by Elodie Colt
The numbness permeating every cell in my body over the last twelve days, nine hours, and thirty-seven minutes hasn’t killed my morbid thoughts. There’s not much to do other than fantasize about slashing my wrists, shooting Luka in the head, or setting this damn house on fire, not since it has become painfully clear that I can’t escape this hellish place.
This devil of a man.
I cast a glance at the suitcases neatly aligned in the living room. I don’t even know what’s in there seeing as none of my belongings are here. Probably plenty of tech stuff and whatever the fuck the asshole needs to stay undercover.
My last hope—take a hike at the airport. He can hardly drag me to the check-in shackled and gagged. Then again, if the authorities are on the case—and I hope like hell they are because Zoya and Nathan must have reported me missing—they’ve flagged all airports. Luka is too smart to walk into their trap, so there’s a good chance he’s about to shove me into a wooden box to then ship me off in a container.
“What are you doing, sweetheart?”
The breath hitches in my throat. His presence has that power over me. A darkness that turns my blood to oil, my nerves to ice, and my insides to slithering snakes. He appears next to me, examining the pieces of carrots.
“Cubes, not slices,” he says in that calm yet commanding undertone. “You know the recipe, Elenka.”
His eyes are on me as he waits for my response to the question he hasn’t asked.
“Yes,” is my monotone reply.
He nods, satisfied with my compliance before he disappears again to do God knows what. He’s always scurrying about, arranging this or fixing that or planning shit. Energetic and perpetually productive. Guess a successful abduction requires a good amount of hard work, commitment, and attentiveness.
And excellent observation skills around the clock.
He’s got his eyes on me even when he’s not in the same room. Everything is wired with cameras—some visible, some not. He says he values my privacy and hasn’t installed any in my bedroom, but the fucker can’t fool me. He would be the shittiest stalker on earth if he didn’t seize the chance, even if that particular room doesn’t pop up on any of the numerous screens in the living room. The whole setup is so massive, it could compete with the CIA headquarters. Dozens of monitors, buttons, and cables. Of course, I’ve tried to get access but to no avail. All password-protected, some even triggering an alarm.
Sorry, Jack. After all my training with you, I could have sent a bullet straight through his heart, but alas, I don’t have a gun.
Lethargically, I grab the plate with chopped carrots and drop them into the pot bubbling on the stove. Splashes of stew land on my wrist shackles, and I wipe them on my oversized second-hand shirt. That’s how he keeps me in check—shackles around my wrists to limit my movements, and electronic shackles around my ankles to keep me from escaping.
Naturally, I ran the first chance I got. I got as far as to the rusty gates before the damn thing sent an electric shock up my legs, and I landed on all fours in the grass, gasping for air until Luka plucked me up five seconds later.
I’ve tried to break them, but my efforts only went as far as bruising my hands. Luka made sure I had access to literally nothing that could make a scratch. Plastic cutlery, paper cups, locked windows, and all cables stapled to the wall. Everything else—vases, deco stuff, even toothpicks—is securely stashed away in locked drawers. I even found wax strips in the bathroom instead of razors. Of course, I haven’t bothered with shaved legs, hoping he’d rather not touch me if he finds my shins hairy as a monkey.
Thank God, his hands haven’t come anywhere near me yet other than a light brush over my jaw, which is generally enough to trigger my gag reflex. Despite him being the most horrendous cretin on earth for me, this is a line he doesn’t dare to cross without my permission—a permission he believes I will grant him one day when I’m ‘trained’ to love and cherish him and whatever BS tumbled out of his mouth when he painted an awfully clear picture about how he imagines our future. A future he’d already started building by encouraging my hobbies while constantly reminding me of my roots, like uploading Russian books on an e-reader he granted me or cooking meals together.
So far, the fucker’s plan seems to be bulletproof. He sent personal emails from my account to Zoya, Nathan, and the HR bimbo at Crawford Crescent, selling them cock and bull stories about why I left on such short notice. He even hacked my website to install a ‘currently on vacation’ pop-up.
