12. Katerina
CHAPTER 12
Katerina
I sit obediently at a long table lined by burly men who look like they belong on WANTED posters. They drink heavily and shovel food into their mouths, exchanging grunts at each other in a language I don’t understand.
Their Russian sounds aggressive and cold. Almost threatening to an outsider like me.
I avoid eye contact and nudge food around my tiny plate. It’s half the sizes of the men’s at the table. Glancing around at the other women— or pets with collars —I see their plates are smaller too.
A depressing commonality in this world I’ve found myself held captive in.
My stomach gurgles yet I can’t bring myself to eat.
How can I when my reality is so depressing? When I don’t even know what tomorrow will bring and what Roman plans to do with me?
But that’s not even the most troubling part about dinner.
Every time I do look up, I’m on the receiving end of a lecherous stare from the squat, bald man who called himself Roman’s uncle. Through bits and pieces in conversation, I’m able to pick up that his name is Leonid.
He stares at me like I’m what’s really on the menu for tonight. His shifty eyes remain on me as he dines piggishly on his food, dribbling liquor on his chin and staining the front of his shirt with borscht.
He sucks some kind of meat skewer clean while holding my gaze, licking at the stick with a tongue that makes me retch on the inside.
None of the other men at the table notice. They’re too engrossed in the fast-paced conversation bouncing around the table.
Roman’s an active participant.
“My dobivayemsya progressa. My rasshiryayem sferu deyatel’nosti? * ,” he says in response to another man across the table.
I recognize him as the same man with the jagged scar on his cheek who had rolled down his window in the unmarked black SUV and laughed at me as I ran away.
His name is Kazan.
At Roman’s words, he scoffs. “Nedostatochno bystro. Byli oshibki? * .”
Roman grits his teeth and clenches his fists on the table. From beside him, I can feel the masculine heat rolling off him, his temper like an energy I can pick up.
“Mistakes by who, Kazan?” he asks impatiently, switching to English. “Certainly not by me. Not by my men. Let us not forget the latest fuck up was your doing.”
“Moya vina? Menya ne pokhitili. Ty byl, Zver? * .”
Kazan reaches for his steak knife as if tempted to throw it straight at Roman.
Truthfully, both men look as if they might strangle the other at any second. Neither one is anything to balk at. While Roman is built like a tank, Kazan’s no slouch either. If they ever came to blows, it would be two titans leaving a path of destruction in their wake.
But before they can wreak any havoc, the man at the head of the table holds his liver-spotted hand up and silences them both.
Two large, muscular men immediately defer to an older man half their size at the head of the table, his complexion so pale and translucent, blue veins are visible on his face and scalp. He projects a sickly image, which tells me this is the Roman Volkova that Finch believed we were kidnapping.
The sovietnik.
The advisor to the head of the bratva.
The head himself—or pakhan as he’s called—seems to be absent tonight.
As Roman’s father peers around the table at the men under his purview, he almost seems disgusted. The nostrils on his large, misshapen nose flare and he opens his mouth to reveal teeth in poor health.
“Khvatit drat’sya. Yest’ dela povazhneye. My obsudim pozzhe. Odnazhdy devochki rabotayut? * .”
His words settle the situation.
Both men retreat into stubborn silence. Others around the table pick up conversations slightly less tense.
I sigh and drop my gaze back down to my untouched plate of food. I’ve been served salad and some type of dumpling stuffed with ground pork. It’s a meal that’s far superior to some of the stuff I had to eat on the streets on my most desperate days—as a starving stray growing up I wasn’t above picking partially eaten things from the trash—but the taste hardly matters when I’m stuck in such a hostage situation.
Roman finally notices I’ve barely had a few bites. While the other men exchange hearty words in Russian, he drops his voice low enough so only I can hear him.
“What’s the matter, devochka? You have to be hungry. You haven’t eaten in over a day.”
Aware I can’t really answer him, I barely move my lips, mumbling, “I don’t feel well.”
“Because you need to eat. Eat or I will make you.”
He’s reeled into conversation by another man off to his left, his attention diverted away from me all over again.
Another sigh blows out of me as my shoulders slump and I stare miserably at my food. Yet I can still feel his gaze; if I look up again, I don’t doubt I’ll find Uncle Leonid practically salivating over me.
