Chapter 36 Raisa
RAISA
I’d moved on instinct to get Gabriella free when the men held her. She wasn’t as trained and skilled at defense. She was my friend and I didn’t want her harmed. With this very new discovery that she was pregnant again, a secret she had yet to share with Luka, I felt obligated to look out for her.
As I was shoved into a barren room at one of my father’s cabins near the mountains, though, I had to be honest with myself for why I’d really wanted her to run to safety.
Yes, I was protecting her—physically. This was my fight, my war with my father.
But I was also sheltering her. I would kill this man. And I didn’t want her to lose respect for me. I noticed how she was still so na?ve, getting used to the violence. I wasn’t opposed to her thinking I was a badass, but I didn’t want to expose my darkest side to her.
The one that pushed me to kill those Rivera men when they attacked. The sinister energy that lurked within me when I recalled the last time my father tried to threaten me and my son.
They locked me in here for at least an hour, but when a guard came back, he was in for a surprise. I attacked so ruthlessly that I’d almost killed him. If it wasn’t for another guard backing him up, I would’ve been able to flee. Yet, I didn’t.
This time, I was done running away.
I was through with fleeing.
My instincts screamed for me to fight, and I would. I would fight to the death. My father was done threatening my family.
By attacking the guard who came to fetch me, I sought to see what my father’s intentions were. He’d captured me, but how much did he want to kill me?
When the guards didn’t use a gun on me and backed away, I had my answer. I was here, kept captive, but better off alive—for now.
I was left alone for another hour, and no matter how much I yelled and taunted them to face me or let me go, no one else came.
Patience was key.
I paced and prepared for the finality of killing the man who’d caused me so much loss in my life.
He had to have taken me as leverage. Maybe to get Ivan to come save me.
I narrowed my eyes as I turned to go back through the room. Don’t you dare be that stupid. Ivan wasn’t, though. He didn’t fall for traps.
My father must have planned to take me in exchange for Lev.
They won’t let him out of sight. Even if one of the Dubinins managed to talk Ivan into using our son as bait—which I couldn’t believe he’d ever do—Gabriella was just as fiercely protective of our young boys too. She would fight tooth and nail for Lev.
All this meant that it was now my time, my duty to bear.
Ivan wouldn’t risk himself or our son.
My new family wouldn’t fall for my father’s manipulation.
Now that I was here, near the enemy, I would kill him myself.
When I heard men approaching and walking down the hallway, I braced myself to fight again.
The pair of men who opened the door wore body armor. Clearly, they’d learned that I would fight back.
“Don’t even fucking think about trying to run, Raisa.”
I recalled this particular man from my childhood. “The only way I’m running is to the asshole who thinks he’s the boss around here.” I got up in his face the best I could while the other man forced me to walk. “I’m running to him so I can kill him faster.”
He laughed, making me move to another room. “Is that how it works? You let those Dubinin scum touch you and make you think you’re strong now? Huh?”
Before I could deflect it, he struck me with a potent backhanded hit.
I flung back and growled, ready to fight back, but my father’s wicked laughter stopped me.
No.
It wasn’t happening like this.
I wasn’t going to waste my energy on his guards and stupid minions who’d helped him stay hidden for years.
I turned to find my father in the room, narrowing my eyes at his ugly face.
He approached with a limp, but it was the intensity of his stare that chilled me. He wasn’t dead yet. So long as he lived, I had to keep this objective in sight.
I had to keep my cool so I could get him alone to kill him.
Once and for all.
And it wasn’t a bluff or idle threat.
It was time for payback.
The men backed up, leaving me to stand and face him alone.
“You will give me that bastard if it’s the last thing you do,” he warned.
I reared my hand back to punch him. Right in the spot where his eye was missing. Smack in the middle of the worst of his scars.
He screamed, ducking back in pain. Cowering and breathing hard, he staggered back. Perhaps he assumed I’d be too scared to hit him.
“You little bitch!” he roared, glaring at me.
“Yeah, newsflash. I fight back now,” I taunted.
“Take her to the room,” he ordered harshly, wiping at the blood leaking from his closed eyehole.
Fuck.
I wanted this over with. I’d shown my hand too soon. He seemed to view me as the pathetic, quiet, and timid girl I once was. In the years since I ran, I’d grown into a fierce woman.
But I was removed from the room. I’d overplayed my hand. He would take this time to reassess, and I was already sick of being here at all.
When the men shoved me into another room, I resumed pacing and hating the man who had ruined my life.
