Lara
Chapter Twenty-Seven
M y eyes fluttered open, only to be greeted by an impenetrable darkness.
A relentless pounding in my head served as a harsh reminder of the chaotic events at the art museum.
Disoriented, I had no sense of my location.
The only certainty was the bed beneath me, its soft sheets caressing my skin.
A sudden realization hit me—was I naked?
Attempting to lift the sheets, I discovered my hands were too heavy, too weak to comply.
They had been restrained to the bed at my sides.
Summoning my strength, I bent my knees and pressed a shaky palm against the mattress to push myself into a sitting position.
As the sheet slipped away, relief washed over me.
The cool silk brushed against my skin, sliding down my waist. I must have been divested of my dress, but at least I retained some semblance of modesty A quick mental check assured me there were no indications of assault from when I was drugged; apart from the throbbing headache, my body felt mercifully free of pain.
Desperation clawed at me as I wished I could see my surroundings. More than that, I cursed myself for not running the moment I heard that voice—the voice that had haunted my dreams for the past three years.
What I wouldn’t give for a glass of water. My mouth was as dry as cotton, and every swallow felt like dragging sandpaper across my throat.
I couldn’t say how long I’d been in this room, but I guessed it was only a couple of hours, maybe three or four at most.
Suddenly, the lights flickered on, harsh and blinding, forcing my eyes shut as I adjusted to the glaring fluorescent illumination.
After a few tentative blinks, my vision cleared enough to reveal my surroundings.
I was in a room with very little furnishings—a small dresser, a corner shower and a shelf stocked with towels and toiletries, and a toilet.
It offered no privacy, but at least it offered more dignity than the torture chamber in Dmitri’s mansion.
As soon as I heard the ominous clanking of keys, my gaze snapped to the cold, unforgiving metal door.
Ivan stepped through—a menacing figure—clad in a crisp white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, paired with stark black slacks.
His forearms were a canvas of ink, tattoos sprawled across them, and most striking was the sinister skull and dagger inked on the back of his hand, mirroring Dmitri’s markings.
His dark eyes were like twin abysses, more malevolent than the devil himself, as they bore down on the bed where I lay, utterly helpless—exactly the way he intended me to be. Fear clutched at my chest like a vice, for I was acutely aware of the horrors this man was capable of inflicting.
“I’m sorry that your accommodation can’t be more pleasing,” he remarked with a sneer, casting a disdainful glance around the dreary room. “You should be in a room fit for royalty, with a king-sized bed draped in silk sheets and a bathroom worthy of a queen.”
“Why?” The word struggled to escape my lips, yet the penetrating look Ivan gave me confirmed he understood the weight of my question.
“There is a lot of evil in this world. I brought you here to protect you,” he claimed, his tone dripping with false benevolence, as though he were my savior rather than the murderer of my mother and father.
“Protect me?” I hissed, straining against the restraints that bound me. “It was you. You shot my mama in the head like she was nothing, and then you killed my papa.”
“Lidia deserved to die. Did you know she was pregnant with my child?” he cried out, his voice a mixture of rage and anguish. “She terminated the pregnancy. She would never leave him. She lied.”
“So, you killed her.” The words came out as a bitter accusation. I had always known my mama and papa had their troubles; their constant fighting had been a tumultuous storm in our household.
My mama was pregnant. All this time and I never knew. I had always feared it was because of me.
“Please, Andrei. No matter how it happened, we can’t do this to an innocent child,” Mama cried, a desperate plea from the past as I sat at the top of the stairs, bearing silent witness to their fractured world.
“Lidia, I will not allow you to bring a devil into this house,” Papa shouted, his voice echoing through the dimly lit room like a thunderclap. “You need to choose.”
“Don’t make me do this, Andrei. This is the only chance I will get to have a child,” Mama pleaded.
“She killed my child,” Ivan retorted, his voice cracking with anguish, the weight of his grief hanging heavily in the air.
“And my father? Why did you kill him?” I asked, my voice trembling with pain, each word a fragile thread threatening to unravel.
“I never killed your father,” he admitted, slowly pulling a chair to the bed and taking a seat, his movements deliberate and heavy with confession. “When I left your home, I told him to leave, and if I saw him again, I would kill him.”
“So, he’s still alive?” I stared at him, searching his cold black eyes for any glimmer of truth, my heart pounding in my chest like a caged bird.
“Yes,” he confirmed, his voice sharp and cutting through the air like a razor’s edge. “He was at the fundraiser. Your father has been hiding under the guise of Phantom Conglomerate,” he confessed, each word heavy with revelation.
I recalled the opulent gold banner emblazoned with the name Phantom Conglomerate, its letters gleaming under the ballroom’s chandeliers. “Did Dmitri know Andrei would be there?” I asked, my mind racing to piece together the puzzle.
“Dmitri was there with a deadly purpose,” Ivan admitted, his voice tinged with a sinister undertone.
“He intended to kill Andrei as vengeance for his own father’s murder.
You were merely a pawn in his scheme to lure him out,” Ivan revealed, painting a grim picture of Dmitri as even more monstrous than himself.
Disbelief surged through me like a tidal wave, making me shake my head back and forth in a futile attempt to comprehend the reality.
Dmitri was manipulating me to eliminate Andrei.
The boundaries of trust and truth blurred as I grappled with what to reveal to Ivan about my brother and the planned rescue from Dmitri.
Perhaps he already knew, but I hesitated, keeping that card close, hoping Angelo might find a way to rescue me from this monstrous situation.
Ivan rose from his chair, his imposing frame creating a shadow that loomed over the room like a dark specter.
His approach was deliberate, and when he reached the bed, he cupped my chin with a hand that was both gentle and unyielding, lowering his head to meet my eyes.
“There is something else you need to know,” he murmured, his voice a mixture of authority and empathy.
“You were never married to Dmitri. Gavin made sure of it. The marriage license he tricked you into signing was actually binding you and me together.”
A wave of nausea swept over me, bile rising sharply in my throat until I could no longer contain it. The contents of my stomach erupted onto the floor in a sickening rush, narrowly missing Ivan, who stepped aside just in time to save his gleaming thousand-dollar shoes from the rancid splash.
He slipped his hand inside his pocket and produced a shiny diamond ring. “This belongs on your finger.”
As I tugged against my restraints, I watched Ivan slide the emerald ring Dmitri had given me from my finger and slip it inside his pocket before he replaced it with the diamond ring. It felt like a brand against my finger, burning the skin right through to the bone.
“This can’t be happening,” I managed to choke out, the words squeezing my chest like a vise, suffocating and inescapable.
“You are my wife now, solnishko, little sun,” he confessed, his voice a paradox of warmth and control.
“Don’t call me that.” I cried. The memory of my father’s pet name for me cut through me like a knife.
With a soft touch, he produced a handkerchief and gently wiped my mouth, his actions tender and intimate, like those of a devoted husband. “I’ll bring you something to settle your stomach. The sedative we used can sometimes cause nausea.”
After placing a tender kiss on my cheek, Ivan kissed my finger, an unexpected act of kindness. He walked to the door with a measured pace, locking it securely behind him as he left.
As I sank back onto the bed, curling into a tight ball, the weight of deception settled heavily upon me.
Everything I had believed about my life was a mirage, shattered into pieces.
My father, a murderer. My mother, a murderer.
Dmitri, a murderer. The betrayal from everyone I cared for and loved cut deep, leaving me with a single, overwhelming desire: to escape this web of lies, even if it meant embracing death.
The only solace I craved was for Ivan to have turned off the light before he left. Because in the darkness, I could hide from the pain, from the betrayals, and from a world where no one could reach me to inflict further harm.