Chapter 20
“...Iwill go.” Anya whispers.
It’s just about the only thing that she could have possibly said to silence the whole room.
The snuffled sounds of Helena’s crying, the way Daniel’s teeth were grinding together and my constant footsteps all stopped at exactly same time.
Three sets of eyes all turn to Anya in perfect synchronization.
“Absolutely fucking not,” I answer for the group at large.
“We have to get Henry back,” Anya reasons. She’s trying to use logic but I can see the utter terror in her eyes. As easy as it would be to sit here and play the blame game for how we managed to get into this position in the first place, we can’t. Henry needs us, all of us. I know that he’s only been in my life for a very short while, but I don’t care. It’s just not an option.
“Surrendering to him is not only going to send the wrong message to that prick, but it’s not going to end in our favor either. It’s a lose-lose,” I say with as much calmness as I can possibly muster.
“We can’t leave Henry there, I can’t trust Nikolai not to do something terrible. The man that I once thought he was, he’s not that person. I don’t know what he’s truly capable of.” A tear rolls down Anya’s cheek as she speaks. I know how hard this is for her. Really, I do. We’re all terrified for Henry.
“We all want the same thing, Anya. Henry’s safety and well-being are our top priority but trading one life for another isn’t going to solve anything. Then we are going to be right back here wondering how to get you out all over again.” I answer.
Anya doesn’t seem to like that answer at all.
She and Helena exchange a knowing look. Helena’s hands curl protectively around her belly. Before I have a chance to ask what that’s all about, Daniel interrupts.
“We just have to find a way to make him think you’re returning home. At least it’s a blessing that he doesn’t know that you left of your own free will. It’s not much, but it’s a start. We have something to work with. Worst case scenario–” Daniel holds up a hand to keep me from interrupting again. “Worst case scenario, you will have eyes inside of his complex and we can dismantle everything together.”
“Fuck that!” Daniel is being infuriatingly reasonable, but I interject anyway.
Daniel cuts me a look. “I will sacrifice her to get my son back, Alek, and don’t think that I won’t.”
If there was a way that I could offer myself as said sacrifice, then I would do it. I know that Anya and Helena feel the same way about themselves. Anything for Henry.
I sink heavily onto the white leather couch and put my head in my hands. Anya is less than a foot away but I feel like she’s already slipping out of my hands. I’ve only just gotten her and yet, square one is looming right ahead of us.
“Splitting up never works.” My voice is slightly muffled as I speak through my hands. “The best thing to do is to stick together.”
I let my look say the words that my mouth can’t. It took years for me to find Helena, and even then I couldn’t access her because of Lilian. Yet, she’s come here and found me again. She has a family that likely was very hard won. Everybody in this room has been the victim of Nikolai at one point or another.
We have only just started to get to know one another. I haven’t even had time to really talk to my sister about what has happened in her life since I last saw her. I don’t want to lose Anya. This thing between us is strong and came on fast. But if I lose her? If she goes? The person we would go rescue might not be the woman sitting beside me right now.
The thought of Nikolai laying a single finger on her, it makes me sick. I just keep playing the image of her chained to the ceiling while he beats her over and over in my head. If he finds out that she chose to leave? It will only make things much worse for her.
“I’m going. That’s final. It’s not even a question,” Anya says firmly and pushes up off of the couch. She storms toward the stairs and takes them three at a time.
I glare at Daniel. I don’t know who else to aim my anger at and he’s the only one that can shoulder it. He gives me a flash of empathy. I can’t ask him to not get Henry back. I would never.
I just wish that it was me.
It would be infinitely easier to swallow if I could be the one doing it. Then Anya and Helena would be free. Nikolai could torture me to his black heart’s content so long as they got to live their lives to the fullest.
I scrub my hands down my face for a heartbeat. I push up off the couch to follow her, but Helena speaks.
“She will never forgive herself if she doesn’t go, if something happens to Henry…”
I know that, I know she has to go. I’m protesting because I don’t like it. I want to find another way, but I know Nikolai well enough to know that he’s likely got plenty of traps waiting for us the moment we try to circumvent him in the slightest.
“We will do everything in our power to keep her safe while she’s there. We can make this work.” Daniel offers in his calm voice.
I know that too, but I dip my head in a clipped nod anyway.
Then I head back upstairs where Anya is sitting on the corner of our bed.
Our bed.
What a strange concept. Just a handful of days ago I was half dead and now I have the most beautiful woman in the world sitting on a bed that I can call ours. For today at least, before she slips right through my fingers.
I move toward her, kneeling down onto the plush carpeting and ignoring the way my body seems to groan and ache in protest from the constant movements.
My hands lift, hovering over her thighs as I look to her in silent question, waiting for acceptance that she gives me wordlessly. Rough palms find her bare thighs, running up the slim muscle until I can find the curve of her hips and pull her toward me slowly. Her knees part, resting just outside of my own.
“It’s not like I want to go.” Anya whispers, her voice shaky. “I’m…I don’t want to go back…”
I nod, my thumbs sweeping under the hem of her silk shorts and staying there to massage soft circles into her skin. I don’t know if the gesture is meant to comfort me or her at this point.
“I just keep thinking about how scared he must be. How terrified that he doesn’t know where he is or who is holding him. I don’t know if Nikolai put him in that fucking basement or a bedroom. Is he feeding him? Is he warm? I can’t stop thinking about all of the possible things that could be happening to him. And Henry is so sweet, he’s such a sweet kid and now… now it could be ruined forever,” Anya whispers as tears roll down her cheeks.
She moves to touch me, to pull me closer, and dammit, I flinch.
I don’t mean to.
Anya wraps her arms around herself inside, hugging herself tightly like she’s trying to force the pieces of her body together.
“We are going to find a way,” I promise her. “We are going to find a way to get him back and keep you safe too. I’m not going to let anything happen to either of you.”
“We don’t have much time… Nikolai is expecting an answer and I’m going to have to go… I have to go back there… to him…” Anya hiccups with the force of keeping back her tears.
I shake my head and cup her face in my hands gently. “Shh, it’s going to be okay. I promise. I’m going to make it okay.”
I don’t know how, but I know it in my bones that I’m going to do whatever I need to in order to make my words true.
“I don’t want to think about it… I just… I want to forget.” Anya’s red-rimmed eyes lift to mine with such open pleading that I don’t think I can deny her anything that she might ask. “Make me forget… please… just for a little bit longer? I don’t want to think about him, or the fear, or anything else that’s going to come with it.”
I nod in understanding. I know perfectly well what it’s like when the voices in my head start to get too loud or when it speaks words that I don’t want to hear and I would do anything, absolutely anything to make my head go quiet again.
I brush my thumb across her bottom lip, giving her one more chance to talk it out before I act… but she stays silent.
I steel my expression into a cold mask of indifference. I roll back through my heels into a standing position and adopt the dominance that I need to be intimate with a woman on this level.
“On your knees.”