Even so, he knows he can’t keep the charade going forever. Someone will get suspicious. Knowing Nathan, he’s gone to town on finding me ever since I’d left, and Zoya knows I would never leave without a goodbye, let alone without my dragonflies that I hope are in good hands with Holly. Hence why Luka is constantly on edge, eager to get us both out of this ‘poisonous country.’
Slowly, I stir the spoon in the pot—a cheap plastic spoon that would break the second I try to ram it up Luka’s nostril. The whiff of chili and garlic leaves my taste buds cold. Everything I try to force down my throat smells like shit and tastes the same. My appetite has gone, along with my desire to live through one more day—much to Luka’s irritation, which is why he’s already linked me to an IV to make sure my body gets the nutrition it needs.
“Time is all you need,” he tends to mumble. “You will see.”
And time I’d had plenty of so far. Time to hate him more than I ever thought possible. Time to ponder about all the times he’d allegedly saved my life—a life he’d sucked out of me ever since his obsession with me had taken root inside his black, fragile heart. Time to rethink my strategy.
The door behind me opens, and I close my eyes as I sense his presence once more.
I need to play along. To make him believe that I’m starting to warm up to him, to trust him, to like him. So far, I haven’t made much progress on that part. Showing him even a shred of affection feels like cleaving through a limb with a jigsaw. Every glance I try to grant him hurts my eyes. Every smile I try to build hurts my face. Everything fucking hurts when he’s around me.
“Smells fantastic, Elenka,” he says in that easygoing manner as he approaches me.
As usual, I tense, my dull eyes following his thin, white fingers as they stretch out in front of me to switch off the oven.
“Come. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
His hand rests on my elbow, and I fight the urge to shake it off as he gently steers me out of the kitchen and into one of the adjacent rooms that, from the looks of it, had been used as some sort of office once with a ponderous mahogany desk, floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, and a set of brown leather seats. There’s even a big gramophone on one of the drawers in the corner.
But for today, Luka has revamped the entire space, and the only way I can describe it is… a shrine.
A weird, torturous sound flows out of my mouth as I take in what Luka has prepared. A three-story Russian honey cake with glowing candles and crackling sparklers on the desk, complete with the number twenty-nine soaring up in shades of gold. Dozens of gift boxes in all sizes litter the desk with champagne bottles, cupcakes, and tons of confetti crammed in between. A golden ‘Happy Birthday’ garland is draped over the ceiling along with more balloons.
And then there’s the centerpiece.
A statue—a fucking, life-sized statue—towers up in the middle of the room. The mint-green upper half has the shape of a woman with round, bare breasts and a golden helmet on her head. But that’s where the similarities to the female body end as a pair of magnificent wings burst from her shoulders, adorned with all kinds of green and blue stones. The lower two-thirds of her mold into the body of a dragonfly with the tip of its golden tail pointing downward. The entire piece looks like some sort of goddess people pray to in a Buddha temple, held upright by a pedestal on the floor.
“Happy Birthday, Elenka.”
Luka stands next to me, and even if my eyes are not on him, I can sense his anticipation a
s he pins me with a stare, eagerly waiting for my response. A response that comes in the form of a sob as I lift my shackled hands to place them over my mouth. Tears spring into my eyes as the gravity of it all seeps into me, tears he mistakes for ones originating from awe and not despair.
“Do you like it?” He wipes a hand through the air, gesturing to the grandeur of presents that will never be more to me than a cruel memory of an even crueler past. “Go on, open them.”
He gives me no choice other than trotting forward to work my way through one present after another. And each wrapping paper I rip open is like a gash through my heart.
A dark-red sweater labeled with ‘Belgorod.’ Three cookbooks with Russian recipes. A gift card for a dinner in one of Belgorod’s fancy restaurants. Russian Pink—my favorite perfume from older times. A sixty-piece set of matryoshka dolls. A painting of Moscow. And many more that don’t even register as I keep my mind on the only present that has ever meant something to me.
Nathan’s dragonfly pendant.
