5. Sonya
5
SONYA
I cy rain dripped down from the branches overhead. No leaves blocked the light precipitation out here in this dense wood line. Every chilling drop landed on my matted down hair until it collected at the back of my neck and slithered along my spine.
Shivers racked my body, but I didn’t pay any further notice to the cold. Or how wet I was.
Clutching the bloody butter knife in my hand, I scanned the lone building ahead of me.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever let go of the measly little dull blade I’d used to secure my freedom. It had seemed like a miracle when the guards hadn’t noticed the butter knife missing from my food tray. My meek demeanor had served me well for so long. The more docile and beaten-down I’d seemed, the looser they’d gotten with watching my every move.
The first time I suspected I could be pregnant—when my period was late and I felt so crampy—I started making the plans to escape. Tucking that butter knife under the edge of my mattress was the first step. Ramming it into the guard’s neck yesterday was another step. The dull blade hadn’t made my first murder very clean or easy, but I’d done it. I ended his life when he came in to transport me to this Benson man for marriage. Then when the Ilyin guard’s partner lunged at me to constrain me, I fought him with every fiber of my being, every ounce of hatred.
Hours had passed. The night had fallen and receded. Time still carried on in a blur, though, and I hoped this shell-shocked fugue would lift.
I did it.
I’m out.
I’m free .
But as I hunkered down in the trees out here, spying on this lonely little house in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t homebound just yet.
I had no phone. No money. No clothes except the bloody, torn ones I wore now. Slippers covered my freezing, raw feet. While I had no idea how far I was from New York, how distant I was from the Baranov mansion I longed to return to, I was well aware that I had a journey to survive.
Getting out of captivity was the initial phase of reclaiming my life.
But ensuring I was back to safety and out of the Ilyins’ reach was another challenge.
I blinked, preventing more of the cool spring drizzle from dripping into my eyes. Moving my eyelids was all the motion I wanted to allow as I tensed and debated.
No one had gone into that house. No one had exited either. And I’d know. I had been watching the building since the darkest hour of the night. Now in the morning, as the sun rose through the gray sky, I waited some more to guess whether this place would be safe.
Banking on the goodwill of strangers felt so risky, but I wasn’t na?ve to think I could get home like this, on my own.
Forcing down a swallow, I ignored the hunger pangs that wouldn’t quit. My mouth and throat were so dry and raw, too. Water would be a blessing. Food would help too. But no matter how long I sat and crouched out here like a wild animal on the run, I wouldn’t know if the residents in that small house would lend me a hand until I asked.
Just get closer. See if anyone’s there.
I stood, wincing at the pain of staying low for so long. The wet cold wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was here. I was alive and able to choose my own path for the first time in over a decade. Mafia princesses were expected to be pampered and spoiled, but those had both been beaten out of me years ago. I would set the bar low.
Leaves crunched underfoot as I gingerly advanced toward the house. My stomach remained tied in knots, but every difficult swallow I managed pushed that nausea back.
Someone’s in there. The lights shining from behind the curtains was proof. Tantalizing and addicting, the scent of a meaty stew cooking inside suggested someone was making a meal.
Growls erupted from my stomach, but I ignored them, determined to reach the door.
Please, please don’t be scared.
Please care enough to help me.
Please.
I looked a fright, muddy, bloody, and worn ragged. But I didn’t pose a threat. I couldn’t, not when I was so weak and desperate for help.
Shit.
The knife.
This thin scrap of metal was supposed to be used for spreading butter, but with the blood coated on it, I would look deranged and deadly. Trembling with the energy needed to move, I lowered my arm to drop the butter knife. I couldn’t knock on a door and beg for help when I held a weapon, but my panic rose with giving up my only means of defense.
Thumping onto the welcome mat at the door, the knife settled on the surface. Within seconds, the rain pattered down on it and began to rinse it clean.
I raised my hand to knock on the door. Even that pressure stung my cold knuckles, sore from fighting the Ilyin guard yesterday morning. Before I lost the willpower to stand much longer, I nudged the butter knife aside until it scooted off the mat. It slid, falling into the mulch and leaves beneath a bush.
Footsteps sounded inside. Light and quick, they approached the door.
