Thirty Days of Shame

by Ginger Talbot

  Slavik is mumbling curses under his breath.

  “Well, that’s more than my mother told me! She won’t tell me anything,” she says furiously. “I’m not a damn child. I have a right to know if my sperm donor’s trying to kidnap us.” Then oddly, unexpectedly, she throws her arms around me and hugs me. She’s never been much of a hugger. I try not to wince openly; my back is still sore.

  I hug her back, awkwardly. She stands on her tiptoes and whispers into my ear “My mother’s password is Z7352KP.” She repeats it, in a whispery sing-song. “Z7352KP, Z7352KP.” Slavik is trying to listen to something on his radio, but he looks up and glares as Helenka is embracing me.

  “Oh, excuse me, you have a problem with this?” I snap, going on the offensive. “This is called hugging. It’s what humans do.”

  “You know what else humans do? They bleed when they’re shot,” Slavik growls.

  “Blow it out your ass.” I can’t believe Helenka’s delicate little mouth just spewed those words.

  That’s it. “Language!” I say indignantly.

  “English is my preference.” She smiles, a glint of the old mischief in her eyes, and releases me.

  I casually slide my hand into my pockets. She’s slipped an envelope into the left one. Clever girl.

  “Your father’s coming into the house. Go find Yuri and stay with him,” I tell her. “I think he’s in the robot room. We won’t let your father take you. If it comes to that, I’ll stab him and do the prison time before I let that happen. I’m not kidding.”

  “No, no,” Helenka protests. “I’ll stab him. They’d just send me to juvie and I’d be out in no time.” She hurries off to find her brother. I groan and palm my face. The fact that she’s actually thought this through is really messed up.

  I swallow hard and stalk off towards the foyer. Slavik and Sergei are there, and they both move to block me. Sergei’s face is flushed with fury, and maybe I’ll be scared later, but right now I’m so stunned that I’m floating in a helium balloon, above it all.

  “Move, or I’ll scream my lungs out,” I say. I can hear voices in the foyer, so I know that the lawyers are there, and they’ll hear me if I scream.

  Good Sergei is gone. His eyes have turned that terrifying color of hard steel that promises to slice flesh from bone, and his soft, sensual lips have thinned to a hard line. He doesn’t say a word to me. He doesn’t have to.

  “I am going to fuck you up for this,” Slavik snarls at me, stepping out of my way. Sergei doesn’t move.

  “It’s a date, then,” I say to Slavik with sweet sarcasm, and I dodge around Sergei and hurry to the foyer. Slavik and Sergei are right on my heels.

  In the foyer, Anastasia is huddled with four men in suits. How did she get hold of them in the first place? How could she pay them?

  Jasha is hovering next to them, a look of helpless rage on his face. The front door is open, and outside on the front steps, I can see the news cameras and the clustered horde of reporters.

  I pray that Anastasia’s plan involves more than lawyers. Lawyers won’t be enough to keep her kids safe from their father.

  I turn on Sergei. “This is your fault,” I say, in a low, angry voice. “You dragged this out way too long. You should have taken care of Vilyat months ago, and now there’s a real chance he’s going to be able to take the kids and flee the country.”

  “Like I give a fuck what happens to them,” he spits at me.

  That shouldn’t hurt me, but it does. I can’t let Sergei be pure evil. My heart won’t accept that. “You do. I know you do.” I’m pleading with him now, my earlier defiance leaking away. “You said it yourself. You don’t hurt children. You’re telling me it’s okay if someone else does?”

  Before he can spit out some answer that will stab me to the core, Vilyat pushes his way forward through the crowd with two big, bulky bodyguards. “Let me see my children!” he shouts at the top of his lungs, playing up to the news cameras. “I am their father! You can’t keep them from me!”

  One of Anastasia’s lawyers steps forward and holds up a computer tablet. He thrusts it at Vilyat’s face, and the result is astounding. Vilyat’s face flames red, and he staggers back a step. Anastasia doesn’t look the least bit afraid. How can she not be afraid? I want to pee my pants.

