Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Daisy
I woke up to the scream I hadn’t had a chance to scream when Ilya had attacked me. The sound echoed and bounced back at me.
My eyes flew open, or at least I thought they did. Wherever I was, it was so dark that I couldn’t tell.
Panic gripped me, locking my next scream in my throat. It was as dark as a grave.
Had Ilya?
My throat worked as I tried to swallow down the vomit that bubbled up.
Had he buried me alive?
The moment I had thought it, I lost control of my bladder completely. And the stench of urine made me gag again. This time I had no choice but to try and twist so I could vomit without choking on it.
He knew how I felt about enclosed dark spaces.
I’d told him my worst fear was being buried alive.
He’d laid there and listened to me. Stroking my hair and promising me that he would never let that happen.
And I had believed him. But then again, I had believed a lot of other things he had promised back then.
It stood to reason that he would use that fear against me. He wasn’t known as a monster for nothing.
I had known from the second our eyes had met that he was going to kill me. Ilya had always been feared, but I’d never really been afraid of him until that moment. Now I wasn’t just afraid; I was terrified.
And he wouldn’t let me explain. I wasn’t even sure why I needed to explain. He had wanted me gone; he had made it clear that I was never to return.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he had been blinded with rage because I had dared to come back?
Yeah, that must be it.
Except he kept saying I was meant to be dead. That didn’t make sense.
I needed to think, but I couldn’t because the darkness was too close. I couldn’t breathe.
Finally, the vomit stopped. Breathing heavily, I rested my cheek on my hand and tried to calm my rapidly beating heart. I had to calm down so I could think.
It took maybe five seconds, although it seemed longer, before I realized that my hand was on carpet.
Rough carpet.
That meant I wasn’t in my grave. I rubbed my fingers across it. It wasn’t the kind of carpet someone had in their home. It was rougher.
I sniffed, trying to find another clue, but all I could smell was vomit and piss.
Still, I lifted my head just slightly. Enough to peer around me in the darkness. Nothing. I couldn’t see anything.
Something that sounded like a car alarm blared, making me jump and hit my head on the metal above me.
A car.
I sucked in a pungent breath. I was in a car. Probably the trunk.
Not dead. Not buried alive.
Although I wasn’t sure this was much better.
I settled myself back down, my cheek resting on my hand as I curled up around myself.
No, this wasn’t much better. This was torture. I was locked in the dark, covered in my own waste, and I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.
Which, I realized, was the whole point. Ilya wanted me to suffer.
He wanted me to cry.
A single tear slipped down my face as I squeezed my eyes together and waited.
I didn’t know how long I waited. Time seemed to stand still in the blackness, but it was long enough for my muscles to cramp. And I couldn’t stretch out to relieve them.
Red-hot burning was making me shake when the trunk was finally opened. Low lights from the underground parking garage blinded me. Throwing up a hand to cover my eyes, I tried to shy away from the huge shadowy figure that reached in for me.
My hands flapped uselessly as something was rammed between my teeth again, locking my scream in my throat.
Hard hands lifted me out of my dark prison, and a gargle of disgust ripped its way out of the man’s throat as he dropped me.
"You’re disgusting, Daisy," he growled out, wiping his piss- and puke-soaked hands down his trousers. My legs wouldn’t work after so long cramped up, so I fell to the hard ground the second he let go of me.
Sobbing, I looked up at him.
Not Ilya. This man was bigger. More brute-like. I didn’t recognize his face, but he clearly knew me.
"The boss wants you upstairs." He continued to look down at me coldly.
"But am I fuck carrying you up there. Did you piss yourself?
" There was a mocking tone to his voice. Like it wasn’t absolutely normal to wet yourself when you were afraid.
I wanted to scream that at him, but my mouth was full of a rag, and I could barely breathe, let alone talk.
I hung my head.
"Get up."
How could I tell him that I couldn’t?
"Get the fuck up, Daisy, and walk. I ain't carrying you, you stink."
I knew I did, but it wasn’t like I could help it.
