Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lily
The place they drove me to wasn’t a hospital. It was a low squat building made of grey cinderblocks and surrounded by a parking lot with cracks and rubbish everywhere, about an hour outside of the city. The entire ride, I’d been silent, my nerves eating me up inside until I felt physically sick.
I’d known getting into this car was a bad idea, but what other choice did I have? One way or another, they were going to bring me here, and I’d much rather be conscious when it happened. If they knocked me out, I had no chance of fighting back and finding a way to escape.
Still, I couldn’t help but whimper in fear when the car stopped and the door opened. The dark-haired man got out first. Saying something to the blond that I didn’t understand, who nodded.
Dark, unfamiliar eyes met mine. “Are you going to cause a problem?”
I opened my mouth to tell him to bite me, and then promptly shut my mouth. I shook my head silently. Reaching into the car, he caught my upper arm and tugged me across the uneven concrete towards a nondescript door.
I tried my best to look around. But there was nothing remarkable about any of this. It looked abandoned. There weren’t even other cars on the road beyond. It was complete and utterly secluded. My stomach twisted up into my throat.
“Where are we?” I whispered, the icy breeze stinging my cheeks and making my eyes tear up.
He didn’t answer me, but his grip on my arm became punishing. He yanked me forward, and my high stiletto heel turned over on the snow. I slipped and couldn’t catch my balance because he held a death grip on my arm.
I crashed backwards. Smashing my head off the iced-over concrete. He fell with me, his much heavier body flattening mine to the floor and soaking the back of my wool dress.
“Be careful,” he hissed, but didn’t move.
“I slipped,” I said before I could stop myself. “I didn’t mean to. Can you get off of me?”
His eyes narrowed. “I could, but I don’t think I want to.” His eyes glittered with malice.
“Get off.“ I began to struggle, shredding the back of my dress in the process. With a low chuckle, he jumped up, heaving me up to my feet and taking my arm again.
“I might ask to try you myself before we move you on,” he said in a low hiss. “I want to see what the pussy that got the high and mighty Daniil so obsessed.” Using his other hand, he reached between my legs and squeezed my pussy.
Bile rushed up my throat. Without thinking, I swung my arm back and hit him straight to the side of the head with my hand. “Don’t ever fucking touch me.”
He didn’t say a word. His closed fist hit me in the temple. My vision swam, and stars filled my eyes, but I couldn’t fall down because his grip on me kept me on my feet. Yanking me forward. His stale breath washed over my face.
“Don’t think I won’t break you, Lily. Don’t think for a second I won’t.”
“Piotre.” The man from the car shouted. His voice was laced with anger.
Chuckling, Piotre, pushed me away. Almost making me fall down again.
“You’re lucky he wants you in one piece.” His chin jerked towards the car. “I think he might want you for himself.” Piotre lowered his voice to a hissing whisper when I glanced hopefully behind me.
“But don’t think for one second he will step in to save you. You’re a hot commodity right now. The lover of Daniil Popov.” His laugh was sarcastic. “Just need the doctor to give you an all clear. You’re no good to us if you are riddled with diseases.”
I almost took offense, but I didn’t want to be punched again, so I kept my lips tightly shut. My face was already black and blue and painful from Greg’s beating, and Piotre hadn’t pulled his punch. My cheek felt like it was on fire. I could already feel it swelling.
“But I am battered and bruised?” I couldn’t help but laugh.
Piotre laughed. “Oh, sweet Lily, some of our buyers will do a lot worse than mark up your pretty face. There are some really messed-up people in the world. Now move. I’m freezing out here, and the doctor is waiting.”
Again, I looked at the squat grey building. “That doesn’t look like a hospital.”
“It isn’t.” He pulled me forward.
I didn’t drag my feet. There was no fighting this. Just like there was no denying just how much danger I was in. I’d been right. Greg had given me to human traffickers. The plan was to sell me. It made me feel sick, but I had nothing in my stomach to throw up.
A woman appeared, her white coat showing me she was a doctor. She stared at us for a second before unlocking the door and motioning us through.
“You’re late,” she hissed. “Bring her through.”
Her eyes scanned down my face and then my body. It was clear she wasn’t impressed by what she saw. “What happened to her face?” she asked, leading the way down a dilapidated corridor.
“She slipped and fell,” Piotre laughed. “Twice.”
The doctor glanced over her shoulder at us. “The cheek looks bad. If it’s fractured—”
“Then you’ll patch her up and give her the all clear.”
Piotre snapped back. “That’s what we pay you for. Or are you starting to get a conscience?”
Not answering him, she stormed forward, finally coming to a stop in front of an open door.
“Get in there and take your clothes off,” she aimed her order at me. “And then get on the table. Hurry now,” she growled. “I don’t have all day.”
