I’m on vacation somewhere hot and beautiful like Puerto Vallarta or Hawaii. I step out of the hotel and shade my eyes against the blinding sun with the flat of my hand. The sunlight makes golden ripples dance and shimmer across the surface of the pool, and I take in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as a sense of peace fills my chest.
This is paradise. I can feel it, I can smell it, and when I spread my arms wide, I can hold it in the palms of my hands. Why would anyone ever want to leave?
I navigate around the sun loungers and make my way to the water’s edge. The heat on my bare arms and legs fills me with energy like a flower with its face turned towards the sky soaking up the vitamin D. It surges through me. Makes me feel alive.
Laughter reaches me from the pool. Kids are playing with a ball, tossing it to each other, lunging into the water when the ball is thrown wide. Warm splashes land on my arms and exposed stomach, and I laugh along with the kids. It’s only a game. A bit of fun.
I sit on the poolside and swing my legs into the water. It’s warm, but it still takes my breath away at first as my body adjusts. Turning my face back to the sky, I sit there for a while, listening, breathing, living in the moment. Nothing else matters but the heat on my arms and my feet swaying back and forth, back and forth, making ripples on the surface.
Time to get in and cool down.
But before I can lower myself into the pool, someone grabs my head from behind and plunges my face beneath the surface. I try to push them off me, but they’re too strong. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out, only bubbles. I thrash about, trying to draw attention to myself, waiting for someone to help me.
And the water is cold… So cold.
It sears the skin from my face. I feel like I’m on fire. My lungs are about to explode, but I’m not ready to give up, and rage flares inside me. Drawing on the last reserves of my energy, I tip myself backward into the water to get away from whoever is trying to drown me, sinking, sinking, knowing that I’m playing by my own rules, not theirs.
Then, just as I use up the last remaining dregs of oxygen in my lungs, strong hands grip my arms and haul me onto the poolside.
I’m shivering uncontrollably. I curl my body into the fetal position, unable to feel my frozen skin. Unable to even think.
All I know is the feel of the stranger’s arms around me as they carry me to safety. Then blackness.
Someone helps me into a sitting position. They support my back with their strong arm and hold steaming-hot sweet liquid to my lips.
“Drink.”
I swallow a mouthful of coffee, and it burns on the way down making me cough. They wipe my chin, make me drink some more, and this time I can feel it coursing through my veins.
My eyelids are heavy though as if someone has taped them down. I give up trying to open them and settle back in the comfortable bed. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I know that if I stay, I’ll stop shivering, and everything will be alright. Only the cold has seeped through to my bones. My teeth are chattering, click-clacking together and making my jaw throb.
Then someone lies down beside me in the bed, pressing their body against mine, sharing their warmth with me. The relief is instantaneous. I relax against them and finally drift off into a deep dreamless sleep…
I open my eyes with a start.
I’m in a room I don’t recognize, in a bed I’ve never slept in before. My head is pounding, and my face is stinging, raw, like I just came inside from a wintry blizzard. I touch my cheeks with my fingertips afraid that they’ll come away bloody, but they don’t. I swallow, and my throat feels as though it has been scraped with sandpaper.
Sitting up slowly, memories come flooding back in vivid bursts, making my breath hitch in my chest and my pulse race. Breakfast with Leonid Ivanov. Forcing me to eat. Being dragged underground to the cold room by the two sisters. Ivana and Tamara.
A cold knot of hatred coagulates inside my gut at the thought of Ivana pushing my head into the freezing water. It all gets a bit hazy after that, but I remember promising myself that I will make her pay. I will make them all pay.
Pushing the comforter off me, I realize that I am in my underwear. A quick glance around the room, and there’s no sign of the clothes I was wearing when I went to meet my captor, but I have no recollection of taking them off. Did he … undress me?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up. My knees tremble, and my legs are shaky. But I force myself to examine my body from my toes to the top of my head. If Leonid touched me, I need to know. Not only because my father will kill him, but because my father will have to wait in line until I’ve finished with him.
There are no obvious signs. I touch myself between my legs, and I’m not sore or wet or swollen, and I would know, wouldn’t I? But there’s a gaping black hole in my memory after I entered the freezing water, and I don’t like it. The only problem is, I can’t trust any of them to tell me the truth.
I stagger unsteadily to the door, knowing it will be locked before I even twist the knob. I turn around and inspect the room. The bed is huge, the sapphire blue comforter is heavy, the drapes at the window light and floaty. There’s a wardrobe pushed up against the opposite wall, but when I open the doors, I’m disappointed to find that it’s empty. The drawers in the nightstand are empty too.