"Get up, otherwise I’ll put a bullet in your skull right now and save the boss the trouble."
Shoulders shaking, I slowly lifted my head to him.
The first flash of defiance entered my eyes.
He wasn’t going to murder me. If Ilya wanted me dead, then I would have been dead by now.
Whatever Ilya had in store for me upstairs, he wanted me alive for it, otherwise I would be rotting in a shallow grave somewhere.
Slowly, because my muscles screamed in protest with every movement, I pushed myself to my feet.
"Move." Grabbing my arm, he yanked me towards the private elevator I recognized instantly. I knew where I was; I knew where I was going.
Home.
I had been brought home, even though it hadn’t been my home in six years. A fresh wave of nausea hit me. I had dreamt of coming back, imagined how things could have been different if he had let us be a family, but I didn’t want to go up there now.
My feet dragged to a stop. Breathing heavily, I stared at the sleek metal doors like they were a monster which was about to swallow me whole. Which, in a way, was completely true.
"I said fucking move. I don’t have all day." His fingers dug into my arm cruelly as I stumbled.
"Fuck you," I mumbled around the gag. "I’m going to make you—" It was all bravado that I didn’t feel, but if I was going to die, then I would do it bravely.
His booming laugh cut me off. Jabbing the button, he continued to laugh. "That threat might have been scarier if you weren't covered in your own filth." He continued to laugh as I was pushed into the elevator.
I knew exactly how long it took to get from the subbasement to the penthouse because I had counted the seconds numerous times when I had been excited to get back up to Ilya. Like the time I had rushed home to tell him I was having his child. The child I had just met.
Now I dreaded it.
The goon's laughter had faded away by the time we reached the top, and his face turned serious. Like he didn’t want Ilya to know what he had just threatened.
His hand closed cruelly around my arm again. Not stopping, he dragged me across the open-plan room that seemed more homier now than it had been. I was sure I saw a toy box overflowing with toys by the window, but couldn’t be sure because we were walking too fast.
"Here she is." I was all but thrown into the room, again landing heavily on my bloody knees. A sob ripped from my throat. Tears blinded me for a second before I blinked them away.
My room. This was my room. The one I had been brought to that first night. Every single thing about it was the same. Right down to the photo of me and my father at my graduation on the nightstand.
"You can leave. Take the night off," Ilya said from the chair in the corner.
"I’ll have to get the car detailed. She—"
There was a sniff and the sound of someone climbing to their feet. "I can smell it."
I stayed on my knees as Ilya walked slowly towards me.
Keeping my head down, I tried to breathe quietly. Like that would make a difference. There was nowhere to hide, and I wouldn’t get far if I ran.
"Welcome home, Daisy," his voice was deadly quiet.
"Ilya—" I tried to say around the gag, but all that did was make me choke on my too-dry mouth. Hanging my head again, I gagged.
I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d last had a drink, but it felt like forever.
Ilya's hand was more gentle than his goon's as he heaved me to my feet and tugged the gag out of my mouth, but I kept my head down, sucking in deep breaths that did nothing to help the panic gripping me.
"Won’t you look at me?" he asked quietly. His voice a smooth velvet whisper. But without the gentleness that I was used to from him. This whisper was full of threat.
I clenched my thighs together before I could lose control of my bladder again.
I shook my head, my eyes glued to my bare feet.
Gripping my chin, he tilted my chin up. "Look at me."
I did. I was powerless to do anything but stare into his blue eyes. So beautiful, but so cold.
Ilya searched my face. And then reached for the bottle of water on the side. Tipping it to my dry lips, he let me drink half the bottle before snatching it away from me. A weird mewling sound left my lips. I wanted more. Needed more. It felt like I hadn’t had a drink in weeks.
"You should have stayed dead, Daisy."
I hated the quietness of his voice. The promise of pain was all too real in it. It was the kind of voice that was whispered in your ear just before your throat was slit.
"Are you going to kill me?" I didn’t want the last thing I saw to be his beautiful blue eyes. The same eyes I had grown to love. From beneath my lashes, I glanced up at him.
