Chapter Seventeen
Day fourteen…
Sergei waits until after breakfast to drop the next bombshell on me.
“Perhaps Ludmilla would like to go with you to your wedding dress fitting today,” Sergei says to me, and his eyes have gone winter cold again. “You’re to be there in an hour.”
This is the first I’ve heard of it. Anger prickles underneath my skin.
Sixteen more days.
Every time I start to relax and just try to enjoy getting to know this newer, kinder version of Sergei, he has to throw this in my face again. I feel as if a golden noose is tightening around my neck and strangling me. Yesterday he was funny, sweet, sexy Sergei. Now he’s got that angry, challenging look back on his face, daring me to say a single word about my own fate, my future.
“Oh, that’s today? Sure, I would love to go,” Ludmilla says, looking surprised.
“But Sergei, she can barely walk. We should postpone it,” I protest.
He gives me a look, but I don’t drop my gaze. I know that last night’s date was an attempt at distraction. And it was a wonderful, perfect night, right down to the rough sex we had when we got home. But that was one night.
“We can’t,” he says with a hint of danger in his voice. “This was a rush job already.”
I want to scream, And whose fault is that? But I don’t dare.
Maybe if Sergei had been raised like normal people, he’d understand me. He thinks he can control everything and everyone around him. All he has to do is bark out an order, and he gets it. Every time.
What he doesn’t comprehend is that while you can control people’s actions with brute force, you can’t control feelings.
And no matter how hard I try to tell him, he won’t listen.
“I am feeling much better,” Ludmilla assures me. “I really would like to get out of the house, and this sounds like so much fun! It’ll get my mind off things.”
Great. So if I say no, not only do I get in trouble with Sergei, but I’m the jerk who’s making Ludmilla sit around stewing in misery.
“I’ll go get on some warmer clothes,” I say.
“I’ve got them lying out on the bed already,” Sergei informs me.
Not today.
When I walk into the room, I spare one quick glance at the clothing he’s laid out on the bed for me. A rose-colored cowl-neck sweater, black velvet slacks. Beautiful. Normally I’d love to pull that sweater over my head, knowing that he picked it out because he thought it would be perfect for me. Today, if I wore it, I’d feel as if it were strangling me.
I deliberately go into the closet – which at least isn’t locked, thank God for small favors – and pick a different outfit. A long, plum-colored wool skirt, thick winter tights, a mauve turtleneck sweater. And I take my time about it. Sergei’s brows draw together in a scowl when he sees what I’m wearing, but I ignore it.
We take the boat across the water in uncomfortable silence, just me and Ludmilla and Sergei and ten bodyguards. Ten. How long will our life be like this?
Ludmilla glances from Sergei to me and back again. She can obviously tell that something is wrong, but wisely, she doesn’t ask.
There are cars waiting for us at the boat dock. The bridal shop is a short trip into town, one in a row of shops on a cobblestone street. The drivers pull over to let us all pile out, and I can’t help but think how ridiculous we must all look.
“I’ll wait outside,” Sergei says. “Bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding.”
We pause outside the shop, and as Ludmilla heads into the store, I draw Sergei aside.
“I am officially, seriously pissed off at you right now,” I snap at him. “You’re taking what could be a joyous occasion and making it miserable for me by not letting me have any choice in it. I am going to go in there and put on a happy face for today, but if you don’t at least postpone the wedding, I am going to stand right up there on our wedding day and tell everyone that I will not marry you. And I don’t care if you beat me black and blue when we go home. I don’t care if you beat me until I pass out.”
Nobody speaks to Sergei like that.
Rage and shock bloom on his face, but I don’t wait for a reply. I just hurry into the shop.
I have to pause and take an enormous gulp of air and let it out again to keep from screaming in fury.
Tension and misery are making me queasy on the day when I’m getting fitted for my wedding dress. I refuse to feel guilty about being such a bitch. I have every right.
I stand stock still for a moment, trying to brace myself. There are mannequins draped in gorgeous gowns everywhere, and I feel like they’re mocking me with the smiles on their plastic lips.
Two attendants are eagerly hurrying towards me, and there are no other customers in the store. Sergei probably booked the whole morning just for me. I swallow a lump in my throat.
A million emotions are swirling through me right now. I miss my mother so much. I don’t have a father to walk me down the aisle; I’ve got nothing but the memory of a monster. This isn’t how my dress fitting is supposed to feel. My fiancé and I are fighting, and for that matter is he even my fiancé? He never officially asked me. I want to cry. But I won’t cry.
I feel so alone.
I look for Ludmilla, and see her at the other end of the shop, pacing and talking on her cell phone.
I reach up and pat my hair, sliding my finger between the strands. My lock picks, my handcuff key, they’re all there. I take them out every night and clip them back in every morning after I shower.
I glance at the shop window and see Sergei standing there with his back to the store, rigid with anger. This isn’t what I wanted. I just want time. I just want him to understand me. I just want him to let me have a little bit of control over the most important decision in my life.
I feel a sudden urge to run out there and tell him that I love him, plead with him not to be angry with me. I hate it when he’s genuinely angry with me. I need him. I want him. Why can’t he just work with me a little?
But I’ve said those words to him so many times that even I’m sick of hearing them. My words have lost all power – they just hit Sergei’s force field of rage and tight control and slide right off.
