Chapter 28 Mara
MARA
Pain.
That's the first thing I'm aware of—a throbbing ache that radiates from the back of my skull, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Each throb sends waves of nausea through me, and I have to fight the urge to vomit.
I try to move my hands to touch my head, but they won't respond.
Something's wrong. I realize my wrists are bound behind me, something plastic cutting into my skin with every small movement.
Zip ties, I realize distantly, and stop pulling, remembering that I read somewhere once that they get tighter the more you struggle.
My eyes feel heavy, crusted with something. I force them open, blinking against the darkness. Not complete darkness, I realize after a moment. There's light filtering in from somewhere, dim and gray, enough to make out shapes but not details.
Where am I?
The question triggers a cascade of memories, fragmented and disjointed. The penthouse. Reading on the couch. Ilya leaving. Then... what? I was going to make tea. I walked into the kitchen and—
Gunshots. Shouting. Dmitri's voice, cut off mid-word.
The door exploding inward.
Men in black, wearing tactical gear. I ran for the bedroom, but there were too many of them. Hands grabbing me. Something sharp pricking my neck. The world tilting sideways as my legs gave out.
And then nothing.
I force myself to focus on my surroundings, pushing through the fog in my head.
I'm sitting on concrete, my back against something metal—a support beam, maybe. The air smells like rust and old oil, with an underlying scent of mildew and decay. A warehouse, I think, feeling a pained jolt in my chest at the memory of the last time I was in a place like this, with Ilya. There’s nothing arousing about what’s happening to me now.
The fear is all real, with no spice of desire to make this anything but horrifying.
My shoulders ache from having my arms pulled back for an unknown amount of time.
My legs are numb, pins and needles shooting through them when I try to shift position.
I'm still wearing the clothes I had on—leggings and a loose t-shirt—but my feet are bare.
They must have taken my shoes. The warehouse is frigidly cold, and I shiver, feeling my skin prick with goosebumps.
I test the zip ties carefully again, trying not to make noise. I can already feel that there’s no chance they’re going to give, and a sick feeling sweeps through my stomach.
A soft groan comes from somewhere to my left, and I freeze.
I'm not alone.
I turn my head slowly, ignoring the spike of pain the movement causes, and squint into the darkness. There's another figure maybe ten feet away, also tied to a support beam. As my eyes adjust, I can make out more details—long pale blonde hair, expensive clothes, a slender frame.
The woman shifts, and I hear another groan, this one more conscious, as if she’s waking up.
"Hello?" I whisper, my voice hoarse. My throat feels like sandpaper.
The figure goes still. Then, slowly, her head lifts, and even in the dim light, I recognize her.
It’s Svetlana.
For a moment, we just stare at each other. Her eyes are wide, mascara smudged beneath them, her usually perfect hair tangled and disheveled. She looks as disoriented as I feel, but when recognition dawns on her face, her expression hardens.
"You," she hisses, and there's venom in her voice. "Of course it's you."
I don't have the energy for whatever hostility she's giving off. "Where are we?"
"How should I know?" She struggles against her restraints, wincing. "This is your fault. If Ilya hadn't become obsessed with you, if you hadn't—"
"My fault?" The accusation cuts through my fog. "I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be taken, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be here with you."
"No, you just asked to be kept like a pet in his penthouse while the rest of us dealt with the consequences of his distraction." Her voice cracks slightly. "Do you have any idea what you've done? What your presence in his life has cost me?"
I want to argue, to defend myself, but the truth is I don't know what my presence has cost her. I don't know anything about Ilya's world beyond what I've seen, what I've experienced from the confines of where he’s kept me. I'm as much a prisoner of circumstance as she is.
"I didn't choose this," I whisper quietly. "Any of it."
Svetlana laughs bitterly. "None of us choose this."
We fall into silence, and I tug at the zipties again, knowing it’s useless but feeling as if I can’t just sit here and wait to see what happens next. I can hear her breathing, harsh and uneven, and I wonder if she's crying or just trying not to.
"Do you know who took us?" I ask after a while.
She shakes her head. “No. No clue. If we’re both here, I can guess it has something to do with Ilya.
” She shifts, and I hear the plastic of her zip ties creaking.
