Wrecked
Yuri snatched me out of the chair and lifted me into the air like an eagle carrying off its unsuspecting lunch. He dragged me through the old warehouse that was loaded with shipping containers of shrink-wrapped boxes and discarded piles of broken pallets. My wedge sandals clicked on the hard, concrete floor, and the sound of our footsteps echoed through the room.
Unable to keep up with his hurried pace, I stumbled and dropped to my knees. Angered that I slowed him down, he mumbled a few expletives while my knees skidded across the concrete and I clambered back to my feet. He had a firm grip on my arm and forced me down a metal stairway that clanged noisily under the weight of our bodies as we thundered down into the creepy underbelly of the massive building.
The lower level was sweltering and smelled like burnt oil. He opened a door made of steel bars and shoved me into a makeshift prison cell. He slammed the door shut behind him, locking us in together. There was a cot with a dingy gray blanket covering it, two lengths of chains with cuffs hanging from the ceiling, and a set of shackles mounted to a concrete wall.
My legs trembled and my body tensed with fear. “What are you going to do to me? Please don’t hurt me.” Terror consumed me when he dragged me toward the chains hanging from the ceiling. I begged him not to lock me up, but my pleas were ignored. He clasped the heavy handcuffs around my wrists and hoisted the chain so my arms were raised over my head. Not at an uncomfortable level, loose enough so my arms weren’t strained and I could stay upright without having to stand on my toes. An act of mercy? Doubtful. No matter what the hell happened between him and the family that caused him to work for Maksim, I couldn’t fathom Yuri hated Vladimir enough to participate in his murder—or mine.
“Not too tight?” Yuri checked the cuffs to see if they were snug enough to keep me restrained, but not so loose that I could slip out of them.
I shook my head, not wanting to give him any excuse to turn violent if he felt I was being defiant. He had a quick temper like his papa, and my goal was to simply do what I was told in hopes of avoiding physical harm. Thick, industrial-sized padlocks were attached to both cuffs that added a couple pounds of weight. I grasped the chains to relieve the pressure.
Yuri left the cell and locked the door behind him. Then he set up a camera on a tripod. He tapped the top and a red light glowed, indicating it was recording. He pulled up a chair next to my cell and eyed me with an unsympathetic expression as if it were commonplace for women to be chained and locked up. Or maybe he was so hardened from his life of crime that restraining me, without any other device of torture or bodily harm, was simply boring. I was relieved I was just handcuffed and detained, but I had the stomach-turning sensation this was only the beginning of a more devious plot. Why else would he be recording me?
Yuri glanced at his watch then his gaze took a lap around my body. “You’re an athlete.” His tone suggested it was a statement rather than a question. When I didn’t answer, he folded his thick arms and shot me a warning glare.
“I play tennis.”
“You have strong legs?”
What the hell? “I guess so.”
He checked his watch again. “I’ll give you an hour, Carter.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Maksim had said he would make me suffer every minute he waited for Vladimir to call. “An hour for what? What are you going to do to me?” I shuffled my feet and turned in a circle to see if there was something in the room I missed. My imagination went wild, and I feared I was locked in there with a vicious attack dog or there were rats hiding in the shadows, waiting to climb on my body and feast on my flesh. I spotted a cricket bat and a long length of chain in a darkened corner of the cell. Maybe those two things were what he used to teach people like me a lesson—the ones who pissed off the Bratva.
Yuri didn’t answer.
The air was stifling and reeked of mildew, urine, and furnace fumes. The odor wasn’t strong enough that I was alarmed about asphyxiation, but I didn’t want to become overheated or weak from thirst. I hadn’t had a drink or anything more than a nibble of fruit since I left Russia, but that wasn’t my top concern. I understood Boris’s cryptic message that I was not to tell them about the baby, but if Yuri intended to hurt me, I would have no choice but to divulge my secret in hopes of mercy for an expectant mother.
My arms felt heavy and my wrists ached from the heavy cuffs. I widened my stance and stood tall to lessen the strain on my upper body. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than an hour, the weight of the locks and the strain of standing started to wear me down physically. Yuri watched me squirm to find a more comfortable position, but nothing relieved the stress. A reminder alarm on his watch set off a series of beeps. He strummed his fingers on his knee and nodded as if to himself.
He rose from his chair, unlocked the door, and entered the cell. He lumbered over to the corner of the room and picked up a length of chain. My body trembled when the heavy metal clanged on the concrete floor as he dragged it toward me like a long, deadly snake.
“No, no, no, please don’t hurt me. I’m pr—” I sucked in my lips, unwilling to reveal my secret unless it was absolutely necessary.
Yuri draped the chain around my upper body, looped the bulk of it loosely around my shoulders, and wrapped the last length around my waist and secured it with a hefty padlock. “That should do it.” The weight of the chain had to be at least twenty or thirty pounds, and the pressure sent sharp pains needling through my back. My shoulders ached and my muscles burned as if I’d done a series of pushups, planks, and lunges in rapid-fire succession. I bent my knees to relieve the strain by hanging rather than holding myself up, but when my body went slack, the bones in my wrists felt like they were going to snap.
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?” I leaned back and squatted slightly to hold my body steady. Physically, I could handle the stress on my body. Back home, I worked out as much as my college football buddies. Mentally, I had to stay tough. Time was the best weapon I had. Boris had a plan in motion to rescue me, and I knew my job was to comply with my captors’ demands to avoid physical abuse. The pain and suffering Yuri was inflicting wasn’t meant to hurt me; it was a form of torture to break my will or scare the life out of me. I could deal with the pain. I could handle the mental torture. I could hold my own against those fucking monsters. My concern was for the baby.
Be strong, little one. Mama will protect you.
