by A. Zavarelli
“What’s the message?”
“He wants her at the Christmas party.”
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “Why the Christmas party?”
Mischa shrugs. “I don’t know the reason.”
Viktor is still testing me. It could be the only reason. He wants to ensure my loyalty to Ana, and I dread what this party might entail.
I pull up to a drive-thru, and Mischa orders between drags of his cigarette, and then we park while he eats. He said he had something for me, and I want to get on with it, but I also need him sober for the impending conversation.
The car is quiet, so I turn on the radio and smoke another cigarette. Mischa polishes off two burgers and a large fry before leaning back in the seat and patting his belly. “Much better.”
“I don’t have all day, Mischa.”
“I know,” he says. “But don’t get pissed. It isn’t really about your mother.”
“Then what the fuck is it?”
“As it turns out, Manuel and one of his guards have the same taste in women. Or more specifically, one woman. They’ve both been banging the same chick. My new friend Eduardo is highly motivated to keep his job and his dick.”
“So we have an in?”
“We have an in.” Mischa nods. “But the guy is a nobody, really. He wasn’t able to get me much, just some old surveillance videos from the basement. Which, for the record, your mother wasn’t on any of them.”
“So what is on them?” I ask.
He tosses me his phone, and I unlock the screen. An endless number of files are ready to view, and I’m not even certain where to begin.
The first video I open contains a haunting image of Nakya’s mother in bed late at night. I fast forward through hours of nothingness until Manuel comes stumbling into the room, obviously drunk. There isn’t audio but isn’t necessary. The image is enough, and one I won’t soon forget. He beats her and fucks her unconscious body, leaving her in a puddle of filth when he climbs into bed.
The next video is of a similar nature, only this one takes place in the kitchen. He burns her hand on the stove and shoves her face into a sink full of dishwater. When she comes up gasping for breath, a sickening need motivates me to freeze the frame on her face. Without her veil, she looks so much like Nakya. And it occurs to me that this is what will become of her if I send her back to Manuel. An empty shell with dead, soulless eyes.
“When was this taken?”
“Five years before her death,” Mischa answers.
Manuel’s wife died long before she ever made it to the grave. She was a victim too, and if he could do this to his own wife, there’s no telling what became of his mistresses.
A heaviness settles into my chest as I scroll through the images. There are hundreds of video stills. Thousands of hours of his abuse.
“Eduardo tells me that he revisits the videos often when he is drunk,” Mischa says.
He saved them because he is sick. He saved them because he is a vile waste of energy who doesn’t deserve to live another day on this earth.
I’m tempted to end him now and be done with it. But those thoughts come to an abrupt halt when another still catches my attention. One that isn’t Manuel’s wife, but his daughter. Acid boils my gut before I even open it. I shouldn’t. It has no business being a part of my decision. What happened in Nakya’s past can’t be changed, but my finger hovers over the play button, regardless. If I watch this video, it will change things. It will change me. Mischa knows it, and I can’t understand his motives for doing this.
“Why are you showing me these?”
“You wanted to know Manuel’s character.”
“I knew from the moment I met him that Manuel Valentini wasn’t worth the breath it took to speak his name.” I scoff. “So don’t bullshit me.”
“I got curious about the girl.” He shrugs. “She seems fucked up.”
“She isn’t,” I snarl.
It’s a lie, and it doesn’t take a team of psychiatrists to determine that much. But I don’t want him speaking about her that way. I don’t want anyone speaking about her that way. It’s my secret to keep. She is my broken doll to repair, and mine alone.
“Just watch it,” Mischa urges.
I click play, and my stomach lurches at the grainy images on the screen. My suspicions were right, and this is the confirmation. Manuel wasn’t just violent with his wife. He was violent with Nakya too. She spills a glass of water on the carpet, and without a second thought, he backhands her so viciously she falls limply into the coffee table.
I know I should stop. This can’t matter to me because it won’t change her circumstances. But nothing is as intimate as experiencing her pain, and I can’t bring myself to look away from the horrors she endured. I need to understand them. I need to know her darkest shame.
The first video blends into the next until it is an endless stream of savagery that only gets worse. Manuel pulling her hair. Pushing her. Slapping her. Biting her. The abuse progresses over time as she grows, and eventually, she becomes the recipient of his fists and even his feet when he kicks her.
My fists are trembling with a gluttonous compulsion to bathe them in Manuel’s blood. I want to drain him of his life force. I want to beat his face until there is nothing left. Mischa sees it, and wisely chooses not to tell me that he was right. This video has only solidified what I already knew to be true.
Nakya is inside me. She has bested the thief by stealing something that doesn’t belong to her. And when I kill Manuel, it won’t be for my mother.
It will be for her.
I hesitate at the end of the bed, wary of the clothing laid out for me. The clothing I picked out. They are nice clothes. Beautiful clothes. The same that I have worn many times over.
Something my father taught me was that I should always dress modestly. Modesty translated into skirts and blouses and feminine dresses. The only pants I could get away with were the leggings I wore to class. But for as long as I can remember, I wondered what it would be like to wear whatever I wanted.
