Chapter 10
The next three days, Nikolai pampers me.
Takes me to a spa that he’s purchased so that I can have all my wounds rejuvenated and pampered until I’m beyond spoiled. But it doesn’t erase the bruises. It doesn’t ease the bone deep ache in my shoulders or the burning shred of my throat. Every move hurts. Does he know that? Does he care? There was a time that I had relished the love bites and bruises that he left in our moments of passion. But this? This is something else. I can’t sit. I can hardly walk because of how my thighs brush together. All that I want to do is soak in my tub and cry until the ache inside of me eases.
But even that’s not allowed.
It’s almost performative. The way that he trots me out of the house and holds my hand on the way to each and every new location that he takes me to. I know he’s trying to assuage his guilt. To trick me into thinking that nothing is wrong and that I deserved that level of punishment.
I didn’t.
Did I?
Jewels. Dresses. Manicure. Pedicure. Salves and ointments all luxuriated upon me.
Nikolai bathes me. Buys me a whole new wardrobe and takes me to dinner. He must feel bad, or else he wouldn’t bother, right? He loves me, he just got a little carried away. That’s all that was, Nikolai would never want to actually hurt me. Right?
I think I would have bought it, this new leaf that he’s pretending to turn over, had he not left me in the cell. I couldn’t sleep that night. I stood there, in agony, for hours. My mind had run wild, going over every possible scenario and playing the whole scene over in my head. This isn’t the man I love. More than that, this isn’t a man who loves me. Not like I thought that he did.
I let him do it.
I let him spoil me. I let him hurt me. I wear the bruises like reminders, the welts that ache every time I move. The same marks that had made Horus do a triple take when he saw me at lunch the day after. The bruises that only seem to be getting worse.
I can’t do this.
This isn’t the woman that I am.
But I smiled, and I endured. I let the monster touch me, hold me and fuck me every day on every surface that he wanted because he was acting like it was the early days of our marriage, where I just couldn’t keep my hands off him. I wanted him. Craved him. I needed him inside me every minute of the day like a drug addict.
How could I have been so foolish? So blind as to think that a man like this could ever change. It was temporary. I bet Helena once thought the same thing, and Lilian before that. I’m just the next girl on his hit list, aren’t I?
Unless I agree to be his little doll. But even then, he might only play with me until he breaks me completely. Then on to the next. Isn’t that what Alek was saying to me? Twice makes a pattern. What does three make? Habit? Does Nikolai actually respect women at all?
Three days is all my husband’s affection lasts before he packs up and ships off to Fort Worth. Back to his damned little war. Back to make a sacrifice out of Helena. I hope it is a trap. I hope that it snaps on him and eats him alive.
Leaving me in that cell for hours in the worst pain that I’ve ever felt might just be the very best thing that he’s ever done for me.
I remember who I am now.
Horus stays behind to watch me, and he can watch as I get the fuck out of here. He won’t stop me. I won’t let him.
Nikolai has only been gone for a handful of hours before I’m back in the cells again.
I can’t even look at the one he dragged me out of. I know what I will see there. Blood, semen and sweat pooling the floor under where I hung. Where I cried for hours begging Nikolai to come back, to free me. Sobbing until I couldn’t breathe as my limbs went numb. Where I had been forced to soil myself from pain. Never again. He will never touch me again.
Nikolai thinks that he broke me.
I will let him think whatever he wants.
I open Alek’s cell and enter silently.
“No,” he says immediately, his voice strained. He is weak. No doubt Nikolai hasn’t fed him in three days. I brought a water bottle and I put it to his lips, but he spits it out. “Get out of here. I won’t do this, I won’t let him hurt you because of me again.”
“Shut up.” I say softly and bring the water bottle to his lips again.
If he doesn’t drink it, I’m going to shove it down his throat.
“Get out.” He says as water dribbles out of the corners of his mouth.
I stop long enough to look him directly in the eyes. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“No, you have to run. You have to get out of here.”
“That’s what I’m doing.” I repeat just as firmly, hoping that he will understand. “You’re coming with me.”
“He will kill you.”
I don’t answer him as I start trying to figure out a way to get him loose from his chains. I manage to free the shackles on his wrists, but the one around his neck, rooting him to the far wall doesn’t budge. I’ve never seen a keyhole like it before. I swear softly under my breath.
Well. Where there’s a lock there has to be a key. I just have to find it.
I leave the door wide open as I leave, searching for some sort of tool that I can use to break the chain somehow, or something that I can use to try to break the lock. Either way, we have to get out of here before Nikolai comes back. He will kill us both for this, and I just can’t let that happen. There’s no way of knowing how long he will be gone for.
