by Lana Sky
With Robert, my choice would have been clear.
Now? I turn my gaze to the wooden dresser and wrench a drawer open without giving myself the time to weigh the consequences. The first shirt my fingers fall over is black, finely tailored. Letting the towel drop to my feet, I scramble into the dress shirt, surprised to find that it reaches past my knees.
As my damp hair falls over my shoulders, I creep to the doorway and find Mischa waiting paces away. His eyes sweep over me once and then narrow.
“I suggest you remember those accounts, Little One,” he warns before turning on his heel and marching down the corridor. “Come. It’s time to prove just how valuable you are to your husband.”
CHAPTER 16
We don’t go far. A few closed doors down, he stops before another doorway and passes through it. There’s a desk in the center of this room, with two leather chairs placed before it. A study? It’s simpler in appearance, but it reminds me of the grand one where Robert Sr. holds court—a place I’m only ever allowed to venture in his son’s presence.
In silence, Mischa approaches the solid oak desk and grabs something from its surface. A leather-bound book. He offers it to me, along with a silver pen. “Let’s see how well your husband trained you, Little One,” he taunts.
Slowly, I lower myself onto one of the chairs and I open the book to a blank page. Balancing it over my lap, I uncap the pen and place the nib down over the ivory parchment. Four names and four amounts—that’s what I give him, fished at random from the recesses of my mind. It’s nowhere near everything.
And he knows it. Still, he accepts the book when I hold it out to him and scans what I’ve written.
“This name,” he says, pointing to the third entry down. “What do you know about it?”
“Barklow,” I read aloud. I look down at my lap, turning my focus inward. “Tall man. Blond. Balding. He met with Robert at least once every few months.” About what? I don’t know.
Something tells me Mischa has a suspicion though. He nods to himself as if tucking that bit of knowledge away for later. “And what else?”
I stare at the floor, averting my gaze from his. “I…I can’t remember.”
“Oh?” He takes a step toward me, reaching out to run his fingers through my wet hair. Roughly. I flinch as they snag on a knotted tangle. “I wonder if I can refresh your memory?”
“You don’t have to threaten me,” I say, looking up to meet his gaze directly. “Even by giving you only four names, you know what that means…”
I’ve betrayed my husband. It’s a reality that hasn’t sunken in yet. I don’t feel the fear I should. At least not yet.
“I’m tired,” I insist, allowing my exhaustion to leak into my voice. “I haven’t eaten in…” Hell, only he knows the exact answer to that. “There’s no point in only committing half treason,” I add weakly.
“And who says you’ll last another day?” Mischa wonders. He lets the statement linger on the air between us, an unmistakable reminder of where we stand.
My life is extended only at his whim.
Not that I could ever forget.
“Starving me may be an enterprising way to conserve resources if you plan on killing me soon,” I admit. “But it won’t make me remember any faster.”
“And how do I know if you have anything worth remembering?” he counters.
I lift my shoulder in a weak attempt at a shrug. “You wouldn’t be asking if you knew that I didn’t.”
It’s a dangerous game to mince words with him. I half-expect his anger to take hold once again. Instead, he surprises me by returning his attention to the book.
“You know more of your husband’s accounts?” he muses openly.
Aware of him watching, I fold my hands together and rest them on my lap. Lying would be useless, so I say nothing. Finally, his fingers seize a chunk of my hair and he uses it as a leash to force me to meet his gaze directly.
“So, you are hungry, Little One?” he asks in a lethal murmur.
My stomach answers for me, grumbling loudly. Amused, Mischa tilts his head to the side, allowing his tongue to shoot out along his lower lip. Fire spreads through my stomach as my heart thumps unsteadily at the motion.
“Then ask me for food.”
I don’t hesitate. “Please.”
“And you want to sleep?” He phrases the question in a way that reminds me of a hunter priming a trap.
“Y-yes.”
“And you think that what you can offer me is worth those resources, Little One? The mere promise that you might have more to give? Your trust is truly worth that much?”
