by Nora Flite
He answered too fast. “I want her gone.”
I had to cover my mouth. That I was going to be married to Vitaly wasn't a secret. That Leonide was ready to throw me at his feet the soonest he could was a surprise punch to my liver. He really does think I'm trash... he really doesn't care. Biting my tongue didn't help. The pain went beyond the flesh. Fine. Fine, fuck him. I never needed him to care.
He was never MY angel.
“She'll be gone in fifteen days. I expect her to be my perfect, pretty American bride. Can you still give me that much?”
I watched his fingers relax. “She'll be that, regardless of the rest of her training.”
“Then I'll be satisfied to some extent. We'll talk in a few days. Good luck, Mr. Vetrov.” He said Leonide's name so formally, but I sensed the doubt underneath. He didn't sound happy.
He's going to be even less happy when he discovers the truth about my 'perfectness.'
Nervously, I tugged at the ends of my hair.
The screen went black; Leonide reclined in his chair, fingers pressing to his temples. If ever there was a a more stressed out man, I'd never seen him. My sympathy was nil; Leonide wanted to shuttle me off. He wanted me gone. I couldn't explain how insulted I was, only that the acid rose to the back of my throat.
His chair wheeled backwards; I ducked further behind the edge of the wall. Tension buzzed in my legs, I was ready to run down the hall if he came my way.
Ruffling his hair, Leonide slid his jacket down his arms. The slate colored garment was thrown aside, landing haphazardly on his bed. He tugged at his collar, peeled away his tie. One by one he popped the buttons on his top, yanked it up and dropped it to the floor.
It was the first time I'd seen him shirtless.
He turned in place, wandering out of my vision and back again. His skin was rich, the torso of an athlete. From his shoulders to his lower back, I found no flaws; I wished I had. Leonide was gorgeous. He was a colorful plant, meant to draw me in until I got too close and was snapped into his jaws.
A jingling noise; he'd undone his belt, left it in the loops to go discarded with his pants. I got one look at his long, fit legs before he slid out of view again. The sound of running water told me he'd stepped into his shower.
Hovering there, unblinking, I fearfully debated my options. Turn around, flee the scene. I could walk away and he'd never know what I'd seen or heard.
In the middle of the room, his computer called to me.
My calves knotted with my careful tip-toeing. Deeper inside, I saw the door to the left, the patter of water raining down inside. How long would he be in there? Not wasting another second, I hurried to the black screen.
Leonide hadn't turned the computer off, only the monitor; a single poke flashed it back to life. His desktop was serene, water lilies and reeds in a pond. I need to reach out to someone. Send an email! It was a burst of hope. I clicked the icon to bring up the internet browser. The webpage Leonide had left open spread before me.
It was good I hadn't eaten. I would have been ill on his keyboard.
The collection of photos from my impromptu shoot—almost a month ago—stared back at me. They'd taken so many, and in all of them, my face was mostly hidden; blurred or cut off below the nose. The fact the pictures were on a website made it more horrific.
He hadn't listed my name, nothing about who I was. Running down the side bar, there was flavor text, 'facts' about me, both in English and in writing I couldn't read. Leonide wanted to include everyone in his potential reach.
Sweet, sexy, and everything you want: this American girl is a blonde bombshell! Every man's dream wife, she'll meet all of your needs. He had listed my height, my dimensions, and everything about my medical records; no STDs, he proclaimed to my potential 'husbands.'
There were tabs above mine; other girls, testimonials from happy men and their subsequent marriages. I didn't have the courage to explore the warped version of a 'dating site' further. Rage, disgust, I was an earthquake. Navigating to open a new page, to reach a place I could send an email from, was so much work.
His email opened. In the inbox, a bold subject line sent from Vitaly and with multiple replies. It was a damning temptation. Opening it, I let myself absorb the text that so frankly discussed the 'trade' between the two men.
Me. It was all about me.
