Chapter 27
Enzo’s strangling grip makes my knuckles feel close to breaking as he drags me from the elevator to my office.
Before we even reach the doors, I know something terrible has happened.
A young girl, no older than nineteen or twenty, cries on one of the chairs in my office while two men block the entrance to the operating room.
“Move!” Enzo shouts and the men obey swiftly. When they clear, Rafael stands with his arms crossed, fingertips running along his tight jaw.
The girl on the table can’t be any older than fourteen, but beyond that, I couldn’t describe any of her features. Blood and bruises cover her skin from face to toes and my stomach sours, vomit threatening to surface.
“What the fuck happened?!” I shout at anyone who will answer me as I rush to her side. Her pulse is thready, barely palpable.
“Don’t focus on that, Lucy. Focus on her,” Rafael says coolly.
Where the hell do I even start? I scan her for injuries. She lays naked under a thin sheet. There are ligature marks around her neck. Red liquid drips from her ears and plum-colored bruises cover her face. Cuts to her cheekbones, lip, bridge of her nose, and eyebrow. I can’t even see her eyes.
What color are her eyes?
She moans, mumbling incoherent words. I need to save her. I need to murder whoever did this. In that order.
“I—” My breaths come short, fleeing me when I need them most. My thoughts scramble, refusing to align in a helpful way. I’ve seen men beaten this badly, men who deserved such brutality but a child?
My stomach twists and I’m close to throwing up when Rafael steps up to me and cups my cheeks as he forces me to focus on him. “Lucy. She needs you. Do what you can, not what you want.”
Do what I can…not what I want.
I want to save her…is he saying I can’t?
I nod, my mind clearing at his calm command. Rushing to my cabinets, I pull out what I need to start an IV to at least get her some pain medication. I can only assume she has a brain bleed based on her injuries. I can start some fluids but need to be mindful of her increased intracranial pressure.
A flash of blood fills the needle, and I secure the IV then turn to find the medication I need. “I can’t save her here. She will need surgery, ICP monitoring, she’ll need—”
“Stabilize her. We will get her to a hospital when you’re done.” Rafael’s deep timber settles the storm raging inside me, but a heaviness suddenly falls over the room. It’s then, when I pause from rummaging through the cabinets for medication, I realize the weight of the silence in the room.
No.
No.
No.
Rushing over to her, my fingers press into the indent of her neck, nothing. There’s nothing.
Hopping up on the table, I straddle her small frame and begin pushing down on her chest. “One, two, three, four, five.” I scan the room for help again, only to find Rafael’s head hanging low. “Someone get me an AED. Call an ambulance.”
“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”
“Lucy,” Rafael says, approaching me like I’m a wild animal ready to claw muscle from bone. And he’d be right. I’ll fight to the death for this girl.
“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”
“Lucy.” He touches my arm, and I smack him away.
“Someone help me! Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”
Sweat clings to my skin and I’m losing my breath, but I don’t care. I have to save her. I have to be strong enough.
“Lucy. Stop,” Rafael says, his demand firm.
But I won’t. Fuck him! Fuck his father! Fuck this entire organization of sick fucks who could do this to a child!
He touches me again, “Lucy—”
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I continue to press into her sternum, her ribs cracking under my palms. She’s a child. Just a child. She didn’t deserve this.
Spit up and blood spurt from her mouth, covering me in red, but I keep going.
Large arms wrap around my waist, and I’m lifted off the girl, I fight with all I have but after doing compressions, there’s not much left. “Let me go!” I scream.
“Shh,” Rafael says as he holds me back. “She’s gone, Lucy.”
“No!”
“It’s okay, you did good,” he whispers in my ear.
“Fuck you!” I bellow before I break, tears falling faster than I can contain them. Why are they all standing there? Why did no one help me? Why? They are all fucking cowards.
Big bad men in power who see loss of innocent life as a necessary casualty to their greed and don’t bat an eye as long as their pockets get heavier.
“What’s her name?” I ask through gritted teeth, but no one says anything. Enzo stares at the girl, rage simmering beneath the surface. “What the fuck is her name!” I shout. These bastards don’t even know her name? She deserves for her name to be known. To be remembered.