I run into the kitchen, scrambling through drawers, looking for something, anything, that might help me even just a little bit. I find nothing. Knives would be fine for protecting myself but they won’t do anything against that thick iron chain.
“Mrs. Volkovich, what are you doing?” Horus’s voice cuts from the doorway.
I freeze.
Horus is my friend. At least, I think that we have become something like to friends in the years that he’s served my husband… but his loyalty is to Nikolai. Not me.
I spin slowly, looking him right in his dark eyes. He stands in a dark purple suit that makes his dark skin look flawless. He’s always so expertly tailored. His face belies no emotion whatsoever. I have no idea what he must be thinking. What is he going to do? His hands are clasped gently behind his back, but I know just how damn lethal he can be when he wants to be. I’ve never seen anybody move as swiftly or strike as fast as Horus can. Everything is going to be ruined before it even has a chance to start. If Horus stops me… it’s over. I’ll be stuck here forever. A deep feeling of hopelessness settles painfully in my gut.
Tears trickle out of the corners of my eyes.
I watch as his dark eyes slide over me, fear building in my gut as he seems to count each bruise that’s presently visible. He looks at the deep lines on my wrists and lingers on my breasts and thighs. Not in admiration, but examination. Nothing but cruel scrutiny in his gaze as if he is attempting to count the number of marks that Nikolai must have left on my skin. The physical wounds are only the beginning of the damage that Nikolai did three nights ago.
“I can’t…” I whisper in Arabic, begging him. For what, I don’t know. “Help me…”
Horus swallows thickly. “Mr. Volkovich left very specific instructions on how you were to be handled, Mrs. Anya. He said what I was to do if you attempted to move against his wishes.”
That dark feeling inside of me grows until I think that it might swallow me whole. “No…” I plead. I don’t even care that I’m begging. Not to him.
To Horus’ credit, he doesn’t look like he wants to stop me any more than I want to stay here.
“Don’t do it, he doesn’t have to know…” But even as the words leave my lips, I know that if Horus doesn’t tell on me, and the people monitoring the many, many security cameras too, that it’s Horus’s life on the line. I can’t ask him to die for me. That’s something that Nikolai and I have never had in common. Even as my chin wobbles and my eyes beg him to reconsider, I know what’s coming before it happens.
Horus moves like the shadow of death himself.
One moment he’s standing in front of me, and then next thing I know he’s behind me and then everything goes black.
I awaken in chains.
I can feel them banded around my ankles. The thick, cold metal is already irritating my skin as I slowly push myself up into a sitting position. My head is throbbing worse than any hangover I’ve ever had in my life. For a short, delusional moment I think that Nikolai simply forgot that we were playing and did not uncuff me, although he never used metal in the bedroom.
Oh yeah.
It all comes rushing back to me and panic builds. Higher and higher it goes until I feel like I’m hyperventilating. My hands do a quick examination of my body - nothing broken or bruised. Horus was not cruel when he locked me down here. I am certain that he likely laid me out on the ground carefully before chaining me up, praying the whole time for forgiveness for what he had no choice but to do.
I get it. It doesn’t make me hate it any less.
I swallow hard against the darkness. It feels like the walls are closing in on me. My mind rushes to Alek. He’s had to endure this cold, damp, darkness for weeks now. He hasn’t broken. I won’t either. Even if my heart feels like it’s about to beat clear out of my chest, I can do this. I tell myself that over and over again. I can do this. An opportunity will come. I just have to wait. I have to stay calm. I need to think.
This is the third time that Nikolai has imprisoned me against his will.
I can’t believe that I allowed myself to be so damned stupid.
I blink back tears of frustration, rage, and terror as I start to crawl toward the door - or as close to the door as I can reach before the chain around my ankle stops me from going any further. I pull and pull, until it feels like my foot is going to be severed from my body, but it doesn’t do any good.
I scream for help until my throat burns and I can taste iron in the back of it.
He can’t keep me down here forever.
Can he? This can’t be my life. What sort of marriage will this be for me? To be nothing more than an object to fuck and play with when he’s bored? Not a human and certainly not a woman… To be locked away like some animal whenever he feels like it?! Absolutely not.
But I can still feel part of my spirit breaking as I sink to the cold ground. I let the raw concrete leech the warmth from my body as I lay prone and hot, salty tears of bitterness flow from my face. I’m not Alek. I can’t do this for weeks. I need sunlight. I’ve been going so stir crazy locked away in this house as it is. I can’t stay here in this tiny room.
