by Dee Garcia
As we near the top of the skyrise, Dimitri inserts his keycard and punches in the passcode, allowing us access to the penthouse. The elevator dings and much like before, he tosses me out into the hallway. Only this time I don't have his death grip for support. My heel catches the hem of my gown and I tumble onto the floor. Pain shoots up as my wrist from the abrupt catch of my fall and I whimper, easing back onto my knees to cradle to my hand. My head remains downcast...but not for long. As Dimitri comes to stand in front of me, I crane my head back slowly into malevolent green eyes.
“Get. Up,” he grits out, so I scramble to my feet and flatten myself against the wall.
Unfortunately, the wall can’t save me.
Dimitri takes hold of my arm once more and drags me the rest of the way down the lone hallway to our doors. Again, he flings me inside and again, I fall, only this time onto marble floors. It hurts a lot more than the carpeted hallway, but I don't protest. I just lay there, hoping like hell he’ll simply leave me alone. It's not like he didn't rough me up already. He practically choked me out at the event. I suspect what kept him from killing me right then and there were too many eyes and the fact he'd have a body to dispose of.
God forbid he get his hands dirty.
I lay there for I don't know how long with my eyes tightly closed, listening to the sound of him shuffling about. Surprisingly enough, he's not slamming doors or tossing stuff about as usual. But then, suddenly, it's silent. Dead silent. I drag my eyes open and pick my head up off the floor, looking out into the massive living area from the where I lay in the foyer. He’s not on the black couches. He’s not just beyond the wall of windows on the large balcony. I can’t hear him in the kitchen either. Perhaps he’s showering…
Very quietly, I lift myself off the floor and gather my dress in one hand to avoid falling a third time. I slip out of my heels, too, and leave them by the door beside where he laid his. With my heart hammering in my chest, I start padding down the hallway. A faint voice in my head begs me to turn around and leave, but I have nowhere to go. I’ll get through this, just like I have every other time. As I pass the kitchen, I confirm he's not in there, or the office, or the study either. I poke my head into the doorway of our room and hear the shower running, just as I’d suspected. My saving grace. Showers always calmed him. Whenever this happened, he'd have a shower straightaway, as if it cleansed him of what he’d done.
“See,” I whisper to the little voice in my head. “We’re safe, we’re okay. It's over.”
Except I was wrong.
The door to the ensuite flies open and Dimitri stands at the threshold, shirtless, his belt undone. Rage still swims in his eyes like a bull ready to charge.
“Strip, Mishka. Quickly,” he growls, rattling a newfound sense of fear down my spine.
I clutch myself tightly for support and slowly shake my head. “Dimitri, please.” My lip trembles. “Please, don’t.”
I can’t do this part again. It gets worse every single time. He’s rougher, lasts eons longer. The last time he went on for so long and was so rough, I bled...
His face contorts all the more at my resistance to his demand. I can see how he takes a deep breath to rein himself in, but it doesn’t help. Not even slightly. He snaps, and in two seconds, he’s at my side, gripping the low neckline of my gown with such force, his knuckles are white. I expect him to pull it down and fondle me as he always does, so you can imagine how terrorized I felt when he ripped the gown right down the middle, exposing my small breasts in their entirety, since I hadn’t been wearing a bra.
He peruses my body hungrily, hooking a finger into the waistband of my panties. “I said strip, Mishka.”
I shake my head again and sheath myself from his eyes. I should know better than to deny him, it only makes things worse, but I can’t bring myself to let him have me again. In his enraged state, I’ll bleed for sure and I’ll wear his marks for weeks, forcing me to stay inside to avoid being seen.
“Strip,” he demands once more, growing less patient, and I’m actually astonished he’s not yelling, considering how angry he is.
But as I shake my head again, he brings a hand up and slaps me, hard, roaring in my face, “I SAID, STRIP!”
The sting of his palm smarts the entire left side of my face, rushing tears down my cheeks freely. I couldn’t hold them back if I tried.
