15. Isabela
ISABELA
I'm tired as I walk toward Papa’s room in the medical wing of Demin's home.
He didn't look good the last time I saw him, having starved himself for days, but I told him if he wants to be strong enough to escape this place, he had to eat.
I'm praying when I see his face, he looks healthier this time.
I'm not sure escape is an option, but watching him waste away is killing me.
"You don't have to walk so close," I grumble at Bart. I hate how these idiots think I'm going to run or something. I'm not leaving here without my father. They don't have to police my actions as I walk across the house so carefully.
"Doing my job, nothing more." Bart is grouchy today, right up to the point he opens the door so I can walk into my father's room and I see his smile first thing.
"Papa." I cross the room into his arms and feel relief flooding me. He looks stronger and happier. "Look at you."
He holds me out by the shoulders to see my face. "Sit. You look tired." I look tired? I almost chuckle at him.
"You're standing on your own." It's good to see him getting up and around, but it twists my gut a little. If he's strong enough to move around, he's strong enough to work. Which is what Demin's been waiting for, I assume. "And you ate."
"A little." He waves it off like it's nothing, but I catch the corner of his mouth lift.
"The soup is terrible. I told the woman who brings it.
She didn't care." His grumbling has returned too, another good sign.
When he's grumbling about things that make him uncomfortable, that means he's well enough to be comfortable at times.
"You're eating their terrible soup?" I grin at him as he pulls back, but he remains close enough to touch me. We've been through a lot together, and this is the least of those horrible experiences. But I can still see the worry in his face.
"What choice do I have? You'd find out and nag me." He thumbs a strand of hair off my cheek. "A weak man can't run, right? So I eat the bad soup, I let the little doctor poke me, and I get strong." His eyes drift over my face. "Are they feeding you?"
"They feed me." I sit down on the edge of the bed and pull him down beside me. "I'm fine. I worry about you, not me."
"You've always had that backward, Mija. It's the father's job to do the worrying." His face creases into a grimace of worry. "I don’t like you here. I want to get us out of here."
Sighing, I look around his room to see an empty tray, proving he really is eating the food they give.
It's good. He needs his strength no matter what happens next, but genuinely, if Demin makes him cook.
Papa can't stand there for hours at a time doing that work if he's weak.
Which brings me to the entire reason I came here.
I have to mitigate the damage. After hearing Demin's threats against my father, I need to know he will comply calmly and not cause problems. I don't want this skin that's barely healed to be turned black and blue again so soon.
"Papa," I say. "Can I ask you something?
And I need you to really listen, not just say no right away.
" He's already said no to me twice, and to Demin and his men multiple times.
No one can put his hands to the work and force him.
The most they can do is threaten and scare him—or kill him.
Which they may well do if he keeps refusing.
"Ask."
"What if you cooked for them? For a while. Not forever." I lift my head to look at him. "Just long enough to keep us safe while I figure a way out. If you're useful to them, they protect us. If you're not, I don't know what they'll do. I'm scared of what they'll do."
"Oh, Mija," he sighs, and his shoulders droop.
I know the weight that's on his shoulders to keep me safe, and the fact that Demon is trying to use me as leverage.
This man used to be one of the leading chemists in the country.
His advanced education and lifelong career put him in prestigious positions where he developed drugs for cancer research—even biological warfare for the government. Until Solano fucked everything up.
Making meth for criminals is so far beneath him, but it's better than death.
"Don't 'oh, Mija' me. I'm serious."
"I know you are." He takes my hand in both of his. "That's what breaks my heart. I know you think it’s best but if I do that, I've failed you."
"You never failed me."
"I let them own me for the past ten years.
You never knew a normal life." His thumb moves over my knuckles.
"I said 'just this once' to Solano a long time ago.
'Just one batch, just until things settle.
' There is no 'for a while', Isabela. There's only the rest of your life.
I can't let you stay prisoner to this Russian family the rest of your life. "
He's just not understanding the position we're in.
He thinks he has some sort of negotiating power.