Vitaly had sent along a specific list of what he wanted. It was my personal car crash, I rubber-necked and couldn't pull away. Line after line, I discovered exactly what I was to this man I didn't know. I'm to be his personal toy. The things he asked for... the callous ways he referred to me, to my body parts, made me seethe.
'She looks like a real slut. Love her hair. Send me more of her face and nude photos.
'The color of her tits, such a dark pink. Are they responsive?
'Test how much pain she can handle, I like girls who cry.
'I plan to parade her for my friends. Run her through some practice for me.
'Think she's been fucked in the ass before?
'Don't go easy on her.
'She'll just break if I get her and she isn't used to violence.'
My future husband was a sociopath. I would disintegrate under his charge.
“What are you doing?”
I spun, knocked the mouse from the desk. Leonide stood in the doorway of his bathroom, a towel around his waist and droplets glistening on his collar bone. A bronzed god with hell in his eyes, all just for me.
But I had hell-fire smoldering in me, too. “You put me on a website.”
“I put all the girls up like that.” He took a single step forward. “Did it bother you, seeing yourself up there? You looked beautiful, Celeste. Every man's dream. I had inquiries for you even after Vitaly contacted me.” Another step. “So prized, so perfect.”
Standing straighter, I carefully inched my hand along the desk. “So perfect that you're ready to throw me out the door to my husband as fast as you can.”
Leonide stopped moving. “You heard that. Stupid girl, what would eavesdropping accomplish?”
Learning that you really don't care what happens to me. Gritting my teeth, I felt the itch in my arm growing. I wanted to hurt him. Wanted him to feel the defeat that I was living. “I know that you're worried you can't break me down for him.”
“Worried for you, not myself. If I don't show you what's expected, Vitaly will do it far less gently.”
Breathe. Breathe, Celeste. “You think he'll want me as his 'sweet bride' if I keep fighting?”
The towel twisted where he held it on. “In the end, as long as he gets the blue eyed, blonde American beauty he asked for, the man will be satisfied.”
I felt the keyboard under my palm. “What happens when he finds out you lied?”
There; the lines of uncertainty rose on his skin. “Lied how?”
“I'm not blonde.” Ripping the keyboard from the machine, I chucked it at his skull and exploded into motion. The combination of my words, my attack, left him standing there as the device smashed off of his face. His cry of pain and anger filled my ears, fueled me to push myself out the door and down that hall.
All of the rage at being captured, at being put up for sale online to the highest bidder, it filled me with a speed greater than the norm. I was sure he was chasing me, but I just jumped the stairs in chunks, risked twisting my ankles and somehow avoiding any injury.
I wouldn't let him give me to Vitaly.
I refused.
“Celeste!” he shouted, and fuck, his voice drove me harder. I had no plan, I just wanted out. I knew the way to the exit, headed there like a cornered animal. The double doors rose up, beckoned me with their sweet promise.
Slamming into them, I ripped at the handles... but they didn't move.
He's locked us inside! Maybe shock wasn't right. I'd tried this before, how stupid to expect him to be unprepared. Twisting, I saw him coming; head low, shoulders hunched. He no longer ran, his hand to his face where rich liquid dripped. I'd managed t
o give him a bloody nose.
Once, I'd hurt him before. At the time, seeing what I'd done had turned me into a quivering mess. Facing this man down again, his black eyes waiting to swallow me, I felt only indignation.
There was a small table beside the door. Above it was a thin window. Maybe... maybe I can...
“Celeste.”
Gripping the table, I smashed it through the glass.
“Celeste!”
The gap wasn't big; on my way through, I tore a long gash down my forearm. It hurt in a far away, dull fashion. I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't care. Ignoring his shouts, I burst into the grey daytime. Clouds, swollen with rain, had begun dripping lightly on the grass.
Bare feet slipped on the moisture, but still I went. It would take him a minute to unlock the doors and chase.
I used that time like a lifeline.