Is it? I honestly don’t know. “Robert doesn’t gamble,” I tell him. “So…I don’t know much about favorable odds.”
“No?” The corner of his mouth quirks, but even that brief bit of emotion can’t touch the coldness in his eyes. “You do seem to know a thing or two about Roulette, Little One,” he suspects. “So we will play.”
He turns to the doorway, beckoning me to follow with a nod of his chin. This time, he leads me back to the ornate entrance and I’m allowed to take more details of the interior in than before.
A crystal chandelier bathes the grand hall in a warm, orange glow, illuminating curved archways leading off into various corridors. When Mischa turns down one, I follow, keeping as much distance between us as I dare to.
“Here.” He comes to a stop near an open doorway. Beyond it is a dining room with a long oak table and windows framed in cream curtains. “Sit,” he commands.
I slip past him and take the seat farthest from his position. He laughs at the display, and I presume that he writes it off as an act of fear. But no. I can see him more clearly from here. How he stands. The tension in his posture. The way he hones his gaze on me as if it’s the only way he can keep from looking at anything else. Then he leaves, and I know instinctively not to move.
I sit. I wait. His games aren’t as predictable as Robert’s. He leaves me guessing by the end of each round. He lets me sweat. Where my husband sought only to amuse himself with my pain, Mischa seeks to…
Ruin me. In any way he can. With brutality. With violent sex. With stingy mercy?
I tense as he reappears at the mouth of the room, holding a plate in his hand. The food on it is simple: a sandwich and scattered potato chips. My stomach pangs for it anyway, and I fight to keep utterly still as he carries the plate to me. When he stops beside my chair, I expect another display of dominance. Beg. Ask.
Instead, he unceremoniously slams the offering down, and I don’t wait for his permission. I grab the sandwich, rip it in half, and shove as much as I can into my mouth at one time. In three gulping bites, I choke it down and start on the chips like a damn animal.
Ellen Winthorp dined with decorum. She ate her food from her husband’s hand or devoured it slowly with whatever knife or fork the occasion called for.
That woman is dead. In Mischa’s realm, there are no manners. Just taking—whatever I can before he rips it out of reach.
“And sleep,” he says once I’ve cleared the plate, continuing our conversation as if never interrupted. “You wanted that as well…”
“Yes,” I cautiously reply.
“Then come.”
Grappling with a partially filled stomach, I trail him back up the stairs and into his room. The bed isn’t meant for me. I know that even before he reaches down to tug his boots off and approach the mattress himself. “So sleep,” he mockingly goads.
My eyes fall over the corner beside the dresser. I approach it, prepared to sink down and rest my head against the wall.
“No.” He snaps his fingers, forcing my attention on him. He’s seated, lying back against the headboard, his legs extended before him. “My floor is too good for you, Little One.” He waves his hand, commanding me closer. It’s only as he spreads his legs just enough to reveal a sliver of space between them that I realize just what he intends. “I said you could sleep, but I never said peacefully, did I? I will be wai
ting for you in your dreams.” The malice in his voice robs my lungs of air. “You will smell me. Feel me. Taste me. I won’t let you escape, even for a second.” He nods toward his chest. “Now, sleep.”
I strip my face of emotion as I lower myself beside him onto the bed. Then I turn and brace a trembling hand against his shoulder, finding enough leverage to sink against him, trapped on either side by a massive thigh. His breath scalds the top of my head while his heartbeat thunders beneath me. He’s right. I taste him. His scent floods my nostrils. A cold, sickening certainty fills me as I let my eyes drift shut with the bruised side of my face against his chest.
I’ll dream of him.
I’ll die of him.
CHAPTER 17
P risoners have no right to make demands. So I pray instead to whatever higher power will listen. For ruthless, vile destruction. Amen.
Torment is what I crave—at least when it comes to Mischa. Torment I can barely handle. Torture my body can only just withstand.
