by Sadie Jacks
Blinking against the harsh light that poured into my room, I saw five large men enter. They looked…mean. And not just getting shit done, kind of mean either. They looked like they enjoyed inflicting as much pain as possible just for shits and giggles.
I just had the feeling it was going to my shits and their giggles. What’s a little humiliation between combatants, right? I was prepared. I could handle anything they wanted to throw at me. Or rip from me. Or smash into me.
I recognized the last guy to come in. Zmeya. The guy made mountains look small, and he was the tiniest of the gathered men.
Yay, me. I guess my milkshakes were bringing all the boys to the yard.
Shut the fuck up, T, and pay attention!
I buckled down on the humor and tried to focus. I understood less than nothing in Russian, minus the word for ‘no.’ But I could see on their faces that they weren’t exactly discussing the latest football scores.
“Suka, stand,” Zmeya said.
I got to my feet. I really needed to find a Russian-English dictionary. Maybe Arkady could help me out with that.
Another mental snort sounded. Do not go crazy now, you bitch. Get your fucking head in the game, my inner bitch snarled.
Remembering the last lesson Zmeya dealt me, I kept my mouth closed. I didn’t think my face would be able to stand up to his ham-sized fists again. I was lucky nothing was broken.
Waiting quietly, my eyes not quite meeting theirs, I stood there. As the minutes dragged on, I realized how uncomfortable silences were. Especially when I wasn’t in charge.
After what felt like years, I flicked my gaze up to meet the man closest to me. He had a smile on his face. Missing only a couple teeth, I was trying to figure out if the smile was meant to be reassuring or menacing. He looked like one of those bitter beer face guys from the television commercials around the Super Bowl a few years ago.
I held back the smile that wanted to pull at my mouth. I might not be up to par on silences, but I’d conducted enough interrogations to know I didn’t enjoy being smiled at when I was about to lay someone out.
A movement at the door pulled my attention for a brief moment. Arkady stood there, caution and an odd pleading on his face.
I blocked him out, turned back to the redwood forest of doom that crowded my cell. What the hell were they doing? Questioning me telepathically? If that was the case, were they getting the information they wanted? Could I spill secrets to things I didn’t know the questions to?
A chuckle pushed through my barrier. Damn it. I braced.
Out of nowhere, a hand flicked out. I saw the blade flash in the light streaming into my room. I dodged just in time. It only nicked my arm.
Turning along the path of the blade, I pulled it up from the floor. Flipping it over in my hand, I sent it back at the men. Smirked when it caught one of them in the neck.
“You might not want to throw with knives if you don’t know how to play with them,” I said, a smile pulling at my mouth.
Even as my inner bitch cringed, she shook her hair back and gave a little finger wave.
The lead guy, his bald head shiny under the light, laughed. This guy had all of his teeth. The crop of closely trimmed salt and pepper hair outlined his mouth. Old tattoos looked like bleeding green snakes around his neck. “The suka has fire.” His lean, beef jerky body, shook under his laughter. Baldy apparently had at least a passing sense of humor.
That it came with a glare that promised my death from the guy I’d hit with the knife was something I actively chose to ignore. These guys were a little wishy washy on what they wanted in a woman. Timid, quiet, and meek or kickass, ballsy, and gutsy.
Just like a group of men to not have their stories, or wants, straight.
I stood there, waiting for the hammer to fall. My stomach was in an active fight with my throat. The urge to swallow compulsively fought with the desire to upchuck on all of them.
Luckily, the swallowing was winning.
For now.
Tired of the silence, I smiled. “To what do I owe the pleasure, my good men?”
Every single one of them sucked in sharp breaths.
Here we go again, I sighed mentally. Pick a damn personality you want me to inhabit and stick to it, I yelled silently.
“You are to be blood payment for my uncles,” Baldy said.
I nodded. Blood debts, if antiquated, were pretty common. I’m not quite sure where I fit into their family’s death, but I at least understood the concept. But there was one thing I was even more fuzzy on. “And you are?”