“Sienna,” Rafael says in my ear. “Her name was Sienna.”
My knees collapse but I don’t fall to the ground. Rafael scoops me in his arms, cradling me in his strong embrace. His smoky scent overwhelms me, washing out the smell of iron filling my nose.
Tears fall down my cheeks as I sob into his suit jacket. I’m transferred from his arms to another’s, and I don’t even have the energy to put up a fight. But I don’t need to. I’d know Enzo’s rich, amber scent anywhere. I’m safe with him.
“It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you,” Enzo whispers as we move out of the space.
I can feel their stares on me, but I don’t care.
All I want is to burn this place to the ground with every sick fuck inside.
I want to peel the skin from whoever did this to her, slowly and carefully so he feels every second of pain.
I want to gut him with my blades and dance in the pool of his blood like it’s a rain puddle.
I want him to scream for mercy while I remind him of her name.
Enzo lowers me onto something soft, a bed. But whose, I’m not sure. My body and mind ache in two completely different ways. I’ve never cried so much before. Not even when my skin mirrored Sienna’s. Why did I survive…and she didn’t? I can deal with my own pain, but seeing hers?
I wasn’t strong enough.
Without my consent, my body begins to drift, my mind slowly shuts down until everything goes dark.
“Again.” Knuckles slam into my cheek. My hands bound behind my back keep me from blocking and my ass is planted on a hard, wooden chair. My left eye is swollen shut, my lip busted and I’m 99.9% positive I have a ruptured ear drum, but I won't give up the name.
“What is the name Alexey gave you?” Ivan asks calmly. Bare, blood-covered knuckles crack as he clenches his fist.
“Unicorn sparkles of the mythical land of go fuck yourself.” I smirk, blood pouring from my mouth, painting my smile in red as it drips down my chin.
Ivan seeks Alexey’s next command. My wannabe father shakes his head no. “Again.”
This time, a hard hit lands on my stomach, knocking the wind from me. This fun little game we are playing is one Alexey likes to call Snitch. He gives me a name and I’m tortured until I give up the name or he decides I’ve had enough.
I’ve never given up the name.
I laugh out loud, watching as Ivan cringes at his work. “Am I still pretty, Ivy boy? Don’t you like the colors you’ve painted me with? Red is my favorite color. Come on, you can do better than that!”
“Give me a name, Katya. End this.” Sometimes the way Ivan looks at me makes me think he hates this, that he wishes I would give in so he could stop. But he doesn’t know if I do, Alexey wins.
I exhale and let my head fall. “Fine. Fine.” I pretend to cry, sniffling and drawing out the act. But then I lift my eyes and shoot him a wink. “Tvoya mamasha suka.”
His mom is in fact a bitch. She’s our maid and cook and she hates my guts. Fuck her and fuck her son.
Alexey ceases the game with one signal.
I have had multiple broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, multiple broken teeth, a dislocated jaw and all my fingernails ripped from me at least three times. I’ve endured this shit for the last six years and today is my last test. I’m finally fifteen.
“One more test,” Alexey says as Ivan unties me.
I stand, a little woozy but I push through. He holds out a gun and nods to the camera in the corner of the room. One of Ivan’s men, one I haven’t bothered to learn the name of because he goes through trainees like fucking underwear, drags in a girl with a bag over her head.
She’s shoved to her knees; her cries and whimpers fill the space and my teeth grind. “What’s this?”
This has never been in the training. “Your final test to prove your loyalty. Kill her, Doch’.”
“What has she done?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter. I say shoot. You shoot.”
The man lifts the bag, and a bruised and bloodied face appears. Swelling mars her innocent features.
“Sienna?” How do I know that name?
“Shoot her!” Alexey shouts, his spit flying onto my cheek.
“She’s innocent!” I scream.
“Kill her! Kill her!”
I point the gun at her forehead. “You’re nothing except what I’ve made you, Katya. You’re my greatest accomplishment. You’re perfect. She is nothing. The choice is yours.”
“I’ve never had a choice,” I say before putting the gun to my temple and pulling the trigger.