I feel weary and defeated as I let the shop attendant lead me down the hallway, and I can’t help but notice that there’s a door open at the end of the hallway – leading to an alleyway behind the shop.
I could run.
But I said I wouldn’t.
Why do I have to keep my promise to a liar?
I go into the fitting room, change into the dress, and just stand there as if I’m in a dream. I’m floating off in space somewhere while the attendant and her assistant fuss over me with measuring tapes and dress pins. They try to make conversation, but I’m mumbling answers, staring at the wall.
The dress is a sleeveless ballgown style with a lace illusion neckline. It’s stunning, it’s perfect for me, and it makes me want to weep. And not with joy.
Ludmilla comes in a few minutes later and joins me in the fitting room.
“Everything all right back home?” I ask her.
She smiles wearily, glancing at the attendants, who are on the other side of the room, chattering to each other in Swedish. “Yes,” she says in a low voice, speaking in Russian. “They’re picking a new reporter to be Akim. It’s all right. It was a good run. And you look beautiful, by the way.”
I glance at myself in the full-length mirror. Can she not see the pinched, unhappy look on my face? Is it just me?
Minutes tick by as they take my measurements, and then I’m changed back to my regular clothes and looking at trays and trays of veils and tiaras.
Ludmilla’s phone rings, and she rolls her eyes. “Crap. I forgot to turn off the ringer. Let me just take this one call and I’ll turn it off.”
She hurries out of the room.
A minute later, she sticks her head in the door and waves at me frantically.
I hurry out into the hallway. Her eyes are wide with horror.
“He’s got Darya,” she whispers.
I don’t need to ask who. She shows me the screen on her phone, and I see a picture from my nightmares. Darya’s angry, tear-stained face, staring right at the camera. There’s a gun barrel pressed to the side of her head.
She has a black eye and a split lip.
A wave of panic swells up and threatens to drown me. I lean against the wall, and my throat closes tightly. I can’t even imagine what she’s feeling right now. No, no, no.
“We need to get her back. What does he want? Did he say?” I demand. I glance at the two attendants in the fitting room. They’re ignoring us right now, taking notes and chatting with their backs to me.
“He sent me a message saying that he would trade her for you.” Ludmilla avoids my gaze. “It’s your choice. To be honest with you, I probably wouldn’t do it.”
Brave Ludmilla, who’s risked the wrath of the traffickers for years? She would. And so will I. “Don’t sell yourself short. Here’s what we do. We can make this work. We’re going out the back door. Send him a message. Tell him that we will meet in Pevlovagrad at the Brick Market in six hours, and he needs to let her get out of the car and I need to see her walk away to safety before I’ll hand myself over. We’ll meet over by that stall that sells all the Soviet memorabilia.”
“And then what?” she protests.
“If we rush to the airport right now, Sergei won’t realize we’re gone before it’s too late. Right as I’m about to get on the plane, I’ll send him a message telling him what I’m doing, so he won’t be able to catch me, but he’ll be right behind us. I have a GPS tracker implanted in my right leg. If Cataha takes me…it will lead Sergei straight to him.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “My God. This might actually work.” Then she looks at me searchingly. “It’s a huge risk, though, you know that.”
“Yes, I know that. It’s a worthwhile risk.”
I don’t even want to picture Sergei’s rage – or his hurt. I’ve got to get out of here before I change my mind, because I’m utterly terrified. What will Cataha do to me before Sergei comes for me? What if Sergei can’t find me?
But I have to do this. This is my chance. It’s not just rescuing Darya – it’s ending the reign of terror in the Pevlova Oblast.
We hurry down the hallway and out the back door before anyone notices that we’re missing. I’m surprised that Sergei doesn’t have a man stationed there just in case. Or is that just me being paranoid? How far is Cataha’s reach? Has danger followed us here to Sweden?
We’re rushing through the alley when the wind suddenly shifts and I smell the coppery scent of blood.
A lot of it.
I spin around. “Something’s wrong.”
Ludmilla grabs my arm and tries to pull me.
“We’ve got to hurry!”
“I smell blood!”
Her voice goes high and shrill. “Are you crazy? You don’t care about Darya at all, do you? She’s probably being raped right now – you’ve got to save her!”
But I wrench my arm from her grasp and hurry back down the alleyway, and then I see it. A pool of blood, spreading out from behind a cluster of garbage cans.
I lean over the cans to look, and a thunderbolt of shock strikes me so hard I stagger. Two of Sergei’s men, face down, knees to their chests, stuffed back there hastily to hide them. Dead.
Ludmilla. The weird way she’s suddenly acting.
How did she get away from Cataha’s man when they beat her up? Answer: she didn’t have to. The attack was a fake. Staged. So that she could beg Sergei to take her in.
That phone call she was making in the dress shop…she was calling Cataha. She’d probably already told him where we were, so he had his men standing by in the city, just waiting for their chance.
I spin around to face Ludmilla, whose face is so hideously twisted with rage that I don’t even recognize her, and draw in my breath to scream.
She is holding a syringe, and she jams it into my shoulder through my coat so fast I don’t even have time to struggle. It’s like being stabbed with a red-hot knitting needle. The wind swallows my cries and the world goes all wavery.
The last words I hear are, “Fucking Toporov bitch. That’s for my sister!”