I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not I should say something to Roman.
The depressing truth is that I don’t know him well enough to be sure his reaction would be in my favor. What if he blamed me for Leonid’s advances? What if he didn’t care?
It wouldn’t be the first time I wasn’t believed.
Years after I became an orphan, I was once pulled off the streets by a social worker. Her name was Ms. Belinda and she promised she’d do everything she could to help me. She put me in the foster system and found a family that was supposed to take me in as one of their own.
The next year was the worst year of my life. I was stuck in a household where I was treated like Cinderella while the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, treated their biological children like royalty.
I had the chores. I lived in the garage turned bedroom, where there was a permanent cold draft and mice regularly snuck through.
And I was the one who Mr. Harrison visited at night after lights out…
One night it all became too much, and I ran away only to turn up outside Ms. Belinda’s office early the next morning.
So long as I live, I’ll never forget the pitying look she gave me when I told her what had been going on. How she turned it back on me and brought up how Mr. and Mrs. Harrison had told her all about my behavioral issues.
“Sometimes, Kat, we have to accept responsibility for our bad behavior,” she’d told me. “You should be grateful Mr. and Mrs. Harrison were nice enough to take you in…”
I fled from her office and never looked back.
I chose to sleep in alleys and on park benches rather than return to their home.
Never again did I trust anyone would help me when I sought it.
I was on my own. Completely alone in the world.
What makes now any different? The collar around my neck? The fact that I’m some Russian mobster’s pet ?
Being a stray is better than being a pet. At least no one owns you.
Dinner ends and the men transition into the huge den for more drinks, cigars, and conversation.
Most of the women are taken away. I overhear Ivanka ordering one of the men who seems lower level to get them ready for work.
What work she’s talking about, I’m certain I can guess…
Probably the same kind of work that causes a quarter of the sovietnik ’s men to mysteriously disappear too.
I’m different.
Roman makes sure of that, keeping me pinned to his side at all times.
“Not you,” he whispers into my ear as the other women are collected. His thick fingers clench shut around my wrist and he tugs me closer to him. “What did I tell you, devochka? The night’s almost over.”
I try to be optimistic and take his words as meaning this charade will end soon.
Once the engagement is over, I can at least return to the bedroom where I’m kept and take off this collar. I can speak my mind again and move about freely.
As the night wears on, more men approach Roman to discuss business and other related topics. Always in Russian with small scraps of English thrown in here and there. I stick by his side as ordered, though it’s difficult to pretend I’m oblivious to all the stares.
Uncle Leonid is no longer the only one watching me.
Other men in the room are as well. Everything from curiosity to open lust lives on their faces. Some are wondering why I’m one of a handful of women who weren’t ‘collected’ while the rest seem not to care; they just see a woman in a slinky satin dress and leather collar and think with their dicks.
But I do take comfort in Roman being by my side. In the knowledge that he’s so hulking and formidable no man in the room would dare try anything.
Even Uncle Leonid hasn’t dared come anywhere near me. He merely continues to watch from halfway across the room.
I cut my eyes away and pretend I’m listening to Roman’s conversation with another man named Armen.
“Roman, the sovietnik would like to speak,” says a third man coming up to interrupt them. He’s slimmer than most of the others, almost weak in aura compared to their hypermasculinity.
“I will speak to him later, Pavel.”
“He says now. Alone.”
Pavel’s ghostly blue eyes drift to me, his words hanging in the air between us.
Roman scowls. “A quick word. Kat, stay here. Do not move. I will be back.”
My mouth opens to protest, but then I remember my orders for the night. I’m not to speak, certainly not to question Roman in front of others.
I give a stiff, obedient nod, my pulse beating faster.
Roman lets go of my wrist and starts across the room where the sovietnik sits perched in a large leather chair reminiscent of a throne. He watches his son approach with interest, his gaze critical.
Pavel walks away without acknowledging my presence.
I might as well be for decoration. I basically am.
Urging myself to calm down and breathe, I remain exactly where I am, counting the seconds Roman is gone.
It only takes a minute for things to change.
Uncle Leonid sidles up to me from the left, reeking of liquor and cigar smoke. Across the room, Roman is engaged in conversation with the sovietnik, so distracted he doesn’t even look up.
