Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Yana
The bunk beds are in the corner, and I am on the bottom one, and there are six other people in this room.
Six men, rotating shifts, which means this room is never fully empty and never quiet. Someone is always coming in or going out or lying on a bunk, talking too loudly about nothing.
“— scura,” one of them is saying to laughter I am not supposed to hear, “gli occhi scuri —” and another one says something in Italian too fast for me to follow, and then one of them, in English, loud enough that there is no question it is meant to carry: “I dream about it. The thick armed Russian girl. Those dark eyes look up at me while she sucks my dick.”
The laughter fills the room. They are talking about me as always. I lie on my back, and I look at the ceiling. I breathe, and I think about other things.
It’s been two days.
I wake at five, and there is the yard. Their training is designed to remind me where I stand and to see what I’ll do. Then comes breakfast, then rest, and another training session. Another meal and another session. Same as Kirill’s house in structure, nothing like it in anything else.
At Kirill’s, I had a room with a lock and a bathroom, and Annika left things outside my door, sometimes books or something from the kitchen she thought I’d like. Here I have a bunk in a room full of men who have spent two days berating.
I can only shower at three in the morning when the room is finally empty and quiet enough that I can be certain no one is coming in. I have slept in intervals, lightly, the way I learned to sleep a long time ago.
I have not complained. I have not asked for anything. I have not shown them anything.
The bell rings.
The men file out, and I stand and walk with them to the meal hall, a long room with long tables. I join the line to see the portions. Watch who eats what, where they sit, and who defers to whom.
I reach the front of the line and hold out my plate. The man behind the counter ladles something onto it from the main pot, then reaches below the counter and opens a second pot.
The smell hits me first. He ladles it onto my plate. It is grey. It is bubbling at the edges. It smells like something that was food at some point, weeks ago.
“Special delicacy,” he says. “For guests.”
The laughter comes from everywhere at once. I look at the plate.
I think about two days of this. Two days of jokes I am meant to hear men who have decided that making me uncomfortable is the most entertaining thing they can do.
I pick up the bowl, and I drink it.
The taste is exactly as bad as the smell promised. I hold my face completely still through all of it, and I set the empty bowl back on the counter, and I walk the three steps to the man who served it to me, and I smile at him.
Then I spit it directly into his face. The room goes very still for exactly one second.
He lunges at me, and I drop under it. I come up inside his reach and drive my knee up hard into his midsection. He falls, and behind me, someone bigger punches my cheekbone, and I fall.
The cheering starts.
I get up.
The fork is on the floor near my hand where it fell from someone’s tray, and I have it before I have a plan for it. Coming off the floor with momentum, I jump up, and my legs go around the big man’s neck, and we fall together, and I come out on top, and the fork is at his throat.
The cheers stop
I can feel his pulse under the tines. I stab the fork into his neck, and he jerks violently as I pull it out. The man who lunged at me is crawling away. I pull out the fork, and blood splashes on my face.
I stand and turn to everyone watching. “I dare you,” I say. “Try me.”
Nobody moves.
Then I hear clapping behind me. I turn to see Giovanni standing in the doorway, his jacket open and sleeves rolled up.
He looks like he is watching something he paid for.
Since the day I moved in here, I haven’t seen him.
Maybe that is why I am constantly in awe of how big he is. The oversized suit hid something.
“As expected,” he says pleasantly, “of Kirill’s woman.” He looks at the man on the floor, and his face turns cold. “Cosa state aspettando —” he snaps at the room. What are you waiting for? Take him away
Two men come in and drag the body out, and he watches them go, and then he looks at me, and he holds out his hand.
I look at it.
“The fork, Miss Yana.”
I hold it a moment longer then place it in his hand.
“Pardon their manners,” he says. “Eat with me today.
“I’ll pass.”
Behind him, two of his men cock their weapons.
He leans in slightly and lowers his voice. “You don’t have much of a choice.”
Mad man. I don’t say it out loud, but it crosses my face because his mouth twitches.
I follow him into the main house and sit at his table. The cook brings food, and the smell is delightful. He calls the cook and whispers something to her. The cook turns and disappears, then returns with a spice container. She sprinkles the powder onto a plate and gives it to me.