Baldy smiled. “I like you, suka. Too bad you die. I give you to my son.”
Yeah…nah. “That doesn’t help me with your name or bratva.”
Baldy’s face darkened for the first time. He raised a fist, shook it in my face. “We are not bratva. Bratva are weak and kormit' grud'yu u pravitel'stva.”
“Of course. How silly of me.” I backed up, raised my hands in deference.
“Bratva suckle at the teat of the government,” Arkady translated for me.
Oh crap. “I apologize. And I kinda have to agree with you. We’ve had no problems being the better family against the bratva we have met.”
Baldy nodded, lowered his fist. “Which makes your death even better.”
Well, he had me there. “Please indulge me. Your name is?”
Leaning down from what had to be at least six-five, he got right in my face. “Barrikad Kuznetsov.”
A heavy silence hung in the room. I couldn’t escape the feeling that the name was supposed to mean something to me. But it didn’t. I had no idea who this guy was or why he was bothering with a blood debt for his uncles other than the typical Family issue with blood debts.
I nodded, at a loss.
His heavy brows dropped low over the bridge of his nose. He pushed so close to my face, I could smell his breath and feel his nose brush against mine. “You have not heard of me.”
I shook my head. Figured silence was the better part of valor at the moment.
Barrikad pulled his head back. A fierce growl took over his face as he brought it down against my face. “Now you have.”
Pain exploded in my nose. Flared over my cheekbones. I bit back the screams as tears flooded my eyes.
Masculine chuckles sounded over the heavy beat of adrenaline and my pulse through my ears. Assholes.
Falling back on the bed, I fought to keep breathing. Fought to push back to my feet and present a strong image of my family. With the sound of silent screams and groans howling through my mind, I gained my feet.
Pushing the dizziness and nausea away, I straightened my spine and looked up at my abuser. “Nice to meet you.” Through the rapidly decreasing space between my eyelids, I offered him my hand to shake.
The men behind him growled and gasped. One pushed up against Barrikad’s back. “Suka!”
Barrikad held up a hand, stopping the other guy in his tracks. “Sila trebuyet uvazheniya. Dazhe yesli ona tupaya.”
Just as my vision was fading to black, I saw Barrikad wave at the door. “Say it.”
Arkady’s voice came through the room in a low tone. “Strength demands respect.”
I smiled.
Apparently he wasn’t finished. “Even if she is stupid.”
Shoved back on the bed, I felt rough hands yank and tear at my clothes. “NO!” I fought. I screamed and yelled. Scratched and bit. But five grown men against one smallish woman?
There was no way for me to win.
So I left my body to her horrors and tried to float away. I saw Momma and Papa. They opened their arms for me. Held me close to their comforting warmth. Deep inside, I heard the words of wisdom I’d been hearing since I was old enough to know the difference between sex and rape.
Your body will heal. Your mind will heal. They can take nothing from who you are but what you give them.
It felt like they were taking an awful lot of what I hadn’t given them, I wanted to yell. When the first one forced hims
elf inside me, hatred—pure and clean—blossomed in my soul. As that man finished and was replaced by another, sorrow shook through my heart.
Momma was wrong. They took and they took. Then took some more.
Each time they switched, I willed my body to fight. To defend. To do…something. But I couldn’t. All I could do was lay there. Cataloguing the atrocities. Making tick marks in the column of crimes I would inflict on them later.
The scourge of these men would be visited on them one hundred fold. And I would be their executioner. But they would never heal. They would die by my hand, after I visited upon the shame and degradation that they now paid me.
Trapped in the prison of my body, I planned. I forced my eyes open as wide as I could and I memorized their faces. If they thought they’d had a blood debt with my family before, they would soon find out what a blood debt really was.
They’d been playing a game. A family member for a family member. Blood for blood.
But I would be playing for much more than family honor.
