Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Katya
At intermission, I use the restroom. The desire Alek gave me also made me feel like I had to find another sort of release.
It takes me a long time inside the stall to relax enough to pee.
Thoughts of what happened with Jack are still floating around in my head.
Miraculously, Alek made me forget all about the Jack incident but now that I’m alone in the bathroom, it’s all coming back.
I killed a man. It was an accident but it still happened. I have darkness around me now. Dimitri tried to protect me from it but there was only so much he could do.
After a long moment, I finally am able to relieve myself but when I walk out of the stall to wash my hands, I’m confronted with the sight of so many other women also using the restroom during intermission. It makes my chest squeeze in panic.
I can do this, I tell myself.
I force myself to sidle up next to a woman who’s also at the counter washing her hands. I don’t make eye contact but I do manage to wash my hands and leave the restroom without breaking down into a full blown panic attack.
Feeling proud of myself for that, I start to head back in Alek’s direction. I can see him waiting for me across the large lobby.
But that’s when Rocko enters my field of vision.
“Katya, hello.”
I stop. “Hi.”
“Where’s your husband?”
I point to where Alek is. He’s currently on his phone, talking to someone, and isn’t looking in my direction. I could make a run for it. But he’s the one who has my passport. I’d never be able to get back to New York on my own. I have no money.
But I could borrow someone’s phone and call Dimitri… except, I don’t have his phone number memorized. It was always in my phone, so I took it for granted. I have no way of letting Dimitri know where I am.
And Alek is burrowing himself deeper inside of me. I let him place his hand between my legs. Let him give me an orgasm. That’s a problem. The more Alek takes me from Dimitri, the less I am going to want to return home.
Already, I don’t miss my room as much as I once did and it’s only been a few days since Alek kidnapped me. Everything has happened so fast.
Rocko turns back to me with a smile that makes me uncomfortable. “You know, Alek and I had a falling out a few years ago.”
“Oh?” I had gotten the sense earlier in the night that Alek didn’t like Rocko but he hadn’t explained much on the exact why.
“Yes. Alek is a stubborn sone of a bitch when he wants to be. I’ll be honest. I hated him for a while there.”
“What happened?”
“He tried to kill me.”
My blood runs cold. Alek also tried to kill my brother and look where that has taken me. Kidnapped.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
“You are truly an innocent, aren’t you? Alek tried to kill me because he thought I had stolen from him.
I didn’t. But he didn’t let me explain. I escaped with my life but we’ve been on tense terms ever since.
But since I live here and he lives in New York, it hasn’t been a problem.
Until he showed up here tonight. As if nothing was wrong. As if he never tried to kill me.”
“I’m sorry. But I really need to return to Alek now.”
Rocko grabs my arm before I can walk away. It’s tight and it hurts and I can’t help but wince. “I think Alek needs to be taught a lesson. You’re coming with me.” He hauls me away from Alek and towards the front door. The lobby is filled with people, making it easy to disappear into.
I know I should scream. Alek would come running if I did. But I can’t make any noise. Panic has reached into my throat and shut me down. I’m as quiet as a mouse.
But right before Rocko forces me out the front doors, Alek catches my eye. He lowers his phone and looks between me and Rocko before he realizes what is happening.
He comes running in my direction but Rocko shoves me outside and holds onto me tight as he runs. I have no choice but to run with him or I’ll end up falling to the ground.
“Let me go,” I say but my voice has no strength in it.
It’s pure weakness. I look back over my shoulder to search for Alek.
How ironic, looking for my kidnapper. But I feel safer with Alek than I do Rocko, even if I have only known Alek for a few days.
But in that time, I have felt myself changing. Growing.
Just from being outside of my room.
Rocko leads us to a car and pushes me into the backseat. I scramble to leave but he punches me in the temple and pain radiates up my head. I slump onto the seat and that allows Rocko to jump into the driver’s seat and take off before Alek can reach us.
Alek is running with all of his might but he can’t outrun a car.
As Rocko drives us away, I see Alek run for his own car but I’m not sure if he’ll be able to reach us in time. Reach me.
Rocko drives fast through the city until he comes upon an old, rundown house on the outskirts of the city.
“What are you doing?” I ask as he pulls me from the car.
“I saw an opportunity and I’m taking it. I want to hurt Alek the way he’s hurt me. It’s karma.”
It’s irony. I’m getting kidnapped away from my own kidnapper. Despite that, I wish I was with Alek instead of Rocko. It doesn’t make sense but it’s what I feel.