The last of the wrapping paper floats to the floor, and Luka draws in a big, settling breath.
“I hope this shows how much you mean to me, Elenka. How much I love you.” He shuffles closer. Too close. “I already found the perfect mansion for us. With a large pond. You can have an entire farm of dragonflies, Elenka. Trust me, it’s the perfect place for us.”
There’s only one perfect place for me right now, and that’s six feet under.
After all, six is my lucky number, right?
A high-pitched peep-peep goes off from somewhere inside Luka’s pockets, and he goes stiff as a board before he jumps into action and bursts out of the room. It takes me a few seconds to turn from torpid to bewildered to downright rabid as it dawns on me what has triggered the sound.
The alarm on his phone.
With a gasp, I hurry into the living room where Luka bustles about in front of the screens, hitting multiple keys at once. I scan the monitors, and I swear my heart leaps up to my throat.
Nathan’s BMW!
“How did you find me so fast, motherfuckers?” Luka curses under his breath.
I clutch my pendant, gawking at the screen where the BMW slides to a halt in front of the old, rusty gate which is part of a brick wall fencing in the extensive property. Luka zooms in on the windshield, and the breath lodges in my throat when Nathan and Vincent come into view. Nathan’s eyes lock with the camera that must be hidden somewhere in the top corner of the gate, his gaze murderous.
Luka’s face becomes hard as stone as he cracks his knuckles. “We’re leaving sooner than expected, Elenka.”
My gaze snaps back to him as he fishes a syringe from his waistband, one he’s probably kept in reserve, just in case.
And that case is now.
I gulp, lifting my shackled hands. “No, no, no. Please, don’t—”
A thunderous crash makes both our heads whip around, and I look at the screen just in time to see the gate splintering into pieces as Nathan rams his car straight through it.
“Nathan!” I yelp as the vehicle skids to a screeching halt in front of the entrance.
I gun for the door, but Luka grabs a fistful of my shirt and slams his backhand into my face so hard, he knocks me clean on my side. Pain shoots up my jaw, and I blink, unable to move.
“Fuck!” Luka fumes as pounding footsteps approach, and I glance up from where I’m sprawled on the floor to see his fingers flying over his phone in a rush.
Then, he aims for me, an ugly sneer contorting his face as he yanks me up so roughly, it almost gives me a whiplash. He spins me around and drags me with him, my back flush with his front. A second later, a shot cracks the air, and the lock on the door bursts before someone busts it down, slamming through it shoulder-first.
Vincent!
And he looks ready to go to war, as does Nathan rushing in after him.
I open my mouth to scream—in shock, in fear, in hope—but before I can do so, something cold and sharp nips my throat. I freeze.
Vincent and Nathan are both panting, quickly taking in the scene. My first instinct is to lift my hands and grab Luka’s forearm to keep the knife from slicing my throat, but he’s faster and snags the chain connecting my shackles, fisting it and restricting my movements.
A moment of silence follows as both parties size each other up. Vincent sneers and grips his gun, ready to shoot another bullet but holding back seeing as he doesn’t have a clear shot, while Nathan hones in on the blade nicking my skin, his face edged with both panic and murderous intentions.
“Drop it,” Luka orders from behind me, nodding to the weapon in Vincent’s hand.
For a brief moment, I wonder why Luka is threatening me with a knife and not the gun he’d snatched from me, but then I remember him telling me once that he hates everything that fires a bullet. Not that I fancy a blade slicing my windpipe, but I’m glad my gun isn’t in his hands right now. At least, he can only hurt me as long as Vincent and Nathan stay the fuck away from him.
Vincent’s calculating yet worried gaze flickers between me and my captor, his finger hovering over the trigger.
“I said, drop it!” The knife digs deeper into my skin, and I crane my neck to escape the sting. “If I die, she goes with me.”
Nathan’s hands are fisted so tight, he seems to be seconds away from breaking his fingers. “You would never kill her. Your love runs too deep.”
A sad chuckle resounds from behind me. “That it does. Elenka is mine, and mine alone. I’m destined to protect her, and I’m destined to have her. If I can’t have her, no one can, so if you want her to live, drop your gun. Now.”
