Struggling to talk as the asphyxiation of fear squeezed my throat, I merely nodded jerkily. Her eyes widened with a look of sheer horror when I picked up the hat and shoved it on my head.
“Uhh, I’m not sure…”
All I could do was narrow my eyes and shake my head at her, still unable to form words as dread overtook me.
Looking torn for a moment, she exhaled slowly and shrugged. “Okay, but on your head, be it.” She giggled. “Quite literally, eh?”
Quickly retreating when I gave her a death glare, she hurried down the corridor. Luckily, the boots were military and not stilettos as I only just managed to stay upright when I ambled after her.
The backstage crew all had the same reaction to Francis, every single pair of eyes growing large as they stared at my head. Some of them paled. Some even went green.
“You’re going to get yourself killed wearing that!” A guy wearing a headpiece and mic remarked when I approached the side of the stage.
“I am aware of that but thank you for the wasted heads up.”
Holding up both hands, he took a step backwards. “Okay, love.” Bringing the mouthpiece closer to his mouth, he spoke into it. “Popping Candy is ready to go. We need to be heavy with security, get all the lads up front.”
He practically pushed me onto the stage after I stood glued to the spot with fright. I stumbled but managed to, amazingly, remain upright as I took the spot centre stage.
It didn’t matter that the audience was in pitch blackness, hiding them from my view. It didn’t matter that the spotlight hit me straight in the eyes, blinding me anyway. It didn’t matter that the thud of my racing pulse in my ears deafened the shocked gasps that echoed around the small auditorium. Wearing the fucking Ushanka on my head, wearing the slutty clothes on my body, even what I was about to reveal about myself to not only the room but Caelan didn’t fucking matter anymore.
Because when the music started, Flesh by Simon Curtis, a song I knew in my heart because I had stripped to it so many times for my Denny, it became unmistakable that the Game Master knew so much more about me than I could ever have anticipated.
Day 7
22:02
Caelan
The Russian hat was going to get her killed. But I guessed she already knew that.
The audience had gone creepily quiet as Nessa stood rooted to the spot, staring out into the darkness with unfocused eyes. Now it made sense. I had thought it a pretty simple task the GM had set. Yeah, of course, it was humiliating and demeaning, taking off every item of clothing in front of a room full of people. But it wasn’t exactly dangerous. Except, now it was. And it would appear to every man in this room that Nessa was mocking them.
The Black Apricot was run by the Chechen mafia, known for their hatred of the Russians, especially the Russian mafia. They had been rivals for a very long time. The GM had definitely upped his game. There was no way me and Nessa alone could take on every man in the room, with or without the piece I had stashed in the back of my jeans. I’d been surprised I hadn’t been searched on arrival, yet the way the receptionist had fallen over herself to be nice, it was clear the GM had a significant influence on whoever owned the place.
I’d noticed a few guys rise from their seats as Nessa finally started to move her body to the music. She had closed her eyes, and evidently, she knew the song by heart if the way she softly sang the lyrics to herself was anything to go by.
“You gonna do something other than stand there, you Russian cunt?” one guy shouted, triggering a round of cheers from the other men. Did they not get it was just a costume piece, and that she wasn’t fucking Russian? I had never understood the hatred between the Chechens and the Russians, weren’t they all the same anyway?
“Maybe you should help her out, Seth!” another goaded.
I moved forward, into the lights, and when Nessa finally opened her eyes, I locked her gaze and nodded in encouragement. “You can do this, babe.”
Her face was pale, not surprisingly, but it wasn’t the tone of her skin that had the hairs on the nape of my neck standing on end. Nessa looked at me with more than just fear, she looked defeated, prepared for death. Her eyes had dulled, and her shoulders sagged as she lazily swung her hips to the beat of the track. It was like she’d given in. It was just a striptease, the way she was acting didn’t make sense.
However, she did as was bid, and started to undo the buttons of her blouse.
Her eyes bore into me as she stared straight into my soul. “Be ready to run,” she mouthed.
Scowling, I shook my head. “Going nowhere, babe.”
“You need to run!” She practically spat the words at me through a clenched jaw, her glare full of both anger and conviction. “You need to finish the game, Caelan. They will rip you apart if they know you’re with me!”
I froze. The beat of my heart went crazy with the look of sorrow in her stare. There was still something I didn’t know, something shared by only Nessa and the GM, and I readied myself for a fight. Slipping my gun out, I clicked the safety off and looked back to Nessa. “We’ll finish the game! Together,” I mouthed back, refusing her demand to run.
A tear dripped from one eye as she sadly shook her head at me.
Blowing out a long breath, her eyes slowly slid closed, and she slipped the blouse off her shoulders.
HOLY. FUCK!
Now we were definitely in trouble!
Day 7
22:12
Nessa
At first, a deathly silence spread around the room, a couple of shocked gasps the only thing to be heard over the thunderous roar in my ears.
My gaze dropped to Caelan. “I’m sorry.”
Of everything the GM had put our families and us through these past seven days, even the fact that I was about to die gruesomely and horrifically if the Obschina had their way, it was the fact that I had kept Caelan in the dark about who I really was that had my heart twisting in pain.