For a second he looked shocked, and then his eyes narrowed into slits. "You can’t kill what is already dead."
My heart slammed into my chest. There he went again. Talking like I had died. Blaming me for disappearing when it had been him that had made me disappear.
I opened my mouth to tell him that, and he cut me off. "I am not sure what I am going to do with you yet, Daisy," he admitted with a sigh. "Do you recognize this room?"
The change of direction in the conversation caused my head to snap up. Where was this going?
"Yes," I mumbled. Of course I recognized it. It was my room. Even when I had moved into the master suite with him, the only thing that had moved with me was my clothes.
"I didn’t change a thing after you," he paused. And the first note of sadness entered his voice before he shoved it back down inside of himself. "Died."
"I didn’t die, Ilya."
His head snapped up. "I can see that, Daisy. It might have been better for you if you did. It would definitely be better for me. You coming back to life is a complication I don’t want to deal with," he mumbled and sighed.
It sounded like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "You should have stayed dead."
I didn’t say a word. What could I even say to that? He knew I hadn’t died.
"Strip."
My head shot back up, my eyes widening. "What?"
"Take your clothes off," he ordered.
Nothing had changed there; he still expected to be obeyed. I shrugged my coat from my shoulders, holding it out for him.
He stared at it for a second, and then, closing his hand back around my arm, he pulled me into the bathroom.
"Drop it there." He pointed to the tile.
I did what he asked without question. My hands shook as my blouse and skirt followed it. And that’s where I paused.
I was standing there shivering in front of him in just my underwear.
"Ilya."
He didn’t answer me. His eyes were glued to the swell of my breasts against the plain cotton bra. The tip of his tongue snaked out to slide across his bottom lip, and his eyes darkened.
I knew the look on his face. I had seen it a hundred times before.
He wanted me.
Even now when I was terrified of him and covered in my own filth, he wanted me.
"Take your clothes off, Daisy, now."
"No."
That one word caused his head to snap up. "You dare to tell me no?"
"I dare. I’d rather you kill me than rape me." My words came out braver than I felt.
Ilya's face tightened; his eyes dropped from my defiant face to my breasts to my stomach. Or more specifically, the scar that dissected it. Where my child had been ripped from my body six years ago, and the surgeon hadn’t even bothered to care enough to stitch me up neatly.
It happened in an instant. One second there was lust darkening his eyes, and the next they were flooded with rage.
"You think I want to touch you?" Again my arm was grabbed. Always the same arm at the same place. I was going to have a bruise. He pushed me into the shower, turning the ice-cold water on me as I screamed in shock.
"You disgust me, Daisy," he seethed as he hosed me down. Instantly, my white underwear was soaked and turned transparent. My nipples grew diamond-hard under the freezing cold spray.
"You are covered in piss and throw-up. You stink," he continued.
"And you stand there and think I want you.
" Leaning into the shower, he drew our faces close together. He didn’t seem to care that he was soaking himself as well.
"I do not want you. I can barely stand to look at you.
Now," his voice dropped to a whisper that froze me more thoroughly than the water did. "Take off your underwear before I take a knife and cut it from you. I’m angry, Daisy. My hands are shaking. I wouldn’t trust me with a knife. "
I stared at him, open-mouthed.
"Strip," he ordered, rearing back out of the cold spray.
I shimmied my full panties down my legs and stepped out of them.
My hands shook so much it took me three attempts to unclasp my bra.
Finally, I straightened, my arms trying to cover as much of my nudity as I could.
I didn’t know why I bothered. Ilya had seen me naked so many times.
But that had been the old me. I wasn’t that woman anymore. My body had changed.
Reaching out, he pulled my hands to the side, baring me to him. And there was absolutely nothing in his face. Nothing at all. Not one speck of emotion.
I swallowed hard.
Finally, he let go of my hands with a sigh and stepped back. "Clean yourself up, Daisy. You will stay here. Locked in this room." His eyes swept up and down me before he bent to pick up my discarded clothes. "Until I decide what to do with you."