I shook my head to try and clear it, shifted slightly, and realized I was on something firm but soft to the touch beneath me. I glanced down and stared at my foot, my ankle red and starting to bruise, the skin swollen and angry-looking. I remembered the fight at Kostya’s house, had a flash in my mind of the soldier’s boot coming down on my ankle before everything went dark.
“I’ve already killed the bastard who did that to you.” I could hear the anger in my father’s voice as he continued to stare at me. “I made his death slow.”
I shivered at seeing this side of him, the side that spoke so easily about killing a man slowly.
“How did you find where I was?” I made sure to pitch my voice low, to not sound accusatory.
My father glanced down at my throat and I swallowed, the locket feeling heavy. I racked my brain for what that meant, and it didn’t take long for me to realize. “You’ve been tracking me this entire time? For years—”
“For your protection.”
I wanted to rip the necklace off, but at the same time the thought of taking it off, especially now, after what I had learned about Kostya, after what we had shared, seemed abhorrent.
“I’ve been protecting you against the people who would hurt you to get to me.” He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.
Because he didn’t think he did anything wrong.
“That’s a total betrayal, a lack of trust. You invaded my privacy, broke it.” It felt like a slimy second coat that covered my body. I couldn’t look at him, didn’t even want to.
A prolonged moment of silence stretched out but I refused to look at my father even though I felt the heavy weight of his stare on me.
“Where’s Kostya?”
My father’s jaw clenched in response to my question.
“He’s strong,” my father said, sounding as if he spoke to himself. He paced, running a hand through his hair. I’d never seen him look so frustrated and confused. “Ruin killed all but one of my men. The shot slowed him down. It’s the only reason we got out of there. I underestimated how possessive he was of you. I thought all this time… I underestimated him.” He was muttering to himself, sounding completely unhinged.
My heart was thundering.
“Oh, God, did you…” I couldn’t bear to say the words out loud.
“He’s alive. For now. He would have killed both of us if I hadn’t incapacitated him.”
I wanted to tell him that Kostya wouldn’t have hurt me, but as he glanced in my direction, took in my appearance and the fact I only wore one of Kostya’s shirts, his upper lip curled in disgust.
“Or maybe he wouldn’t have killed you. He would have kept you as a pet, defiling you over and over again.” He sounded disgusted. “Letting an animal fuck you, Anastasia? I’m sorely disappointed.”
He shook his head and turned around, facing the fireplace and just staring at the flames.
“Right before we saw the tracker in your necklace had pinged a new location, I was speaking with some of my men.” My father started talking, his back still facing me. “We found out very disturbing information.” He ran his hand over the back of his head. “Bad timing to hear about it, what with you missing, but now that I have you back we can work through all that.”
It was clear that whatever my father had found out was what was making him act so off-balance.
I shifted on the couch, feeling myself wake up a bit more. When I lifted my hand and touched the back of my aching head, I hissed in pain. A large goose egg had formed under my hair, and I felt the dried stickiness of what I assumed was blood matted to the strands.
I glanced at my father to see him watching me, a flash of fatherly concern on his face before he quickly masked it. It was very clear he was having an internal struggle between making sure I was okay and being disgusted that I let an “animal” fuck me.
The strangulating tightness in the room was broken up when I heard footsteps coming closer. A second later, the double doors opened and several of my father’s men walked in… dragging people with them.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure who they had. And two out of the three of them I wasn’t even sure were alive because they looked lifeless as they were carted into the room.
But it was only a second of confusion before sickening horror consumed me.
I watched helplessly as my mother, Timur, and Kostya were secured to chairs with zip ties before the soldiers left, shutting the doors behind them.
I was staring at Kostya, who was groaning and shaking his head as if to clear it. They had to have drugged him to get him so docile.