Chapter 45
Irelynn
I wake with a kink in my neck that rivals the painful throb in my cheek. As soon as reality begins to settle in, I realize why. I’m strapped to a metal chair, and in my forced slumber, my head had rolled forward until my chin had connected with my chest. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting like this, but if I had to shoot my shot in the dark, I’d say it’s been at least a few hours judging by the pain in my body. All of my body.
What the hell is happening? Where am I?
Blinking against the bright fluorescent lights that flicker overhead like something out of a horror movie, I will my eyes to adjust.
It’s not like something out of a horror movie. This is a horror set—and it’s my life.
How did I get here?
My teeth begin to clap even though the pain in my jaw begs me to stop. The room is much larger than an average room, and it’s clearly used for torture.
The walls are concrete and stained a rusty brown. The floor is the same, more so just beneath the chair that I sit on. I realize with sinking dread that it’s not rust, but dry blood. My eyes land on a second chair, again, metal. It sits against the wall, empty. Against the same wall is a foldable table. On the top is a black case. It’s closed, but that doesn’t mean my imagination doesn’t run wild with all the things it could contain to maim a person. To kill…
Oh, God, help me.
Unhinged fear rattles loose inside my chest as I struggle against my restraints. My hands are knotted behind my back, my ankles tied to the chair legs. I haven’t been gagged, but I’m too afraid to scream. A cold sweat breaks out across my forehead and down the length of my spine. Something sharp cuts into my wrists as I tug. I don’t break free.
A helpless whimper breaks free as I do another scan of the windowless room. Then I stiffen, because the sound of a key sliding into the door has fear unlike any other swelling inside my chest. It expands against my lungs until they feel as though they’re being squeezed by razor wire.
I’m going to die.
Whoever has me is going to kill me.
Ilya…
The door swings open and a man I’ve never seen in my life strolls into the room. His confidence is massive, his face surprisingly handsome for an older man. But the dark eyes that land on me are impossibly cruel, entirely cold, and promise a dreadful death.
I tear my eyes from the first man as a second follows. “Boris!”
He gives me a glance but rips it away too quickly. The hope in my heart stutters, falling into the muddled confusion of how I arrived in this place.
A flash of memory lands hot in my consciousness. Boris driving, me in the back seat. A conversation. Then a gated yard, rough hands on my body, Boris saying that he’s sorry.
I wince at the memory of a man’s pleading screams—the pop of a gunshot.
Someone beat me into unconsciousness after I’d heard that pop.
Ice expands in my veins as my memory comes back to me in suffocating waves of icy cold reality. My reality.
I’m really going to die here. In this room. Like…this.
Who is going to care for Lucy? Ilya will surely keep him. Polina will love him for me.
Tears burn my eyes.
Two months ago, I’d been a girl in a one room apartment with a soggy ceiling. Outside of fiction, I hadn’t truly believed that this could happen.
The first man grips the free chair to swing it closer to mine. My heart cowers into my spine as he lowers his big body into the chair, appraising me with cruel eyes.
“My name is Ivan Popov. If you wish to live, you’ll do exactly as you’re told.”
If I wish to live…“W-why am I h-here?”
He tsks. “I ask the questions.”
I clamp my mouth shut tight. He watches, looking mildly pleased. He asks Boris, “Has he responded?”
“No.”
“Pity.” Ivan sighs, then his eyes roam again over me. “She is beautiful, I’ll give him that.”
Boris doesn’t reply, but I think I see his jaw clench.
I want to cower under Ivan’s scrutiny, but I can’t exactly move tied up as I am. Ivan studies me for long moments where nothing but the sound of my raspy, ragged breaths, sound. Then he says, “Ilya loves you, does he not?”
“I—” Oh, God, is this about Ilya?
My heart…
Ivan stands, moving to the black box. He unclasps the clip, carefully, slowly opening the lid. Flicking florescent light catches the gleaming surface of what I now know for certain is a collection of torture devices. Blades, drills, pliers and tools I can’t name. Some, I’ve never even seen before.
A sob catches in my throat. Boris shifts, the mask he wears cracking just a bit. Ivan, however, is entirely unaffected.
His thickly accented English is smooth, but the cruel edge can’t be mistaken. “It would be a very, very bad idea to lie to me, Irelynn Taylor. I do not make a habit of asking questions I don’t already know the answer to.”
That caught sob slips. To stop my lip from trembling, I bite it.
“I will ask again,” Ivan walks away from the box, leaving the instruments untouched. For now. “Does Ilya love you.”
“H-he says h-he d-does.”
“Do you think he will come for you?”
I begin to cry. No, not just cry—full body sobs I can’t reign in no matter how I try. I’m so ashamed I’m not stronger than this. The women in my books—the captives in movies—this isn’t how they act.
But here I am, a real-life girl, a broken disaster. Finally, through my sobs, I nod. “Do y-you want him t-to come for m-me?”
“Oh, yes. I want very much for him to come for you.” Ivan takes the chair again. “That’s why I had my son bring you to me.”
My eyes fly to Boris. Horror lashes a talon across my heart as the echo of his voice saying, “My mother is dead. She was murdered by my father.”
This man—Ivan—is Boris’ father. And he killed his mother.
How? How does he have his loyalty?
How did Ilya not know?
Ivan laughs as he watches the thoughts drift through my mind as clear as if they were words etched into my face. “Boris is my bastard. I haven’t claimed him publicly, but he is loyal to me regardless.”
Swallowing hard, I ask, “Why?”
“Why?” Ivan cocks his head, a big, scarred hand flipping to the side. “Why do I want Ilya Volkov?”
I nod. Even that small movement jars my tender, throbbing head.
Ivan grins. “He has my daughter. You are the trade I will offer to get her back,” he explains. “And then I will kill him. I will peel the skin from his body and make you watch. I will take his eyelids and make him watch as I make you a whore.” I flinch, horrified dread seeping like unchecked cancer through my veins.
Ivan chuckles, his dark eyes landing on Boris. “He may have had her, but she is still innocent. I can sense it.” His lip curls. “She’ll make good money for me on her back. Or I could sell her to the gangs in Brazil. Africa, even.” He considers. “Depending on how rough the men are with her, she could even go to auction.”
Boris says nothing. As my eyes implore his, he doesn’t even look at me.
This man is talking about selling me—my body—for sex. He’s talking about raping me, horrifically, in front of the man I love. Who loves me.
I’m so in shock, my body isn’t even trembling anymore. My mind can’t connect this reality to life as I know it. To my existence on this planet.
This doesn’t happen.
But it does. Every. Day.
My eyes shift from Boris to Ivan. “You sell people?”
“Ironic, isn’t it. The reason for this war, the excuse he uses not to work with me, is the fate that will befall the woman he loves.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
My mouth closes, jaw setting hard. I think of strong arms holding me close, of kisses that sink so deep, I feel them in the pit of my soul. I think of love.
“Yes,” Ivan says quietly. My eyes flutter open to see that his face has changed to one of fascination. “You were right, Boris. She is a diamond in a sea of gemstones.”
Again, Boris doesn’t reply. But the hard set of his jaw, and the muscle that ticks there tells me he knows this isn’t okay. He knows it’s wrong. He knows better…
“Auction it is.” Ivan stands, and with nothing else, he walks from the room.
Silence descends over me and Boris. I can feel his eyes on me even as I stare in shock at the empty chair.
Finally, I whisper, “I trusted you.”
“I know.” With that, he turns and exits.
I hear the key in the door, and slump in my chair as a new set of desperate tears begin to flow.