And after having that talk with Demin, I know that just because we had sex, doesn't mean he's got some miraculous feelings for me.
More likely, what's going to happen is me being used as his fucking sex pet until he tires of me, after which I'll be killed or sold off as his cheap whore to turn tricks.
Papa thinks he can negotiate, but he's wrong.
I just don't know how to argue with him about this.
"Then what do we do?" All the energy drains out of me like a balloon losing air without the whine.
"We get out. You and me." He squeezes my hand.
"You're the smartest person I know. Smarter than your mother, and she ran rings around me.
Look how you got us away from Solano… You can think of another way, Mija.
" He smiles hopefully, but the dread spiraling in my gut prevents me from feeling his excitement.
"What if I can't find a way, Papa?"
His eyes wrinkle as they narrow, then sadness replaces his zeal.
"Then you have to be ready for what he'll do.
" His eyes look away and down, but his grip remains firm.
"They will kill us both." I can tell he really believes that, and maybe I believe that too.
It's just hearing it out loud is painful.
"Papa—"
"Listen to me. He'll hurt you in front of me, or threaten to, because he knows my hands will do anything to keep you safe." His grip tightens. "So if it comes to that, you stand up straight and you take it. You don't break down, Mija." As he says it, he shakes my hands hard and grips them tighter.
Clearly, my father overestimates my resolve and my ability to carry pain. Or maybe he's softening things so I won't be afraid. Either way, that's not something I'm capable of doing and I open my mouth to respond, but the door swings open behind me, stopping me.
"Time's up," a male voice says, but I don't recognize it as any of the men I've met.
I turn, and there's a stranger in the doorway. He's a large man, easily years older than Demin, and he's eyeing me like a slab of meat. I've had men look at me that way, but none of them were on Demin's crew. It makes me shudder in disgust.
"Say your goodbyes," he says. "The boss wants you back in his room now."
I kiss my father's cheek. "Tomorrow," I tell him, softly, hoping tomorrow, he will listen to some sense. I'm not as strong as he thinks I am, and trying to pretend I have a backbone while Demin or his men hurt me will only destroy me.
And regardless of how smart he thinks I am, with the leash that Russian has me on now, even Hernando Cortés couldn’t find a way out.
My father holds my hand until I walk away, and the last thing I see before the door shuts is the fear on Papa’s face as his eyes move from me to the man and back.
I step into the hall and he locks the door up, then the stranger falls into step beside me as we head back toward Demin's wing of the house.
He smells nice—not as nice as Demin, but good. And for a few minutes he's very quiet, though I feel his gaze raking over me salaciously. It keeps my head down and my eyes straight ahead so I don't inadvertently encourage any more of the same—or conversation, which would be worse.
But my evasive behavior isn't successful. The man starts talking as if I wanted to chat like old friends, and I feel my throat constricting.
"My name is Sergei," he says, like I asked. "I'm running security for Mr. Roshin now. You'll probably see a whole lot of me around here."
The words don't mean much to me. It doesn't matter which ogre walks me across the house to see my father as long as one of them does it. So I say nothing and keep walking the path my feet know well by now.
"Nobody told me the chemist's daughter looked like this.
" His eyes slide over again, and he puts hair from my shoulder behind my back.
"And no one mentioned that girl in the crate was a present waiting to be unwrapped.
" His hand slides down my back until it rolls across the curve of my ass and squeezes.
I wince, biting back a swear, and walk a few steps farther away from him. "I can find my own way."
"I'm sure you can." But he moves closer again, like he has to be my fucking shadow or I'll get lost. "But then I wouldn't get to walk with you, and a man takes the good parts of a job where he finds them.
" When he growls from low in his chest and says, "You have some very good parts," I shudder again.
This man is vile, speaking to me like I'm an object he can pluck and confine.
If I run, he'll chase me, and if I scream he'll act like he's done nothing—or maybe no one will care if he does something. It wasn't much different with the Solanos, just shocking to have it happening after three weeks of not having to deal with it here.