Please be a woman. Please be a kind, sweet, generous stranger of a woman.
As if I’d jinxed it, louder, heavier footsteps joined in.
Dammit.
It would be just my luck that the first house I’d stumble upon would have a man inside it.
Too late.
I blinked, forcing my sluggish lids to remain open. Nausea returned. Fatigue swept over me. I raised my hand again to knock, having to take my chances that someone who lived here would help me. But I didn’t complete the action. Slanting toward the closed door, I heaved out a deep exhale and kept my fist on the wood. Leaning forward more and more, I let my eyes close as I focused on the bare minimum of breathing.
I was tired. Thirsty. Hungry. Nauseated and exhausted.
But I was free .
As the door was pulled open, I lacked the energy to open my eyes. I was free—free falling. Heat wafted out from the interior of the house, and with the bone-deep need for comfort as I hit the last reserves of my energy, I pitched forward and passed out, hopefully into the residence of good Samaritans who would care to keep me alive.
Later, when I woke from the deep darkness of a solid slumber, I instinctively knew that I was still free. The scent of delicious stew accompanied a cozy warmth. Soft pillows and the satiny smoothness of sheets and blankets soothed my raw skin.
I wasn’t on that property anymore. I wasn’t back at that house where my mother was raped and killed, where Ilyin men held me captive so they’d dictate a future I didn’t want.
Instead, I slowly opened my eyes to the interior of a small bedroom. A redheaded woman furrowed her brow as she peered down at me. Freckles dotted her cheeks and nose, making her seem youthful and juvenile, but as she realized I was waking, a maternal sense of concern covered her face.
“Kyle, she’s waking up,” she said calmly to someone else in the house.
Fuck. A man. She’s not alone.
She backed up from her seat next to the bed I lay on. As she lifted her hand, a wedding ring sparkled in the low light. “Easy,” she urged gently. “You’re okay. You’ll be all right.”
A man huffed a low chuckle as he came into view. A tall, burly man smiled at me as he carried a baby. “She’s a woman, Jenny. Not one of the stray dogs you see at the clinic.”
Jenny smiled more, glancing at the man as he rocked the baby in his arms. “I am aware of that, Mister.”
“She’s a vet, not a doctor,” Kyle said teasingly as he glanced at me watching them both so cautiously. “But as my wife likes to remind me when stray animals come to the door, all mammals can benefit from the same basics of first aid.”
“And people are mammals, too,” Jenny quipped at her husband as she extended a straw toward me. “Water?”
I sipped the icy drink, going too quickly and ending up coughing.
“Easy,” she urged again. “You’re safe here.”
But am I?
I doubted I’d feel safe until I got home and saw my sister, all who would be left of the family I once had.
“Take it slow,” Kyle said, nodding as he continued rocking with the baby. “I’m Kyle Peterson, and this is my wife Jenny,” he introduced. “Do you know your name?”
Finished with the water, I debated what to tell them. I couldn’t risk their knowing I was a Mafia princess on the loose. After I killed and beat off the guards at the house, I took the keys from them and sped away in the van that was likely intended for my transport. A vehicle was a faster way to leave, but it had also ensured other guards would chase after me.
I hadn’t driven anything before, and my reckless race from that property had ended up with a crash. Afterward, I’d run as far and fast as I could and I now had no clue where I was. I was ignorant of my location. I wanted to know if I’d gotten far enough from the Ilyins’ property to be confident that these strangers wouldn’t report my presence here.
“It’s okay,” Jenny said, clearly guessing I struggled with amnesia. “You can trust us.” Perhaps she was wisely guessing I struggled more with trusting anyone. “You can lie low. Recover. Relax. We will keep you safe here.”
Tears stung at my lids, and I gave up the fight to hold them back.
“Oh, it’s okay,” she said softly, offering me tissues. “It will be okay.”
I’d yearned to hear someone tell me that. I wished to have someone—anyone—convince me that there was a way out of misery. Jenny and Kyle had no clue how far from okay I was, but I would forever treasure their being good, decent people to give a shit about a strange woman down on her luck.
Over the next few days, that was all they did. They cared. They gave me a warm bed to sleep in, food to eat, water to drink. Not once did they push for answers, giving me space and time to accept that I was safe. Eventually, though, once they showed that I would be safe here, Jenny grew bolder to ask me more questions.
