Chapter 8 #3
Tall. Thick-necked. Broad shoulders hunched now, but unmistakable. The man who’d patrolled our cell like a king inspecting cattle. Who’d smiled when women begged. Who’d singled Bianca out again and again—offering her first, making her suffer publicly while the rest of us watched, powerless.
He had laughed when she cried.
I walked toward him.
At first, he tried to meet my eyes—defiance flickering there, stubborn pride clinging to him like a bad habit. Then my shadow fell across his face, and something broke. His gaze darted away. His breathing quickened.
I swung the baton upward.
Hard.
It caught him under the jaw with a crack that turned my stomach. His head snapped back violently, teeth shattering. Blood sprayed in a dark fan across the floor. I saw fragments of bone glitter briefly before disappearing into the mess.
He collapsed sideways, jaw hanging at a grotesque angle, mouth gaping uselessly behind the tape.
Still—still—he tried to rise.
Stubborn. Stupid. Unrepentant to the end.
I stepped closer and brought the baton down again.
Between his legs.
The sound was wet. Crunching. Final.
His eyes bulged so far I thought they might burst. His body folded in half as far as the chains allowed, a muffled howl of agony ripping through the tape. His breath came in choking gasps, high and panicked.
Something surged up in me then—too much. The past clawed at the edges of my vision. The room blurred. The smell, the sounds, the memories pressing in from every side.
I was drowning.
Dmitri was there instantly.
He stepped forward, raised the pistol, and fired once—straight into the man’s groin.
The overseer convulsed violently, screaming behind the gag, body slamming helplessly against the restraints.
Then Dmitri turned and pulled me into him.
Firm. Solid. Unyielding.
His arm wrapped around my shoulders, his other hand pressing between my shoulder blades, anchoring me in place.
“You cannot break in front of them, milaya,” he murmured against my hair. Low. Steady. Commanding. “They don’t get to see that.”
Milaya.
The word hit me like a shockwave.
My love.
The old endearment—one he used only when it mattered. My breath caught. He remembered. Maybe not everything. Maybe not clearly.
But this—this piece of us—was still there.
I leaned into him for one heartbeat. Just one. I didn’t cry. Didn’t shake.
I breathed.
Then I straightened and stepped away.
I walked the rows slowly this time, baton hanging loosely at my side. My posture was upright. My chin lifted. I met their gazes one by one.
Some stared back in open terror.
A few tried to harden themselves with defiance.
Most looked away.
“You are evil,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. It carried easily in the vast room. “You already know that. You’ve always known.”
I stopped midway down the aisle and turned slowly, letting them all see me.
“But you thought no one would ever make you pay,” I continued. “You tore women apart in this century. You used us. Sold us. Traded us like objects.” My grip tightened on the baton. “You told yourselves the world didn’t care. That no one would come.”
I met their eyes again, one by one.
“You were wrong.”
I stopped in the center of the room.
The silence pressed in—thick, suffocating—broken only by ragged breathing and the faint clink of chains shifting against concrete. Eighty-nine pairs of eyes were fixed on me now. Not on Dmitri. Not on the weapons. On me.
The girl who had lived.
“Now your day has come,” I said, my voice steady, carrying across the cavernous space. I didn’t raise it. I didn’t need to. “You will sit here and watch the fire approach—helpless, bound, unable to run.”
A tremor rippled through the rows. Some began to shake. Others squeezed their eyes shut as if blindness might save them.
“It will crawl across the floor,” I continued, slow and deliberate. “You will feel the heat before it touches you. You will smell it. You will understand, minute by minute, what it means to wait for pain with no escape.”
I took a step forward, then another, turning in a slow circle so they could all see my face.
“You burned lives for profit,” I said. “You burned innocence. Tonight, you burn for that.”
I paused, letting the words sink in.
“And when it finally takes you,” I finished quietly, “you will burn again in hell.”
My gaze swept the room—lingering on the faces I recognized, the ones etched permanently into my memory. The ones who had laughed. The ones who had looked away. The ones who had stood guard while others screamed.
“What satisfies me most,” I said, voice tightening just slightly, “is knowing you will never traffic another innocent woman. No more cells. No more chains. No more nights where someone begs you to stop.”
I lifted my chin.
“Your line ends here.”
The room felt smaller somehow, as if the walls themselves were leaning in.
Then I turned to Dmitri.
“I’m done.”