  Suddenly, Vilyat goes insane with rage. He punches the lawyer in the nose, sending him staggering, and blood sprays everywhere – right there in front of the news cameras. The lawyer cries out, clutching his face.

  Vilyat lunges for Anastasia, and his hands close on her throat. “Bitch! Cunt! I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you!” he shrieks.

  Live on camera.

  Jasha rushes forward and punches Vilyat so hard that Vilyat goes flying backwards into the arms of his bodyguards. Anastasia drops to her knees, clutching her throat, gasping and wheezing. I can tell that she’s putting on a performance, but it’s an excellent one. The cameras are eating it up.

  Jasha goes to help her stand up, and she tries, but falls to her knees again.

  Damn, she’s a good actress.

  He’s kneeling next to her, patting her back.

  There must be twenty news cameras on Vilyat as his men hold him back.

  Anastasia staggers to her feet, clutching Jasha for support, and turns to face the camera. “That’s what I’ve lived with for the last fourteen years!” she cries out. “This man, he pretends to be a philanthropist, but it’s all lies. He just showed you his true face! He beats me and he beats my children. He has broken my bones. He has left scars on me that will never fade. That is why I am filing for divorce today.”

  Flashbulbs pop, reporters shout questions and jostle for position, eager to get the best shot or video clip of the wonderful story spooling out in front of them.

  Vilyat’s fighting with his bodyguards, kicking and screaming, swearing in Russian and English. One of the lawyers slaps a piece of paper against his chest. “You’ve been served,” he says, loudly and dramatically, playing to the cameras. The paper falls to the ground, but it doesn’t matter. Legally, he’s been served.

  And my heart sinks. This is her grand plan?

  “Oh, no,” I whisper to Sergei. “It’s not enough.” He can bury her under a mountain of lawyers, he can bring up her abuse of prescription drugs… If Vilyat goes to court for a custody battle, he may very well win. Or he’ll be forced to take some bullshit “anger management” course and then he’ll be given unsupervised visitation with the kids, and they’ll all disappear.

  And if Vilyat is careful enough, he may even be able to avoid Sergei’s hit men while he’s doing it. It will be much harder for Sergei to take him out with all this publicity.

  “Yes,” Sergei says nastily. “I could have told you that. This will never work. She’s screwed herself up the ass without lube.”

  Anastasia looks at Vilyat, who’s panting for breath now, eyes wild, hair disheveled.

  “You will apologize,” she says loudly. “Not just for now, but for abusing me and my children over the years.”

  One of the lawyers is holding the tablet up to his chest, and he taps it significantly.

  Vilyat sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and he looks like a giant, evil baby who’s been disciplined and wants to tantrum but doesn’t want to be spanked.

  There is something on that tablet. Something good. Or rather, something terrible – something that Anastasia is counting on to protect her from Vilyat. Now I’m starting to feel hopeful again. Maybe Anastasia really can pull this off.

  Vilyat looks at the cameras. The reporters are rapt, enthralled.

  “I am sorry for anything I may have done to upset my wife, who I love very much,” he grits out. “Of course, I am under an enormous amount of strain today, having just buried my dear brother.” Fucking little weasel, trying to lie and diminish what he’s done to her.

  She’s not having any of it.

  “What upset me was you kicking me in the ribs and breaking my bones!” she yells at him. “
Do you remember doing that?”

  Vilyat looks as if he’s about to have a stroke. “Yes. I remember.”

  “Do you admit to abusing me and your children? Hitting us with your fists? Kicking us? Threatening us?”

  The lawyer taps the tablet again.

  Sweat pours down Vilyat’s face. He shuts his eyes, shaking, his fists clenched. It’s remarkable. It’s wonderful. We’re watching the devil tear himself apart inside. “Yes. I admit it. I am sorry that I lost my temper.”

  The reporters are shouting at him. “Vilyat, why did you beat your wife and kids?”

  “Vilyat, did you really hurt your children?”

  He’s shaking, struggling to control himself.