Around Piotre’s arm, I glanced into the room and swayed where I stood. The room was completely bare apart from a metal table, complete with thick leather straps, some kind of medical stirrups, and a metal table on wheels next to a stool.
“Please don’t.” It looked like a place to be tortured. My chest tightened, and my throat closed up. I was so scared. They both looked at me, but it was the doctor who spoke.
“Do I need to send Piotre in there with you? Or will you go inside, strip off that dress, and get on the damn table? Choice is yours, but either way it’s going to happen.” They kept saying that.
From beneath my lashes, I looked at Piotre. He wasn’t grinning, but he looked excited. I could tell by the look on his face that he would enjoy stripping me naked and securing me to that table.
And more than anything I didn’t want to be naked and defenseless around him. He gave me the creeps. Swallowing hard around the lump in my throat, I shuffled forward. “I can manage.”
The doctor laughed. “I don’t think she likes you very much.”
Piotre looked put out. “I don’t think it matters who she likes. Just that she’s clean enough to be of use to us. Get on with it. I’ll be waiting.”
The door closed behind me, trapping me in. And the walls seemed to gather in close. I’d never been scared of closed-in spaces before, but I was now. In fact, I was terrified.
It was freezing in that bare room, but I was shaking with fear and not the cold. My fingers were trembling so much that I could barely grip my dress and pull it over my head and unzip my boots.
By the time I had stripped to my underwear, the door had opened, and the doctor had walked back in. She eyed me angrily, the door behind her open so I could see Piotre eyeing me hungrily.
“I am sure,” she swept angrily into the room, rolling the little tray of instruments towards the metal table. “I said strip. Lose the underwear.”
I took a step towards the door to shut it.
“You can leave the door open. Get on with it. I don’t have all day.”
Keeping my back to the door and the disgusting eyes that were watching me, I stripped nude and lay at the edge of the table, the cold of the metal biting into my skin.
There was no robe to put on. Not even the thin blue paper to cover me, like in my normal doctor’s office.
“Lay back.”
I didn’t want to. “Why are you doing this?” I asked her in a small voice. I didn’t understand why a woman would willingly do this to another woman. And she was a doctor to boot. It just didn’t make sense.
She barely looked at me. “They pay me well.” She said it like that made it alright.
“You’re working with them to sell women,” I whispered.
She made a gesture, and Piotre strode into the room looking like all of his Christmases had come early. Hand between my breasts, he pushed me down roughly, and before I could even struggle, the thick leather straps were secured tightly over my body, trapping me into place.
My legs were spread wide and secured as well, and then it began.
The most humiliating and painful experience in my life.
Everything she did was rough. I wasn’t a woman on her table, I was a thing.
Tears ran down my face, I choked on the sobs that I tried not to let out, and in the end, I went somewhere else.
I retreated into my mind, telling myself over and over again that this wasn’t happening to me. It was someone else on this table. It wasn’t me. Finally, the torture was over.
“She’s clean,” the doctor said. “I’ll have to run the blood to double-check, but she’s in good health.”
“Good.” Piotre seemed genuinely pleased. “I’ll tell—”
The doctor cut him off. “You might want to get the boyfriend in here,” she said coldly.
Piotre’s eyebrows arched sharply. “Why?”
Two sets of eyes narrowed on me like I knew what they were talking about.
“Let’s talk in the hallway.”
They left together. The door finally shutting, but they left me strapped to the table. Spread out with the icy winter air stinging my skin. I didn’t know how long they left me there like that, but it felt like hours and hours. My muscles were cramped from being in one position for too long.
The door swung open, and Greg appeared, his face enraged. The two Russians followed after him.
“How long have you known?” Greg asked menacingly.
I stared up at him. “Known what?” Even my jaw muscles felt cramped, so it was hard to talk. My mouth was horribly dry. “Why are you doing this, Greg?”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “The baby isn’t mine. So how long have you known you’re pregnant with that asshole’s baby?”
I swallowed hard, my mouth and throat so dry that I gagged.
Pregnant? Had he really just said pregnant?
“I’m not,” I finally managed to whisper. “I can’t be.”
He stepped to the side of the table. His hands reached for me, but not to loosen the straps. His fingers closed around my throat and squeezed.
“Yes, you are, bitch.” He continued to squeeze the life from my body, and I couldn’t move to defend myself.
“Easy,” I heard Piotre say with a chuckle. “We need her alive. Punish her in another way.”
Greg’s fingers loosened, and I wheezed as I sucked in a breath.
“You spoil everything,” he spat down at me. Lifting his fists, he rained them down on my naked body, and there was not one thing I could do to protect myself or the baby I so desperately wanted to protect.
“Why do you have to fucking spoil everything?” Blow after blow hit my body. “You stupid bitch.”