Assuming he expected me to run for the town, I spun and pounded the other way towards the trees. There was little cover, and soon, my plan was turning to ash. Panting wildly, I commanded my legs to go, to keep rushing over the wet ground and into the distance.
One glance back showed me I had failed.
I'd seen Leonide undressed, had guessed at his fitness from the leanness of his body. Watching him barrel down on me, I felt my folly in the form of angry tears. Run, Celeste! Keep running, you have to run. Behind me was the path to destruction.
The way to Vitaly.
Mud under my foot took me out. Sliding onto my side, I rolled down a mild slope. Overhead, the thunder crowed in success. One storm had slowed me; the one approaching in just a towel would finish the job.
I looked up in time to see his hand, then I was down again, flashes of purple in my eyes. I thought it was lightning. No. He hit me.
“Why?” he breathed, standing above me and blocking the rain. “Why would you even try to escape again!”
Why? It should have been an easy question to answer. Because of what he's done—no. Because of what he will do? That wasn't right, either.
Fingers trapped my arm, ignored the blood pouring from my gash. Adrenaline had protected me from the pain; it dwindled, left me crumpled and broken. “Why, after everything, would you imagine you could run from me?”
There was a flaw in his question. “I'm not running from you,” I whispered. It made me sound insane. I realized it, even as my lips moved. “I'm running from him.”
It was the truth. The awful fucking truth. Leonide wasn't what I feared anymore.
It was my future with someone else.
The mud had taken my balance, but the lightheadedness was from blood loss. Through a lens of apathy, I watched the crimson mix with the earth. Ice crawled through me. It touched my skin, my veins and beyond.
Leonide's tirade shifted, changing with the tempo of rain. “You're bleeding too much,” he said. His voice was the hiss of a steam pipe, warming me where I shivered. My head rocked back when he lifted me. It only stopped wobbling with his chest to support it.
The world jostled; ice pelted my face. He's taking me back. He's going to finish the job and ship me off to that monster. “No,” I moaned against his bare chest. The way he held me, sprinted with me, he must have dropped the towel. Leonide, running with me—naked—through a storm. It should have been absurd. “Don't take me back. Please don't... just don't take me back.”
“Stupid fucking girl, should I leave you in the mud to bleed out? Do you want to die so badly?”
I was too weak to muster a response.
He'd left the front door open. Bursting through, he shouted something in Russian at the women waiting inside. They hadn't been there to stop me from getting out, but they must have seen the aftermath.
Swimming in blackness, my vision became useless. Leonide was barking orders, holding me tight to his soaked skin. He was the only source of warmth for me; when he tried to put me down, I clawed feebly to hang on.
“Shh.” He fought me off, put me down on something soft. “The doctor is coming. Everything will be fine.”
No, I thought grimly, swaddled in blankets, falling backwards into blackout. You're trying to comfort me. But telling me everything will be fine?
That was the biggest lie of all.
- Chapter Eleven -
Celeste
Faces. Sometimes that doctor who had stabbed me with a needle, sometimes other women, sometimes Jones—which told me I was hallucinating. But of all the faces that swam for me, Leonide's appeared the most.
No part of my body would listen. It was like being drugged all over again, panic controlling what I saw and through what microscope I interpreted it. In and out, my awareness ebbed.
When I woke enough to create sounds, there was pain. When Leonide would swing into view, the only thing I could see, terror would dull to distant wonder. Living under his obsidian eyes, I was sure everything I experienced was false.
How else did I explain his concern?
Deeper I fell, just beneath the surface of consciousness. Pain is above me. I can't come up for air. Breathing would take me to that place, a world with cruel men who wanted to use me and make me their property.
His face was a mystery, but Vitaly had existed as my enemy for so long. It had taken seeing his emails, hearing his voice, to give my terror shape. A man who thought nothing of me, who wanted to change me into something I wasn't. Why does everyone want to change me? And why had I once thought I could do it to myself?
