Chapter 28 Zoe
ZOE
It wasn’t a long flight to wherever we were going.
Nikolai and Dmitri sat drinking vodka and playing cards, and all I could do was stare at them and plot their demise.
Gracie eventually woke up. She was a little disorientated for a while, but after a quick nip of scotch, she was back to normal.
I told her she needed to be strong, that I needed her to be strong.
That we would get out of this situation, but she had to trust me, she had to trust that the boys would find us.
“You really think Mateo and Tomas will save us?” Gracie asks quietly.
“Yes, I do. Enrique will help them.” I try to be positive.
“I hate them.” Gracie’s eyes zero in on Nikolai and Dmitri laughing.
“Me too, but trust me, Gracie, if I ever get a chance, I will fucking kill them both.”
She smiles at me. “Me too.”
Nikolai grins, which sends shivers over my body. Be strong, Zoe, I chant over and over in my head.
“Get ready, ladies, we will be arriving shortly.”
The hot air hits our faces as we are escorted off the plane, Dmitri in front and Nikolai behind us, caging us in. There are men on the tarmac dressed all in black with machine guns. A large black van awaits us, its doors open.
“Get in.” Dmitri pushes us into the dark van. The slamming of the doors echoes through the empty van.
“Where do you think we are?” Gracie asks.
“I don’t know. We were on the plane for maybe a couple of hours—Greece, maybe? It’s pretty hot.” I feel so disorientated. We could be on the moon for all I knew.
“My head still hurts, which makes it hard to think. But where would they take us? Where would they feel safe from the police? Because they must know the boys will try to find them,” Grace states.
We’re both silent as we try to work out this puzzle.
“Somewhere they can pay their way through. Because how else are they able to kidnap two girls and have no one care?”
“Africa!” I scream.
Yes, they would totally take us there. It’s like the wild west. They could make us disappear so easily; corruption is rife, and the land is vast.
“Shit, we are fucked.” Gracie lets her head fall back against the van’s wall.
“Yes, it’s going to make things harder, but we are two intelligent women.”
“How the hell are we going to take on an army of Russian mafia plus who the hell knows who else is out there?”
She’s right, but I don’t care. We can’t give up.
“We need to make a pact. If either one of us can escape, we need to go, no matter what, okay? We need to get help.”
“What? No! We need to stay together,” Gracie says, shocked.
“Grace.”
“No, Zoe. No! We are in this together. No matter what, we have each other.”
I sigh. She’s right. “Okay, I promise you and me against the world.”
We sit in silence for the rest of the journey, lost in our own thoughts.
At some point, we must fall asleep because we are greeted by Dmitri’s smirking face when the van doors open.
“Welcome home, ladies.”
Bright light filters in and Gracie and I take each other’s hand as we jump out. It takes a while for our eyes to adjust to the glare, but then they widen as we see where we are.
“This is your home for the foreseeable future, hope you like it.” He chuckles.
My eyes scan the vast gardens and towers with guards. It’s a palace, a fortified palace.
Nikolai comes and takes my hand, breaking my link to Gracie, and panic fills me. “Let me show you to your room, Zoe.” He pulls me forward, and I stumble over my feet, but he holds me so tightly I don’t fall.
We walk through the grand entrance. The palace is made of marble and gold, ridiculously ugly and over the top. Someone has way too much money and no taste. Nikolai leads me up one of the two grand staircases, and I look around, trying to see where Gracie is.
“Don’t worry about your sister. She will be well looked after by Dmitri. He’s missed her very much.”
My blood turns cold. I shake my head and try to get my wrist free of his vice-like grip, but it’s no use.
He pushes open the door and pulls me into a grand bedroom, locking the door behind me. He lets my wrist go and I rub it.
“I thought you would like this room; it reminds me of you.”
I look around the room. It’s excessive, rich Persian rugs in different shades of blue all over the floor, an enormous hand-carved four-poster bed in the middle.
“It’s called the Sapphire room.”
That name pulls me back to a time my mind had locked away. Flashes of my former life flick through my mind and I stumble on my feet.
Nikolai’s hands steady me, but I shake out of his embrace, which makes him chuckle.
I notice the rich velvet curtains hanging, and I need to see where we are, I need to find the closest exits.
I pull the curtains back and all I can see is the ocean in all its blueness, palm trees scattered everywhere, and grand ornate gardens.
“Where are we?” The question falls from my lips in a whisper.
“Morocco.” Nikolai moves closer to me.
I can feel his warmth against my back, and I want to be sick.
“I’ve missed you, Zoe.” He only uses my name when he is the old Nikolai, the soft, gentle man I met all those months ago, but when he switches to Sapphire, I know what is coming, I know he wants me to perform. I flinch as his breath hits the back of my neck. “I hate that you are scared of me.”
I ignore my body’s reaction. I want to lash out, but where did that get me last time? Nowhere. It got me isolation, it got me beatings, it got me raped. I need to play it differently this time—my life is hanging by a thread, and at any moment, Nikolai could snuff it out without a second thought.
He brushes my hair away from my neck.
I want to be sick at his touch, but I stand still. Look out at the beautiful gardens, Zoe, concentrate on something beautiful. This time I need to be smart and fight dirty.
“I have something of yours.” His lips touch my skin, and it feels like a thousand needles prickling me.
I hate it. I don’t want him touching me. I’m not his.
I don’t move a muscle. I feel the cold metal against my skin.
“Remember when I gave this to you?” Nikolai asks.
I chose to forget that night, the night he put a sapphire collar around my neck like some prized dog.
“The night I made you mine.” He sucks harder on my skin as his hands run up my side, brushing the underside of my breasts.
He is waiting for me to stop him, and I want to.
Every instinct in my body is telling me to reach out and push his hand away, but that is going to get me thrown into some cell, away from Gracie, away from freedom.
“I have missed you so fucking much. I hated watching you with those men. You are mine, Zoe, mine. No one else’s, do you understand?” His hands find my breasts, giving them a squeeze.
I try to swallow the bile that is rising in my throat.
“How? How did you see me?” My question is timid; I don’t want him to revert to his boss persona.
“I have my ways. I told you last time if you ever escaped, I would find you, I would come for you. I am a powerful man, Zoe, remember that.” He kicks my legs out, and I close my eyes and try to think of good things. “Put your hands on the glass, Zoe,” he commands.
Tears threaten, but I push them back, now is the time to be strong, he will be testing me.
He wants a fight, he wants me to push him away, but I won’t give it to him.
He pulls down my sleep shorts and throws them to the side.
My heartrate accelerates, and I bite my bottom lip as I try not to think about what he’s going to do to me.
His hand grabs my fleshy ass and gives it a squeeze.
His hardness is pressed against my back.
“You are still so beautiful.” His hand cups me through my underwear. “No one, no one has compared to you. Why can’t I get you out of my head? Why do you occupy my thoughts? Why do I still fucking care about you?”
I don’t answer his questions because I have no answers for him. I hear the sound of foil behind me, and I pray that I can get through this.