I used to collect magazines, admiring the glossy photos of women in their bold attire. Jeans and ripped shirts and trendy new fashion pieces that my father would never approve. I dreamed of a day I could wear something like that, even though I doubted it would come. My clothing has always been insistent on one unbending truth.
I’m a good girl who does as she’s told.
But right now, the neutral tones on the bed are suffocating me with their lies. Because I’m not a good girl anymore. I would be a fraud if I wore these now. And I’m surprised to find how little I care.
Something broke inside me when Nikolai took me. The pressure I felt to be perfect deflated like a balloon. I’ve been carrying it around for so long that I didn’t think I could ever be liberated. But I am. The only torment I feel is that I lost my virtue to someone who cares so little. A man like Nikolai thinks nothing of taking me in the middle of the night, only to steal away before the light of morning.
In some ways, I wish I could be like him. I wish I could just not care. He will come back for me, and he will take me again. Something I equally long for and dread. My armor must remain intact. And in the interim, I must learn how to navigate this world as the kind of woman I’ve always wanted to be.
Gathering the clothes from the bed, I return to the closet, tossing the worthless garments onto the floor. The ritual continues as I tear through the racks of mind-numbing colors, adding to the pile of what I no longer want in my life. In the end, all that remains are my ballet clothes and a few small shoe boxes at the end of the closet.
In one of those boxes, I find what I’m looking for. A pair of jeans. They still have the tag on them, purchased more for symbolism than for usefulness. I bought them online when I was feeling brave, and I’ve held onto them for two years. Often, I would take them out and try them on, walking around my bedroom the same way that fashion models do.
Today, I will wear them as a regular woman.
A woman with the freedom to choose.
I pair the jeans with a white leotard and leave them rolled at the ankle. They are a loose fit. Boyfriend cut, the tag reads. And when I look in the mirror, I don’t recognize myself, but it feels good. And I decide that I might not be able to control my numbered days, but while I’m alive, I am going to live.
Down the hall, Nikolai’s office is still open. He rarely locks it, I’ve discovered, but probably because he doesn’t have anything to hide in there. It’s just a desk, computer, a phone, and his whiskey.
Inside the desk drawers are a few essential office tools, but unfortunately, I don’t find a pair of scissors. There is, however, a letter opener. It’s heavy and sharp, so I think it will do the job well enough.
To my satisfaction, when I return to my closet, I discover that it does. It shreds through the blouses and dresses quite easily, up until the point when it begins to dull. Regardless, I don’t stop until every last piece is ruined. And when I’m finished, I look up to find Nikolai in the doorway, watching me curiously.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I want new clothes,” I tell him. “You can add it to my father’s bill, right?”
I expect a fight out of him. What I don’t expect is the booming laughter and an easy smile that transforms his face. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him so unguarded, and it knocks me off balance.
“Yes, we can add it to his bill,” he says. “Now come here.”
I rock back off my knees and stand, moving toward him with an acute awareness of his every breath. He looks tired but calm. Sky blue eyes warm me like the sun, and strong, steady hands wrap me in comfort as he draws me closer.
“I like you like this,” he murmurs.
“Like what?”
His eyes carve a path over my body. The body I have only ever hated. And even if I feel at home in his arms, I can’t feel comfortable. I have so many doubts about what he sees when he looks at me this way. Is he delusional or am I?
He tips my chin up with his fingers, his voice firm but gentle. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop thinking, zvezda,” he implores. “For once, believe me when I tell you that you are beautiful in every way. Yes?”
“Okay,” I lie.
His breath blows over my neck, and he kisses the place where my pulse beats for him. “It would be easier if you hated me.”
I let my face rest against his warm chest, feeling his heart beat too. “You’re going to ruin me, aren’t you?”
“I thought I already had.”
We are both quiet then. He chooses not to relieve my fears, and I choose not to acknowledge them. He is right that it would be easier if I hated him. I should hate him for everything he’s done. He can’t let me go, and I can’t make him.
His lips find the hollow of my throat, and when he kisses me, fire licks along my skin. I return the favor by rising on my toes to taste the flesh that’s most forbidden. The one where I might leave a mark, and I hope I do when my teeth graze his skin.
He grunts when he feels it, and things take a swift turn in his favor. Pinning me to the wall, he grabs my ass and lifts me against his crotch, throbbing heat stabbing into my belly. The straps of my leotard come down, baring my breasts as if he owns them. His hand rubs between my legs, and his clothes rub against my sensitive nipples. I jump at every touch, clinging to his shoulders and squeezing my thighs around his hips.
And I learn something new but not unsurprising about my captor. He bites back. First my throat, and then my collarbone, and finally my aching nipples. The game of who can leave their mark on who is sure to be won by him because I feel him everywhere. Red, mottled blotches cover my skin where he’s tasted me. My flesh is swollen and tender, a testament to his ownership over me.
My fingers twist and pull at his hair, trying to bring him closer so I can do the same. I want to bite him. I want to mark him. And more importantly, I want to own him. He groans and nips at my ear, his breath hot on my skin.
“You are turning into a very bad girl,” he hums. “Someday, I will let you mark me, pet.”