“I’m sorry.”
He stood frozen, staring at my chest with rage in his eyes – much the same as every other man in the room.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, stupidly, as I lifted my eyes back to the room. Everyone was now stood up, all eyes on me. The air grew thick with the promise of vehemence, the fate of my slaughter starting to suffocate me. I could run, but I couldn’t outrun every man in this room.
Gradually the crowd started to swell forwards, moving slowly towards the front of the stage. I looked to the left, wondering if it really was worth trying to make a run for it. However, the sight of Tabitha the Cheshire Cunt flicking a small knife between her fingers put paid to that option. On my right, a guy and Francis stood watching me with a repulsive glare.
“The fuck?” One man who had stepped up beside Caelan hoisted himself up onto the stage and calmly strode across the platform toward me.
My mouth was so dry I thought I was going to die from drought, and no matter how many times I tried to force some saliva, fear refused it. My legs trembled with a force that made my ankles jolt with the shock, and my heart was beating so wildly I figured they could all see the outline of it through my breastbone.
Pressing a blade to the underneath of my jaw, he tipped my head back until I was looking into his hateful eyes. “How dare you!” He spat at me, a globule of spittle slapping me in the cheek and making me flinch. “How fucking dare you. You think anyone in this room wants to look at your filthy Russian cunt?”
Slowly drawing the knife down the front of my throat and then my chest, he dug the tip into the flesh above my left breast that was painted red and gold. “I should carve this from you and send it to your father in a pretty little box.”
My throat hurt when I tried to swallow back the lump so I could speak.
“Maybe I should cut off your tit and send him the whole thing, huh?”
Another couple of men had climbed up and stood behind the guy that appeared to be in charge. I could feel the presence of more people behind me, the threat of vengeance
encircling me.
Searching the crowd, I winced at the hurt that stabbed my chest harder than the man with the knife did when I noticed Caelan had disappeared. I shouldn’t have expected anything different really. I had betrayed him, lied to him. Yet, I was full of relief that he had managed to escape before chaos descended. He needed to finish the game, and he couldn’t do that if he were cut into pieces with me.
“Cut off both tits, Kasym,” someone behind me declared.
“Maybe I’ll cut out her cunt and send it to him full of spunk.”
Laughter filled the room when Kasym dragged the blade down my stomach. I flinched at the pain as my skin split and blood started to dribble down between my legs and thighs.
“It’s laughable, but not surprising, that your coward piece of shit father sent you here to do his dirty work for him. What are your orders?”
I shook my head, willing my mouth to form words, but once again, it let me down.
“I asked you a question, bitch!”
I hissed through my teeth when the backhander across my cheekbone sent me stumbling sideways. A man caught me and shoved me back towards Kasym.
“Answer me!” he barked as his fist enclosed my throat.
“I just….” The effort it took to force each word up my throat and out of my mouth made my head throb in pain. “I just wanted to strip.”
Scrunching up his face, he stared at me like I had just told him his daddy fucked Russian Guinea pigs. “You just wanted to strip?”
I nodded. “My father doesn’t know I’m here. I don’t… I’m not part of the family.” I knew it was futile trying to explain myself, but still, I tried. “I am not associated with the Bratva.”
“Bullshit!” he roared, making me rear back. “This ink tells me different!” Once again, he stabbed the knife into my tattoo, twisting it deeper. Blood trickled from the crown, staining the red rose with the deep crimson of my blood. I should have cut the fucking ugly thing out myself years ago! “You’re branded with the Bratva insignia, and with a crown, no less. I know exactly who you are… Vanessa Alexeev, the one and only Bratva princess!”
Tears overflowed, falling from me in wave after wave of despair when Kasym pushed me to my knees. “I think we should cut the crown from your head and send it to Maksim along with your tits and cunt.” He smirked when I shook in terror before him.
Taking my hair in his fist, he yanked it upwards. Yelping at the pain that pierced my scalp with the strict pull, he demonstrated exactly how sharp his blade was, and in one swift slash he cut the length of hair from my head.
Vomit raced up my throat, and I fought to keep it contained. The stage was now full of men, all of them eagerly awaiting the scalping of the Bratva princess. I could see the hunger for it in their steely gazes, some even licking their lips as though they could taste my death.
A muffled cry left me, and I gagged when he shoved the hair he had cut from me into my mouth and tried to force it down my throat. Perhaps I would die of suffocation before bleeding to death. I was sure that would be a better way to go.
“Something to bite down on, sweetheart.”
Everyone laughed, moving forwards so they could watch Kasym peel the skin from my scalp.
A quiet whimper was all I could manage when I felt the edge of the knife pierce my temple. However, I didn’t hear it over the chaos that suddenly filled the room. I couldn’t see the pandemonium around me as my own blood seeped down my forehead, blinding me. Gunshots. Shouts. Scuffles. I struggled to sort through each one as the world tipped sideways and I fell forwards.
The despair of encroaching death, the unbearable agony that finally liberated the vomit stuck in my throat, the sheer terror making my body convulse with shock, it all went away when the distinctive boom of a shotgun silenced the room, and my father’s deep voice sent me spiralling into a realm of black peace. “Touch one more hair on her head, and I will kill you all!”
