Chapter 7 Ivy
IVY
Ispent all night crying myself to sleep while trying to wrap my mind around everything Ruslan told me. The plane was some important thing between two warring families in New York and now each family thinks I had something to do with the crash?
And Ruslan has kidnapped me but justifies it by telling me it’s for my own safety.
Safety that I don’t care about.
I just want my mom.
By the time morning breaks, my eyes are puffy and stiff and my throat burns from the hours spent crying. Between that and the aching headache, likely from dehydration, I feel like shit.
It’s tempting to stay in bed and let the world pass me by, but the thought of anything further happening to my mom twists my already sensitive gut.
So I drag myself out of bed and into the ensuite, where a steaming hot shower washes away the sweat of my three-day fever and the salt of crying all night.
The steam even helps my eyes feel less swollen and eases my burning throat each time I breathe.
It’s a wonder I managed to keep the cast around my ankle dry.
After washing, I start to pat myself dry but my reflection in the mirror is so starkly different from normal that I screech to a halt and stare at myself.
My cheeks are sunken and hollow, my eyes red-rimmed and painful, and the wound on my forehead that stretches into my hairline stands out against my pale skin like an angry scar.
Clumps of wet, tangled hair frame my face, and several bruises cover my shoulders and torso, leading all the way down to the incision just below my ribcage.
That must have been where the nurse said I had surgery for internal bleeding.
It’s such an out-of-body experience to feel like no time at all has passed since the crash, but my body shows strong signs of healing. Four days unconscious after the crash, three days unconscious from fever and however many scattered in between when Ruslan drugged me.
The crash feels like it was just a day or two ago, not over a week.
Closing my eyes, I cover myself with the towel and hug myself while trying to make my mind go blank. I’m tired. I’m lost. And I want my mom.
After my shower, I dress in a loose T-shirt and soft jogging pants I find in a drawer in my room, then I wander the apartment to satisfy my curiosity. Despite being held here against my will, the freedom to explore is a nice concession.
The place is huge. There are three other rooms like the medical one I’ve spent most of my time in, a huge kitchen and lounge area, another corridor filled with closed and locked doors, an entertainment room, and a fully equipped gym.
That’s where I find Ruslan.
He’s got his back to me and he stands in front of a large window overlooking the city. Topless, his muscular back rolls and ripples in waves while he lifts dumbbells above his shoulders, then back down to his waist.
Despite everything, he’s painfully attractive.
It was a nice distraction when sitting across from him at the table eating my eggs.
His eyes are so blue it’s like gazing up at a warm sky in the middle of summer, and his ear-length hair is just long enough to caress his face in sweeping curves.
Never mind his mouthwateringly muscular build.
In another life, I’d ask for his number at a bar and get all giddy over the prospect of texting him.
Not this life, though.
I hobble into the middle of the gym just shy of a weight bench and grip my crutch while trying to stand as tall as I can. “Take me to see my mom.”
Ruslan doesn’t even falter in his workout. “No.”
Irritation pulses through me. “I’m not asking, I’m telling.”
“And I said no.”
“What’s stopping me from just walking out of here?”
Ruslan grunts softly. “About a hundred security procedures and biometric ID at the door.”
My stomach tightens faintly. Biometric ID? What kind of place is this? “I bet I could find a way past all of that.”
“Be my guest.” He doesn’t even look at me. He just keeps lifting those weights and staring out at the city.
Irritation gives way to anger and a pulse of despair worms up my throat like a bubble of acid. We both know I can’t do anything with a biometric ID, and I don’t want to walk away, only to be forced back here sheepishly.
But I can’t stay here.
“Look… please. You… you’ve told me all of this shit about the Mafia and drugs and the survivors being killed and I have no choice but to believe you.
You could be some fucking stalker with a weird obsession and you’re lying to me like this movie I saw once.
And I have to believe you because I can’t do anything about it.
But you told me my d-dad is dead.” Emotion prickles at the back of my throat and warmth builds behind my eyes.
“A-And that my mom was attacked so brutally that she’s in a coma.
I can’t… I can’t not be there for her. I can’t just stay here while she’s out there fighting for her life.
She’s my mom and I was supposed to fly back from L.A.
to see her after work and we were going to go to the theater together because she loves the theater.
It makes her feel fancy. It’s the only thing we do together, and now I can’t b-because she’s hurt and I just want to be with her so please, please let me see her.
I have nothing and no one else in this world.
Please let me see her. My dad is gone. My friends are gone.
My mom is all I have left, just please let me. Please.”
Fat tears cling to my lashes as I use all my strength to prevent them from falling, but as I fall silent and slightly breathless from the rush of words, they finally spill over and roll down my cheeks.
“I’m tired and I’m sore and I’m s-scared and I just… I want my mom.”
Ruslan continues his exercise throughout my entire speech, his back still facing me.
But as I finally fall silent and barely swallow a sob, he lowers his arms and turns to face me.
Sweat gleams across his smooth chest and mingles with a patch of hair dusted across his pecs.
His abdomen flexes as he pants and he curls his lower lip into his mouth while staring at me.
“Fine,” he says after a second of silence. “I’ll take you.”
I almost wish he didn’t. Mom is utterly unconscious and hooked up to so many machines that I can barely count all the wires as I hobble to her bedside, my heart pounding violently in my chest.