I won’t make it.
Just then the screen that I hadn’t noticed above the door to my cell flickers to life. It takes a moment before I realize what I’m looking at - it’s Alek’s cell. Alek, who is standing and straining at his chains while screaming something at me that I can’t hear. His desperation is clear on his face as he stares up at the screen above his own door. I don’t know if I want to know what he’s looking at… but it’s enough to have me slowly push up again. It’s enough of a distraction to try again.
Then the audio connects our two rooms, and his frantic shouting fills the small space so loudly that I flinch from it, and Alek stops.
“Fuck! Sorry!” He apologizes. Clearly, he didn’t know that they were going to change the audio. It’s crazy to me that we share a wall, and I hadn’t heard a single sound from him until the audio connected. I don’t know what purpose allowing us to see and hear one another serves… unless Horus is still looking out for me as much as he can.
“Can you hear me?” Alek asks, his voice rough from shouting.
I nod. I don’t trust my own voice right now.
“I’m here, it’s going to be okay. I’m with you Anya,” Alek says in a soothing voice, never once looking away from the monitor.
I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them. I nod once that I heard him, his comforting words that I’m not alone in this, but I can’t stop crying.
“We will get out of this, together, Anya, I promise.” Alek swears in the same kind voice.
I nod once more, but hope is fading fast.
There’s no way of knowing how many hours pass before the door to the cell opens again.
I must have passed out from the cold at some point because I don’t realize that I’m no longer alone until I can smell Horus’ oaky cologne. A thick, warm blanket is draped over my shoulders and another one is placed, folded, within my reach. His eyes are a silent apology as he places down a plastic plate with my dinner on it. Certainly, a lot better than what they are throwing in there for Alek, I’m sure.
I’m tempted to say so.
But I’m too angry. I’m too pissed off that this is all that our friendship means. Warm food and a blanket?
“Let me go.” I say flatly, holding his gaze as his lips pull into a thin line.
He says nothing as he leaves.
The days pass like that.
At least, I think it’s days. I think that Horus is coming down here at regular intervals to bring me food, but there’s no way to know that for sure. I stop even rolling over to glare at him as he comes into the room. Nikolai is winning. He’s breaking me. How much longer can I stay down here before I’m willing to give everything, anything to get out of here? How much more of this can I take? Everything seems to blend together. Days and night pass without end. At least that’s what it feels like. When the screens are allowed to be on, Alek and I pass the time talking about our lives, our childhoods - nothing that could condemn us if tortured out of it. I have no way of knowing what Nikolai is going to do to me when he returns home… much less Alek. We talk through the hours as if Nikolai doesn’t exist.
I wish he didn’t.
I wish that I had never met Nikolai. Never touched him. Never gotten involved.
Alek is now the only good thing that has ever come from my knowing Nikolai.
Wouldn’t it just fill my husband with rage if he were to know that little fact?
Every day, Horus comes, and I beg him to let us out. My temper is fragile and volatile as I shout at him for being a coward and a failure.
I wish I could say that I am wearing him down, but I doubt it.
Then, one day, the plate of food is different. A large piece of bread covering up a burner cell phone. Given the security, how can he have given me a burner phone without thinking that one of the men would see me using it? I look around the cell, hunger forgotten, and search for anywhere that the camera can’t see me. I look up at Alek’s screen to see for dead space…but they will still hear me.
I scoot against the back corner of the wall, hunched over and cover the glow of the flip phone with my body. I power it on and there’s a message on the home screen.
You have one hour - use it wisely.
I open the contacts and there’s only one number…
One hour. Clearly this number is somebody that Horus believes will help me the most… somebody that can get us out of here maybe? A place that we can go? I look up at the screen and wave the phone at Alek.
“What is that?!”
“What’s it look like?” I answer with a smile. “Tables are turning, my friend.”
Friend doesn’t feel like the right term for how I feel about him.
“You’re getting out!!” Alek exclaims, genuinely happy for me. I can see it on his face. He doesn’t even presume that I’m taking him with me?
“We are getting out, Alek. I’m not leaving without you.”
Alek doesn’t answer.
“Do you know this number?” It’s a shot in the dark as I read the number out to him, but he shakes his head no.
“Call it anyway?” Alek suggests.
Like we have a choice.
The only other numbers that I have memorized won’t do me any good. My father’s old lawyers and bail bondsmen certainly won’t help. They have long since moved on since my father’s death.
