23. Dahlia
23
DAHLIA
I watch Alek go, still trembling, still feeling the touch of his fingers on my skin where he gripped my jaw as he stared down at me.
You have no idea what it feels like to be torn apart.
I heard the pain in his voice. I heard it all through every word he said. He looked like he was in physical pain, as well as emotional, although I can’t imagine why. And I felt, for just a moment, like he was close to admitting to me what he’s been hiding all this time.
But then he shut down. He said all of that to me—things that I already knew, but had hoped might be changing. I hadn’t even realized that I did hope it was changing until he said it all out loud again, and it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Like all the air had been knocked out of me.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper to the empty room, staring at the door that Alek just slammed behind him. He’s right, this marriage was a failsafe. A way to keep myself afloat until I could figure something else out. I never intended for it to be anything else, but at that doctor’s appointment?—
I shake my head, shoving aside that memory, and the one of Alek and I together after that terrifying fight in the parking lot of Sal’s, and today at the museum. I push it all out of my head, because there’s no use in dwelling on any of it.
We’re done.
I can’t do this any longer. I can’t let him keep slipping under my skin, making me want him, pulling down my defenses—only to go cold again. And I’m tired of wanting a man who lies to me at every turn. Who won’t give me even a moment of real vulnerability unless we’re both naked.
Who, even then, won’t let me see him without his clothes on. I’ve never seen Alek naked. Never even seen more than just his face and hands.
“I’m so fucking done,” I say out loud, the words echoing, and I grab my duffel bag, starting to shove clothes and toiletries into it as I grab a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt to throw on.
I’ll go to a hotel. I’ll figure something out. Living at the mansion has meant my last paycheck has mostly gone untouched, so I still have a few thousand dollars in my account. Enough to get me by until I can find an affordable apartment, something outside of the city. I’ll have to commute, and find childcare once the baby is born, but I’ll figure it out?—
I don’t know how I’ll figure it out. But what I know right this second is that I can’t spend another minute under the same roof as Alek Yashkov.
Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I call an Uber, my thoughts so cluttered and racing so fast that I barely notice what destination I put in for the driver. It’s not until a half-hour later, when the Uber pulls up in front of my old apartment building, that I realize I put it in out of habit.
The driver sees me hesitating, glancing back towards me. “This is the right spot?”
I swallow hard. “Yes,” I mutter, sliding out of the car. It’s not the right spot—my apartment is someone else’s by now, but I have a strange urge to go up anyway. To look at where I used to live. It’s stupid, I know, and I’d be better off just getting to a hotel and crashing so I can text Evelyn and explain everything. When she realizes I’m gone in the morning, she’s going to freak out and tell me to come back, and I’m going to have to explain to her that I can’t do that.
I just can’t.
I let myself into the building, standing for a long moment in the quiet, cool lobby. It’s achingly familiar, and I feel my eyes sting with tears as I look around, taking it all in. I walk to the elevator, shifting the bag on my shoulder, wondering why I’m bothering with any of this. It won’t give me back my apartment, or fix any of the problems in my life, but the familiarity soothes and hurts at the same time, and I keep walking.
In the elevator, I lean back against the mirrored wall, trying not to think about Alek. I breathe in the familiar scents of lemon floor cleaner and old wood, pushing the button for my floor as I pretend, just for a moment, that I’m going home. That my life isn’t full of uncertainties that I’m not sure how to face.
The elevator chimes, and I get off. I walk to the door of my old apartment, and from what I can see, it doesn’t look like anyone has moved in yet. I can’t be sure, but there’s no sounds from inside, no doormat out front, nothing to suggest that someone is living there. That eases the ache in my chest a little, and I just stand there for a long moment, staring at the door. I want to go in, but I’m not quite so nostalgic that I’d risk breaking and entering just to see my old place again.
Right ?
I bite my lip, fiddling with my key ring. If someone has moved in, then the locks will have been changed. They’ve probably been changed anyway. But I could try?—
If anyone hears me trying to unlock the door and comes out, I’ll just say I got the wrong place. Easy.
This is so stupid. But I walk to the door anyway, wanting to go home so badly that it overrides all of my better sense.
To my surprise, the key works. I bite my lip, wondering if there’s any possible way the locks might not have been changed if someone else moved in—the last thing I need is the cops called on me for breaking and entering—but surely that’s not possible.
I push the door open, and walk inside.
It feels wrong from the moment I walk in. It’s silent in an empty way that tells me there’s definitely no one living here, but it’s empty of everything that made it mine. It’s been thoroughly scrubbed even more than how I left it, and it smells sterile and cold. It’s not my apartment any longer, and I instantly regret coming in here. I could get in trouble, and for nothing. All it did was make me feel worse, like my last memory of this place now is of something cold and empty, instead of what it used to be when I lived here.
I swallow hard, backing up towards the door. I turn to leave—and blocking the doorway that was empty a moment ago is a tall, bulky man in black clothes and a hoodie, the hood over his head and a balaclava covering his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” I blurt out, a moment before I realize there’s no way he’s going to answer that. I drop my bag, darting for the small space between him and the edge of the door, that I don’t think I can possibly fit through. But I have to try, and as I try to shove my way past him, his arm goes around my waist, dragging me back.
