46. Brooke
It’s the pain in my wrists that wakes me up. When I come to, I realize I’m tied to a chair, my wrists bound so tight my fingers are starting to tingle.
Why am I tied to a chair?
Oh God, why does everything hurt?
My mind scrambles to make sense of the situation.
I remember being in the liquor store with Igor and the other bodyguard. But the rest is fuzzy. I recall going to the restroom… there was a woman who said she needed help… then there was a man, and he…
Oh God, he knocked me out and brought me here.
I look around me. It looks like I’m in some kind of abandoned warehouse. Tall ceilings. Broken windows. Lots of shadows. Something watching me from those shadows.
I fight against my restraints, but it’s no use—the rope around my wrists is bound too tight, and I can’t wriggle it free. I let out a frightened and frustrated cry, but it’s only met with a chuckle coming from behind me. I jerk my neck to see who it is but a blinding pain rockets into my skull from the knock on my head, and I wince.
Seconds pass and a man appears in front of me. Vlad. He’s wearing a dark suit over a bright blue dress shirt. His dark blond hair is slicked back from his high forehead, and a pair of cold blue eyes narrow in on me as a cold, reptilian smile spreads across a pair of cruel, thin lips.
He adjusts a big gold ring on his pinky finger as he studies me, clearly admiring his handiwork. Beside him, two thugs dressed in all black with machine guns slung over their shoulders watch his every move, ready to act on his instruction.
“Hello, little bunny.”
His use of Lev’s nickname for me causes the two thugs beside him to snicker, and I want to spit in all of their faces. And if my mouth wasn’t a desert, I would.
“What do you want?” I croak. It’s not just my mouth that’s dry. My throat feels like sandpaper, and it makes me wonder how long I’ve been unconscious.
God, what did he do in that time?
I do a quick mental audit. I’m fully clothed, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve been redressed or anything like that, but my stomach churns with all the things that could have happened to me while I was out cold.
“What do I want? Hmmmmm…” Vlad makes a theatrical show of considering my question. “Let me see… I want a little more respect from your fiancé for one. I want him to see me as his equal and fear me as he should.” He grabs my chin and snarls in my face. “I want him to see what happens when he tries to humiliate me in public.”
My gaze slides to his other hand. The one still bandaged because Lev put a bullet in it the night of the poker game.
Despite his hand squeezing my chin and mouth, I manage to ask, “How’s the hand?”
Which doesn’t do anything for my situation other than to make him mad. He slaps me so hard my teeth rattle.
But it was worth it.
I might die here. But I’ll be damned if I don’t make it hard on the sonofabitch.
I must be delirious because I actually chuckle, then spit blood onto the floor, just missing his alligator skin shoes.
The sudden rumbling of cars above tells me we’re beneath an overpass. Remember the little details, my mind whispers. If you survive this, you’ll need to tell the police everything. No, not the police. Lev. Because when he finds out about this, he is going to rain down hell on everyone involved in this.
“It’s not personal. I actually like you. In fact…” He touches my cheek tenderly. “If it were a different world we were in, I think I could make you happy.”
I flinch away from him.
“This is simply a message to get Lev’s attention. When he sees what I’ve done to you—” He slaps me again, and this time, I see the spatter of blood from my lip dance like motes of dust in the air in front of me. “He will come looking for me, and I’m counting on it because I’ve built myself an army now, Brooke. And I’ll be ready for him.”
I want to tell Vlad that his days are numbered. That Lev will find him and make him pay for this, because I know he will. I know when they find my body, it will ignite a rage in Lev that no one could ever prepare for. He might not be in love with me, and he might be resistant to any kind of commitment to me, but I know I mean something to him. I can feel it in his touch, in the way he kisses me, in the way he makes love to me.
But I don’t have a chance to say any of this to Vlad because, with one more violent punch of his fist, he mercifully knocks me out cold.