  Anastasia’s eyes glow with a crazy, malicious light. “I believe that what you want to say is that you are sorry you have been abusing me and the children all these years.”

  He grimaces as if he’s just swallowed poison. He sucks in a breath. “Yes. I am sorry about that.” His dark eyes glitter with hate as he bites out the foul-tasting words. “Of course, I will strive to do better, and I will do anything to make my family whole again.”

  Anastasia looks at the cameras. “That will not happen. This man broke my bones and slapped my son so hard he ruptured his eardrum.” Ugh. I never knew that. “I am filing for full custody of the children, and I expect to terminate his parental rights.”

  The reporters push forward, and they’re shouting questions at her, but Jasha helps her stumble back inside the house, with her lawyers crowding around her. The door slams shut, so they follow Vilyat instead. I peer out through a window and see them surrounding him, and he’s furiously shoving at them and throwing punches.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Day fourteen…

  WILLOW

  Hope and hysteria bubble up inside me as I hurry to my room. I reach into my pocket and pull out the envelope Helenka slipped in there. Inside the envelope is a thumb drive.

  I plop down in my chair, turn on my laptop, and plug in the thumb drive, and the screen goes black, asking for a password. I give it the password that Helenka gave me.

  I don’t have much time. Maks will be monitoring my computer activity, and whatever I see on here, he’ll see too.

  A grainy video starts playing, and I almost fall off my chair.

  There’s a woman tied hand and foot to a bed, thrashing, screaming in agony. A man is grinning and pressing a hot branding iron to her stomach. He’s an older man with a big shock of white hair, and he looks vaguely familiar. I think he’s a famous Russian politician, I just don’t remember which one.

  He presses the branding iron down again, and she makes sounds that aren’t even human. Wordless howls bubble up from her throat, and then her eyes roll up in her head, and mercifully she passes out. But she isn’t out for long. Someone hurries over and zaps her with a cattle prod, and she convulses and gives a strangled cry.

  I back away from the computer. I can hear her screaming and pleading. I clap my hands over my ears.

  Please, no, please kill me, no, I’m sorry, no….

  I hear footsteps pounding down the hallway, and the door flies open. Sergei, Maks and Slavik storm in.

  Maks grabs the laptop from me. “Give that back!” I cry.

  He spits out a contemptuous laugh and looks at the screen. His face wrinkles in disgust at the scene being played out there. Sergei’s mouth twists and his brow furrows, but he stares straight at the screen without blinking.

  Then Maks sets the laptop down. I can hear the man shouting insults at the woman he’s torturing, mocking her. What hell-pit spawned him? What makes a man into a demon?

  “Hey! You! It’s demanding a password,” Maks says impatiently. I look. A box has popped up on the screen now, although the nightmare scene is still playing. The man pushes the branding iron down onto her breast, and she screams so hard she chokes, eyes bulging. “What is the password?’

  Shaking, I repeat the password. He tries it – and the screams stop, and the screen goes blank.

  “No!” I cry out. “That was the password, I know it was!”

  Maks shakes his head, frantically pushing keys on the keyboard, but the computer isn’t responding at all now. The screen is black as night.

  “This needs to be given to the police,” I say desperately. “Get the video back up! Fix it!”

  “There’s a virus destroying the computer as we speak,” he says. “There would be nothing to give them but a fried hunk of metal.”

  Anastasia and her damn computer security lessons. She’s thought of everything.

  Slavik hears something on his earpiece radio. He nods to Sergei, and all the men hurry out of the room.

  As Sergei is about to leave, he says, “Don’t try to leave this room, or I will end you. I’m not fucking around.” He locks the door behind him. I hurry over to the glass door that leads out to the garden and try it; it’s locked. It’s never been locked before.

  I pick up a chair and swing it at the glass – and it bounces off. Shatterproof glass. Of course. Not only that, but I see a little red dot winking in one of the curly wooden rosettes that adorn the doorframe. A security device. Now Sergei will know I tried to break the glass.

