoken to Viktor?” I ask.
Mischa stubs out his cigarette and stands up, zipping up his jeans. “I need a fucking burger or something.”
I gesture to the back door, and we walk to my car in silence. I’m anxious to hear his response, and after last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sold me out. It’s what I deserve.
“I told him I got the job done,” Mischa says.
I look over at him, and I’m lost for words. He lied to the pakhan for me. If I go down, he’s going down with me, and the pressure I feel to protect him only adds to my current mental state.
“Thank you, Misch. I know I don’t deserve your loyalty, but I am grateful regardless.”
“It’s a loose end,” he answers. “The story might work for now … until he sees the girl and her feelings for you all over her face.”
If Nakya has any obvious feelings for me, I’m unable to see them myself. She is locked down tighter than a crypt, and like any thief worth his salt, I want to pry her open and uncover all her secrets.
“He won’t see her,” I assure him.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Mischa says. “Considering he told me to give you a message.”
“What’s the message?”
“He wants her at the Christmas party.”
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Why the Christmas party?”
Mischa shrugs. “I don’t know the reason.”
Viktor is still testing me. It could be the only reason. He wants to ensure my loyalty to Ana, and I dread what this party might entail.
I pull up to a drive-thru, and Mischa orders between drags of his cigarette, and then we park while he eats. He said he had something for me, and I want to get on with it, but I also need him sober for the impending conversation.
The car is quiet, so I turn on the radio and smoke another cigarette. Mischa polishes off two burgers and a large fry before leaning back in the seat and patting his belly. “Much better.”
“I don’t have all day, Mischa.”
“I know,” he says. “But don’t get pissed. It isn’t really about your mother.”
“Then what the fuck is it?”
“As it turns out, Manuel and one of his guards have the same taste in women. Or more specifically, one woman. They’ve both been banging the same chick. My new friend Eduardo is highly motivated to keep his job and his dick.”
“So we have an in?”
“We have an in.” Mischa nods. “But the guy is a nobody, really. He wasn’t able to get me much, just some old surveillance videos from the basement. Which, for the record, your mother wasn’t on any of them.”
“So what is on them?” I ask.
He tosses me his phone, and I unlock the screen. An endless number of files are ready to view, and I’m not even certain where to begin.
The first video I open contains a haunting image of Nakya’s mother in bed late at night. I fast forward through hours of nothingness until Manuel comes stumbling into the room, obviously drunk. There isn’t audio but isn’t necessary. The image is enough, and one I won’t soon forget. He beats her and fucks her unconscious body, leaving her in a puddle of filth when he climbs into bed.
The next video is of a similar nature, only this one takes place in the kitchen. He burns her hand on the stove and shoves her face into a sink full of dishwater. When she comes up gasping for breath, a sickening need motivates me to freeze the frame on her face. Without her veil, she looks so much like Nakya. And it occurs to me that this is what will become of her if I send her back to Manuel. An empty shell with dead, soulless eyes.
“When was this taken?”
“Five years before her death,” Mischa answers.
Manuel’s wife died long before she ever made it to the grave. She was a victim too, and if he could do this to his own wife, there’s no telling what became of his mistresses.
A heaviness settles into my chest as I scroll through the images. There are hundreds of video stills. Thousands of hours of his abuse.
“Eduardo tells me that he revisits the videos often when he is drunk,” Mischa says.
He saved them because he is sick. He saved them because he is a vile waste of energy who doesn’t deserve to live another day on this earth.
I’m tempted to end him now and be done with it. But those thoughts come to an abrupt halt when another still catches my attention. One that isn’t Manuel’s wife, but his daughter. Acid boils my gut before I even open it. I shouldn’t. It has no business being a part of my decision. What happened in Nakya’s past can’t be changed, but my finger hovers over the play button, regardless. If I watch this video, it will change things. It will change me. Mischa knows it, and I can’t understand his motives for doing this.
“Why are you showing me these?”
“You wanted to know Manuel’s character.”
“I knew from the moment I met him that Manuel Valentini wasn’t worth the breath it took to speak his name.” I scoff. “So don’t bullshit me.”
“I got curious about the girl.” He shrugs. “She seems fucked up.”
“She isn’t,” I snarl.
It’s a lie, and it doesn’t take a team of psychiatrists to determine that much. But I don’t want him speaking about her that way. I don’t want anyone speaking about her that way. It’s my secret to keep. She is my broken doll to repair, and mine alone.
“Just watch it,” Mischa urges.
I click play, and my stomach lurches at the grainy images on the screen. My suspicions were right, and this is the confirmation. Manuel wasn’t just violent with his wife. He was violent with Nakya too. She spills a glass of water on the carpet, and without a second thought, he backhands her so viciously she falls limply into the coffee table.
I know I should stop. This can’t matter to me because it won’t change her circumstances. But nothing is as intimate as experiencing her pain, and I can’t bring myself to look away from the horrors she endured. I need to understand them. I need to know her darkest shame.
The first video blends into the next until it is an endless stream of savagery that only gets worse. Manuel pulling her hair. Pushing her. Slapping her. Biting her. The abuse progresses over time as she grows, and eventually, she becomes the recipient of his fists and even his feet when he kicks her.
My fists are trembling with a gluttonous compulsion to bathe them in Manuel’s blood. I want to drain him of his life force. I want to beat his face until there is nothing left. Mischa sees it, and wisely chooses not to tell me that he was right. This video has only solidified what I already knew to be true.
Nakya is inside me. She has bested the thief by stealing something that doesn’t belong to her. And when I kill Manuel, it won’t be for my mother.
It will be for her.