That sadistic bastard enjoyed my suffering and was hurting me for fun or out of spite for whatever family feud landed him in London with Maksim rather than in Ekaterinburg with Vladimir, Boris, and the rest of their relatives. Considering the strong personalities in our family, it was unavoidable these guys would butt heads, but not to the point of becoming enemies.
As bull-headed as the boys of the Ivanov Bratva were, there was also a deep brotherly love between them. Pasha, Boris’s youngest son, had the heart of a saint. No matter what the guys were fighting over, Pasha would’ve never turned his back on Yuri, nor would he have advocated for him to be shunned from the family. Plus, I couldn’t fathom anything Yuri could have done that was bad enough for Boris to have ousted him. How could Boris judge anyone? He was a hit man for the Russian mob. What could Yuri have done that was worse than being a murderer?
I heard the flick of a lighter then smelled cigarette smoke. The muscles in my legs were shredded, but giving in to exhaustion was not an option. If I let my body drop, I feared my wrists would fracture or dislocate. I needed to stay whole and in good physical form in case I had to defend myself against the crew or beat the life out of Maksim, if the opportunity presented itself.
“Do you know why I left the family?” Yuri took a long drag off his cigarette then exhaled a series of smoke rings.
The deep, ominous tone of his voice startled me. Small talk? Since our family never mentioned him, I thought maybe something bad had happened to Yuri and no one wanted to talk about it. “No. No one ever told me.” I turned in my restraints so I could see his face. “Tell me.” My words came out hoarse. If I stayed in good graces with my handler, maybe I could sway him into giving me a drink of water.
He tapped his cigarette, sending a pile of gray ashes to the concrete floor, and studied my wilted body as if assessing my condition. My hair was sweaty, my legs were trembling, and I was panting from the strain of holding myself up. Even without the torture treatment, I was exhausted from all the drama that had gone down in the last twenty-four hours and hadn’t slept since we left Ekaterinburg. My body had been running on pure adrenaline, and I was too wired to sleep on the plane that brought me to England.
Yuri didn’t elaborate on the cause of the feud. He sat there puffing on his cigarette, watching me like a goddam vulture and waiting for me to pass out or die so he could peck at my remains.
“Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish? Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.” My lips trembled and tears rolled down my cheeks. “Please, can I have a drink of water?”
He stared at me with the unsympathetic eyes of a killer then glanced down at his watch again. “Three more minutes. Better pray your husband calls Maks soon. What happens next is very unpleasant.” His gaze drifted to the cricket bat in the corner of the cell.
Terror overtook me, and my fight or flight instincts kicked in. I yanked on my restraints to slip free of the handcuffs. I bent my knees and tried to leverage my bodyweight to force the cuff over my hand, but the pain was too much. Lack of sleep, weakness from hunger, and the dizzying effects of dehydration had all taken a toll on my body.
My legs wobbled, and my knees buckled. I hung my head and fell forward, but the chains held me upright and prevented me from crashing to the ground, which was probably a good thing. I couldn’t afford to hit my head again. I’d already suffered a concussion, among other injuries, while clutched in the iron fists of Mother Russia. Another blow to the head would be disastrous.
“Please help me, Yuri. What’s going to happen next? Why are you recording this?” I shuffled my feet to try to stay upright, but my body collapsed. As I hung there, weak and in pain, I no longer had the energy to stand. No longer had the strength to struggle out of the cuffs. I closed my eyes and practiced an Ujjayi breathing technique I learned in yoga class to control my stress. As I inhaled through my nose and hissed a throaty exhale, I coached myself to stay strong. It’s just pain. I’m not hurt. I love you, Vladimir. Love you, baby…
I needed to be brave and not cower before my captor, but my willpower was slipping away. I groaned in agony and lumbered back to my feet, only to have my knees buckle once again. “Please take off the cuffs and let me rest on the floor.” I panted as I waited for a response that never came. “I need water. How much time is left?”
A call came in on Yuri’s phone. He mumbled in Russian. A key twisted in the lock. The door screeched open. Thick hands grasped my forearms. Feeling physically drained, I could no longer keep my secret. Whatever was “next” in my torture session could affect my health, and I had to do everything in my power to protect the baby. “Please don’t hurt me, Yuri. I’m pregnant.” My words came out in a barely audible whisper, but when his hand traveled to my waist, I knew he had heard me.
He pulled the fabric of my dress taut against my stomach to confirm my confession. He touched my baby bump then withdrew his hand quickly. “Congratulations. Vladimir has contacted Maksim.” He removed the length of chain from around my body and tossed it on the ground. The sound of the heavy metal clanging on the cold, cement floor startled the life out of me, but I was relieved to have the weight lifted off my shoulders. Then he unlocked the cuffs one at a time to set me free.
Physically, I was so wrecked, I crumbled to the ground. My muscles had disintegrated, and I felt like every drop of moisture had been sucked out of my body, but I was grateful my suffering had come to an end. “Please don’t tell Maksim. If he finds out—”
“Quiet. Your whining is giving me a headache.” Yuri scooped me off the ground and set me down on the cot. He grumbled at me, warning me not to fight him. Then he blindfolded me, secured my wrists and ankles with zip ties, folded my limp body in his arms, and marched up the metal staircase.
The coolness of Yuri’s suit jacket soothed my clammy skin, and it was a relief to rest my head on his chest. As he carried me through the warehouse, dizziness forced me to close my eyes, but I did my best to pay attention to my surroundings. Echoes of footsteps, murmurs from his cohorts as he carried my wilting body, and then a van door slid open. Yuri carried me inside, held me captive in his embrace, and conversed with his crew in Russian. As the vehicle squealed away, I silently repeated my personal mantra.
Live to fight another day.