I didn't know who I was anymore.
I don't know myself... but do I know who anyone is?
Black irises that wanted to suck me in. A mouth that wilted me with kisses, all while cutting me open to the core. Leonide gave his town food, jobs, and apparently blessed men with women who learned to love them.
Everyone who had denied me help.
What if they're all right?
I dreamed of a small house in a row of duplicates. Each building was a copy, a neighborhood so set on keeping things crisp white and in perfect lines. The day my parents' home had burned down, both of them sleeping inside, I'd been spending the night with my boyfriend.
Looking down at myself, I watched the fire eat at my flesh. They only ever wanted me to be good. That I started dating boys, dared to ask them about sex and birth control, made them believe I was betraying them.
They thought sex before marriage was awful. They thought I was awful. Flames took off everything, left only the charred bones behind. Maybe they were right.
It had been my desire to go wild, to show myself off and make a point to my ex, that had landed me where I was.
No one wants me as I am.
I should have died in that fire with them.
Overhead, someone said my name. I didn't want to wake up, I wasn't ready to face... to face what waited for me. Vitaly. The man I was to marry, but not the man I wanted. He didn't know me and wanted to ruin me.
Leonide wants to ruin you, too.
Again, someone called to me. Turning away in the black smoke, I struggled to stay under. Waking was pain. Waking would tear me from the one person who had hungered for me—for me—like no one ever had.
Do I want him because of that? Because he melts me, takes away my control? Perhaps I was sick. Yes. That explains it. All this time, I'd been too twisted for my parents, yet not twisted enough for Jones.
For Leonide... I'm just right.
The darkly handsome stranger who had stolen me in the night. Leonide had done everything that should have made me hate him. And I had. So when did it change? How did I make myself hate someone who looked at me, reached inside and felt my corruption, and still chased me through the thunder and rain?
I don't want Vitaly to have me.
I wanted the man who was trying to get rid of me.
The world was wicked... even to the wicked people themselves.
People like me.
“Celeste.”
Sluggishly, my eyes cracked open. There was pressure in my left hand; I rolled my head to look. Fingers, strong and able,
wrapped on mine. Like startled fish in a river, they pulled away. It happened so fast, I wondered if I'd imagined someone holding my hand at all.
Then I saw him.
Leonide rested in a chair, sitting at my side in the dim light of a computer. I'm in his room. The thought stabbed at me with memories, pulled away some of the wool on my senses. Sitting up made me grunt.
“You're awake,” he said, not moving to touch me. Were there circles under his eyes? It was hard to tell in the shadows. “How do you feel?”
Rolling my gaze down, I saw the bandages on my upper arm. Where the glass sliced me open. “I feel... rough.” The inside of my mouth was stale. Speaking scratched at my throat.
Leonide dropped his clasped hands between his knees. “Not surprising. The rain did a number on you.”
“The rain? I thought... with all that blood...”
“You were badly injured, Celeste.” His tone had an edge. “You cut yourself open running as you did. The water didn't help when it gave you a respiratory infection. You've been in and out for three days.”
Three days. Pushing the back of my head into the pillows, I flexed my fingers, felt my drained body responding. “Oh.” It was all I could say.
We sat there, me darting looks at him while he continued to stare at the floor. I knew someone had given me pain medication, it was clear as the ache started to throb in my healing wound. I don't deserve comfort. I'm a dumb fucking girl who's as messed up as her captor. The yearning to apologize, even just to get him speaking to me, grew stronger.
Leonide whispered, his accent heavy. “What you said to me. Did you mean it?”
My heart thudded faster. “What did I say?”
Lifting his chin, he watched me with a placid, unreadable expression. “You told me you weren't running from me.”
If I tell him the truth... will it change anything? I felt my lungs shudder, working to handle my breathing while they recovered from my illness. “I meant what I said. I ran because I'm terrified of Vitaly. Not of you.”