Someday.
The ever-present reminder that this is temporary. I try to shove him away, and he captures me by the wrists, shaking his head.
“Don’t pout, my sweet. It will be your body that I take every night.”
To prove it, he yanks my zipper down and removes my jeans. Next comes my leotard, and in a blink, I’m naked. It isn’t fair that he doesn’t give me the same courtesy, only reaching down to unzip his jeans and retrieve his cock. But when I see the tan, heavy flesh, my trials are soon forgotten.
“Are you sore, zvezda?” he asks as he rubs the fat head against my small opening.
“Yes,” I answer.
He groans and thrusts his hips forward, stabbing inside me. I cry out, and he rumbles his approval against my chest.
“You should always be sore from my cock,” he declares. “You should always remember who owns you.”
He squeezes my hips, tilting them to meet his needs, and my head falls back against the wall.
“Put your hands up,” he says. “And hold onto me with your legs.”
I put my hands up, and he pins them to the wall with his. My legs squeeze around him, and it’s the only thing holding me up as he rocks his hips forward. He tortures my nipples with his tongue while he fucks me, and there’s nothing I can do but endure it.
“These tits belong to me.” His words are punctuated by his thrusts. “So does this ass. And this pussy. If you understand nothing else, zvezda, then understand this. You are mine.”
His momentum builds with every hushed declaration, and I confirm that he’s right when pleasure rockets through my body. Spasms arc through me, forcing me to bow and contract around him. We are panting. High. Hungry for each other. And I can’t deny how much I like this. He’s inside me, and for now, he is mine too.
He stops and starts drunkenly, confusion marring his brows.
“Stop, stop,” he urges, but I’m not doing anything. I can’t do anything with the way he has me pinned. Still, his hips grind a to a halt, and his fingers kiss my face. “I’m going to blow if you keep doing that, zvezda.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I protest.
“You are,” he insists. “You are ruining me. What the fuck are you doing?”
Even in my doped-up state of mind, I’m cognizant enough to recognize it’s a rhetorical question. It’s a question I don’t have the answer for. So I stay quiet, watching him as he alternates between fucking me and cursing me out.
“Tell me that you belong to me,” he says.
I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut, exhausted.
“Tell me that you belong to me, and I will make you come every day.”
His lies pour salt into the bitter wound between us. He has no right to say such things.
“I won’t be your mistress,” I tell him. “I would rather die.”
Hard fingers squeeze my face. “Look at me.”
I open my eyes, and his are flame blue. He thrusts harder, faster, determined to prove he’s still in control when he comes inside me. And on his last sputtered breath, he confirms my deepest fear.
“You will be whatever I want you to be.”
“Kol’ka,” Viktor’s voice greets me from the other end of the line.
“How are you?” I ask.
It’s not unusual for him to call me, but I find myself dreading it more every day. The longer I lie to him, the closer I am to coming unraveled. He will start making demands soon. Demands I have no choice but to obey. This is the life I wanted—the one I was born into—yet it feels suffocating.
“I am well,” he answers. “But Ana has been asking after you. She is eager to see you at the Christmas party this evening.”
I close my eyes and lean back, grateful he is not here to witness the tension on my face. “I look forward to seeing her as well.”
The words feel like a betrayal to Na
kya, and it’s unsettling, to say the least. I owe her nothing. My duty is what’s important.
“Ana requested that you wear a blue tie this evening,” Viktor says. “She will be in blue as well.”
“Then I will have Mischa pick one up.”
“I trust he will be bringing the girl along?”
His statement catches me off guard, and it seems Mischa forgot to mention that detail.
“He will,” I assure him. “We are traveling together.”
“Very good,” he says. “I know she is not Russian, but perhaps she will make a suitable companion for him in the interim. A nice plaything, anyway.”
My teeth come together so violently, the force reverberates through my jaw.
The line is silent, and I know it’s up to me to fill it. Courtesy dictates that I should ask pleasantries about his daughters and snuff out any suspicions he may have about Nakya. But I can’t force the words, try as I might.
Viktor takes it upon himself to fill the gap. “I suppose I should tell you that Manuel was not happy with the package delivered to his doorstep.”
“I don’t imagine he was.”
“If nothing else, it will motivate him to pay off his debt. Or perhaps I only imagine the best in him. I suppose it could also provoke him to write off his daughter altogether.”
“I don’t know what he will do,” I admit. But neither of those options are what’s best for Nakya.
“How are you coming along with your quest for answers?” Viktor inquires.
“I will have them soon,” I lie.
Another silence. He doesn’t believe me, and he shouldn’t. It’s not like me to be dishonest with him. It’s not like me to betray my brotherhood for my own selfish desires. But it’s the bed I have made for myself.
“I hope so, Kol’ka,” he says. “You are running out of time.”
“Did you pick up my tie?”
Mischa nods, tossing a shopping bag onto the bed. He’s wearing new trousers and a black dress shirt, and I haven’t failed to notice that his hair is freshly cut and groomed too. While it might be custom to wear our best for the annual Christmas party, it doesn’t suppress the urge to wallop him in the face.
