Chapter Five
Maksim.
“And this shade?”
“Orchid.”
“And this one?”
“Are you blind? That’s fuchsia.”
“Hmm…” I trail my fingertips over the skin of her shapely hips, her ribs, over the span of her stomach, and under the wire of her bra, pulling my wife closer.
Inhaling her scent. Spun sugar and berries with a hint of citrus fills my nostrils, and I am lost in the beautiful, familiar sensation that is my wife beneath my fingertips.
Does she know how feral she makes me feel?
Does she know just exactly how much I love her? My sweet Duchessa.
She hums, “Maksim darling… I have to get ready.”
“Do you really?” I plant a soft kiss on her shoulder that bears my name.
My wife is a delicacy. I kiss the column of her throat.
Behind her ear, slipping the strap of her bra down her shoulder on the tattoo of my last name.
“You are so soft… so very, very pink. So warm… I don’t think your professor needs you as much as your husband does… ”
The soft giggle in her throat and the way she’s relaxing in my arms tells me I’m winning her over.
“Maksi…” she sighs… “They’re coming for you.”
“No! Just a little longer, Duchess, please…” I cough, gasping for breath as I wake up.
Fuck!
I feel my eyelids flutter; the brightness of the white room is annoyingly fucking blistering.
I feel like my retinas are being burned off every time I open my eyes.
My shoulders hurt; I know my left one has to be dislocated.
The good thing is instead of hanging like I was, I'm strapped to a fucking steel bed.
The metal is cold and stiff under my spine, making the pain in my shoulder ache worse.
I can feel the glass still embedded in the skin of my forearm. Motherfuckers.
I haven’t eaten since they fucking blindsided Elio and me back in New York.
They haven't turned the lights off whatsoever. I have no sense of time. They're pushing gas through the vents. There's an IV in my arm and a goddamn catheter in my dick. Every now and then I get a jolt of fucking adrenaline between the bouts of laughing gas. Not to mention I’m disoriented, and every time that fucking prick comes in here, he has a goddamn cattle prod like I’m a raging bull that’s going to charge at him.
Beast.
It’s the word he throws around, and the more I hear it, the more I feel it.
I close my eyes again, nodding off, even though I know what’s coming.
I haven’t seen Kane in what I think is days.
One of his annoying wasps buzzes into my room in white scrubs, donning a mask, gloves, and a surgical cap.
It’s like they think that if I don’t know their faces, I won’t come for them when Sabrina comes to get me.
I cough, leaning over as much as I can to release the yellow bile that’s crawled up my throat.
“Inject me again, and I won’t survive it.
Whatever they have planned for me will go up in flames. ”
Brown eyes blink at me. “I’m just here to take your vitals. It’s almost time,” she informs me casually, like I’m just some ordinary motherfucker. I’m assuming it’s a she. The voice is a garbled mess in my ears. But her stature is small and petite. She’s been here before. I think.
“I don’t understand why you’re working here. How could you help do this to people?” I croak angrily but too tired to try to fight.
“Some of us are just as trapped here as you are,” she replies, keeping her voice low, releasing my arm from the restraint to take my blood pressure.
“Am I the only one here?”
She shakes her head.
“How long have I been here?”
The nurse wraps the pressure cuff around my arm with a cold, dainty, latex-gloved hand.
I shiver at her touch, rejecting it reflexively.
For the first time ever, I miss my wife’s lace-gloved ones.
I miss seeing them. I miss the sight of her taking them off before she touches me after being out in public all day.
The nurse huffs out a sigh like she was really hoping I wouldn’t have woken up and just let her do her job in peace.
“At this location? Three days.” She continues to move, but her eyes do meet mine.
I know I’ve seen her before, there is a familiarity in her bronze stare and the longer I look, the more I know I have.
But I can only remember bits and pieces between lucid moments.
“Seems your wife has been a busy woman trying to find you.”
The back of my eyeballs sting at the mention of Sabrina.
My wife. My love. Tresses of pink champagne hair.
The soft cadence of her voice. The feel of her flesh against mine.
I’m going to survive this. I have to. “Tell me more, please,” I beg.
I would never beg for my life. But for my wife?
Every minute of every hour, I’ll beg for news of her.
“I’ve already said too much.”
The pressure around my arm begins to ache with every pump. I keep my eyes on the white ceiling. “Please. I can help you if I get out of here alive. If you want me to survive, I need to know,” I barter.
The little nurse sighs. “We were at a discreet location, but it seems she’s had your men searching high and low for you. She was getting too close.”
Oh, God.
“They decided to circle back to a location they’ve already had searched.”
Oh, fuck no.
“Where am I?” I ask, voice cracking. I try to swallow the emotion down like a shot of SokoloVodka, but it’s more like molasses—thick and sticking to my throat.
With the loud unstrapping of the Velcro, she replies quickly. “Wales.”
A cross between woe and vitriol consumes me, causing my heart to stammer in my chest, abnormal and thundering in my ears.
“I won’t forget this kindness you've given me,” I promise her.
She steps away from me once I’m restrained again.
She disappears from my sight and the door slams shut.
The sound of gas fills the room, and I shut my eyes as tight as I can, willing myself to go back to her in limbo.
I chant her name for what feels like eons until finally…
“Hello, husband… I’ve missed you.”
My heart contracts.
Sabrina…