Chapter 33 Kaia
KAIA
Consciousness returns like the snap of fingers and suddenly I’m awake, staring up at a dark ceiling covered in hairline cracks and smatterings of dirt and mold.
Where am I?
An ache spreads through the back of my skull as I search through foggy memories for how I ended up here, but initially I come up empty.
Everything hurts. From my head to my ribs and down to my thigh, where as soon as I acknowledge the sharp pain in my leg, it flares into something hot and vibrant that draws a rough whimper of pain from my throat.
My attempt to sit up is halted by rough, heavy iron that scrapes against my wrists when I try to move, and the same sensation scratches at my ankles.
Then the chill in the air sends a pulse of shivers through my body, turning my naked body into gooseflesh and my heart begins to race.
Eva.
I was with Eva.
Did she get away?
The last I saw of her, she was climbing over the stone bollard and vanishing out of sight onto that busy road where cars were racing up and down without a care in the world.
Would any of them stop at the sight of a traumatized little girl or would they keep driving and mow her down because this fucking city is so self-absorbed?
I pray she’s okay.
I saw her then something struck me on the back of my head and now I’m here.
Wherever here is.
Curling my fingers against my palm, I pull against the restraints, but the edges are sharp and cut like a razor blade into the base of my thumb, stalling my attempts immediately.
Rolling my head to one side, a dark stone wall glistens with dampness and several metal trolleys are lined up carrying an array of construction tools and items that turn my blood to ice.
Rolling my head the other way, I freeze.
Antov sits next to me.
His furious, cold gaze is locked onto me, and the moment I notice him he seems to surge to life by lunging up from his seat and wrapping one large hand around my throat, immediately cutting off my air.
“You fat fucking cunt,” he snarls down at me, increasing the pressure with each passing second.
“Have you any idea what you’ve cost me? Do you have any fucking idea?
I bet not because there’s nothing but air between your ears, is there?
I invite you into my home, I graciously take care of your pathetic fucking lump when my brother died, and what do I get for it?
A fucking liability who cost me the one thing that was my ticket to real fucking success! ”
Heat builds in my face, my throat reflexes and tries to dislodge what it thinks is something trapped in my airway, my heart pounds like a drum and my chest seizes as a lack of air makes my vision fog and pulse in time to my racing heart and every part of me recoils away from my uncle.
“If only you’d shot me properly,” he snarls down at me. “Fucked up my arm and my shoulder, you little bitch. But don’t worry, I’ll show you exactly how much it hurts. You hear me? You’ll regret ever picking up that fucking knife.”
He doesn’t let up and it doesn’t matter.
Part of me doesn’t care, and the other part of me soars high on the sweetest fucking relief because his anger tells me everything I need to know.
He lost Eva.
She made it.
She got away from here, away from him.
I’ve redeemed myself for what I did to Angie, for every attempt on Flynn’s life that was fueled by a misunderstanding, and for every crime my family took part in that I accidentally or unknowingly turned my back on.
Eva is safe.
I don’t care what happens to me now.
I saved her. That’s all that matters.
Antov suddenly releases me and I gasp in a deep, desperate lungful of air, but as soon as it passes my lips its forced back out as Antov slams his fist into my gut.
Pain explodes through my body as I gasp and jerk against the binds that slice into my hands.
“I should have drowned you the second you landed on my doorstep,” he yells.
“Years of life wasted raising you when I could have spent them elsewhere, and now what?” He’s over me with his hand curled cruelly in my jaw, forcing me to look at him.
“You’re a fucking disgrace, you know that?
You’re a stain on this family, your parents would be disgusted to see what you’ve turned into. A traitor. A fucking traitor.”
He’s going to kill me.
But I can’t bring myself to care.
So instead, I smile. That smile turns into weak, pained laughter. “You lost,” I croak around the squish his grip makes of my lips. “You lost. So do whatever the fuck you want. You lost.”
“You think so?” He brings his face close to mine and spits in my mouth, making me gag and choke.
“I’m not going to kill you, Kaia. No. I’m going to cut you up into little pieces and feed you to my dog, and then I’m going to fuck you until your fat cunt spits out an heir for me, and then when that rat is in my arms, I’ll kill you then.
You hear me? That’s all you’re worth, you understand me?
All your fucking worth. And when I get Vic back?