Yet, as I scanned my surroundings and spotted an old laptop in the corner, stashed in a box like it was going to be thrown out with this emptied-out office space, I grabbed it and searched for a power cord.
“Please, please work.”
I didn’t need Ivan to save me. I could handle this fight on my own. I wasn’t running. I was here to fight and kill. But I needed to get out of here once the deed was done.
When the laptop was powered on, I hurried to find an internet connection.
It was a dinosaur of a machine, but I got through and logged into my email.
I’d never forgotten my college log-ins. I didn’t dare use my normal email that my father already knew about somehow.
He had to be watching it if he knew how to send that first video to me.
Instead, I logged into my old college email server and found Ivan’s old address.
He still had it. I saw it on his phone. All his correspondence was funneled to one main account.
I’m at the cabin near the expressway.
Thinking back to the landmarks and route here, a little further from the city, I tapped in a way to find me and sent it.
Relief filled me that I’d secured an escape plan.
Ivan would come. He had to. And when he arrived, I wanted the pleasure of being able to tell him that I’d killed my father.
That no one could stop us from being a family.
Luka wouldn’t stand in our way. I wondered if he ever would’ve.
The Dubinins valued family and stood with each other, not against them.
As soon as I closed the laptop, the door opened again.
Fuck.
Fearful that the men saw me with the computer and would know that I was trying to contact someone, I regretted not paying attention faster. I hadn’t even been listening for anyone to come, so stuck on the urgency of emailing Ivan.
But it didn’t matter.
It was time. This was the moment I’d been waiting for.
Eight long years of hiding from this man, and I was here to face him once and for all.
The men brought me to my father again. And this time, they backed out of the room and left me alone with him.
Big mistake.
Huge.
My father was taller and still larger than me despite his injuries, but he didn’t possess nearly the same hatred that I did for him.
“You stupid whore,” he said, turning to lash out at me, striking me with a long staff.
As agony lanced through me at the impact of the metal rod hitting my forearm, the way I’d tried to deflect his attack, I realized it was a fire poker, a missing tool from the rack near the fireplace that collected dust and spiders.
“You really thought you could hide all this time and avoid my punishment.”
Again and again, he struck at me. I wasn’t defenseless, but no matter how many times I lunged at him to tackle him and strangle him with my bare hands, he stabbed the fire poker at me and maintained the upper hand.
He had a weapon, but there were none in this vacant, bare room for me to use.
“That just shows how stupid you are. Stupid like a fucking cow to sell off as a broodmare.”
I let his evil words roll off my back. Nothing he could say would be true. Any insult he threw at me wouldn’t change fate. He would die today, and there wasn’t a single plea or slur that he could give me that would save him.
Go on.
Get it out.
Get on your high horse and bitch and nag.
It is what it is.
You’re still dead either way you look at it.
“My punishment,” he roared. “A punishment you have dared to avoid and skirt for years while you brought that bastard into the world.”
He rained hits on me, bringing that rod on my skin.
If I endured this without a broken bone, it would be a miracle.
But I didn’t falter. I stood my ground as he tried to circle me.
He could talk like a monster and prey on me, but he was no predator.
I was. He’d made me this mad. He’d forced me to hate him with every fiber of my being.
And past practice told me that he would stay this mad and incensed until he felt he’d degraded me enough.
Until he could get all his malicious words out and accuse me of being a whore, a slut, a worthless thing, a fool to sleep with someone from the family he envied and loathed. I would have to wait and stay standing.
Like this, when he relished hearing himself talk, he was too unpredictable and unhinged.
But if I could wait out his tirade, until he tired himself, I would have every opportunity to get him down and end him.
“You will give me that bastard. I will never allow another to claim him as their heir.”
Another strike.
“You will lure your filthy scum of a lover to me so I can end his life.”
Another hit.
“And you will go to the Romanians and marry into their family as I planned and prepared for since you were born.”
I laughed once, incredulous that he could still be so deluded to think he would win.
“You whore! Stop laughing!”
Another hit. And another.
“Stop laughing at me!”
Spittle flew from his mouth as he swung at me, nearly bashing the poker against the side of my head.
“You will pay for your sins!”
He jabbed the poker at me and made me trip.
As I rolled over to face him, glaring right back, I lost patience and counted down the seconds to finish his pathetic game.
Please find me, Ivan. Please come to me.
I’d run to him once. And it was his time to run to me.
Because as I let my rage bottle up and brew, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to resemble the woman I wanted to be after I took a walk on the dark side to murder my father.