Bond to Break (Stolen Obsessions #4)

22. Katya

CHAPTER 22

KATYA

Fyodor warned me that “Marta” would administer my medicine if he weren’t back in time. I’d come to imagine her as a nameless specter sent here just to make my life harder, but somehow her having a name makes it worse. Makes her more real.

I prayed it wouldn’t come to that. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a sex slave or I personally offended her while sick and out of it, but she doesn’t just dislike me. She hates me, and every time she comes to my room to drop off food, she’s needlessly cruel, even worse than the first time.

A slight rustle outside the door gets my attention, and I’m sure it’s not been long enough for Fyodor to be back. I’ve also noticed that drum of fingers on the door announces his presence. It’s not really a knock or request. He owns me, so he wouldn’t bother, but at least he offers some advanced warning. It gives me a feeling of control, however flawed it is.

This is not Fyodor. A little click as the key enters the lock, she turns the knob gently, clearly trying to catch me by surprise. My suspicion is confirmed when she pushes it open fast and steps into the room with an expression like she might catch me in the act of… something.

The movie Fyodor put on earlier ended, and something else is playing. I’m not sure what it is, but her expression says she doesn’t approve of that either. In one hand, she carries a covered dish, and around her opposite wrist hangs a bag.

She puts the food down next to me, and I’m actually starving this time, so I immediately open it to dig in. It becomes immediately clear the potato cutlet and blintzes I had this morning were chosen for me by Fyodor. When it’s up to Marta, I get, well, I’m not even sure what this is, but it’s gray and wet.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling like I should mend fences now that I’m not about to die of an infection.

“So you talk? I thought you were just a useless slut who lays there.”

My mouth falls open, and I search my brain for an answer, but nothing comes to mind. That fucking stings, especially with how sore I still am from being thoroughly used like a slut.

“If you’re going to sit there with your mouth open, you might as well eat.”

I… might as well. I pick up the spoon and start eating as my cheeks burn, and my stomach drops. It’s not inedible, but if food is love, this isn’t food.

She lays the bag beside the plate, coming a bit too close to me as I eat. I shrink away from her each time she does, not sure why she wants to make me feel so invaded. She rifles through it, pulling out meds and needles. Without any warning, she grabs the arm holding the spoon, stopping me from eating.

An alcohol pad slides over the port, and she starts injecting the medications without ever condescending to speak to me. Within a few seconds, the warm rush of the Dilaudid hits me. Maybe I really do need to eat because it feels even stronger than normal—a lot stronger.

I stare at my food rather than eat it, and I don’t realize she’s staring at me until she speaks. My head is too fuzzy.

“Must be a shame to lose the only thing you’re good at other than spreading your legs.” She nods to the much sleeker braces the doctor brought for me.

“Are you talking about my dancing right now?”

“It’s not yours anymore, is it?”

No, it’s not, but I don’t speak.

“Lucky you got picked up by someone kind and generous for you to leach off.” I’m not sure how I’m leaching, given I’ve not had a choice in any part of this.

“I guess that doesn’t extend to his staff.” I would have thought better of it, but my head is getting lighter from the painkillers rather than evening out like normal. Her words, however, land like gut punches, even worse because I can’t seem to think straight.

“Worry about how long he’ll keep wasting his time with you while you lie here crying because a man like Fyodor won’t be satisfied by the likes of you. I give it a month before he sells you, and you find out how bad your life can really be.”

I nearly fall into the shitty food, but I catch myself. She smiles meanly before turning to leave, and her words pick at a deep and insidious fear I’ve been dealing with since he brought me here. He seems entertained for now, but when will he get tired, and what will happen to me when he does? I don’t want to wind up back on that stage.

I think about dancing, the stage I loved more than anything, how much I’ve lost, and how Marta was so quick to point it out. I know she was trying to be cruel, but the truth must be incredibly obvious for someone who doesn’t know me from Eve to see it and hate me for it, and it kills me to lose it. It really does.

I can’t finish the shitty food. I can’t fucking breathe. I push the food away from myself, and it hits the floor. I jump as the plate shatters and the slop of the food splashes across the floor.

Shit , I really didn’t mean to do that.

That’s when I finally look up and find a row of bottles sitting on the table. What the hell? She left everything right here. Does she not know? Does she think it’s easier for next time? Even if it’s a misstep on her part, I’m not someone to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I’ve been desperate to die, desperate to get the hell away from all this pain and finally be with Pietro again. This seems too easy, but do I really care? I feel awful just thinking about it, but that high felt good, the most intense part of it’s already faded, but if dying could feel good too? The idea is so impossibly tempting.

Marta is right. She doesn’t even know me, and she can see there’s nothing left for me. I’m not good for anything anymore but spreading my legs, and maybe if I die now, I’ll have less time spent corrupting my soul. In the Orthodox faith, we believe we must battle through our demons in hell and heaven and that the soul will spend time with both.

Maybe God will see fit to let me visit Pietro somewhere along the way.