My breath stalls as I silently beg for him to.
“Zdravstvuy, shlyukha. Ya obeshchal, chto vernus. Ya khochu imet tebya? * .”
He hooks his arm with mine and pivots on his heel.
“No,” I say, pulling back. “Please don’t.”
“Come. Now.”
Several onlookers notice, staring in interest as he yanks me toward the door. The same cold panic that had dripped over me earlier returns in spades. I don’t know whether to scream and make a scene or follow the orders I’ve been given, which are to remain silent and obedient.
Do I dare disturb everyone in the room? Do I dare interrupt Roman and the sovietnik? The same man who I was supposed to kidnap just a few days ago?
What if drawing attention to myself would lead him to finding out who I really am?
All of these thoughts and more are on my mind as Leonid drags me into the hall and then through another door.
He slams it shut and pushes me against the wall of the dark room I’ve found myself in.
A closet of some kind.
“Very good,” he mutters, grinning through the deep shadows. “Now I will have you. Whores belong to all of us.”
“Stay away from me!”
I knee him in the gut as he closes in. He groans and half folds over before shoving me back against the wall and launching his palm at my face.
His slap has me reeling, sharp pain erupting across my cheek.
“Don’t fight,” he growls, pinning me with his pudgy body. One hand covers my mouth like earlier while the other slips under my dress.
“NO!” I scream against his hand. “STOP IT! HELP!”
“Shhhh, bitch.”
His fingers grope around my sex, shoving aside my panties in their search. He finds what he’s looking for, jamming two digits inside me to another strangled cry from me.
“Yes,” he grunts, looking me in the eye, grinning. He twists his fingers deeper and makes me wince from the burning dryness and discomfort. “You feel nice. Next is my cock. Do you want it?”
Tears have blurred my vision, slipping down my cheeks.
I feel dizzy. I feel sick to my stomach.
The moment is so fucked up and triggering, I’m on the verge of passing out.
How could this happen to me? How could I have wound up like this?
He pumps his fingers roughly into my dry sex with no regard for me or care that I’m in tears, trembling against the wall.
He removes them only once he’s decided his penis is next.
As he goes to unzip his pants, a new wave of panic erupts inside me. Some little kernel of fight that refuses to let this happen.
I’d rather the sovietnik find out who I am and put my head on a pike like Roman said than to let Leonid inside me.
I make a split second decision.
My teeth snap shut around one of Leonid’s fat fingers and I bite harder than I’ve ever bitten anything in my life.
I bite so damn hard, I feel bone. I hear a crunch .
And I taste metallic liquid in my mouth.
“ARGHHHHH!” Leonid screams in immediate anguish. He jumps back, clutching his bloody hand, holding it up to see his finger half bitten off.
I waste no time rushing for the door.
Unfortunately, to get to it, I have to pass by him. He grabs me by the shoulder and tosses me back like he’s flinging a sack of laundry. His fist collides with my face, striking me down to the floor.
His boot comes next.
“You fucking whore!” he screams as he kicks me again and again.
I cry and cover my head, curling up into a ball to protect myself.
The attack feels never ending.
It feels like there will be no rescue for me and this is it—I’ll be murdered inside this closet, beaten to death for daring to object to being sexually violated.
But just as Leonid lands a particularly crushing blow to my ribs, the closet door’s wrenched open and light pours into the tiny space.
I look up with squinting eyes to see a broad, towering man in the doorway.
Roman looks more livid than I’ve ever seen him, his features becoming almost animalistic as he surveys the scene he’s discovered.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
* ? My dobivayemsya progressa. My rasshiryayem sferu deyatel’nosti - We are making progress. We are expanding our scope of operations.
* ? Nedostatochno bystro. Byli oshibki - Not fast enough. There have been mistakes.
* ? Moya vina? Menya ne pokhitili. Ty byl, Zver - My fault? I wasn’t kidnapped. You were, beast.
* ? Khvatit drat’sya. Yest’ dela povazhneye. My obsudim pozzhe. Odnazhdy devochki rabotayut - Enough fighting. There are more important things to do. We'll discuss it later. Once the girls are working
* ? Zdravstvuy, shlyukha. Ya obeshchal, chto vernus. Ya khochu imet tebya - Hello, slut. I promised I’d be back. I want to have you.