* * *
The creaking of a door opening has my eyes fluttering open. Within seconds of seeing the bare, off-white walls, I remember everything that happened. Where the hell am I? This isn’t Nikolai’s house. In fact, the coldness of the room tells me that this house hasn’t been used in a while. I also realize that I’m bound. My hands tied together behind my back, making it impossible to do anything and my ankles are smarting from whatever they have used to keep them together.
“She’s fucking cold. This is her daughter,” I hear a gravelly voice say. It sounds as though he’s far away, but I know by the stale smell of tobacco and cheap aftershave that whoever’s talking is in the same room as I am.
“Who the fuck hits their child hard enough to knock them out?” another voice says, this one not as gravelly as the first.
I don’t dare turn, I have no idea who these men are.
“She must have done some fucked up shit for her to be on Nikolai’s bad side,” the second man continues. “She’s his stepdaughter, but then again, this is the fucking sadistic Russian we’re talking about.”
Wait. They think that Nikolai ordered this to happen? I laugh at the ludicrousness of this situation.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” I first guy questions.
“You,” I reply, my voice hoarse. I twist in the dirty bed that I’m lying on and see that both men are standing against the door. I blink a few times, trying to see them properly. I’m lying on my side facing them. “You really think that Nikolai ordered this to happen?”
One of the men is tall and muscular, the other is short and chubby, but both have the Babics’ branding on their hands. These fuckers are Croats. Vindication hits me. I fucking knew she set me up, but why?
“She’s his wife, why on earth would she lie?” the taller of the men says. “Why would Mrs. Vasiliev tell us that her husband wants you dead?”
I shrug as I manage to sit up. “I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that she knows that once Nikolai finds out that I’m gone and that you’re the ones that have me, he’s going to kill you and effectively take care of her problem.”
The two men share a worried glance. “Not a fucking chance,” the gravelly voice says, and it belongs to the shorter of the two men. “Nikolai Vasiliev doesn’t care about you,” he tells me and while hearing those words are like a knife to my heart, I also know they’re not true. “His wife on the other hand—“ He grins as he walks toward me. “—she’s really cut up that her daughter’s going to die.”
I bet she fucking is.
Within seconds he’s in front of me. “She even told us that we were allowed to touch you.” He stretches his hand out, running one of his disgusting fingers down my face, to my neck and then to my breasts. I shudder in revulsion.
Can my mother get any lower?
My head snaps to the side as the asshole backhands me. My head swims with pain and blurriness.
“Disgusted?” he sneers. “I’ll show you what you’ll be disgusted about.“ He pushes me back down onto the bed, his fingers pulling at my dress.
I try to fight him off but it’s difficult with both my arms and legs tied up. Every time I move, the room feels as though it’s spinning, and having his weight on me is too much, it’s useless.
“You’ll end up enjoying this bitch,” he growls, his fingers digging into my cheeks as he makes me look at him.
“I doubt that you could even get that small cock of yours up, let alone do something with it. Do the women you’re with ask if it’s in, I mean, being that small, I’d have a hard time feeling it.” I’m antagonizing the bastard, but right now, it’s my only choice.
“You fucking whore,” he snarls, his fist smashes into my face and, once again, the abyss is pulling me into it. The fucker doesn’t stop, he lands punch after punch to my face.
As I’m being pulled under, I hear gunshots and I inwardly grin. These fuckers are going to die.