Pain, pain, pain.
It’s the only way I can compare him to Robert, measuring their varying flavors of agony inflicted.
But there is no comparison to this. There is no chilling memory in my head to examine this scenario through. On the rare shred of untouched space on my psyche, Mischa carves a new terrifying ordeal to relive.
As promised, I dream of him.
And I wake up knowing what true hell is. It’s not the measured cruelty Robert dished out. It’s not fearful memories or repulsive scars. It’s peace—being able to find it, even for a second, while in the arms of a monster.
What a terrible power to lord over someone.
The moment I regain my senses, my eyes fly open and I view the room from behind a cage composed of muscular, tattooed limbs. Regaining my bearings feels like assembling the pieces of a crudely made puzzle. It’s morning. Gray daylight glimmers around the edges of the curtains. Beneath my ear, a steady heartbeat taps out a constant rhythm while thick fingers twist through my hair…
Not tugging for once. Just feeling, rubbing the strands together and testing their weight.
“You don’t like to be held,” Mischa declares as my body stiffens while his fingers brush my scalp. “You tremble in your sleep. You flinch.”
He didn’t sleep himself; I can hear it in his coarse tone. No, he studied. How to strip me bare and catch me off guard.
As if aware of my suspicions, he flattens his hand against my skull, applying slight pressure. “Your husband was lenient with you,” he adds knowingly. “He kept you skittish.”
Is that what he calls it?
“You know how they test when soldiers are ready for war? When they’re broken enough?” He untangles one of his hands from my hair and snatches my wrist, displaying each finger. “They’re ordered to stick their hands in an open flame, but it’s not enough to just obey. Only a few can stand to watch their skin peel and burn until they’re given the order to pull their hand away. They are ready. But those who flinch out of reach before the command is given…” He manually places my hand on his hip, watching how it quivers. “They are pathetic fools. Poorly trained.”
Like young boys who leave little girls untouched?
I’m not brave enough to ask. When he releases me, I make the mistake of believing that he’s made his point, ended the game. My heart races as I plan my escape. Cautiously, I brace one of my hands over the mattress and attempt to push myself upright.
One fierce tug on my scalp shoves me right back down. “Did I say you could move?”
But I need to. I can only ignore his nearness for so long. His thighs create a stifling prison, trapping me within a cage I’m not used to. He’s right: Robert never wielded physical touch as a weapon. He slept beside me sparingly, only as his idea of a treat after a particularly brutal session. He never held me in his arms simply to prove a point.
But that highlights another difference between my husband and my captor: Robert wanted me somewhat whole.
Mischa wants me utterly broken, in pieces too small to ever resemble their original shape.
He extends his torture long enough to ensure I learn the rules. Only he can dictate how much I move my head and how much of him I feel against my aching, battered frame. But he can’t control one aspect of his anatomy…
It slams against my stomach with every breath I take, dangerously hard. I cringe away from the contact as much as I can, and he chuckles, twisting his fingers more harshly through my hair.
“Don’t act shy now.” It’s not a taunt, but a dare. “I’m sure your husband didn’t let you rest for long—”
“I…I’m not on birth control.” I don’t know why I chose to admit that to him. Considering his threats to end my life, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe I subconsciously needed to voice another comparison between him and Robert out loud.
While Robert hated the medicine behind hormone-manipulating drugs, he studied my cycle religiously, planning his “needs” around the days that would be most beneficial to him.
As expected, Mischa laughs, shrugging his shoulder. “Pregnancy is your last concern, Little One,” he says, letting a lethal implication lurk in between the words. “But…” As he forms a fist and nudges my hip with the tops of his knuckles, I stiffen. “You’ve had a child before. I saw the scar.”
Scar. Warily, my fingers creep to the mark in question, tracing it through the fabric of his shirt. It’s one of the few I never observed in much detail. I can only recall its general shape: a curved, jagged line at the base of my abdomen. After a few brief seconds, I let my hand fall.
