Chapter 33 Zoe
ZOE
“Open up the fucking door, Sapphire!” Nikolai screams through the wood.
I quickly hang up Reece’s phone and place it in his suit pants. He is still passed out on the bed.
I open the door and am almost bowled over by Nikolai and his crew. I can see the look in his eyes, and it stops me in my tracks.
He looks at where Reece is snoring soundly and back to me. “We have to go.” He grabs my arms.
“No, I’m not going anywhere.” I try to dig my heels in.
Then I feel it, the aching pain of being punched in the gut, and I let out a blood-curdling scream and nearly fold over on myself.
“You don’t have a fucking choice,” Nikolai spits in my face as he nearly breaks my arm pulling me out of the room.
“What’s going on?” I’m worried that they know about my phone call. “Where’s Gracie?”
They ignore me. I kick and thrash in Nikolai’s grip until Dmitri takes the butt of his shotgun, hits me in the head, and everything goes black.
Fuck, my head hurts. It feels like it’s going to explode at any moment. I groggily open my eyes and try to look around the dark space. Where the hell am I?
“You’re awake.”
Gracie’s voice filters through the darkness.
I try to sit up, but my head is spinning.
“Don’t move,” she tells me.
“What happened?”
“The police raided the palace,” Jet answers.
My body stiffens. “And where are we? Have we been saved?”
The girls all look at me.
I force myself to look around, and my stomach sinks. We’re in a van again. We haven’t been saved. Mateo and Tomas have lost me. I start crying, sobbing, heart-rending sobs. We’ve lost our only chance.
Gracie pulls me against her as she tries to calm me down, but I lose it, all the hope that I had that we could escape has gone. I’m going to die in this place, and they are never going to find my body. They are going to keep looking for me, but I will already be dead.
“Now is not the time to give up,” Ruby whispers.
“We know it was you,” Jade adds.
Looking up through my swollen eyes at the beautiful faces of my captured sisters, I see the hope they have when they look at me.
“I’m sorry I failed.”
“No, you didn’t, all those men have probably been arrested. A big dent has been made in Nikolai’s operation,” Pearl says in her perfect English accent.
“I don’t think I have any fight left in me. You know, if they find out it was me, they’re going to kill me. Nikolai will kill me.”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” Gracie tries to reassure me.
I really want to believe her, but I think this time I have run out of chances.
We spend the rest of the trip in silence all lost in our thoughts.
Eventually, we stop, the van doors open, and the guards pull us out.
“Sapphire!” I hear my name being called.
Gracie grabs hold of my arm. I can see the panic on her face.
“Sapphire!” It’s Dmitri.
“No, you can’t take her. I won’t let you.” Gracie tries to protect me from Dmitri.
He backhands her, and she falls to the floor.
“No.” I grab his arm as he looms over her, ready to hit her again. “Leave her.” My sister’s lips are bleeding, and tears are falling down her cheeks as I’m led away.
The other girls huddle around Gracie, trying to comfort her.
My head feels heavy as I walk along the gravel of the driveway toward a beautiful Moroccan home the color of the earth, but we veer off to the side, and I see a set of stairs that lead underground. My breath hitches and my heart starts thumping as my legs refuse to continue walking.
Dmitri grabs my arm, and I have no choice but to follow.
Now is the time to be strong. They will never break you, even in death they will not break you.
We walk down the stairs that lead to a basement.
It is cool compared to the desert heat outside.
It is a large, dark room, and my eyes are still adjusting from the glare outside.
I can’t see exactly what is waiting for me.
When the room comes into focus, I notice rings hanging from the roof, with chains dangling from the hoops.
No. No. No.
My heels try to dig into the cement floor but it’s no use, Dmitri pulls me further into the dungeon.
There is no light except for a tiny window.
Dmitri pushes me against the cold stone wall, pulls my arms out, and clips the iron cuffs around one and then the other.
I try to move my hands around, hoping they are small enough that I could slip out of them, but they’re not.
I close my eyes and try to think good thoughts to help me through whatever is going to happen to me.
“I hope you’re praying because you are going to need it,” Dmitri snarls.
He walks away from me, pushes a button, and I start lifting off the floor. My shoes fall with a thud as I move higher and higher. What the hell is happening? I stop slightly off the floor, my arms hurting from holding all my weight. I feel like my shoulders are going to pop out at any moment.
Dmitri grabs my ankles and secures them to iron shackles. My legs are spread wide, and I feel exposed.
He walks away and sits on a chair in the shadows that I never noticed.
The door opens and in walks Nikolai. He stalks toward me, that’s when I notice the knife glistening in the tiny ray of light filtering through the window.
Okay, this is it.
I close my eyes and try to envisage Mateo and Tomas. They are what I want to see before I die, not Nikolai.
My body tenses, waiting for the first sharp cut of the knife.
“Open your fucking eyes,” Nikolai screams at me.
I shake my head. Then I feel his fingers wrapping around my throat.
“Open your fucking eyes, Sapphire,” he demands as he squeezes my throat tightly.
No, I would rather be choked to death than stabbed, so I shake my head.
He squeezes tighter, and I’m struggling to breathe, everything is constricting. Then he stops and lets go of me. The knife trails down my cleavage, the cold metal leaving a shiver in its wake. Then I hear material ripping as the knife sinks into my dress.
My eyes shoot open, and I watch as Nikolai cuts the dress away from me. I’m left exposed in my bra and G-string.
His eyes roam over my goose-pimpled body, then he turns around and stalks back to a table.
