Chapter 20
Twenty
Katriana
Darkness swallows me whole.
I wake to the smell of rust and damp concrete, my head throbbing with a pain that pulses in time with my heartbeat. My wrists burn where something coarse bites into the skin, and when I try to move, I realize I am bound to a chair.
Metal. Cold. The chill seeps through the thin fabric of my blouse and settles into my bones like a promise of worse things to come.
My glasses are gone. The world blurs at the edges, shapes dissolving into smears of shadow and sickly yellow light. I blink rapidly, trying to force my vision to cooperate, but without the lenses everything beyond arm's reach becomes a watercolor painting left out in the rain.
Panic claws at my throat. I force it down with a breath that scrapes against lungs that feel too tight.
Think. I need to think.
The last thing I remember is the airport.
The town car pulling up to the departure lane.
Drake's guards flanking me, solid and reassuring in their dark suits.
I was thinking about Gemma, about how good it would feel to hug my sister after so many months apart.
I was thinking about Drake, about the way he kissed me goodbye.
Then the SUVs appeared.
The memory fragments into shards of violence. Gunfire. Screaming. Hands grabbing me, dragging me across pavement while I fought with everything I had. A needle in my neck. And then nothing but darkness until I woke here, wherever here is.
My eyes adjust slowly to the dim light. The space around me reveals itself in pieces.
Concrete walls stained with something I do not want to identify.
Rusted pipes running along the ceiling, dripping condensation that echoes through the silence.
Industrial fixtures that speak of a building designed for purposes far removed from whatever nightmare I have stumbled into.
A basement. I am in a basement.
Movement at the edge of my vision snaps my attention to the left. Two figures huddle against the far wall, their wrists bound like mine, their faces turned toward me with expressions of terror and something worse.
Recognition.
"Katriana." My mother's voice breaks on my name, thin and reedy with fear. "Oh God. Katriana, what's going on?"
"Kat!" Gemma struggles against her bindings, her dark hair tangled and wild around a face streaked with tears.
"They came to the house. They had guns. Mom tried to call the police but they took our phones and they brought us here and I don't know what's happening but I'm so scared, Kat. I'm so scared."
The world tilts beneath me. My mother. My sister. Here. Bound and terrified in this concrete nightmare while I sit naked in a metal chair.
Naked.
The realization crashes over me like ice water. I am naked. Completely exposed. My clothes are gone, stripped away while I was unconscious, leaving me with nothing but my skin and the ropes cutting into my wrists.
The vulnerability of it threatens to shatter what remains of my composure. I cannot even curl in on myself, cannot cover the parts of me that have never been seen by anyone except Drake. The chair holds me splayed open, defenseless, every inch of me on display for whoever put me here.
Shame burns through my veins, hot and corrosive. But beneath the shame, something harder takes root. Something that refuses to crumble.
They want me broken. They want me humiliated and compliant and ready to accept whatever comes next.
I will not give them the satisfaction.
"Mom. Gemma." I keep my voice steady through sheer force of will. "Look at me. Are you hurt? Did they touch you?"
"No." Gemma shakes her head frantically. "They just tied us up and left us here. They said we had to wait. That someone was coming."
My mother's face crumples with a guilt I do not understand. "This is my fault. All of it. If your father had never taken that money, if I had been stronger after he died, if I had found a way to help instead of falling apart..."
My heart falls to the cold floor. Victor told her. Or someone did. My dark secret is out and seeing the crushing fear on my mom’s face is exactly what I wanted to avoid.
"Mom, stop." My words are even despite the raging agony storming through me right now. “It’s okay. This is not on you.” My words come out sharper than I intend, but I need her present. I need her focused. "This is not your fault. None of this is your fault."
"But the debt. I had no idea until last night." Her voice splinters. "This Victor guy. How could your father do this? The things you've been doing to pay it off. He said you’ve been hiding this from us for years. Why?"
I look at my sister, and the confusion in her eyes confirms what my mother said.
"Gemma." My throat tightens around her name. "What did he tell you?"