Day 8
02:36
“Hello, Vanessa.”
The smile I hadn’t seen in so many years made the pain scorching my forehead intensify when I frowned. “Papa?”
The many laughter lines around his eyes and wrinkles on his forehead were new, and his hair was now a shade of silver, but the glint of love that had always shone through his eyes brought back so many memories. Some good. Some bad.
“You’re safe now.”
Attempting to move, I winced at the pain in my head and instinctively brought my fingers to my hairline. Dread coursed through me, and I almost daren’t feel for what I expected my touch to find. However, I was confused when I found only a small bandage covering a portion of my scalp. “What happened?”
“Lost a couple of men, but we got you out.”
Managing to shuffle up the bed, I leaned back against the headboard and stared at my father. “How the hell did you find me, or get into the Apricot for that matter?”
“Your man let us in the back door.”
His answers were only adding to my confusion. “Caelan?”
The blue of his eyes darkened, and he shook his head slowly. “You do know who he is, don’t you, Vanessa?”
“Of course, I know who he is. And now he knows who I am. But you haven’t answered my question, how did you know where I was?”
Dread trickled through my veins when guilt crossed his face. “I know you said I wasn’t to interfere, but I was worried about you, my matryoshka.”
Time seemed to stop as I waited for him to go on, and when he remained silent I yelled at him, “How – did – you – find – me?”
Glancing away for a moment, he physically winced when he gave me his answer. “I got some men to latch on to the signal frequency of the iPad.”
Horror made my head shake, and I clambered out of bed.
“Vanessa!”
“Get off me!” I screamed as I shook him off and raced through the bedroom. My feet stumbled on the stairs, and I grabbed hold of the handrail to stop myself falling down the last few.
Caelan was sat at the kitchen table when I burst into the room. The look on his face when he lifted his red-rimmed eyes told me what I already knew.
“No!”
My knees thudded on the tiled floor as devastation tore from me in a scream that tore the lining of my throat.
“Nooo!”
Caelan quickly came to my side, scooping me into his arms and pulling me close. “Both your mother and Debbie,” he choked out. “He said we cheated, and our orders were to tell no one.”
“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Shush, this isn’t on you.”
“Yes, it is,” I argued. “I told, I told him. I killed them both. I killed them both,” I uttered over and over until the desolation and agony tearing through me forced my mind to shut down and grant me a reprieve from the hell my actions had brought us.
Day 8
07:32
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Shifting into a more comfortable position, I blew the steam from my coffee and took a sip before answering Caelan. “You’re a cop, Caelan.”
He was both angry and confused, and I got that. “I could have prepared if I’d known you were fucking Bratva!”
“I’m not fucking Bratva!” I barked.
Giving me a dubious look, he shook his head and sighed. “We both know that’s not true. So, what? Did you think I’d drag you down the station, is that why you didn’t tell me?”
“No!” I tried. Sighing, I rubbed at my sore eyes and blew out a frustrated breath. “I didn’t tell you because, initially, I didn’t need to. I haven’t seen my father for twenty years, Caelan. I didn’t think it was necessary to inform you of every detail of my life.”
“I get that, I really do, babe. But, yesterday, it came into play. You knew that your tattoo would explode in our faces. Yet you still chose not to tell me.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “And I get a feeling there’s still something you’re not telling me.”
Jesus, there was so mu
ch I wasn’t telling him, but I didn’t have a clue where to start, or even if I wanted to. When he found out what I had done, this conversation and the fact I was the Bratva heir would be a moot point anyway.
Except, now the game was over I most likely wouldn’t see Caelan again. Another reason that I shouldn’t tell him. It was all such a mess. On the one hand I wanted to spill everything, free the guilt I had held inside me for nearly four years, but on the other hand, I didn’t think I could bear the look of hatred in Caelan’s eyes.
“You know,” he continued, filling both of our mugs from the coffee pot and turning his back on me to place it back on the hotplate. “At one point, I thought you may be connected to the London mafia.” I was so glad his back was to me - that way he didn’t see me stiffen. “How wrong I was, huh?”
“Any news about our families?” I asked him, quickly changing the subject. I couldn’t deal with his questions. My mother was dead. My body ached, my head throbbed, and the deep gash on my stomach that my father’s private medic had stitched was sore and painful. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was find out what was happening with Sam and Carolyn. A choked gasp left me when it dawned on me that they were both now orphans. “Oh, God, Caelan. They’ve lost both their parents. I’m all they have left now!”
Turning to face me, he leaned back against the counter and nodded. “The same as Oliver, Noah and Debbie’s son. Luckily, he still has my mum and me though.”
“Arghh!” I screamed in rage. My cup shattered on the wall, spraying hot coffee across the floor. “I want to kill him, Caelan.”
“Yeah.” He looked troubled for a moment before he opened a drawer beside him and took out a small square envelope. “This was left in your dressing room at the Apricot with a bunch of flowers. I think it’s a clue.”
Game Master Page 10