Rocko drags me along –my head is pounding and my legs move on autopilot – until he reaches a cellar door in the ground on the outside of the house. He rips the doors open and pushes me inside.
I stumble down the stairs until I land on hard cement. That’s when Rocko shuts the doors above me, encasing me in darkness.
The only good thing is that he didn’t bother coming down with me.
Looking around the room, I see that it’s a bomb shelter. Probably from back in World War II. A tiny bed is in one corner. A shelf full of canned food in another.
The room is tiny. It’s exactly like my old room back home, just much more grungy and dirty. But it has anything a person could need, just like my room. A bed to sleep, food to eat, and a place to use the restroom.
In a strange sort of fate, I have returned home.
I crawl onto the bed and curl into a ball, squeezing my eyes shut, and willing myself to be all right. I have to be all right or I might die inside.
Slowly, the comfort of the small room overtakes me and I know within minutes, that I don’t want to leave.
Alek
I manage to follow Rocko in my car through the streets of Paris. A few times, I almost lose him before finding his car again. He takes me straight to a rundown, shitty house.
His car is parked out front but I don’t see any sign of him or Katya.
I pull out my gun – I always keep one on me in case of emergencies – and slowly walk up to the front door, where I pound on it. “Rocko! Open up. Your car is out here. What game are you fucking playing?”
“The one where you deserve to face your crimes,” he responds through a cracked window off to the side of the house.
“You know I’m going to kill you, right?”
“Then you’ll never get your wife back. I hid her somewhere and you’ll never find her.”
A heavy weight settles itself in my stomach.
Never see Katya again? I don’t like the sound of that.
Not just because losing her would ruin my plans with Dimitri but also because I just…
don’t want to lose her. I like her in the short amount of time I’ve spent with her.
In fact, I’m quickly becoming obsessed with her.
She has wiggled herself into my brain in a way I never saw coming and I’m not mad at it.
“I didn’t have plans to start another war when I saw you at the opera house,” I say. “I wasn’t going to come for you. I have bigger fish to fry.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“You could have talked to me instead of stealing my wife away? Because now, Rocko, I am going to have to kill you and you know it. This ends today. I am not losing the woman I stole to some asshole I haven’t thought about in years.”
“You deserve to suffer for trying to kill me.”
“Funny,” I say. “I feel the same way about Dimitri Ivanov. It’s why I stole his sister in the first place. And now you deserve to suffer for stealing her from me.” I kick the front door down and storm inside the house.
Rocko is waiting for me. He fires his gun and it just barely misses me. I dive back outside and take cover on the side of the house. When Rocko doesn’t make a move to follow, I run back inside and fire off my gun.
My bullet lands right on target. Straight into Rocko’s stomach.
He slumps to the floor and falls over, breathing ragged. I shoot his hand to force him to let go of his gun. His scream of pain is a satisfying one.
I walk over to him and kick him so he’s lying on his back. “Where did you put my wife?”
His smile is bloody. “You’re not going to find her.”
“I am. You made a stupid decision doing this. No one fucks with me. And no one fucks with my woman.” I shoot him in the head because I know he’s not going to give me answers.
And then I look for Katya.
She’s nowhere inside the house. I search for hidden rooms but there’s nothing. That’s when I turn to the outside and find a pair of cellar doors in the earth. There’s a lock in them but I shoot it and the doors open right up.
Storming inside, I find Katya lying on a bed, curled into a ball. She couldn’t have been inside of this room for longer than thirty minutes but she looks… not afraid. Instead, she looks more comforted. There’s a peace on her face that startles me.
“Katya,” I say, running over to her side. “Let me take you back home. You’re safe.” I touch her arm but she shrugs away from me.
“No,” she whispers.
“No?”
“It’s safe in here. In this room. It’s like my room. Nothing can hurt me. I’m not leaving.”
I let out a slow breath as a heavy weight hits my stomach. I knew that Katya had issues she had to deal with. Trauma that makes her seek the comfort of a small room like this cellar.
But she would rather stay inside this room than return home with me.
“We’re going,” I say, grabbing her arm but she turns to me and screams, “No!”
It’s so loud, it makes me flinch back. “Katya.”
She grabs the pillow and holds it to herself. “I’m safe here. I’m safe here.”
I stare at my wife in horror. I never needed to beat her down. She’s already been beaten down by the world. By her father and her brother.
For the first time in my life, I’m at a loss for what to do.