“Let go of me!” I scream, kicking and twisting, fear lancing through me as I try to get free. All of those classes that I took at the martial arts center come rushing back, and I try to remember what I’m supposed to do in this situation. Alek isn’t going to come out and save me this time, and I have no idea what this man wants. He might be connected to the men I saw at the speakeasy and at Sal’s, or he might just be a run-of-the-mill New York burglar, who saw an open door and a dark apartment and tried to take advantage of it.
“There’s money in the bag,” I gasp. It’s not a lie, my wallet is in there, with my debit card. There isn’t much cash, and by the time he can do anything with my card I will have canceled it, but he doesn’t need to know that. If he is just a burglar, it might save me. “You can have it. Just let me go. Let me—” I twist again, and the chuckle that rumbles against me as he turns around and drags me with him makes my stomach flip with cold nausea. He’s considerably bigger than I am, and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to fight back.
“What do you want?” I cry out, and he chuckles again, his free hand rummaging in his pocket. When I look up, I see two other men waiting back by the stairwell, and that sick nausea slides up my throat. “There’s money, I promise?—”
“I don’t want money, devochka ,” the man growls, and the now-familiar accent sends another dizzying wave of fear over me. “You’ll find out what we want soon enough.”
I struggle harder at that, slamming an elbow back into his stomach. He coughs, doubling forward, and I take advantage of the momentary loosening of the arm around me to wrench myself away, ducking under his arm the way I was taught and bolting for the elevator.
It’s too far. I realize that as soon as I see the other men coming for me, cutting me off. One of them grabs me, growling something in Russian at the other that I don’t understand. I try to wrestle myself loose again, looking up and seeing the man that I elbowed striding towards me, a dark look on his face.
He snaps something at the man who isn’t holding me, again in Russian, and snatches something out of the man’s hand. I’m too busy kicking at the man holding me—who was smart enough to grab me in a way that pins my arms—to see what it is. I kick his shin, and then I try to catch him off balance enough to sweep his ankle out from under him. I’d rather grapple with him on the floor than be pinned like this. But he’s like a fucking cement wall. I kick at his shins again, and he grunts, but he doesn’t flinch.
The man I elbowed grabs my hair, wrenching my head to one side as I struggle. “Be still, devochka ,” he growls. “It will hurt more if you’re not.”
“What will—” I twist again, ignoring his suggestion as I flail frantically in my captor’s arms, fear pervading all of my senses until it’s all I can think about. I can’t think about how I’m supposed to get out of this, how to fight back—all I can think about is how fucking terrified I am, how alone I feel—and how maybe I should have stayed at Evelyn’s after all.
How if Alek had just told me the truth, maybe this wouldn’t be happening.
A sharp sting pricks my neck, and I look in my periphery just enough to see a syringe in the man’s hand, a needle no doubt now embedded in my neck. Terror of it snapping off freezes me still, and the man chuckles darkly as he pulls it away.
“Good girl,” he mutters, and I rear back just enough to spit in his face.
Like a flash, he backhands me, his knuckles hitting my cheek hard enough to send my head snapping to one side. “That’s not the last one you’ll get, devochka, ” he threatens. “But first, we’ll take you to where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’m supposed…to be…here…” My tongue feels thick in my mouth, the room beginning to spin, like the worst episode of vertigo possible. It tilts, shifts, and tilts again, and I feel the rush of nausea as my eyes start to close, bile burning the back of my throat. A little of it spills past my lips, dripping down my chin as I feel my body go heavy, and for one terrifying moment, I’m paralyzed but still aware—of the vomit on my chin, the man dragging me towards the stairwell, the inevitability that I’m being taken somewhere and my absolute inability to do anything about it.
And then, mercifully, it all goes black.
—
The room that I wake up in some time later is cold.
It’s the first thing I realize when I open my eyes, even before the dryness of my mouth or the sour taste on my lips, or the fact that I’m lying on my side in a strange bed. It’s freezing cold, and my skin feels like ice?—
I’m in nothing but my underwear, on a bare mattress, with no sheets or blankets, not even a pillow. I sit bolt upright, shivering hard enough to make my teeth clack together out of both fear and cold, wrapping my arms around myself as I search the room for my clothes.
They’re nowhere to be seen. The room itself is small and bare, with only the mattress on a basic frame, a chair pushed up against one wall, and a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There’s nothing else—no windows to give me an idea of where I am, no objects I might use to try to escape or defend myself. And no clothes.
Fear rushes through me in a dizzying wave, and I shift experimentally, looking for some soreness that might tell me if the men who brought me here violated me while I was asleep. There’s nothing—not even any fresh bruises, other than the soreness in my cheek from the slap and the ones from the attack at Sal’s. My neck feels sore from the needle, but that’s all.
I have no idea what time it is. No clue how long has passed. And the last conversation Alek and I had rings painfully in my ears, reminding me that I might be very, very alone.