“Did your husband keep that a secret as well?” He nudges me more firmly when I don’t answer.
But fear can’t override every instinct, as it turns out. My teeth clamp down over an answer. My brain won’t betray those memories. I’m forced to endure his curiosity for nearly a minute before he shifts his weight and knocks me off him without pressing the topic further.
“Get up.”
I scramble onto my hands and knees and back away to the opposite end of the mattress. He watches me go with an unreadable expression before he stands and strips his shirt, tossing it onto the floor.
My brain short-circuits as I take him in. A collage of scars and varying tattoos mark his body like it’s a vandalized canvas. Long, vicious marks. Snarling black skulls and swirling designs with undiscernible meanings. I’m not sure why my gaze settles over one brand in particular, sliced into his lower back. It’s large enough to span nearly his entire torso, neatly integrated through several surrounding tattoos. A complex series of scars forms its construction: two vertical slashes beside a crudely etched V. Another Roman numeral? Seven.
The longer I stare, the more unsteady the world feels beneath me. With Robert, curiosity was a warning sign to back away from whatever sparked it. Nothing good ever came from learning his secrets.
With Mischa…
That same emotion is a drug, numbing me to the harsher reality. The promise of his secrets doesn’t repulse me as much as it confuses me. Maybe because I can’t escape the pathetic truth: I want to learn…everything.
I want to know what made him human once. Robert wasn’t a monster so much as he was a beast. He was born that way. He’ll die that way.
He doesn’t use his body as a canvas to illustrate his descent into madness.
He has no Vanya mourning what he used to be.
Does the difference mean a damn thing?
Maybe…
“See something you like?” Mischa wonders, his cold tone snapping me back to reality.
I turn my focus to the wall beyond his head as he continues toward the dresser, swiping a clean shirt from one of the drawers. I hear a zipper come undone moments later, but when he finally reenters my line of sight, he’s fully dressed in a pair of slacks and a lazily donned button-down. He fastened it up to his chest, leaving a sliver of defaced skin in view.
“Let’s hope that sleep refreshed your memory,” he warns before exiting the roo
m altogether, leaving me to follow on shaking legs.
Morning casts an alarming pallor over the grand estate, and the daylight seeping in reveals secrets skillfully hidden by the dark. His men are a constant presence, lurking around doorways and wandering the ornate halls. There’s a staleness to the wealth, like something long since abandoned.
Why?
The wooden floors and paneled walls reveal no answers by the time I’m led inside the barren office, forced to take a seat before the desk. Mischa hands me the leather book, which was still where he’d left it. I dutifully flip it open to a clean page and balance the pen between my fingers.
Memory is a dangerously unreliable thing. It’s there, fighting to be known when you’re desperate to suppress it. Yet it hides when you need it, obscuring details and blurring lines. Mischa watches, patiently impatient as I etch out another four names in painstaking fashion.
Upon snatching the book from me, he scans the page, his eyes narrowing over the entries. Then he rips it from the book and shoves it crumpled into his pocket. “More.” He drops the book onto my lap and jerks his chin toward the pen. “Write them.”
“I can’t.” My hand trembles, allowing the nib of the pen to broadcast my anxiety on the air. “It…it doesn’t work like that—”
“Like what?” he presses, lethally soft. His hand cups my chin, wrenching it back so that my gaze meets his. “What doesn’t work?”
I swallow hard, consumed by the vast emptiness that paints his irises. I always thought Robert was hard to interpret, but now, I know the truth. Robert hid nothing behind his darkness. There were no secrets to discern.
“I can’t just turn it off and on,” I admit. “M-maybe…if you told me what you were looking for—”
“Ha!” He lets me go and throws his head back for another chilling laugh. “Don’t, Little One,” he warns. “Don’t attempt to manipulate me. I am not Ivan.”
I don’t know what he means. Looking down at my hands, I try again. “There are hundreds of names. Thousands of accounts—”
