13. Isabela
ISABELA
Mishka walks with his hand wrapped around my elbow like I'm going to run away or something, but where would I go? Everything I ever had is back in Madrid, and I wouldn’t return there if someone paid me.
My father is my life now, my only concern.
Hearing that he is refusing food and water until he sees me has worried me. I slept, but only a few hours.
When Demin rose to go do more work, I was wide awake. Now, mid-afternoon, I've finally convinced his men to let me see my father. We stalk toward the room where they're keeping him and I can't help but linger on what happened last night. We could have all died—I could've died. But Demin…
"He's in there," Mishka says, giving me a gentle push. Much nicer than any of Solano's men, but not exactly the most hospitable thing to do.
I creep forward, pushing the unlocked door open, and see another one of Demin's guards standing in the room next to a window.
"Papa."
He's propped up against the pillows of a large four-poster bed.
He's so weak and thin, though I'm sure that was from the past week of not eating since I left him.
There's an IV line taped to the back of his hand, so the doctor got that much into him, at least. His eyes find me and fill with tears, and he reaches out with the hand that isn't tethered.
"Mija," he almost whimpers in Spanish. All of our conversations are in Spanish. He barely knows a lick of English and no German. "Oh, Mija, you're alive."
I cross the room and take his hand in both of mine, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. "I'm here. I'm okay. Are they treating you right? Are you in pain?"
"They put a needle in me. The little doctor, he keeps coming back, talking to me in English I can barely follow.
" His thumb moves over my knuckles while his forehead creases.
"I wouldn't eat until they let me see you.
I thought…" Tears drip down his cheeks. "You never came back after that night.
Solano told me they were going to kill you… "
"I'm sorry." Guilt snakes through my chest, suffocating me for a moment. "Papa, I'm so sorry I scared you. I should've told you. I just knew you'd never let me go."
"Let you go." He scoffs and almost laughs at me as he wipes his tears away.
"Into a crate? Across the sea? No. I would've locked you in that room myself before I let you do something so stupid.
" His grip tightens. "And it worked, didn't it?
You stubborn, impossible girl. It worked, and now look where it's put us both.
"It doesn't matter." He grips my fingers with a strength that surprises me.
"Listen to me. We have to get out of here.
You and me, we have to find a way out before they—" He glances at the door, lowers his voice, but I'm not sure any of these men even speak Spanish to know what he's saying.
"These are not good men, Isabela. I don't know whose hands you've put us in, but we have to run. "
God, my chest aches, but I agree with him.
This place is every bit as much a prison as the one we left, just with nicer sheets.
But the lock turns the same direction. Demin is not going to let us go now that he has a man who can make his drugs for him.
But what else could I have done? Staying in Madrid meant losing him for sure, and when he was gone, potentially being sold or worse…
I shudder, unable to let myself go there.
"The man who runs this place," I say carefully.
"Demin. He's the reason we got you out." I watch his face as his eyes still plead with me.
"He protected me, Papa. During the raid where we saved you.
" I hate this. I told that ass that I wasn't going to do this, but here I am doing it.
"He saved my life, Papa. I fell and he came back for me, and when he did, he got shot doing it. "
I stop short, not willing to tell him what I did in response but still needing him to understand. We don’t get a choice here. Right now, Demin is being kind about this, but if he doesn't do as they say, this family may well be worse than the Solanos.
Papa’s eyes squint and he shakes his head. "What does he want from you?"
"Nothing." It comes out too abruptly, and I press my palm to my forehead.
Embarrassment burns in my cheeks as I think of his hands on me, his lips on mine.
"I just—I'm trying to tell you he's not Solano.
He's not…" I feel nauseous as I whisper, "Please, Papa, consider working for them.
" My eyes lift to see despair in his. "Please… He saved us."
I already know the answer before he gives it. I knew it before I asked. But I had to ask, because the only way we get out of this unscathed is for him to agree on his own.
"No," he snaps. "Listen to me, Mija. The Bratva, these Russians, they are worse than Solano, not better.
Solano is a thug. He's greedy and he's cruel, but he's small.
These people think big. A man who can buy six crates and run a raid across a border, who has a doctor on call and a house full of soldiers, a man like that doesn't free people. "
Papa is furious, eyes bulging and hands waving. "He collects them." His nostrils flare and his face is growing red. "I will not cook for them. I would rather die a free man in the dirt than spend my last years making poison for someone who owns me."
"Papa—"
"Promise me you'll get us out."
"Papa, please—"
"Isabela!" His shout draws Mishka and the other guard to the door. I hear them open it and stand there, and my head drops.
"I promise." My chest deflates, though I'm not sure why.
"I promise I'll try to get us out." I know why he's so adamant.
And I agree with everything he said. So why does it feel like betrayal now?