Because I wasn’t going to play their games. I wasn’t going to hurt their families. Visiting the sins of the father onto the son never worked and just created more monsters.
When I survived this, I would show them what true strength looked like. And their dying breaths would be my name uttered in ultimate respect.
Chapter 13 – Arkady
I forced myself to watch. To remember what would happen to me if I went against these men before it was time. To remind myself that there are worse things than death.
As I stood at the door, I found myself praying for the first time in a very long time. To a God I wasn’t sure I believed in any longer. Protect her mind, dear Lord. Her body can heal. Protect her mind and her spirit. Keep that fire alive within her.
After what felt like years, but I knew was no longer than maybe an hour, the bosses were done with her. They zipped up, rolled out as if they’d just taken a short lunch break instead of destroying a woman’s body. Her sense of self.
“Uberi yeye. Podumay snova dat' yey privilegii, my zastavim tebya vzyat' yeye,” Barrikad said, a slight grin on his face. Clean her up. Think to give her privileges again, we will make you take her.
I clenched my fist to keep from bashing him into dust. How they’d found out about the privileges in the first place, I had no idea. But her current state was no one’s fault but my own. A lesson for both of us.
Nodding, I stepped into the room. Closed the door behind me. With a heavier hand than normal, I made sure the lock fully engaged before I turned to the woman who had earned my respect faster than men I’d lived with for the last seven years.
“Talia.” My voice was soft.
Nothing. No response. No shudder. No twitch or gasp.
I hoped her mind had taken her somewhere else. Protected that vital part of her. Perhaps it was better that she had gone mentally. If I could clean her up, she wouldn’t have to wake to find this still on her body.
“Talia.” I made my voice a little louder. Waited for her to respond.
Sighing, I went over to her section of first aid supplies. Smiled as I saw they were lined up by height. Even the bottle of aspirin was set in its own little place. Right beside the small box of bandages.
The smile fell. Bandages wouldn’t help this. There was nothing I could do to clean her body in a way that she would feel untouched. Unviolated.
I clenched my teeth. Tried to force the feelings back. I had a job to do. One handed down by someone much higher in the organization than me. Unless I wanted to end up like this broken doll of a woman, I needed to get my shit together and get out of here.
Gathering up some cotton and alcohol, I walked back over to the bed. I forced myself to look at her. The bruises that already bloomed with color on her breasts. The bite marks. The spilled jizz that they thought somehow made them better than her. They showed their own weakness by doing this.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Wetting down some cotton swabs, I reached out.
“Touch me and I will kill you,” she said, her voice low and hard.
The bottle of rubbing alcohol almost fell from my hand. I looked up at her face as I managed to secure the disinfectant. “You’re awake.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Don’t touch me. I can clean myself up.” Without even appearing to strain, she sat up into a cross-legged pose. Winced slightly. She held her hand out.
Putting the soaked swabs in her palm, I watched as she slowly cleaned the evidence of their abuse from her belly.
“Get me one of those ice packs.”
I set the bottle down on the floor, jumped over to get her one of the single use cold packs. Once I had it opened and ready for her, I held it out.
She didn’t look up at me. Never once took her eyes off the bottle or her task.
I said nothing, too aware of my own guilt in her present condition. And what could I possibly say? How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Both of those ideas were what got her in this mess to begin with, even if she didn’t know that.
“Cat got your tongue, Ark?” she asked. Venom saturated her tone. “You like watching me clean up after those fuckers raped me? Getting your jollies?”
“NO!” I jerked back.
She finally looked up at me. Her dark eyes were almost swollen shut. Just the thinnest slice of chocolate remained. “Then fucking talk.” Her breath sobbed. Her fingers clenched the single blanket until her hand shook under the force.
My brain went blank. Like an idiot, I casted around for appropriate topics. Hell, even the weather would be good, but I had no idea what the weather was even like right now.
“I’m sorry.” As soon as the words passed my lips, I wanted to shoot myself in the face.
