“Where are you taking me?”
He turned his back to me. around. He strode to the window, barked the order, and didn’t even look around at me. Asshole. If he didn’t want me to play the fucking game, he shouldn’t have started it. He knows who I am. He must’ve known I wouldn’t fall onto my knees and beg him for mercy; it isn’t how the Sedrics work.
The witch has my hair wrapped around her fist and is dragging me back along the corridor like a caveman. The woman is a maniac who clearly gets off on inflicting pain, and I refuse to show her that my scalp feels like it’s on fire. So, I appeal to her sister. Her softer side.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Stop talking!” the witch snaps.
I stumble down the spiral staircase, my feet skimming several steps at a time, her grip on my hair the only thing preventing me from hurtling face-first to the bottom. My shoulder collides with the banister and a bolt of pain travels down my spine. On the bottom step, my ankle twists, and it feels as if she will rip my scalp from my skull as she yanks me back onto my feet.
Instead of taking me back to the basement room, we turn in the opposite direction. Or rather, she walks, and I try to keep up. More closed doors. The temperature drops. The further away from Leonid we walk, the more uneasy I become. My heart beats a dull tune in preparation for what’s to come.
We stop outside a door, and the witch waits for her sister to unlock it. I breathe deeply, try to make eye contact, and she meets my eyes briefly. But all I see is pity in her dark eyes.
“Please,” I say, finally succumbing to the panic unraveling inside my chest. “Take me back to Leonid. I’ll apologize. I’ll tell him that I’ve learned the lesson.”
No answer. I did what he wanted, I begged, and I hate myself for it, and they’re not even listening to me because they’re following orders.
Something icy slithers down my spine. Whatever they intend to do to me, they will only stop if Pakhan issues the order, and he’s upstairs in his luxurious dining room eating fucking scrambled eggs.
The witch shoves me through the door, and I slam straight into a second door. They both follow me, filling the cramped space, locking the original door behind us and unlocking the one in front.
The rush of cold air sends shivers through me. This is Leonid Ivanov’s dungeon. This is where the man practices whatever unholy activities he enjoys when he isn’t out there making millions and kidnapping the daughters of his mafia rivals. And the only people who know where I am are the wicked witch of the west and goth-Glinda.
The lunatic grips my wrist, and I’m grateful for the small win; at least with my scalp intact I can think more clearly. They’re not going to let me go, and there’s not a chance in hell of them listening to anything I have to say, so my only option is to fight back. Only, I have no clue what I can fight with until we reach our destination.
The doors are more solid here. If I’m lucky, they’ll throw me into a dungeon and lock the door, but this hasn’t exactly been my lucky day so far.
Does he know where they’re taking me? If so, does this mean that for one brief second, I had the upper hand in his stupid little game? Because if that’s the case, he intends to break me, but he has no idea that I’ve seen what happens to broken women. They reinvent themselves into a stronger version of the women they were before.
We stop outside a metal door, and the witch’s knife appears in her free hand. “Try to run and see what happens.” Her lips twitch at the corners, and I wonder if smiling doesn’t come naturally to her. What did he do to her to make her so unhinged?
“We should use the hot room,” goth-Glinda says. “Pakhan doesn’t want her dead.”
My pulse starts racing so hard I think I’m going to be sick. Every obscenity I’ve ever heard from my father’s men springs to mind, but I remain silent. Yelling at them will let them know that I am scared. Better they have no clue what I am thinking—the element of surprise is all that I have on my side right now.
“Don’t go soft on me now, Tamara.” The witch cricks her neck from side to side. “The cold room will teach the printzessa a lesson just like Pakhan wanted.”
I ignore the conversation and focus on the name. Tamara. It’s better than nothing.
The door creaks open to reveal a dimly lit chamber with concrete walls and a low oppressive ceiling. The concrete floor is covered in slime and moss, and the air, when we step inside, is dense and damp. In the center of the room is a pool that sits flush with the floor.
I breathe in and splutter, the dankness clogging my parched throat.
But the sisters appear to be unaffected. Perhaps this is what they do for pleasure, come down here and swim around the cold pool for the sheer adrenaline rush.
Fear clamps around my chest like a vice, and I let it. Fight or flight. Without it, I don’t stand a chance.
As the witch drags me towards the pool, the chill raises goosebumps on my arms and the back of my neck. I glance around for some kind of makeshift weapon that I can retaliate with. Anything. But with a mounting sense of dread creeping through my veins, I realize that all I can use to my advantage is the slickness underfoot.
She forces me to my knees. “Tamara, are you sure this is what Leonid wants?” I manage before her sister grips my hair in her fist and pushes my face into the water.
The shock is immediate. The freezing water feels like millions of tiny needles piercing my skin, and my body instantly reverts to panic mode. My muscles tense, and I open my mouth to scream. My eyes, my ears, my nose, my lungs… My entire body has been invaded by the icy liquid, and panic continues to flood my veins, making it impossible to think. My skin is on fire and frozen at the same time, and my brain is struggling to understand the agony.
I can’t breathe. My arms thrash around in the water, trying to get purchase and push myself back out, but it’s so deep, and my body is so cold that my movements are sluggish and futile.
She yanks me out of the water by my hair.
I don’t have long. Water pours off my burning face and fills my eyes, and I choke more water out of my lungs. I scrabble around my whirring thoughts, trying to remember what I was going to do, but I can’t think… Fear bubbles beneath my stinging skin, and I don’t know how to contain it.
Too late.
My face is back underwater, and I don’t have the energy to fight it. All I can do is think about the pain filling my skull. I close my eyes… My entire body is numb and trembling so violently that I fear I’ll slide out of the maniac’s grip and submerge myself.
But if I do, I’m taking her with me.
The thought appears from nowhere like a light being switched on.
She drags me out a second time. I can’t feel my face. I can barely suck in enough oxygen to keep the blood pumping through my veins, but I cling to the one thing that’s keeping me in the present.
I’m taking her down with me.
With a surge of adrenaline, I twist around to face her cold, dark eyes, and allow my body to go limp. An eerie warmth floods my body as I lean backwards, throwing myself into the pool, my hair still twisted around her hand.
I see it in her eyes. Shock. A perverse flicker of admiration perhaps. Then her hand hits the water, and she tries to free herself, but the momentum and the slippery ground is pulling her down with me.
My head and shoulders sink beneath the surface.
The shrieking panic is gone, and in its place is an irrational sense of warm, comforting peace. She didn’t win. She didn’t break me. If I get out of this alive, I will be stronger than she will ever imagine, and she’d better start running.
Then, I’m no longer in the water. I’m lying on the slick, icy ground, and someone rolls me onto my side, and hot liquid is pouring out of my lungs. I cough and splutter. I can’t feel any part of my upper body. I can’t even open my eyes to see what’s going on because my brain is still trying to make sense of it all.
But I’m still alive.
I won.
“I said teach her a lesson. I didn’t ask you to drown her like a fucking animal.”
I recognize the voice. It’s cold and powerful and dangerous, but somehow, I get the sense that it is on my side.
“Get out of my fucking sight, Ivana.”
Ivana. Now I have both names. I store them away inside my head for later use.
Warm strong arms wrap around me. I feel myself being hoisted off the ground as if I’m as light as a feather. Then, my head is resting against a solid chest, and I can hear the thump-thump-thump of Leonid Ivanov’s heartbeat as he carries me out of the room.
He might’ve come to my rescue this time, but I will never forget that he gave the order, and a tiny spark of hatred ignites inside me.