I’m sure he’ll have some fucking ideas on what to do with you.
And here’s the kicker, you’re not dying on me until he’s free, you hear me?
So you better fucking pray my men find him quickly. ”
His threats, while vile, are meaningless.
I’ll die before then, I’m sure of it.
He’s easy to anger, easy to provoke, and if he doesn’t kill me then the sharp metal cutting into my wrists with every jerk of my restraints will grant me a way out.
I close my eyes.
Eva’s safe and alive.
Flynn will see I was telling the truth and he’ll forgive me for trying to take Angie.
Maybe he’ll forgive me for being a part of this family.
Either way, I did what I was meant to.
Antov doesn’t take kindly to my silence or my refusal to rise to his insults.
On the first night, he breaks three fingers on my left hand until I’m screaming, then he shoves a funnel between my teeth and pours water down it until I’m certain I’m going to drown.
He keeps going until I pass out, praying that the darkness will lead to a swift death.
The next time I wake up screaming because someone’s digging the bullet out of my thigh because Antov doesn’t want me to die too quickly.
The pain makes me pass out. The third time I’m dragged back to the world of the living, Antov’s on top of me.
Terror grips me as I fear for a few cold seconds that he’s inside me too, but thankfully, he’s only straddling me, holding something in one hand with a look of delighted disgust.
“You’re a gift, Kaia, a gift that keeps on giving.”
I blink through raw, swollen lids and struggle to keep him in focus. When I don’t respond, his hand flies out and he strikes me hard across the face.
“The correct response is ‘why?’” he snarls down at me, clutching at my bare breast and making my stomach roll with whatever bile is left in there. “Say it.”
“Why?” I croak out, shifting on the table as a strange heat washes through my body. It’s like my insides are on fire and sweat breaks out across my forehead.
He leans forward again, placing one hand beside my head and meeting my gaze. “Do you know what this is?” He’s holding a sheet of paper but all the lines of ink blur together.
I shake my head.
“When you arrived here, you remember the doctor doing bloodwork on you, right? Had to make sure those fucking Irish imps hadn’t sent you back here as some fucking ticking time bomb. But guess what we found?”
His mouth stretches wider and wider as if something’s pulling at the edges. When I don’t reply, his bracing hand moves from the table back around my throat. Then he leans forward and uses his weight to cut off my air.
“You’re pregnant, bitch,” he spits gleefully. “You were spreading your fucking legs for that Irish cunt and look what happened? He put a fucking baby inside of you. Can you believe it?”
Pregnant?
No. That can’t be right. There’s no way.
“Which means I can’t put our heir inside you, but you know what’s even better than that?” Antov grins. “You let that bitch go free and brought me something even more precious because what do you think that Gallagher will do when I tell him I have you and his baby?”
Oh no.
My quiet peace at accepting death fades away as the horror of the situation writes itself in my mind in between the pounding of my heart and the redness bleeding across my vision.
I jerk on reflex as my body fights for air, tugging hard at my restraints and fighting to dislodge his hand the longer he chokes me.
“Didn’t you know? How many times did you let that bastard fuck you, huh?
Guess he saw what I saw and realized the only worth you have is that fucking hole between your legs and guess what?
” He brings his face close and just as weakness settles in my limb and my body concedes to no air, he releases me.
I cough violently and gasp over and over, desperately dragging in needed air while he pets my cheek, a touch I can’t escape, even as I jerk my head away.
“That cunt is far too concerned about his children for his own good. So I’ve decided that I’m not going to kill you and I won’t let Vic kill you either. Not until you’ve given me what I need, so I’m going to keep you alive like a fucking incubator, how does that sound?”
“You’re insane,” I croak as tears creep into the corners of my eyes. “Actually insane.”
I’m carrying Flynn’s baby. My baby.
Why does that thought ignite something warm inside my raw chest?
Why does it cut through my desire to die and escape this life?
In half a second, I dream of telling Flynn the news, ending up in his arms as he praises me with such joy that tears fill his eyes and his daughters dance excitedly at my feet.
It’s a half-second dream but in my oxygen-deprived state, it feels so real for that entire moment.
“Maybe,” Antov replies. “But I’ll maintain my promise. You won’t know peace until your brother is back home, and then, when the time comes? I’ll cut that fucking Irish baby right out of you.”