“You’re sorry.” Her voice was oddly flat.
I licked my lips. “I didn’t mean that.” Shoot me fucking now.
Her mouth ticked up at the corner. “You aren’t sorry.”
Maybe if I bashed my head into the wall, it would be better. “No. I am sorry. But I didn’t mean to say it.” I studied her face. Tried to read anything in the inflamed, disfigured tissue.
“So you are sorry, but sorry you told me you are sorry. Is that about right?”
I nodded. Kinda. But not really. “Yes and no.”
Her mouth ticked up at the corner. “I get talking to women who’ve just been brutally raped is probably—hopefully—not a common activity for you. But you really suck at this.” She wetted another cotton swab, wiped the final trace of semen from her body. She threw the whole fistful of dirty cotton on the floor.
My back stiffened at the edge of humor in her voice. How did she think I felt? I’d had to stand by while they did that. “Fuck, woman, what am I supposed to say?”
She pushed up into my face. “Tell me that you’re not going to rape me.”
I reared back, shook my head. “No. I’m not going to rape you.” What kind of sick fuck did she think I was?
Leaning back, she nodded. “I believe you.” She turned towards the wall. Her hands came up to her cheeks. Her fingers lightly pressing at the tissues. Low groans and pitiful whines came from her throat.
“I can tell you if you’ve broken anything,” I offered.
She shook her head. “Don’t bother. I know what my face feels like. Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t.” I waited for twenty minutes while she explored her face with delicate fingers. Her entire body had to be in immense pain, but she vibrated with outrage. Hopefully the adrenaline would help mask some of the agony for her.
When she lowered her hands back to her lap, she leaned against the wall. “Nothing feels broken. Where’s the ice pack?” She stuck her hand out, not bothering to look at me at all.
I put it in her palm. “Be careful with that.”
She snorted and eased the cold compress against her face. “Go fuck yourself.”
Was it inappropriate of me that I kinda wanted to kiss her when she got all prickly? Maybe. But it didn’t stop
me from feeling it.
“Who were they? And if you tell information I already know, I’m going to shove this ice pack down your throat.”
Right at this moment, I might even let her. “You’ve heard of the bratva. Well, this is their older, disgusting, psychopathic uncle. Soviet mafia. One of the few remaining families left from the USSR.”
Her mouth dropped open. “But the USSR fell back in the nineties. You’re telling me these sociopaths are still running things?”
I shrugged. “Again, yes and no. They are not connected like the bratva. The current political system runs quite smoothly with bratva. These guys do not like the government. Thrown into gulags as young boys, they survived the political prisons through sheer determination and no small amount of balls.”
Her head tipped to the side as she angled her face down to look at me through the puffiness rising around her cheek and eye socket. “Are you shitting me?”
I shook my head. “They are not the nice families you associate with the civilized business practices of today’s organized crime.”
She smiled slightly.
I think it was a smile at least.
“And you share this information freely. Aren’t you worried about what will happen to you if they find out you’ve told me?”
I shrugged. “Are you going to tell them?”
She shook her head immediately. Not even a fraction of a second of hesitation. She was amazing. Granted, she had no idea that I was the reason she’d been abused, but I wasn’t planning on telling her. Ever.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Shit. I forgot I had it on me. Mistakes like that would get me killed faster than disobeying a direct order.
Pushing up from the mattress, I moved back over to the door. Without turning around, I said, “I’ll make sure no one else bothers you tonight.”
She snorted. “Considering what just happened, I’m not sure you can really do anything to help me. Just shut the door on your way out.”
Biting back the words, the explanations, the recriminations, I just nodded. The men who’d come in here earlier were out of my reach. But I could keep her safe from anyone else. Literally anyone else.
Stepping through the door, I pulled it shut behind me. Gave it an extra wrench to make sure the lock was tight. I couldn’t put a secondary lock on the door, but I could make it as hard as possible for someone else to try to get to her.
