3. Sienna
SIENNA
M y chest rises and falls rapidly, my breath coming in short, harsh pants. My hands are trembling as I look over at the mess I just made. I immediately walk over to the door and grab the handle, but when I try to open it, I realize it's locked.
“Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair as my gaze scans the room. It doesn't look like a prison at all. It’s actually quite luxuriously appointed.
Fuck. What do I do?
I still feel drowsy, and like I’m minutes from falling into a heap on the floor. No. I can’t break down. I won’t break down. This is just a bad nightmare. One that I’ll figure out how to get out of.
I just need to move and push past these thoughts that are trying to tell me I’m going to die. No, I’m not dying here. I abruptly shut that mental door and lock it.
I pick up the pieces of vase splintered on the floor. I'm on my hands and knees, trying my hardest to focus on the task at hand as I try not to let my reality sink in.
I’ve been kidnapped.
All the stuff he said about my friends and their husbands has to be a lie.
Surely, they didn't leave me out of something that huge?
But I can't help letting doubt trickle in.
In recent years, everyone's been going through stuff, isolating themselves. I thought it was normal for their relationships. But perhaps I’d been too immersed in my own relationship to pick up on the subtlety of what lay beneath theirs.
“Ow!” I slice my finger on a piece of the vase, and tears well in my eyes, as if this one singular task is the only thing keeping me sane.
I sit back against the wall as the tears slide down my cheeks.
This is bad. This is so bad, and I don't know how to get out of this situation.
Will any of my girlfriends from London even realize I'm gone? Will Romi suspect something when I don’t reply to her messages?
She knows I was partying tonight, like I do most weekends, so she might not think anything of it.
Fuck .
What if the grade-A asshole is speaking the truth? Then who does that make him? What part does he have to play in the underworld? Who is he working for ?
“I'm really going crazy.” If I believe any of this, it only opens the door to more uncertainty. But as I look around the room, my hand bleeding, what else can I possibly believe right now?
I'm scared. I'm angry. And I'm sick of men pushing me around. It terrifies me that although this is the most fucked-up situation I’ve ever been in, I don't find myself trembling from fear. It's mostly rage, which feels far more dangerous.
So, he thinks because he kidnapped me, that I have to roll over and be a good girl? He thinks his towering height and slabs of muscle intimidate me or that his thick Russian accent entices me to listen?
That motherfucker has another thing coming. And so, I dry up the tears and find a fierce resolve in wanting to ruin the life of every man in this establishment.
I stand, still a little wobbly. Who knows, I may still be sobering up, or it could be the aftereffects of whatever drug they slipped me.
I step over to what I assume is a window and throw open the silk curtains.
I find two wooden shutters impeding my view.
When I go to open them to get a glimpse of what might be outside, I realize they’re locked with a padlock.
Unfortunately for that asshole, breaking out of my home as a teenager to go to parties was a particular specialty of mine. I root around in my hair for a bobby pin, pluck one loose, then I get to work on the lock.
It takes less than a minute before I hear that satisfying click. I remove the padlock and open the shutters. The moment the fresh, sea-scented air hits my face, I sigh with relief. But when I look down, that relief is replaced with dismay at the two-story distance from my prison cell to the ground.
The building appears to be surrounded by forest, and beyond the trees, I spot the glimmer of the ocean under a near-full moon. I can’t tell where I am, but I do know wherever it is, it’s isolated.
As I gauge if I can jump to the branch beneath me, the nauseating swirl of the drop has me halting thoughts of doing anything so reckless. I don’t even know if it’s possible to scale down the tree. But the leap across is too great. If I miss… If I slip…
“Fuck.”
I hear one of his men speaking in Russian outside the door and then a woman's voice replies just as fluently.
I quickly close the window, scamper to click the lock back into place, and whip the curtains shut. By the time the woman enters the room, I’m pacing back and forth. I imagine I look like the perfect example of a woman who's just realized she's been kidnapped.
The woman looks to be in her sixties, with mostly gray hair and a scowl on her face.
I size her up. I don’t think she can physically hurt me, but her steely gaze might suggest otherwise.
Then again, I’ve never fought anyone in my life.