Here we go, I think to myself, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. But the end is far from near. This will go on for the rest of the night until he’s pleased with himself. So, I finally strip. I push down my panties and let them fall down my legs to the floor, where I keep my eyes fixated. I can hear the harshness of his breath and see how he becomes aroused. His length hardens beneath his slacks and I shiver, already feeling the pain of his thick head tearing me from the inside out.
I watch as he rears his arm again and I expect another blow to the face, but he grips my throats instead, forcing me to look him in the eye. When he's like this, I don't recognize him. He's not Dimitri Petrova, the suave older man I fell for. He's a monster, a demon who crawled out of hell and possessed his body to walk the planes of this earth. His free hand snakes between my legs and cups my most intimate area aggressively, shoving three fingers inside me. I'm not aroused which in turn causes the intrusion to burn as he pumps them in and out.
“Why. Are you not. Wet for me,” he grits out and I shrug, because if I tell him I'm not aroused, he’ll become even angrier. And at this point, I don't see how that's possible.
He pumps his fingers harder, faster, but to no avail. My body refuses to respond.
Dimitri growls in frustration and withdraws his hands long enough to weave his fingers into my hair and yank me into the bathroom. I’m thrown right into the steaming hot shower, the water nearly searing my skin as the spray shoots down over me. The glass door slams behind him and I know there's no escaping him now. He looms over me silently and crashes his mouth to mine, his tongue slipping between my lips. I close my eyes and flip the switch to idle, kissing him back in a state of autopilot he doesn't register as he begins his assault. When he's had enough, he moves lower, sucking the skin of my neck, biting it, eager to see his marks left behind as he moves to my breasts and repeats the process. Again, his fingers invade me, but it doesn't go on for long. He's rock hard and he wants relief.
Relief he's going to take, whether I'm offering it or not.
As fast as I can blink, I find myself face front against the wall. I hiss as pain shoots up from my wrist once more. The cold tiles pebble my nipples and the grout scrapes my face. I feel him moving but I can’t see what he’s doing. Then I feel it. The hot water jets against my clit as he holds the showerhead beneath me. A hint of pleasure zips through me and I attempt to cling to it, hoping it’ll offer some relief, but as soon as his cock slides inside me, that pleasure slips away. The sound of our skin slapping echoes as he fucks me viciously, and all throughout, he remains silent until he groans through his release...and I don’t. He doesn’t pull out or ease his thrusts, though, because he’s not done. He’s still rock hard. I can feel it.
With a quick hand, he places the showerhead back where it belongs and pushes my face further into the tiles. “First you don’t get wet for me, then you don’t come for me. Why Mishka” – he slaps my ass – “do you not enjoy it? Or perhaps you already came? Is that why you were upstairs at the event; fucking one of my friends? You blame me for turning to Svetlana, but you do the same.”
“I wasn’t with one of your friends. I was up there looking for you. You left m-”
“Shut the fuck up,” he roars, banging my head against the wall. “You speak when you’re spoken to. Not before.”
“I’m sorry,” I whine as his movements grow more frantic.
“Sorry doesn’t fix your mistakes.” His voice is deadly, hushed almost, as he withdraws himself long enough to spin me around and bring a hand to my throat. “And tonight, you will learn better than to spread your legs for another man. Your cunt is
mine. Mine, do you hear me?”
I can’t answer him; hell, I can barely see or breathe. The spray hits my face directly from the angle in which he hung it, and I feel like I’m drowning as he plows into me over and over again. His cock pierces me, jamming into my cervix painfully, and I cry out. But my cry only hurts me more as I begin to choke around what feels like buckets of water rushing in through my nose and mouth.
The worst part; he likes it.
A Cheshire grins sweeps across his face and he continues, the world around me slowly fading into a black hole…
“Nooo!” I woke up screaming, shooting up to a sitting position, my body bathed in sweat as though I'd struggling for hours.