Because I let Demin Roshin own my body and possess me so thoroughly?
Because lust conceived and bore a child in my heart and now my body betrays me all because of the way one evil man spoke to me?
He sags back against the pillows, satisfied, and squeezes my hand. I can't tell him a single thing about how tangled up I've gotten inside. My father can never know how Demin has fucked with my head and twisted my desires so that some part of me has stopped wanting to run.
"I should go," I say, and I press a kiss to my father's forehead and stand.
"I love you," he whispers, pressing a kiss to his fingertips before he touches my hand again, and Mishka walks forward to indicate it's time to go.
This time when he escorts me, he doesn't grab my arm. He lets me walk at my own pace. When I get to the stairwell, Mishka stops me, saying, "He wants you in the study."
Sighing, I scowl at him and say, "Well, lead the way. It isn't like I know where I'm going."
Mishka's eyes track over my face as he moves past me. And even though I follow him, he glowers over his shoulder every few steps. Whatever Demin wants from me now, he's not going to get it. I've done my part, even the parts I swore I wouldn't do, and it didn't work. I just want peace now.
The study is a dark, book-lined room I haven't seen before. Demin sits behind a heavy desk sipping something in a glass, which is set on his desk as he gestures Mishka away. The door shuts, and I pace over to where he sits.
"Sit," he says. "How is your father?"
"Awake. Refusing to die just to spite your doctor." I don't bother sitting down. I don't want to be here. The things this man makes me feel are honestly a dagger in my heart driving a wedge between me and my father. "He let them put fluids in him."
"Well, out with the rest of it." He turns the glass in his hand and glowers at me. "You spoke to him about me." So someone does know at least a little Spanish, though if they knew what Papa proposed, this would be a very different conversation, I'm sure.
I'm too tired to fight this man anymore. I let the tips of my fingers drag over the desk and my shoulders slump. "I asked him. He said no," I tell him. "He won't cook for the Bratva. He'd rather die free than work for you, and nothing I say is going to move him on that."
Demin sips his drink and grunts. "You're not going to try?" he asks.
"No." My heart is beating wildly. I don't want to pressure my father, but I have a feeling he's going to try to make me.
"The only way I make my father do something he's set against is to break him, to lie to him, or to scare him into it, and I won't do any of those things.
He's old, Demin. He's frail. He's spent years in a cage being beaten.
I won't be one more person who hurts him. I came here to get him free."
There is, of course, one more thing I know would move my father's hand, but I won't give Demin that information. If they so much as threaten me to him, he'll do whatever they want just to save me. I just don't want that for him.
Demin sets the glass down and drums his fingers on the desk beside it. "Well, if you won't give me what I need, then you stay. Indefinitely. You're Bratva property until the debt you owe me is paid, one way or another."
"What are you saying?" I ask him, ready to spit on him or smack his face.
I let him have me. I let myself be vulnerable and touch him and let myself be taken. He has no fucking heart. I thought maybe after sleeping with him, he'd be able to sense my emotional distress, know that I only want what's best for my father. But this?
"I'm saying," he says, standing slowly, “that you fucking belong to me." His eyes go a gunmetal grey as they narrow on me. "I'm saying that I own you. And you can make your father do what I say, or you can belong to me as my object every day for the rest of your life."
A growl that's more of a scream erupts from my chest, boiling over until I stomp my foot, hands clenched at my sides. "You demon!" I hiss, lashing out so hastily, it catches him by surprise. I spew out a string of curse words in Spanish and his eyebrows lift. "You can't fucking do this!"
"Careful," he warns, glancing at the door. I hear it open but ignore it.
"You're a monster. I should've stayed with Solano. At least he never forced me into his bed and—"
"Watch what you're saying!" Demin booms, making me jump. He hasn't raised his voice to me yet, and it scares me.
"I hate you," I say quietly. "I hate this family. I hate your business. And I hate the very breath you breathe because it keeps you alive."
"Take her to my room, please," he orders, and in seconds Mishka's hands are on my elbows again, pinching hard.
"You fucker! You piece of shit!"
"Say it in Spanish, Milaya. You sound sexier." Demin sits calmly, picking up his drink again as he watches Mishka drag me to the door.
"?Hijo de puta! ?Pendejo de mierda! ?Cabrón! ?Maldito bastardo! ?Te odio, cabrón! ?Te voy a matar, hijo de la chingada! ?Vete a la mierda!" I don't care that he's smirking. I don’t care that he thinks it's sexy. I don't care that my body wants him.
That man cannot control me. I won't allow it.
Mishka drags me all the way back to the room and locks me in and as the lock clicks, I realize exactly why Papa wants free. This feeling of being owned is the worst feeling in the world.
I have to get out of here.