"Everything." Tears stream down her face. "The debt. The payments. The man who's been threatening you. Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you go to the police? We could have helped."
“You could have died. You don’t get the police involved with these men.
That is what gets you in an unmarked grave.
” I shake my head fiercely. "It doesn't matter now.
" I force the words past the tightness in my chest. "What matters is getting out of here.
We need to stay calm and watch for an opportunity. "
"An opportunity?" My mother's laugh carries the edge of hysteria. "Katriana, we are tied up in a basement. Men with guns brought us here. What kind of opportunity do you think is going to present itself?"
Before I can answer, footsteps echo from somewhere beyond the pool of sickly light. Slow. Deliberate. The measured pace of a predator who knows his prey has nowhere to run.
Victor Kedrov emerges from the shadows like a nightmare given form.
He looks exactly the same. The reading glasses perched on his nose, attached to their thin gold chain. The slightly rumpled suit. The thin gray hair combed neatly to one side.
My stomach clenches and gurgles with the vile sickness this man creates in me.
"Katriana." My name sounds obscene in his mouth, coated in a satisfaction that makes my skin crawl. "I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time."
He stops a few feet away, close enough that I can smell his cologne. That cloying, old-fashioned scent that reminds me of funeral flowers. It coats the back of my throat and makes my stomach turn.
"Victor." I keep my chin raised despite my nakedness, despite the vulnerability screaming through every nerve. "I see you're still too much of a coward to face someone who isn't tied to a chair."
The slap comes fast and hard, snapping my head to the side. Stars explode behind my eyes, and I taste copper where my lip split against my teeth. The pain radiates through my skull, sharp and familiar.
"Manners, Katriana." His voice remains soft, almost gentle. "We have so much to discuss. Let's try to keep things civil."
He pulls a chair from somewhere outside my field of vision and settles into it, crossing his legs with the casual elegance of a man settling in for a pleasant conversation. His pale blue eyes move over my exposed body with a clinical detachment that somehow feels worse than lust would have.
"You've caused me a great deal of trouble.
" He removes his glasses and polishes them on his tie, that familiar gesture that precedes violence.
"Drake Moses humiliated me in my own restaurant.
Broke my men. Took what was mine. And you.
.." He replaces the glasses and fixes me with those unblinking eyes.
"You let him. You spread your legs for him like a common whore while the debt you owe me remained unpaid. "
"The debt is paid." I spit the words at him, blood and defiance mingling on my tongue. "Drake gave you three hundred thousand dollars. We're done."
"We're done when I say we're done." His hand shoots out and grabs my jaw, fingers digging into the bruises that have not yet healed from our last encounter.
"Money is money. It comes and goes. But respect?
Pride? The reputation I've spent decades building?
" He leans closer, his breath hot and foul against my face.
"Those things have a different price and that cunt of yours is going to collect for me. "
"Go to hell." I squeak out. It’s hard to talk when someone has your face squeezed like a vice.
"Eventually." His smile does not reach his eyes. "But first, I'm going to tell you exactly what happens next. And then I'm going to watch while hope dies in your pretty brown eyes."
He releases my jaw and settles back in his chair, smoothing his jacket with deliberate care.
"Drake Moses walked into a trap an hour ago.
A trap set by his own brother." Victor's tongue darts across his lower lip, that reptilian gesture that makes my stomach lurch.
"By now, he's either dead or dying in a warehouse on the south side.
The great and powerful king of the docks, brought low by family betrayal. Poetic, don't you think?"
No.
The denial roars through me, silent and desperate. Not Drake. Please, not Drake.
But Victor sees the fear that flashes across my face, and his smile widens with satisfaction.
"Ah. You care for him. That makes this so much sweeter.
" He leans forward, elbows on his knees, like a grandfather about to share a secret with a beloved grandchild.
"You see, Katriana, I've been watching you for a long time.
Longer than you know. When your father came to me with his gambling debts and his desperate dreams, I saw an opportunity.
Not just for money, but for something far more valuable. "
"You're insane."