He met my eyes and nodded once—no words, no ceremony. Just acknowledgment.
I walked toward the doors with my back straight and my steps measured, every instinct screaming not to run, not to falter.
Behind me, the room erupted into muffled chaos—bodies straining against restraints, desperate pleas spilling uselessly into duct tape, threats barked through panic that meant nothing now.
None of it reached me.
Dmitri followed a pace behind—silent, watchful, a presence at my back.
We crossed into the anteroom. The doors shut with a heavy finality, sealing the sound inside.
Only then did my shoulders sag.
The strength drained out of me all at once.
Dmitri caught me before my knees could buckle, his arms locking around me with unshakable force. He held me upright, then closer, until my forehead rested against his chest.
“You did it,” he murmured, his voice low and rough with something dangerously close to awe. “You looked them in the eye. You didn’t break.”
I swallowed hard.
Silent tears spilled over, cutting pale tracks through the dust on my cheeks. I stared ahead without really seeing—at the empty stretch of yard, the looming silhouette of the compound, the widening sky above it all.
Firelight flickered against the walls, painting everything in restless orange and gold.
The pain didn’t leave with the flames.
It stayed.
It lived in my chest, heavy and immovable. A hollow carved so deep it felt structural, like something essential had been removed and nothing could ever replace it.
Vengeance hadn’t healed it. Justice hadn’t sealed it shut. It was still there, raw and permanent.
Dmitri’s face was calm but strained, jaw tight, eyes dark with things he hadn’t said.
He looked less like a king in that moment and more like a man who had just watched the world burn and was still standing in the heat of it.
He guided me upright, then knelt before me. His thumb brushed gently beneath my eye, catching a tear—as if he feared I might break under the slightest pressure.
I flinched.
I turned my head sharply and pushed myself sideways, away from him, one shaky step at a time. Away from his hands. Away from comfort I wasn’t ready to accept, didn’t know how to survive.
He froze.
The hurt crossed his face instantly—unfiltered, unguarded. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t pride. It was confusion and something dangerously close to fear.
“Why?” The word tore out of me, my voice breaking around it. My shoulders shook as quiet sobs slipped free, unstoppable now. “Why did you choose Seraphina over me?”
He stared at me as if I’d spoken another language.
“I chose Seraphina over you?” he repeated slowly.
The question hung between us, naked and bewildered.
He truly didn’t remember.
Not the warehouse.
Not the ultimatum.
Not the moment he had looked at me—bloodied, bound, begging—and decided I wasn’t the one worth saving.
That absence hurt more than any blow I’d ever taken.
Because it confirmed the fear I’d buried deepest of all: that in the end, I hadn’t even been important enough to haunt him.
I started walking, my steps uneven, my words spilling out under my breath as if I couldn’t stop them.
I’ll never know why. And I’ll never forgive him. No matter what he does.
Dmitri caught up to me in three long strides and stepped directly into my path.
“Penelope—wait.” His voice was urgent now. “I’m already working on restoring my memories. Quiet doctors. People who don’t answer to councils or families. Whatever they took from me, I want it back.” His eyes searched mine, desperate. “I know I had reasons. I need to know what they were.”
He reached for my hand—not demanding, not forceful. Just there.
I didn’t pull away.
He turned us both toward the compound.
He pulled a slim lighter from his pocket and held it out to me.
“Can you light it?” he asked softly. “Throw it. Let this end the way it should. Let’s watch them burn with the empire they built.”
I shook my head.
The tears came harder, my chest tightening until it hurt to breathe. My knees weakened again, and before I could stop myself, I leaned into him. Not because I wanted to—but because I couldn’t stand on my own anymore.
His arm came around my waist instantly, steady and sure.
He didn’t push the lighter into my hand.
He simply flicked it open.
A small flame bloomed—bright, fragile, alive.
He tossed it toward the open doorway.
At first, the fire hesitated—catching on scattered debris, curling uncertainly along the floor. Then it found what his men had prepared. The change was immediate. The flames surged, racing forward in sudden, hungry lines.
Heat exploded outward.
Windows shattered with sharp, ringing cracks as pressure built inside. Smoke poured from every opening. The glow intensified, orange deepening toward white at the center, swallowing everything it touched.
And then—
The sounds.
Muffled at first. Desperate. Human.
They rose and fell in waves, carried through concrete and flame, through walls that had once held so many others in silence. Names were shouted. Prayers. Pleas that went unanswered.