The bark of a dog frightened me out of my skin all the more, prompting me to peer around the darkened room as quick stomps resounded from both ends of the hallway. A stream of light poured in from under the doorway, and I knew it was about to slam open, but nonetheless, I screamed at the unexpected sight of Manny storming in with his firearm drawn. Knox was right behind him, a firearm lodged in his grasp as well. When they noted I was alone, they lowered their weapons and allowed Hazel through, who bounded past them in a flash, to where I sat.
“What happened?” she asked in alarm, clutching her robe tightly.
“I-I had a nightmare, a flashback, whatever you wanna call it.”
“Was it about him?”
I nodded. “A replay of what happened just hours before I called you.”
“Oh, M.” She wrapped me in a tight hug and pushed away the hair clinging to my damp face. “You’re safe, you’re okay. He can’t get to you here.”
I wanted to believe her, really, I did. But it wasn’t possible. Tears spilled over my cheeks as realization kicked in, causing fear to take hold of my sanity. I shook my head vigorously and tried my hardest to keep my voice even as I delivered the warning they needed to hear…
“For now, but not for long. He’s coming, Hazel, I know he is. And he’ll stop at nothing to get to me…”
Another loss. Another fucking loss. Another fucking disastrous loss because, not only did Rita Somers kick my ass round after round in my home arena, she knocked me right out in the middle of round five. According to Knox, I was out for almost a whole minute, but I wished I had stayed out longer, to spare myself from having to watch yet another opponent deemed the winner. Winded, exhausted, and in pain, I kept my head low as the ref brought us to our feet and lifted her arm, in time with the announcer declaring her the winner and the crowd going wild with her name on their lips.
Buuurn.
I know.
But I wasn’t a sore loser, so when the ref released me from his grasp, I turned toward a beaming Rita, shook her hand, and called it a good match. Then I made my way back to the locker room with a silent coach on my tail, whose lecture I was already dreading. Storming in through the door, I stripped in entirety on my way to the shower, too furious with myself to even begin to explain what happened in that cage before I had the chance to cool off. The water was ice cold when I stepped in and shut the curtain, but I couldn't care less about the temperature. I was more focused on the blood swirling down the drain, a reminder that although I may have once been Queen of the ring, I would never be her again, at least not with the pros. Was I washed up? Had my ring time expired? Was I supposed to just put down the gloves and quit trying? It’s only been two fights, Hazel, you say? I knew that, but I was one loss away from hitting a losing streak. I'd never had a losing streak with The Underground.
“Baby?” Knox’s voice echoed suddenly and I cringed because I knew he was, without a doubt, disappointed. I could see it written all over his face since I’d come to.
“Not now, please,” I said softly.
“I'm not mad…” He paused. “I'm worried about you.”
“Why me?”
“Because the world is upside down right now and I can't just make it go away.”
His words really hit me. Our world was completely on its axis and there was no instant fix.
“I’ll be fine,” I murmured, stepping directly under the spray as the water warmed up.
Nothing followed that but silence. Knox left, and I couldn’t blame him. After all, I’d told him I’d be fine, right? Then again, he knew when to push, and now was obviously not one of those times. I just needed a few minutes alone to let it all sink in, and then I’d be ready to adult again.
When I emerged with my towel wrapped around my body, Reyna was sitting on the bench beside my bag. She looked at me with a forlorn expression and I hated it. I didn't want anyone feeling bad for me. Yes, losing sucked but I could take it.
“Knox sent me,” she said by way of explanation, shrugging her shoulders.
“Yeah, well, you can stop looking at me like that,” I snapped unintentionally, to which I quickly followed up with, “I'm fine, I promise.”
“Not, you're not.”
“I am.”
“You're not.”
“Yes, I am,” I argued as I came up beside her to grab my clothes.