“Do you know how far along you are?” she asked when she handed me clean clothes after a shower.
I shook my head.
Jenny frowned and nodded as she backed up and closed the bathroom door, intuiting that I wanted privacy.
“Were you?—”
“I wasn’t raped,” I answered, guessing where she was leading with this. “I was taken by…” I couldn’t identify the Ilyins. She could alert them. “I was taken by some men and?—”
“It’s okay,” Jenny replied from the other side of the door. “I… You don’t need to relive it or talk or anything like that. Take your time. Kyle was just worried and he’s been wondering if we should call the cops or?—”
I lunged over to open the door quickly. “No. Please, no.”
The cops weren’t allies of mine. I was a Mafia princess. No Mafia family wanted to rely on the same law and order normal people like Jenny and Kyle would. We had our own law and order, our own justice system. But she couldn’t understand that.
Jenny held her hands up in a truce. “Okay. Cool. I get it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You do?”
She nodded, calm. “I do. My dad was an alcoholic.”
I couldn’t help a scoff. “Mine too.”
Still, she remained chill and unbothered as she led me back to the tiny guest room so I could lie down. Just walking to the bathroom tired me so much.
“My father was an abusive alcoholic and the cops, the social workers, all of them” —she rolled her eyes— “none of them would actually help. So, yeah. I get it.”
“Do you need a hand?” Kyle asked as Jenny guided me back to the room. He sat with the infant, rocking in a chair.
“No. We’re okay,” Jenny replied. She seemed to respect that I was more at ease with her, not her husband, but it was sort of silly. Kyle was clearly a gentle giant, a stay-at-home dad with their young baby son they’d named Damon. He couldn’t be a danger to me. Still, I was wary of another man nearby.
In my room again, Jenny helped me lower to the bed. She’d already checked me over. Even though she was a vet and worked with animals, she was medically knowledgeable. She tended to my cuts and bruises. She checked my lungs and heart. She even checked on the baby, the best that she could without an ultrasound machine or anything high-tech at home.
Over the past couple of days, she’d explained who she was and where I found them. Maybe she thought opening up about herself would put me at ease while I struggled to speak up about who I was. Perhaps she still feared I had amnesia or something.
I didn’t. I couldn’t trust her with my story, though, so I appreciated her filling the silence with her gentle voice. She was a vet at a clinic in town, and Kyle was home with her on paternity leave since she’d just given birth to their baby boy a month ago. While she didn’t mention anything about a woman being missing or anything that might have to do with the Ilyins, I couldn’t take faith that I was far enough away. She did explain that they lived in a small town in New York, though, and she had commented that the city was three hours away.
Staying quiet about who I was and what I needed to do was the safest option. I knew that the second I said I was a member of a Mafia family, they could cast me out and not want anything to do with criminals. I suspected that the moment I gave them permission to contact the cops about a wounded stray woman showing up, the Ilyins could track me somehow.
But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t put them at risk for helping me, and I wouldn’t give up on my mission to get home to Eva. After their kindness, offering me help without expecting a single thing in return, I was resolved to leave before they could be in danger for assisting me. There was simply no way for me to know how far or near the Ilyins could be, and I refused to put this small family in harm’s way.
As I lay in bed, hearing Kyle and Jenny in the kitchen as they made dinner, cared for the baby, and acted like an innocent, sweet trio, I fought the tears and wished I could have that. I envied their peaceful home and lives out here in the woods.
From the bottom of my heart, I wished that I could be a contented mother to this baby in my belly, comfortable and safe. That my child’s father could be there with me, present and helping, not a distant memory of a one-night stand. That we’d have a home, a real family.
Dreams could be sweet like that, but as I relaxed this one last night and accepted their generosity before I could leave, I guarded myself from letting these wistful visions cloud my brain too much.
I could fantasize all I wanted, but I had to remain level-headed and focused.
I’d escaped.
And now it was time to survive and return to the city for the security I could receive there.
Come dawn, while they slept in, I’d sneak out and figure out how to get home . I had been gone too damn long, and I had to ensure a new future of my own choosing.