  I don’t care. Anastasia knows something about that woman being tortured, and I need answers. The woman is almost certainly dead, but this must be somehow related to Vilyat. She’s gathered information about him and given it to her lawyers to use as leverage. She surely must have enough to take him down, to expose him, and the man with the white hair, and probably others.

  They’re only gone for about ten minutes before Sergei comes back to fetch me. “Your aunt wishes to speak to you,” he says, his voice wooden. The steel is still there in his eyes, and I shiver.

  He walks away without looking back, and I hurry after him. His legs are much longer than mine and they eat up the distance with fast, furious strides. I practically have to run to keep up with him.

  Anastasia, Helenka and Yuri are gathered in the foyer. The lawyers are surrounding them, shielding them, including the one whose nose was punched. He’s got a bloodied napkin wadded up and pressed against it.

  I wave at Anastasia. “I need to talk to you privately, now,” I snap.

  She frowns. “Willow, we’re all leaving together. Talk to me while we’re driving.”

  “Nope. Give me two minutes.”

  Anastasia hurries over to me with a hiss of exasperation. Sergei is standing behind me, burning the oxygen from the air with his rage.

  “What is it?” Anastasia demands impatiently. “Come on, Willow, I want to get out of here. Sergei has agreed to let us all go and leave us alone completely.” Like he had a choice.

  “Helenka gave me a thumb drive with a video of a man torturing a woman,” I say. “And now it’s disappeared from my computer.”

  “She what?” Anastasia sucks in a gasp of dismay, and glances at Helenka, who is leaning to the side, peering out from behind one of the lawyers. Helenka shoots her a look of angry defiance. Anastasia leans in to me, lowering her voice. “She didn’t see the video, did she?”

  “I’m pretty sure she didn’t. Since Sergei only let you and me have laptops, she probably didn’t get a chance to watch it. She told me she’s upset because you’re keeping secrets from her.”

  “Of course I am!” she whispers. “If she knew everything her father did, it would destroy her.”

  “She’s stronger than you think. Obviously this video needs to go to the police and Interpol. Along with everything else you’ve got on Vilyat. The video disappeared. How do I get it back? You must have copies?”

  “I have the information stored where it’s safe. And you can’t have it.”

  I look at her in horror. “Anastasia. The police need that information.”

  She shakes her head. “No. I have forced Vilyat to agree to a divorce, and he’s going to let me terminate his parental rights. He’s also giving me two million dollars which will be in an offshore account by the
end of the day, and paying my lawyers an additional two million. He knows that if I die or disappear, everything that I have on him will be made public. I need this information to hold over his head. If I take it to the police, he might be able to beat the rap. Or he might get out on bail, kidnap the kids, and flee the country.”

  Anguish floods through me. “You… I mean… Where did you get all of this information?” Maybe I could retrace her steps. Find out where she got it, get it myself, destroy him…

  She waves her hand in dismissal. The kids are staring at her, their eyes as big as saucers. She glances at them, then shakes her head impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been gathering it for years, waiting for the right time. Vilyat got comfortable and sloppy around me, and let his guard down. I’ve always been good with computers, even before I started taking those online classes, I just didn’t let on before now.”

  Sergei burns her with his contemptuous gaze. “You had the information hidden in the bathroom of your house. That’s why you went back there. You shoved it up your twat to smuggle it out. Along with the cell phone, I’d imagine. Hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable.”

  “After all the things Vilyat has forced inside me, that was probably the least painful thing I’ve had up there,” Anastasia sneers at him.

  I feel sick with disgust. There are women being tortured right now, and Anastasia won’t help them?

  “Sergei. We’ve got to get that video back,” I plead.

  He shakes his head. “We can’t. Maks is the best, and if he can’t get it back, it’s gone. It self-destructed when we couldn’t give it the second password. I will be taking care of Vilyat soon enough, and that’s my only concern.”

  “No, it isn’t! That woman in the video, Sergei, you saw that!” I cry, tears burning my eyes. “If you don’t care about that, you aren’t human! And don’t give me that melodramatic bullcrap about how I already knew you’re a monster, blah blah blah. That is a completely innocent victim being tortured.”