“No, you’re not, Hazel, but I'm not going to press you now either,” she countered, catching me by the arm. “You don't wanna talk about it? Fine. When you're ready, you know where to find me.”
Hallelujah.
I nodded, my expression softening, grateful that those so closely around me could handle me even in my worst moments. They accepted the way I handled my shit and they didn’t fight me. And I did the same for them. We all cope with negatives in a certain way, but it’s not our job to tell them how to do it.
Slipping into a pair of gray sweatpants and a dark form-fitting tank, behind the lockers, I tossed my towel onto the bench beside Rey and pulled my comb out, walking to the nearby mirror to untangle my hair and assess the damage Rita had done. I knew a portion of my face was puffy cause I felt it, but until now, I hadn't seen it as a whole.
And when I finally did, I was startled. My reflection wasn't very pretty. She got me good, each wound symmetrically aligned with the one beneath, all of them on the right side of my face. My brow was split, the area beneath my eye was both swollen and a mean purple. She’d clipped my nose too, but thankfully it wasn't broken and the bleeding had receded during my shower. That's not all, though. She'd also knocked my lower lip into the teeth, leaving another split.
Basically, I was a hot mess.
“Put anything on those?” Reyna asked.
I shook my head, gently pressing on my cheek bone. “Nothing yet.”
“Sit, let me do it,” she offered, whipping out Knox’s pouch from my bag.
Staring at her through the mirror, I hesitated for only a split-second. There was no point in fighting with her or trying to play the independent card. Knox usually did all this for me, and he wasn't here because he was giving me the space I'd asked for. And if the cut on my stubborn brow needed to be stitched, I couldn't handle that alone. Case in point, I needed help.
She rose from the bench to give me her seat and unrolled the lid on the salve tin. Starting at my brow, she hit each area gently and skillfully, applying a generous amount to my undereye too. The more she studied my eyebrow, though, the more worried I became. I might be able to take hits to the face like a man, but I hated stitches.
“How's it look?” I asked, peering up at her concentrated face.
“Ehhh, you'll live. I think it looks worse than it is cause it's your bad brow. No stitches, me thinks.”
Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.
“She fucked me up, though, huh?’
“Dinged you up a bit, yeah, but fucked you up, naaah. You know we’ve both seen worse and you’ve definitely done worse,” she corrected with a smirk.
Yeah, she had a point. Leilani and Lexi are prime examples.
As she put everything away where it belonged in the duffle, I wrapped a hand around her wrist, offering her a smile. “Thanks for putting up with my stubborn ass, Rey.”
“You put up with me too, remember? I’d say that makes us even.”
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“True, but still I want you to know I’m not keeping shit to myself because I don’t wanna tell. I just don’t wanna dwell on it. There’s so much going on right now, I’m overwhelmed, and if I sit here and talk about how I feel like a big ass failure, it’ll only make it worse.”
“Okay, first of all,” she said, swallowing me in a hug, “you are not a big ass failure, and second of all, believe me, I get it. I just wanted you to know that if you did wanna talk about, I was here.”
I squeezed her back with everything I had, truly thankful to have her in my life. Who knew the woman I’d gone toe to toe with, someone who, at one point, meant essentially nothing to me, could mean the world to me now.
“Come on, let’s get out there before your man starts thinking you have a gash the size of Texas.”
When Reyna and I rounded the corner to the main lobby of the arena, I caught sight of Knox by the front doors, chatting with a woman. Well really, she was doing all the talking; he didn’t seem to be entertaining a single word she said, his gruff body language speaking volumes, even from my vantage point across the room. Call it woman’s intuition or whatever you want to call it, but I knew right then and there that the woman standing a little too close to Knox for my liking was Brie.
“Oh. Shit,” Reyna exclaimed, jerking our strides to a halt with her hand at my arm.
I swung my eyes to her frozen form, and her semi-annoyed yet equally worried expression confirmed my every suspicion. This girl, this woman, was more than likely a total knockout, and she was my man’s ex of three years.