My Adam’s apple bobbles under the blade, and I flash Nathan a fearful glance. The panic in his eyes tells me he knows… He knows that Luka’s obsession goes so far that he’d rather see me dead than in the arms of another.
Vincent’s jaw clenches, his lethal glare on the creature breathing down my neck. Something wet and hot slithers down my collarbone until it gets soaked up by my shirt. Blood.
“Dammit, Vincent, drop the fucking the gun!” Nathan hisses, and it’s only after a pained glance at me that Vincent tosses his weapon to the floor and kicks it forward for good measure.
Luka expels a trembling breath. “Good. Now, go or you’ll find yourself behind bars once more, Vincent Crawford.”
Everyone frowns, and gathering from the smirk I can feel stretching Luka’s lips, he’s about to deliver something shocking.
“You really thought I haven’t forged a backup plan?” He cackles. “You see, I’m not afraid of the police. They have nothing on me. I’m invisible to them. You, on the other hand,”—he nods to Vincent—“feature an entire NYPD billboard.”
He’s gloating, speaking in a frenzy as if he’d been waiting an eternity to brag about his brilliant setup.
“That night you hog-tied me in my home,” he goes on, “a camera recorded the entire thing where you tied me to a chair and threatened to maim me, remember?”
Uh-oh. This is bad. Very bad.
And judging from the vein twitching on Vincent’s head, he can smell the trouble, too.
“I’ve created some evidence that proves you forced me to steal the statue and bring it here. The old trout who lived here had a thing for jewelry, loads of it hoarded in the cellar.” He smacks his lips. “It will look as if you used the house as a warehouse. Oh, and the lady’s corpse is in the cellar, hog-tied with the same rope and tape you used on me that day…”
Sirens wail in the distance, and we all react to the sound. That’s what Luka had done on his phone before they stormed in. He sent the recording to the fucking cops, and there’s a corpse in the house with Vincent’s DNA all over it!
Think, Ella, think.
“I’ll go with him,” I blurt with a confidence I don’t feel.
Nathan goes rigid, his look of horror flinging my heart into my stomach. I widen my eyes at him, hoping to inconspicuously convey that I know what I’m doing. I hope.
I can’t blame him. We both know that someone will die today, but it sure as hell won’t be him or Vincent. Not on my watch. It’s time to turn the tables. So, I lift my hands in surrender, the shackles rattling.
“Ella…” Nathan growls in a warning tone, but I don’t show a crack, making my face drop on purpose and putting all my focus into acting the scared, little kitten.
“You were right,” I say to Luka, turning my head so our cheeks almost touch. “This country is poison for me. I’ve never wanted to live here. After Mom died,”—I add a gulp for good measure, something that comes easily only thinking about her—“I had to leave. I couldn’t stay there, not with all the happy memories of her and me…”
Luka shudders in a breath, and he lowers the blade a fraction of an inch.
“Silent Sins was a last resort,” I continue. “A stupid, rash decision in a moment of desperation. An opportunity to escape reality. A chance to live a fantasy.”
The gasp coming from Nathan rips my heart in two, and I have to close my eyes as tears burst out, just to keep my emotions in check. It has the desired effect, though, because Luka, thriving on my vulnerability and the chance to pacify me, loosens his hold enough to let me turn around and face him.
“Let them go, and you can take me back to Russia. No one needs to get hurt, Luka.”
Snarling, Nathan takes a step forward in my periphery, but Vincent slams a hand across his chest, keeping him from butting into my act.
Luka tilts his head, checking my face. “You want to protect Nathan because you love him.”
A statement, not a question.
“Yes,” I whisper. “You said you’d kill me if you can’t have me, so I’d rather go with you and save us all the heartache.”
The glint in his eyes signals he’s still wary, so I give it my last shot, put my hands on his chest, and say in the firmest tone I can muster, “It’s like you said, Luka. I don’t have the same connection to him as to you. Just give me time to purge him out of my system.”