“Some mob bullshit that has nothing to do with either of us but is going to get us killed anyway.” She licks her lips, the sound loud in the stillness.
“I’m guessing it’s whoever is in charge in this part of New York, whoever Ilya’s rival is here, and he doesn’t realize that Ilya broke our engagement.
I’m probably leverage.” She snorts, and there’s a hopeless sound to it. “Some fucking leverage.”
I think about Ilya, about the way he left tonight without telling me where he was going or why.
Whatever happens next, my resolve that I can’t give myself to him without him trusting me in return only hardens.
I should have known what he was doing. I should have known something about what was happening, so I wouldn’t be sitting here in a warehouse in the dark in more ways than one.
So I’d at least have knowledge to arm myself with, if nothing else.
I want to believe that I matter enough to Ilya that he'd do anything to get me back. But another part—the part that remembers his coldness, his distance, his inability to let me in—wonders if I'm just another possession to him. Something valuable that was stolen, but not irreplaceable.
Svetlana was replaceable, after all. With me. And even though Ilya says it’s not the same, that he didn’t choose her for desire but for strategy, that I’m the only woman he’s ever wanted the way he wants me, maybe I’ve pushed him too far.
Maybe my demand was enough to crack that obsession. Maybe instead of negotiating with Sergei, who I feel strongly is probably the one keeping us here, he’ll just tell him to go fuck himself and go back to Boston.
I work at the zip ties, trying to find any give, any weakness. My wrists are slick with what feels like blood or sweat, and the plastic cuts deeper with every movement. But I keep trying, because sitting here waiting for whatever comes next isn't an option.
"Stop struggling," Svetlana says. "You'll just make it worse."
"I'm not going to just sit here."
"What choice do we have?"
"There's always a choice." I twist my wrists, ignoring the pain. "Even if it's just choosing not to give up."
She's quiet for a moment. "You really don't know anything about this world, do you?"
"No," I admit. "I don't. But I know I'm not going to wait around to be rescued or killed or whatever Sergei has planned. I'm going to find a way out."
“Sergei?” She pauses. “You know who took us?”
“Maybe. Ilya said someone named Sergei is in charge of the New York Bratva. He came after me once before—or sent someone, anyway—because he didn’t like Ilya being in his territory.”
“So this really is your fucking fault.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything at all. We sit in silence for a while, the only sounds our breathing and the occasional creak of the building settling. My fingers are going numb, but I keep searching for any edge, any rough surface I can use to saw through the plastic.
"I never wanted to marry him, you know," Svetlana says suddenly. "Ilya."
I pause, surprised by the admission. "Then why—"
“My father wanted his business connections. The two of them on their own are formidable, but together, with my father’s additional connections in Moscow and Ilya’s empire here, they’d be practically unstoppable.
Or at least he thinks so. Our first meeting was arranged two years ago and I was told to do whatever was necessary to secure the engagement.
” She lets out a breath. “I didn’t like him at first. He’s cold and detached, and it was clear his only interest in me was financial.
That his interest in any bride would be financial.
But…” She pauses. “I made the mistake, over two years, of actually thinking I could find a crack in his armor. That I could fix him.” She lets out a bitter laugh.
“I thought I was falling for him. And he never felt a shred of that for me. Meanwhile, my father was already plotting how to expand with the connections he’d gain.
I still haven’t told him that it’s…” She trails off.
I bite my lip, feeling a spasm of guilt, even though I didn’t ask for Ilya to become obsessed with me. "It's not your fault."
"That doesn’t matter." She sounds tired. "In this world, everything is someone's fault. Every failure, every weakness, it has to be punished."
I want to argue, to tell her that's not true, but I can't. Because from what I've seen, she's right. This world Ilya lives in, this world I've been dragged into—it doesn't allow for weakness.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly.
“For what?” Svetlana snorts.
"For being part of the reason he broke the engagement. For... existing, I guess."
Svetlana is quiet for a long moment. "I knew weeks ago he wanted someone else. I kept hoping he’d get over it, and not ruin my father’s plans.”
“What about your plans?”
She lets out a short bark of a laugh, and falls silent again.
Then I hear something—the sound of a door opening, then footsteps echoing down a hallway. Multiple sets of footsteps.