He flips open a computer and turns it around so the bright light fills the room.
My eyes squint, trying to work out what’s on the computer.
I watch as he pulls out his phone, presses a number, and puts it on loudspeaker.
“Do you have it? Do we have a deal?” I hear the woman ask through the speaker.
“Yes. I’m now prepared to release it all.” I watch as Nikolai types what looks to be an email, attaches something to it, and presses a button.
“You should have it now,” he tells the person on the phone.
There is silence for a while, then they gasp. “Oh my god, this is … Fuck …” is all the woman on the phone says. “This is Mateo and his best friend. Shit, the rumors are true.”
“No!” I scream. “No!” I thrash around in the chains.
“It’s been nice doing business with you, but I have to go.” Nikolai hangs up the phone. “I warned you, Sapphire, that if you tried to escape, I would destroy your lovers.”
“No!” I cry. Their lives are going to be ruined, all because of me. “No.” I sink further into the cuffs.
“Leave us!” Nikolai yells at Dmitri.
“But I thought …”
“Don’t worry, my friend, you will have your turn.”
I don’t care anymore what they do to me. I have ruined the lives of the two men I love more than anything in this world.
I hear the door close.
This is it.
Just kill me now.
“Zoe.” Nikolai’s voice softens, which surprises me.
My eyes open and he is standing in front of me.
“Why them?”
I frown. What is he talking about?
“Why did you fall in love with them? What do they have that I don’t?”
I’m genuinely in shock. I shake my head—what is he getting at?
“I loved you, Zoe. I would have protected you. We could have been happy.”
“Nikolai, I did love you. I loved you till you sold me into sex. I thought you were going to propose in Moscow. I wanted a future with you, but you threw that all away when you made me give Dmitri a blow job as soon as I landed in Russia.”
Nikolai shakes his head. “I had to, I’m the boss, and it was expected of me to do that. You made me so proud that day.”
I want to throw up. Who the fuck is proud of their girlfriend giving their cousin a blow job?
“You were different from all the other girls. I treated you like a queen compared to all those sluts. And then you disrespected me by trying to leave. You left me, Zoe.”
I can see the anger in his eyes now.
“And you tried to kill me.”
He shakes his head again. “I had to—you disrespected me. That’s what we do to traitors. Don’t worry, I made sure the person who failed to finish you never got another chance to fuck up again.”
My stomach sinks. Nikolai killed the man who didn’t kill me.
“Then we got a tip-off. Have you any idea how happy I was that you were still alive?” Nikolai runs his fingers along the lace of my bra. “When I was told that the hit was done, I cried. I fucking cried over you, Zoe. My heart felt like it had been ripped out, but I had to do it.”
I don’t give a shit if he cried over me. I don’t know why he is even telling me this shit, it doesn’t matter—he has ruined all that is good in my life.
“Then I had to watch as you slept with those two bastards. I had to watch as you watched them fuck each other. I was so fucking disgusted with you, that my Zoe would want this for herself.”
I realize Nikolai is delusional, he’s slowly coming unhinged.
“You broke my heart, Zoe. Those men, they don’t love you like I do.”
Nikolai’s lips touch my skin, and it crawls.
“My Zoe being corrupted by these two rainbows. I couldn’t stand by and watch you do that to yourself. You needed to be back with me. With someone who will treat you right!”
I burst out laughing. “Treat me, right? Treat me fucking right? Look at me, Nikolai. I’m strung up half-naked like a piece of meat in a basement. You’re pimping me out to all your friends and colleagues as if I’m yours to give away. I will never be yours.”
Nikolai’s eyes darken at my words. “You are mine. You will always be mine.”
“You may have my body, Nikolai, but you will never have my heart. My heart was taken by those two men that you just destroyed. You may think you have won by ruining them, but that was your biggest mistake because now I have nothing. I have fucking nothing anymore. I’m not going to play your fucking games again.
Do your worst, Nikolai. Do your fucking worst, I don’t care anymore.
I want to die. I want this over with.” Tears run down my cheeks.
Nikolai looks angry. I watch as his chest rises rapidly.
“Why won’t you love me, Zoe? You could have been by my side in this life. Why don’t you want me?” He thumps his chest.
“Because I could never love a man as vile as you, you fucking repulse me. I hate you. I hate you with everything that I have.”
I watch as darkness falls across his face. Nikolai straightens himself and pulls his knife out from behind his back.
My instincts kick in, and I thrash about in the chains. Please let this be quick, please.
Nikolai slashes my bra, and the material falls to the floor. Then he cuts the tiny fabric of my G-string, and it falls beside my bra.
I’m open and exposed to him.
“I gave you chances, Sapphire, but your luck has run out now.” He puts the knife away and moves closer to me.
His hands run up and down my exposed flesh, then he quickly turns away and walks to the door.
He speaks to someone on the outside, then returns with Dmitri, who has a sadistic smile on his face.
“We know it was you who called the police and as much as I want to slit your throat right now for being a traitor, I have other ideas for you. I’ve decided to get rid of you, sell you off to someone else who wants you.
Your chances with me have run out, and I see you now as nothing but a useless whore.
I want to hurt you so badly, but I can’t afford to bruise your skin, not if I want top dollar.
So instead, Dmitri and I are going to have some fun with you. ”
I thrash again against the chains, no. Please kill me, now.
Dmitri is unzipping his jeans, fisting his hardening cock in his hands.
No, no. I cry, I scream, I will not let them.
But all I hear is Nikolai’s dark laugh as hands touch me.