What am I even thinking? She speaks with a thick Russian accent, but nonetheless addresses me in English.
“My name is Agata, and I am here at your service on behalf of Nikolai.”
My eyebrows dip. “Is that the name of the asshole who kidnapped me?”
Agata clicks her tongue. “Your visit here will be much more comfortable if you use your manners.”
My jaw drops. “No offense, but are you going to lecture me about manners when I've been kidnapped ?” I emphasize the word, not entirely sure this woman—who looks like a sweet old lady, despite the scowl—understands my circumstances.
She ignores my comment, and her gaze drops to my hand. “You're bleeding. Let me tend to that,” she says, taking a step toward me as she pulls out a silk handkerchief from her pocket. She makes a quick scan of the broken vase but says nothing.
I back away from her. There’s no way I’m letting this woman near me. I don’t know her or her association with the asshole who put me in here.
She seems impatient but reads my distrust. “You are not just any old prisoner. You're a valuable asset that Nikolai has instructed me to attend to. If anything happens to you, I will be punished.”
My mouth opens, and I bark, “Are you trying to guilt trip me, old hag?”
“Such a disrespectful tongue,” she bites back.
I scoff in disbelief. Has everyone here lost their mind? They're all acting as if this is completely normal. But maybe in their world it is.
Agata, despite her assumed age, is quick, and she snatches my hand to assess it. “Be careful of the way you speak around here, girl. There are not many here who take kindly to women being outspoken.”
I feel the warning, from one woman to another, deep in my bones. However, I'm so sick of living in a man's world, where it seems we’re only ever fucked over.
“That includes Nikolai?” I ask as she wraps my hand not-so-gently with the handkerchief.
She looks up at me then, her grayish-blue eyes assessing me.
“You are fortunate it’s Nikolai who’s been assigned to you.” My disbelieving gaze insinuates that we have differing views on that. “Now, let's clean this wound, and I'll run you a hot bath. Are there any allergies I should be aware of when making your food?”
My eyebrows dip in confusion, and she looks at me as if I’m the strange one. I shake my head. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”
She looks me up and down in that way many women appraise me.
I’m six feet tall and lean, with subtle curves.
“I can tell, considering how skinny you are. You hardly have anything on your bones. I'll make you something light to begin with,” she says, then goes into the bathroom, abruptly concluding the discussion, as if my opinion doesn’t matter .
I grind my teeth, more irritated by being accustomed to all the opinions people have about my body, as opposed to her being ignorant to my feelings.
I've had the honor of being on covers and centerfolds, and in brand deals. I use my body and looks as tools to make money and offer other women confidence in their own beauty. But it’s a double-edged sword.
The expectation to remain a certain size and appear polished in such a specific way, only so others can attack me for my natural build because theirs doesn’t look the same.
My body and face are constantly under scrutiny, and it’s led to issues in my personal life.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe I have been selling a lie, thinking that I've been happy in a life that has begun to wear me down.
Especially now, at twenty-nine. I thought I had my life all mapped out.
I thought by now I would be married with at least one child running around.
But none of that has happened. If anything, the demand on my body has only grown worse as the years have gone by.
And no matter how well I do within the industry, I'm always shunned by others for it.
Fake. Too skinny. Too tall. Plastic. High maintenance. Slut. Home wrecker. Unrealistic.
The list goes on, and I chastise myself even now for spiraling into those thoughts when I’ve become so good at bottling them up. But I suppose there are so many other emotions rolling around right now, they’re the least of my concern .
“Come along, Miss Falcone. If I let you bleed to death, Nikolai will be greatly displeased with me.”
I glance at the small cut. It'll heal within a few days.
But I'm so used to ensuring that there are no blemishes on my skin that I can't help but want to save the slight imperfection if only for a while. I think of the jarring scar down Nikolai’s eyebrow and cheek, as if someone took a blade to his face. Despite the imperfection, it’s hard to ignore his harsh beauty.
The two are parallel but work in harmony.
Now that’s a damning thought, thinking of my captor as hauntingly beautiful.
But then I hold out my hand, allowing this woman to be the only source of kindness I can sense within this prison.