There’s a kettle on the desk, and I smile to myself when I spot the coffee sachets and biscuits wrapped in plastic on the tray beside the white porcelain cup.
Another door. Another bathroom. But this one is much larger than the previous one, the walls covered in tiny cerulean, jade green, and silver mosaic tiles, lights are flush in the walls and around the giant mirror. There’s a claw-footed tub in the middle of the room and a walk-in shower with a rainfall head.
I strip off my bra and panties and stand under the steaming shower, eyes closed, rinsing this day off my skin. A temporary escape. I use the jasmine-scented liquid soap to scrub every inch of my body; it does little to ease the knot in my stomach, but it does at least leave me feeling more like myself than I’ve felt since I arrived.
Then it occurs to me that Leonid had me moved from the basement to this luxury. Why? I clear a circle on the fogged-up wall of the shower cubicle with my hand and peer out at the fluffy blue towels on the heated rack, the bottles of lotion and moisturizer on the glass shelf above the basin, and the toothbrush and toothpaste in a silver holder.
Why is he treating me like a guest when we both know that I’m a prisoner?
Reluctantly, I turn off the water and wrap a thick towel around me, scrunching my toes in the fluffy bath mat. Is this room a sweetener to keep me quiet about what happened in the cold room? An apology? He ordered the maniac woman to teach me a lesson and now he thinks this will make it better.
One thing is for certain though: he wants me alive.
I walk back to the bedroom with the fluffy towel still wrapped around me and perch on the side of the bed. I have to be smart about this, try to stay one step ahead of my captors. I’m valuable to them, and that’s my only leverage. I know I must bide my time, but I don’t know if I can keep my mouth shut when he orders me to sit and eat like I’m a pet dog.
The key turns in the lock, and my muscles reflexively tense. I stand up, clutching the towel across my chest, pulse racing.
It’s Tamara. Her eyes narrow, taking in the damp hair, my bare legs, and the towel, but her expression is unreadable. “You’re awake.”
“How long was I out?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
Fuck! Another day has passed me by, and I’m still here. Why hasn’t my father tried to free me? What are they waiting for? For Leonid Ivanov to make it easy for them? I don’t know how I’m supposed to handle this situation alone, and the passing hours are chipping away at my resolve.
“I brought you some clean clothes.”
She comes closer and drapes another dress across the end of the bed; the fabric is soft and velvety; the color is seal gray. My favorite. Lucky guess on the part of my captor.
I don’t move.
She hesitates like she wants to say more. Sorry about my sister, maybe? I won’t hold my breath for an apology; I don’t even want one. I’ll deal with Ivana my own way.
“It will be better for everyone if you do as Pakhan says.”
“Everyone?” I can’t help being cynical. Maybe it’s because her nutjob sister tried to drown me yesterday.
Her expression softens, and I think I maybe see a hint of a wistful smile. “Trust me when I tell you that Pakhan is a kind man. The sooner you stop messing with him, the sooner you can go back to your life, and we can go back to ours.”
Okay, so there are two things wrong with this statement. Firstly, she cannot seriously expect me to trust her. She’s not the one who was drugged on a plane and is being held against her will in a house with a fucking dungeon.
And secondly… Why would she even care about me going back to my life?
She gives me one last lingering look before leaving the room and locking the door behind her.
I feel like yelling at her that I’d trust them more if I wasn’t being held prisoner, but what’s the point? While I was watching her, my brain was spiraling down its own rabbit-hole, thinking about the women in the refuge, and my father, and comparing it to my own situation. The women we helped were hurt because the men in their lives found their weakness and used it against them; in most instances, that was their children. My father acts the same way when it comes to his rivals.
Which is exactly what Leonid Ivanov is doing. He sees me as my family’s weakness because Mel is protected by Xander. So, all I need to do is find Leonid’s weakness, and I have a strong suspicion that she just walked out of my room.
Bingo!
When she said that we can all go back to our lives, what she really meant was that she can have Leonid back to herself. But does he feel the same way about her, and what would it mean for me if he doesn’t? Would she turn against me and try to get rid of me herself? I have no doubts that, if necessary, she could be just as psycho as her sister, but where would that leave my captor? Right now, he needs to keep me alive, but a ways down the line, would he still feel the same, especially if it meant choosing between me and Tamara?
These thoughts are still churning around inside my head when I drop the towel on the floor and pick up the dress.
I freeze when I hear the key turning in the lock again. Did she forget to say something, like, next time you try to seduce my boss I’ll cut out your tongue?
Clutching the dress in front of me, I face the door, expecting to see short black curls and dark eyes, but my heart leaps into my throat when I find myself staring at Leonid Ivanov’s expensively clad chest.