I wanted nothing more to do with you after that night, and nothing has changed.
But Evelyn and Dimitri will know I’m gone, I tell myself. They’ll know soon, if they don’t already, depending on how much time has passed. And even if Alek doesn’t care that I’m gone, even if he never bothers to look for me, they will. Surely Dimitri will have a way to find me.
But what happens until then?
I’m shivering so hard it hurts. I hear the sound of a key in the lock, the doorknob turning, and I jump, shuddering in the ball I’ve made of myself sitting in the middle of the mattress. I pull my knees and arms as close to myself as I can, wanting to hide as much of myself as possible from whoever is about to walk through that door.
The man who walks in is tall and well-built, with white-blond hair buzzed close to his scalp, wearing cargo pants and a tight shirt. His icy blue eyes meet mine, and I’m reminded of the man who talked to me at the speakeasy, who offered me money to hand over Alek.
“Dahlia Kennedy. Or should I say Yashkov?” He says my name, looking at me for a moment before he goes to grab the chair next to the wall, and I flinch. I can’t help it. I want to be tougher than this, to sit here on the bed without hiding myself and stare him down, but I’m terrified. I’ve never been this fucking scared before in my life.
I could try to get out, try to run, try to fight my way out of this room—and maybe I could even pull it off—but I have no idea what’s waiting for me outside. I very much doubt that he’s the only man in this place, that there isn’t heavy security, and I also very much doubt that whatever the ending of this is supposed to be, it ends with me not badly hurt in some way if I try to run.
“How do you know my name?” I wish my voice wasn’t shaking, but it is. Every word trembles as it comes out, and the man’s face remains impassive as he drags the chair over to face me, about six inches from the bed where I’m sitting.
“You already know that we know a great deal about you,” he says calmly, his voice as accented as the man in the speakeasy’s, as much as the men who grabbed me last night. “Dahlia Kennedy. Daughter of a D.C. politician. Pregnant with a child fathered by the second son of the Yashkov Bratva—and a man that we are very interested in speaking to. You were made an offer, Dahlia. Have you reconsidered it?”
I stare at him for a long moment. A near-hysterical giggle bursts past my lips.
“You think I’d give you anything after this ? After you…you send men to drug me, and hurt me, and kidnap me? After?—”
His mouth twitches, and his eyes flick to the bruise on my cheek. “If you think a slap is hurting you, Dahlia, then you have a great deal to learn about what pain really means.”
I lick my lips nervously. “I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“Don’t you?” he raises an eyebrow, and I can see his jaw tighten ever so slightly, as if he’s already losing patience with me. “You’re married to Alek Yashkov. You know enough about him to tell us how to get to him. Or, alternatively, you can agree to bring him to us, at a time and place that you’re told, and you’ll be let go without any further—disagreeable interactions between us.”
Another too-high-pitched giggle escapes my lips, and I wonder if I’m in some kind of shock. “Alek isn’t going to go anywhere with me. Despite everything you seem to know, you clearly don’t know enough if you think he’s going to fall for a plan like that.” I frown, twisting my hands together to try to calm their shaking. “How do you know all of this, anyway? How do you know any?—”
The man is on his feet and in front of me before I can scramble backwards, his hand striking my cheek exactly where the bruise is. I press my lips together hard to try to keep from crying out, but a whimper escapes anyway, and my eyes burn. He grabs a handful of my hair, yanking my head backwards, and I can see from the frustrated anger in his eyes that whatever small amount of patience he had has run out.
“You are not the one asking questions here, suka ,” he growls. “I am. And I have all kinds of ways of making you talk. All kinds of ways of making you wish that you had, if you keep refusing to give me what I want.” His gaze drags down my half-naked body. “I don’t even need to do it myself. My men will enjoy punishing you for me. They’ll enjoy using you until you’re desperate for any way to get out of what they’ll do to you.”
He looks right at me, and I can see that this isn’t an idle threat. He’ll do everything he’s promising, and it terrifies me. I don’t want to be hurt, trapped, used by these men—but I’m also not going to turn Alek over to them.
He’s lied to me, yes. He’s been an asshole for most of the time we’ve been married—but that doesn’t mean he deserves whatever these men want with him.
And I know there’s something he’s hiding. Something that ties back to all of this, something that makes him act the way he does. The scars on his skin that I felt, the pain I see sometimes in his eyes or hear in his voice when he lets it slip through and doesn’t realize I’ll pick up on it—there’s something that happened to him. And I remember the way he looked when he realized that I came to him with the information about the man who tried to get me to bring him back to the bar, instead of taking the money.
Someone hurt him—in a lot of ways, I think. And regardless of the conflict between us, I’m not going to be the one to add to that.
I lift my chin, looking into the man’s eyes. “You can do whatever you want,” I tell him contemptuously. “I have nothing to tell you.”
This time, when he hits me, it’s hard enough to knock me back onto the bed. The next one leaves me shaking, and the next, tears of pain dripping down my cheeks until, finally, I’m knocked out cold.