“Spice,” he says.
The food is extraordinary. I am aware that I am eating too fast, and I cannot make myself stop because I have had two days of barely anything, and my body has opinions about this that override my dignity entirely.
He sits across from me and watches. I can feel him watching me, and I can feel the smile in it getting bigger, and I keep eating. I will deal with the humiliation of this later, privately, when I am alone.
Mid-chew, a sharp pain stabs me. It’s a cramp so sharp that my fork hits the plate before I’ve processed the sound. Then another. I put both hands on the table, breathe through it, and look up at him.
“What did you do?”
“Don’t be dramatic. The cook just added a mild poison to your food. It’s the type you’ll throw up in a few minutes.”
Another cramp comes. I go white. I feel it.
“You —”
I don’t finish the sentence because the room is tilting, and I am on the floor. The clearest thing available to me is somewhere above where I hear him say. “I think she may have added a touch too much.”
I hear him walk over to me, and he crouches. His hand finds my jaw and turns my face up. He looks at me. “You had the nerve to kill my man.” He is very close. “I had a good mind to send you back to Kirill without your tongue.”
He leans in. I feel his tongue come out of his mouth and trace my lower lip. His tongue is warm, and his breath smells like whiskey. Despite the pain in my stomach, it felt good. His mouth. He pulls back and looks at me. “But that would be a shame.”
I hear him stand.
“Let her have her moment. She’ll get it out of her body in a minute,” he says to a person I can’t make out.
The dark is coming in. I try to hold onto the room, and I lose it piece by piece.
And in the dark, from somewhere very far back comes the voice.
Christov’s voice. “Sis, sis, ya khochu ostatsya s toboy —” I want to stay with you, don’t leave me —
I reach for it, and there’s nothing to hold onto.
I go under as I feel myself throw up.
* * *
I wake up gasping. The ceiling is unfamiliar. I lie there for seconds. This is not the bunk room. I sit up.
My bag is on the floor by the wall.
I pull up a chair and sit on the edge of the bed, taking inventory. I don’t know how long I have been out for or what happened, but I am thirsty in the way that goes all the way down. My stomach is tender, replaced with a hollow aftermath.
I stand. The door, I expect it to be locked. I reach for the handle, expecting resistance, but it opens.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, looking at the corridor. Then I go looking for a kitchen.
The house is quiet at this hour. I walk through it carefully, reading the layout. When I get to the kitchen, I find the tap and turn it on. I cup water in both hands and drink, and it is the best thing I have ever tasted, and I drink again and again until the hollow feeling retreats.
There is a sound behind me.
I turn. It’s one of his men. I recognize him from the warehouse meeting, the one who let us in. He looks at me with blank professionalism.
“The Don wants you,” he says.
I look down at my bare feet, but I follow. What’s the use of asking anything?
Outside, the night air hits me. I realize I was out for most of the day. I am barefoot on stone when the light comes on, and I stop.
There are men tied to posts driven into the ground at intervals across the yard, arms behind them, mouths stuffed with cloth. Some of them I recognize from the meal hall.
“Miss Yana.” His voice comes. “So glad you could join us.”
I look at the men. I look at the posts. I feel my stomach contract.
What is he doing?
He comes to stand beside me, and he is close enough that I can feel his warmth against my arm in the cold air. He looks at the men in the yard with an expression of mild disappointment.
“It came to my attention,” he says conversationally, “that you were being harassed.” He turns to look at me and lowers his voice, almost gentle. “We don’t accept that here, Miss Yana. We see women as people.”
I stare at him.
He is the same man who fed me poison six hours ago for killing his man, and now, he wants me to punish those same men.
I don’t know how I survived the pain. He is saying this without any visible awareness of the contradiction, which means either he doesn’t see it or he sees it perfectly and finds it entertaining.
He reaches under his jacket and produces a gun and holds it out to me.
I look at it.
“You handled one today,” he says. “Handle the rest.”
My hand is shaking when I take it. I am aware of that, and I cannot stop it. His hand closes over mine.
He moves behind me, his body close against my back, and his fingers wrap around mine on the grip, and he raises my arm, and I am too weak to fight it properly.
