Chapter 16
Cara
A shrill ringing fills my ears as I claw my way back to consciousness. I’m blind in total darkness.
My senses catch up in jagged pieces, and I realize it isn’t the room that’s dark. There’s something over my head.
I try to reach up to pull it off, but nothing happens. My hands are…they’re tied together behind my back with what feels like thin, coarse rope.
Cold panic floods my chest. Where the hell am I?
My breathing grows erratic as I sit up and turn my head every which way, my senses and my memory becoming skewed by my fear.
My body is suddenly lightly jostled, the motion seeming familiar to me. I latch onto it and try to think through the pounding ache in my head.
The floor hums beneath me. The whole world vibrates.
I’m in a moving vehicle, on a bench seat, hard metal under my thighs. A van.
How did I end up here?
I strain my mind, trying to find my last memory before I woke up in here. As I furrow my brow, pain radiates through my entire skull.
Something warm slides down my temple. Sticky. Metallic.
My heart nearly bursts out of my chest. Blood. How did I get hurt?
I grit my teeth and try to breathe slower, quelling my panic as much as I can so that I can remember what the hell happened.
The last thing I recall is being in Dmitri’s car, driving down the highway.
An image flashes through my mind.
A black van in my rear-view mirror, too close, too patient.
I latch onto the image and try to remember more, pushing my mind to fill in the gaps.
The van followed me for a while, but it didn’t seem all that strange to me because there weren’t many exits to take to get off the road. I figured that we were probably just heading in the same direction.
I swallow hard as I remember the van randomly speeding up until it was riding my bumper. I got over in the other lane and slowed down so that they could pass me, but they got behind me again. They wanted to be there.
I wince as the last piece falls into place in my mind.
Then the first hard impact. Metal screaming. My hands jerking the wheel as I lost control. They hit me again on the rear left, sending me off the road.
The world rolled. Glass rained down on me. My skull met something unforgiving and then…nothing.
Someone followed me. They wrecked me on purpose!
It has to be the Bratva.
Does Dmitri know? Does anyone?
Suddenly, the van stops, and I hear the driver’s door and passenger’s door open and shut. My heart stops as I wait, preparing myself for whatever is about to happen.
The doors rip open and cold air knifes in. Hands clamp down on me, efficient, practiced, hauling me off the bench.
“No! Get off me!” I thrash, blind and furious. “I’ll scream until someone hears me!”
They don’t answer. They don’t even breathe hard.
At least I assume they’re men.
They drag me out of the van and lead me across what feels like grass and then I hear our footsteps on a wooden porch.
I do everything that I can to notice as many details as possible, but my mind is a whirlwind as I stumble around, smashing my toes and shoulders against objects that I can’t see. Pain lances through me as I turn my head every which way, straining to hear certain noises.
A TV mumbles in the background. There are muffled voices that I can’t make out in the distance. The scent of cigarette smoke in the air.
I must be in a house, but I have no idea where. I don’t even know if I’m closer to the city than before or even farther away.
The men take me down a set of creaky stairs. The air turns damp and sour, moldy and dusty. We’re heading into a basement.
I do my best not to trip and crack my neck at the bottom of the steps, but they’re certainly no help as they pull me forward without any patience. By the time we make it to the bottom, every muscle in my body aches from being so tense.
“Whoever you are, let me go. You must know who I am. Which means you know who my father is—” My throat tightens. “And who my boyfriend is.”
Empty threats are all that I have right now.
The men shove me down, forcing me to sit in a wooden chair. Multiple people untie and retie my hands behind the back of the chair. My ankles are restrained too, trapping me to the most uncomfortable chair that I’ve ever sat in.
“What’s going on? Can’t you say anything?” I question them, my frustration breaking through my fear for a moment. “Tell me who you are! What do you want from me?”
Footsteps retreat, then a door closes and a lock clicks.
The remaining silence swallows me whole.
I curse under my breath, my head hanging in defeat. All I wanted to do was get out of the city and try to make a new life for myself. Instead, I got kidnapped.
I swear I’m cursed.
A few minutes pass before I finally hear something else. Someone walking down the steps to the basement. Whoever it is stops a few feet in front of me, staying silent besides their slow, calm breathing.
“Are you finally going to speak, you giant piece of shit?” I question the person.
“You’re a mouthy one, aren’t you?” a man finally responds. “Did Dmitri like that?”
My blood chills as his deep voice fills my ears. He doesn’t sound familiar at all, and he doesn’t sound like any of the Russians I’ve met. Or Irish. “Who are you?”
“Not yet,” he replies.
I scoff, fighting to stay as calm as possible despite wanting to panic. “You won’t let me see you. Now, you won’t even tell me your name either?”
“Names make people feel safe,” he says. “You’re not safe.”
I tense up when I hear his footsteps coming closer and hold my breath. I don’t know anything about who these people are or their motivation. That makes them even more dangerous.
I can’t see him, but a light draft of air hits me, shifting the cloth around my head a little. Is he leaning close to me? Or am I imagining things?
“You’re bleeding,” he murmurs, too close. Like he’s enjoying it.
“Because you wrecked my car!” I snap at him. “Will you take this damn bag off my head? I can barely breathe in here!”
“No,” he replies. “Gotta put you under again. You wake up when I say you wake up.”
“Put me under? What the hell are you talking about?” I question him as I try to fight against the ropes, writhing around in the chair until I’m so exhausted that I slump back.
“Don’t even bother trying to escape,” he warns me, his voice lowering. “You’re right where you need to be.”
“And where’s that?” I ask him, dying for a smidge of information at this point. Being in the dark physically and mentally is driving me insane already.
“You’ll learn what you’re allowed to,” he replies.
If I weren’t tied up, I would punch him in the face. He could be anyone!
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I tell him, my breath quickening again as my chest grows tight. “Just let me go, and I’ll disappear!”
“Oh no. The last thing that we want is for you to disappear.”
We. So, he’s working with someone else who possibly calls the shots.
He speaks so calmly, but I can’t help but sense something menacing about his words.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask him, fighting past the tightness in my throat.
The man lets out a cold laugh. “No, I’m not.”
“Why not? Why wreck my car and tie me up down here?” I question him as I struggle against the ropes again.
“Because we have bigger plans for you.”
I stop struggling, his words sending a chill racing down my spine. “Plans? What plans?”
Light rustling sounds hit my ears. “I think you should rest for now. We’ll talk later.”
“Wait, what?” I say before something sharp bites my thigh.
I jerk and realize too late what it is.
He just injected me with something!
“Sleep tight,” he says, amusement lacing his voice.
“What did you do? What is this?” I shout at him as I hear him walk away from me. “Hey! Stop!”
My head suddenly starts to feel heavy and dizzy. I blink slowly as the sensation intensifies. My entire body feels like it’s floating. “You can’t do this…you can’t…”
A low chuckle drifts down the stairs. “You really should’ve paid closer attention to who your boyfriend makes enemies with.”
The last thing I hear is the sound of his fading footsteps as I slip into unconsciousness once again.