“I don’t know why I feel so nervous…” I confess as I start to dial.
“You’re braver than you know.” Alek says, something in his voice that I can’t quite place. I almost want to bite my nails, a nasty habit that I kicked when I was a kid.
The other end of the line picks up, but nobody answers.
“Hello?” I ask, hoping against hope.
“Who is this, and how did you get this number?”
Shit. I didn’t think of what to say next. I can’t use my married name, everybody knows my husband. My maiden name will get me nowhere. “...Anya.”
I close my eyes, embarrassed and frustrated because that means nothing.
“Anya?” The man repeats in a deep, calm voice. “Ah yes, I remember you.”
“You do?!” The voice doesn’t sound at all familiar to me.
“Tell Volkovich that he’s reached a new low if his wife is doing his dirty work.”
And the call ends.
I call back frantically, my hands shaking so hard it”s almost impossible to dial. Straight to voicemail.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I mutter, fear gripping my gut as I dial a third and fourth time.
On the fourth time he answers.
“This is a new fucking low! Even for you, Nikolai!” The man shouts on the other end of the line, but Alek interrupts.
“Daniel!” Alek shouts through the video screen.
Daniel? The man with Helena? The pieces start to fall into place.
“Daniel, it’s me! It’s Alek! Don’t hang up! Please, just a few minutes of your time!”
The other end of the phone is silent. So silent that for a minute I think that he’s dropped the phone or walked away entirely.
Alek wastes no more time. “Anya is not with Nikolai, she’s here, locked up with me. Nikolai is making moves, big fucking moves and he’s doing it fast. You’re walking into a trap. You cannot let Helena use herself as bait. He knows everything. Everything.”
I feel the need to defend Alek, just in case Daniel thinks that Alek ratted him out when he did no such thing.
“Leave me here if you need to, tell Helena it’s what I want, but I need you to keep her safe. Tell her anything to make her stop, tell her that I’m already dead. Anything to keep her out of that monster’s hands.”
“It’s too late for that, Alek.” Daniel says softly.
The sounds of an argument sound in the background of the phone call. A struggle for who is going to speak next.
“Alek?!! Alek?!!”
That must be Helena.
Alek’s face breaks with pain and relief. I wish I could hug him or hold his hand as he hears his sister’s voice for the first time in who knows how long. He’s endured so much for her. I can’t even imagine somebody loving me that much.
Despite the bad timing, the very thought strikes me as strange.
Doesn’t Nikolai love me that much? He’s always saying that everything that he does is for me, for my safety. He’s always telling me that he will end the whole world just to ensure my happiness, but now I’m locked in his dungeon.
I can’t imagine him believing in me enough to let me use myself as bait or allowing himself to be tortured just to keep me safe.
Helena has both. I don’t want to be jealous of her. I truly don’t. I know she’s endured enough.
“Alek! I could kill you with my bare hands for what you’ve put me through! Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?!! How terrified!?” Helena shouts, her voice frantic. “How dare you tell me not to do this when you’ve been sacrificing everything for me! I am going to get back at you, do you hear me?!”
I’m not sure which man she’s speaking to, or if it applies to both at the same time.
“I’m going to get you out of there, and nothing you say or do is going to stop me.” Helena resolves.
I can see the agony on Alek’s face. “Helena please…”
“No matter the cost.” She insists resolutely.
“He has us chained and locked in the basement.” I whisper, struggling to find my voice. I can only imagine what Helena must think of me. “I don’t know where you and Nikolai stand, but I know that he believes that anything that he touches belongs to him.” My emotions threaten to silence me. “I know now that Nikolai doesn’t like to share and he will always think that you belong to him whether he actually wants you or not.”
I can feel Alek’s eyes on me, but I don’t dare look at him. Not right now.
“Can you… can you tell me about Lilian?” I ask her gently.
Another shuffle, and Daniel takes the phone again.
“Anya, if what you say is true and you are really on Alek’s side, then you are one of us.” Daniel begins in his sturdy voice. “Lilian was murdered after the breakup with Nikolai. Her death was ruled a suicide, but I know otherwise. It was an execution placed on Nikolai’s behalf. I will tell you everything once you’ve been liberated, I promise that much. After Lilian had the baby against Nikolai’s wishes, he could not allow her to live. He had told her to abort it. Just like you said, Nikolai doesn’t like sharing and he dislikes being disobeyed even more. So he had her killed the same night she gave birth.”
Somehow the cell feels colder now.
“But,” Daniel adds. “Her son, Henry, survived.”