I try and I cannot, and the shot rings out, and a man on the far left falls and screams. The sound tears through the yard, and I am shaking as the man goes limp and blood flows.
He moves my arm again, and I scream. “Stop!”
He presses my fingers against the trigger and shoots another man.
“Stop!” My voice breaks on it. The gun is still in my hands, and his hands are still over mine, and I sob.
“Enough. Please! Enough!!”
He is crazy! He is fucking crazy!
I try to free my hands, but he clutches my hand and the gun with an iron grip.
He is still behind me. “What is this weakness, Miss Yana?” His voice is low, close to my ear. “This afternoon, you took a man’s life. And now, you’re crying?”
He loosens his grip, I turn, and I point the gun at him.
Behind me, I hear a gun cock. It’s the man who brought me here. I keep the gun exactly where it is, aimed at the center of his chest, my hand shaking and my eyes wet. I do not look away from his face.
He looks at the barrel. He looks at me. “Fabiano. A posto. Take the men. Give us space.”
I hear Fabiano hesitate. Then a whistle comes, and men come in. They move the men tied to the poles, both dead and living.
He smiles.
“Give it your best shot,” he says.
I know what he is doing. I can see it clearly. The way he is standing with his hands loose at his sides, making himself easy, making himself a target, Come on, do it, prove something. I can see it all, and I am still shaking.
I move the gun.
I press the barrel to my own head. His smile stops.
“If I die,” I say, “Kirill gives you nothing.”
He is very still. His eyes have changed. “Such passion,” he says. His voice has changed too, slightly. “Are you fucking Kirill?”
I don’t answer.
“You both look oddly close.” He takes one step toward me. “He is the first man in our world I have ever seen hold a woman that close. Keep her that close.” Another step. “One lucky bastard, switching between two women, he —”
I am focused entirely on his face, and that is why I feel it is too late. His hand is closing around the gun at my head, and then my wrist is twisted. I am spun, and my back is against his chest, and my arm is pinned, and the gun is gone from my hand.
I try to move, but his grip is iron.
“You know I could fuck you better than Kirill,” he says against my ear.
“Go to hell.”
He bites my ear.
The sound I make is not one I planned; it leaves me before I can stop it, and I feel the shame of it arrive immediately. He laughs like he has just confirmed something he already suspected.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
He runs the barrel of the gun slowly up the side of my neck, from the base to behind my ear.
I feel every centimeter of the cold metal against my pulse, the pace, the way he stops for a moment just below my jaw, where the blood runs close to the surface and stays there long enough for me to feel my own heartbeat against it.
Then down along the side of my throat, tracing the line of it to my collarbone, and I am trying to breathe, but my body is not cooperating.
My body is responding to the metal, to his warmth behind me, and to his closeness in ways I have no language to justify.
He runs it down my collarbone, over the edge. Down the side of my chest, I feel my breath change. The barrel keeps moving with terrible patience over the curve of my ribs, and he is watching my face from behind me. I can feel him watching. His mouth finds my neck.
I pull against his hold, but I cannot move even an inch.
He takes his time. First, his lips, then his teeth, then his lips again.
He kisses my neck and sucks on my earlobe.
His mouth is warm. I have lost the will to fight.
I feel the gun in my stomach, and my stomach contracts under it.
I am furious at my own body for the way it is leaning back instead of forward, for the warmth spreading through me despite everything.
Then the gun stops between my thighs. I stop breathing entirely, every nerve ending in my body converging on that single point of contact.
He pushes me away.
My legs are shaking, and I plant my feet on the stone to stop them. He smirks and steps back.
“Since you can’t get along with the boys,” he says, “you’ll be staying in my house.”
He walks toward me, closing the space between us. He slides the gun over my face slowly and stops the barrel at my lips. I clench my fists. Our eyes meet and I can see the brightness of insanity in his eyes. He is really crazy.
“I hope we get along just fine.”
He turns and walks back into the house. I stare at him leave, my heart drumming in my chest. I haven’t been overpowered this easily in years. How strong is he? I swallow, and my eyes fall on the house. I clench my fist tighter and tell myself, I was just weak from the poison.