She’s barely recognizable. Her face is black and blue, covered in bruises, and one eye is swollen so completely that I doubt it would open even if she woke up.
One arm is in a cast, and I dare not imagine what she looks like under the blankets.
The dull, harsh light of the room does little to bring me any comfort, and when I take her bruised hand in mine, her fingers are cold.
“Who would do this?” I gasp as the tears come. I’m not strong enough to keep them at bay. “My mom is so gentle. She’s quiet. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Who would do this to her? Who?”
Ruslan, who remains at the door with his arms crossed, doesn’t say a word. He becomes one with the shadows much like the first time we met, and it’s easy to forget that he’s even there.
Staring at my mom, studying her poor face, my strength crumples and I burst out sobbing.
These aren’t like the tears from before.
I collapse against her bed, clutch at her arm, and sob openly as if the sound of my crying will somehow reach her and bring her back. The tears pour, my nose blocks, and the black hole of grief in my chest threatens to crush me as each aching sob that tears from me rips me open.
It hurts.
It hurts so much that I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
Who are these people? What kind of monsters would do this? What kind of men?
I sob until there’s nothing left, until I’m laying my head on her lap and letting dry sobs shudder out of me between weak breaths and gasps. Her hand is finally warm from my touch, and I tell myself it’s because she knows I’m here.
“You have the wrong person,” I croak, finally lifting my head and gazing at Ruslan who is barely visible in the dark.
“I don’t know anything about drugs. My family are normal people.
We’re not involved in anything. My dad didn’t d-deserve to die and my mom didn’t deserve to be r-raped and beaten like this.
You have the wrong people. I’m not a spy. I’m n-not. I’m not.”
Ruslan finally steps out of the shadows and walks closer. “It’s time to go.”
Anger surges through me like a surging fire.
“That’s it?” I snap, hauling myself onto unsteady feet.
“That’s all you have to say? What kind of cold fucking monster are you, huh?
Are you some kind of robot? Is that the kind of monster that would do this?
” I throw my hand back to my mother. “Look at her! Look at her and look at me and then tell me you think we’re part of your world!
Tell me you think we deserve this!” I slam both hands into his brick-solid chest. “How can you be so cold?”
“Ivy!” Ruslan’s large, warm hands suddenly clasp my shoulders and he holds me so tightly that I no longer wobble.
There’s a split second where something floods his eyes, something akin to sympathy.
“I can’t fix this. I can’t save your mom.
Nothing I can say will make you feel better.
But I swear I won’t stop until I find the truth, and then I hope the answers bring you comfort. ”
Had I the energy, I likely would have cried once more, but the warmth coming from him is too inviting to ignore. I sag forward, my head low. “I can’t lose her too,” I murmur. “I can’t. I can’t do this by myself.”
“We’re taking care of her,” Ruslan says quietly. “The best we can. But we really have to go.”
Exhausted and defeated, I agree. Ruslan lets me kiss my mom goodbye and try to smooth out her hair, then we trudge out of the hospital.
Halfway out, pain flares under my armpit from my crutch and Ruslan seems to catch on immediately because within the next step, he takes my crutch from me and offers his arm instead.
I clutch at his thick forearm and let myself get distracted by the strong, smooth muscle under my hands. It’s better than thinking about anything else. “Sorry I called you a monster,” I murmur as we walk down the steps toward the car Ruslan parked.
“I don’t take it personally,” he replies. “You have a lot to process. You need to yell and insult? Go for it. You need to break things? I can arrange that.”
“Why?” I ask as we reach the sidewalk. “Out of everything you’ve told me, I don’t understand why you even care.”
Ruslan looks at me and his lips part, but before sound comes out, he suddenly stumbles forward as two men launch themselves out of the crowd and collide with him. All three men crash down to the ground with a grunt just as a thin hand seals around my upper arm and jerks me off balance.
“What the— hey! Get your hands off me!”
Unstable on one foot, I lose all balance as the stranger hauls me forward toward a police car parked two cars down from Ruslan’s vehicle.
“Stop!” I glimpse Ruslan one last time as he climbs to his feet and punches one of his attackers so hard that they fly back toward the steps, but the other launches up and latches onto his back like some kind of spider monkey.
It’s the last thing I see before I’m slammed down onto the hood of the police car and my bony assailant jerks my arm up behind my back.
“Ow! Let me go! What the hell are you doing?” Warm, throbbing pain spreads through my abdomen and a pulse of nausea follows as the man jerks my other arm behind my back.
My heart pounds like a drum in my ears as cold metal circles one wrist, then the other, and a familiar voice drifts close to my ear.
“You’re under arrest, remember?”
Is this the cop from the hospital?
Within sixty seconds, I’ve been handcuffed and thrown into the back of the cop car without explanation, and no one around us seems to care. They see the cop uniforms and that’s all the justification they need.
“Wait!” I gasp, trying to call through the window to the officer standing just outside my door. “There’s been some kind of mistake! Please, this isn’t right—”
The door next to me jerks open with a screech of metal and a sudden, sharp spike of hope rises within me when I glimpse Ruslan’s face.
That hope morphs into instant dread as he’s thrown in next to me and he lands in a heap. Blood trickles from a nasty gash near his temple and my stomach knots tightly as it sinks into dark depths. The front doors of the car open and two men climb in, but I barely spare them a glance.
“Ruslan?”
He doesn’t reply, nor does he move.
He’s unconscious.