I stare at the syringe and the bottle, feeling an intense nervous thrill zipping through me. It’s like when I fucked Fyodor but without the intensity of the associated guilt. This guilt is dull. I won’t be here to suffer for it.

For the first time in months, I’m truly excited. Relief is in sight. I don’t have to suffer anymore. My thoughts are lagging, tripping over one another, but this still makes perfect sense.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’m afraid too, wishing that things were different, and I had more options or hope, but I don’t.

I never imagined I’d have a chance to kill myself locked in this room after he started treating me for the infection, the gun, everything he’s said. It’s not exactly easy to drown in a tub when that’s your goal. God, he’ll be so fucking angry.

But lying in the warm water while I die sounds so appealing. So soothing. I was brought into this world encased in water and may as well leave the same way.

I grab the little bottle and turn it over in my hands. It’s lightweight but may as well weigh a million pounds. There’s enough in here to fill the syringe, which is a lot more than my higher dose. It should be enough to knock me out. If I don’t overdose, I’ll drown, but there’s a good chance this is enough either way.

Am I really going to do this?

I load the syringe as I sit on the bed, but I won’t inject it into the IV port until I’m settled in the bathroom. I pray furiously, begging God to at least let me see Pietro before I’m sent to my final fate. Let me at least tell him that his love defined me, that my soul was his. That I would have stayed for him if only he had stayed for me.

But even as I beg for it, I don’t believe he will oblige me.

I use the IV stand for leverage instead of the crutches Fyodor brought me or the chair. My legs ache dully with the medicine pumping through my system. It’s the very last time this pain will haunt me, so I might as well feel what I can. The pain isn’t killing me currently, and I laugh at how silly the saying pain kills is, when my death is going to save me from so much of it.

Killing feels like a kindness after everything. Everyone who has ever loved me is dead, and what’s wrong is that I’m left here without them. Not for much longer, and I’m grateful to Marta, even if she is a mean bitch who crushed my heart in the process of giving me this option.

I make it to the bathroom and flip on the lights. Memories of Fyodor bathing me and eating me out in the tub warm me from head to toe and then make me sick with multilayered guilt. Sure, giving all these things to him when they were meant for Pietro hurts like hell, but there’s also the knowledge that doing this will upset him. I don’t want to hurt him either.

I don’t know that he cares or that he’ll miss me, but this is, at the very least, an inconvenience for him to clean up and the loss of something he enjoyed playing with. Maybe I shouldn’t waste his investment. He paid the hospital all that money for my debts, and for what?

Something deep in my gut warns that he’ll be positively furious with me, but it doesn’t actually matter. I won’t have to answer to him. Our souls aren’t bound together. He won’t find me in the afterlife.

My hand finds the faucet, and I run the water as hot as I can before adding cold until it’s the perfect temperature. Removing the braces from my legs, I stare at the muscle loss in my ankles, how weak they’ve become, and how much I hate the legs I used to work so damn hard for. I’m glad I won’t have to look at them again, not when they used to be strong and beautiful—the tools of my trade.

The water is perfect and luxurious. I climb inside, only moaning slightly as the water stings my healing wounds. My fingers graze the side of the tub until I find the buttons for the jets. Streams of warm water knead my muscles, and this time, I do moan. I keep the full syringe above the water line as I get settled. I don’t want to inject myself with water and tub scum or something and have this wind up painful.

I breathe through the pain in my legs for a few minutes. Then I think about what my life was supposed to look like—something I never do simply because it hurts too much to think of everything I’ve lost. Pietro would have grown up and grown stronger. He still had a hint of boyishness in his face, and he didn’t grow to his full height.

We would have married in a Russian Orthodox Cathedral. A beautiful ceremony, another couple of years dancing, maybe, if I didn’t get pregnant right away. The prettiest babies—that part hurts the worst, like a knife in my heart, never getting to meet people I feel in my soul were meant for me.

I screw the syringe into the port, but I don’t plunge the lever down just yet. I stare at it. My hand shakes, and I’m not sure I even have the courage to do this. Maybe I’m trapped here in this suffering by my own cowardice. The chance, though, that I might see Pietro, even for a moment, steadies my shaking hands.

In that moment of bravery, I push it all the way down, flooding the port with the Dilaudid. I could rip it out of my arm and still stop this, but that would take as much courage as pushing that lever, and I already used up all mine.

A moment later, I’m higher than I’ve ever been in my life. I think I moan, but I’m not sure what’s real. The water feels like melting pleasure. My body tingles like every nerve ending is dancing. I wish I could say my last thought is of Pietro before I sink into the blackness that’s quickly closing in on my senses.

But I don’t. Fyodor’s black eyes watch me, the lines around his mouth even more stern than normal as he judges me for wasting his money. Sorry, I can’t give you any more pussy , I tell the figure floating in my mind.

I want you to put your head on the edge so you don’t drown.

I don’t listen to him, and as the final shade of black descends on my senses, I’ve never been so warm.