by Shandi Boyes
The lash marks on my back will heal, but I doubt my mental stability will ever return after this. I feel humiliated, broken, and for the first time in my life, utterly worthless.
When a knock sounds at the door, the man whipping me doesn’t put as much power behind his next hit. He’s too busy snooping on the conversation Vladimir is having with the man who interrupted their sickening nighttime entertainment.
I can’t understand a word they’re speaking, I don’t understand Russian, but one name is mentioned frequently. ‘Dimitri.’
I don’t personally know Dimitri, but I have a newfound appreciation for him when his arrival ends my punishment after only five strikes. My back is stinging, and if the dribble running down the middle of it is anything to go by, I have open wounds, but it could have been so much worse. I’ve seen women enter this room walking and exit in a body bag.
You’re not supposed to survive this space.
“Take her to her room.”
I think I’m free from additional torment.
It’s silly of me to believe that would ever be the case.
After lifting my hanging head, Vladimir locks his wide-with-lust eyes with mine. “I’ll be in to visit you later, little girl. We have much to discuss.”
I had hoped my silence would disgust him since he wants me to scream so badly. Only now am I realizing my determination may be the very thing causing me additional torment. He now knows I’m not shy, and that I’ve been fighting him with silence, so he’ll work even harder to make me crack. It’s how he gets off. He doesn’t want the purity he stole from me my first week here. He wants to suffocate my soul one painful minute at a time, and I’m on the verge of letting him do it.
The concrete my feet are dangling mere inches above digs into my knees when Vladimir’s goon releases the chains holding me hostage. This time, when he tosses me over his shoulder, I don’t put up any fight. There’s an unusual sensation bristling in the air. It feels like I am dreaming even though I’m trapped in the sickening throes of a recurring nightmare.
I’m probably on the cusp of dying.
It could be worse. I anticipated the knowledge to bombard me with horror, whereas all I’m feeling is peace.
Once I am returned to the room across from Vladimir’s private abode, a thin nightie is shoved into my chest. “Put this on. Vladimir will happily tear it off you later. He likes unwrapping his favorite whores.”
The idea of giving Vladimir any pleasure repulses me, but I slip the thin material over my head, nonetheless. It barely covers my nipples and the faint hairs between my legs Vladimir refuses for his captives to remove, but it’s better than remaining naked. A thin barrier of protection will forever exceed nothing.
The goon has only just stepped out of my room when the lady I saw earlier sprints past him. Although her clothes are torn open, her body isn’t harnessing any of the marks I anticipated her to have after her visit with the devil.
Is that because she’s already marked? If so, I wish even more now that I didn’t attempt to take out one of Vladimir’s guests with the blade of a razor my first week here.
If scars will save me from Vladimir, I’ll wear them with honor.
“I’ll come back. I promise I will be back,” the redhead shouts in multiple languages as she darts down the corridor.
When my door slams shut at the same time she comes to a grinding halt, I race for the keylock. I can’t see the person responsible for her frozen stance partway down the corridor, but I don’t need to see him to know who he is. The redhead’s face is holding the same sickened expression mine did when Vladimir forced his cock between my teeth my first week here.
I press my ear against the door when accented voices boom through it. Although I can’t speak a word of English, I do understand it. My father loved English-speaking television shows. My mother and I regularly watched them with him, so we caught onto the lingo.
“Is she as you remember?” asks a familiar, arrogant tone. Vladimir sounds like he’s still hard from watching me being punished. I’m not surprised. He’s a sick fuck who would have enjoyed watching the welts in my back bleed more than my pathetic attempt to give him head.
“Yes,” answers a male voice I don’t recognize. “You can starve off your hunger for years, but it doesn’t make your desire to eat any less rampant.”
If I were half the woman I once was, I would have agreed with him.
Now I doubt I’ll ever be desired again, much less feel desire.
It dawns on me that my earlier assumptions about the redhead’s scars saving her from Vladimir were true when he spits out, “Even knowing she’s marked?” He sounds as disgusted as his abhorrent face makes me feel.
After a few seconds of painstaking silence, the second man replies, “Scars don’t bother me. It’s the marks you can’t see that are the hardest to heal.”
His words hit me harder than I care to admit. I’m damaged both inside and out, so if what he’s saying is true, it’ll take more than a hearty meal and a long shower to fix me, and unfortunately, not all the damage occurred here.
My focus returns to the confrontation occurring outside of my room when Vladimir grunts out, “To each his own. Just don’t mark her any more than you already have. There are a long list of men waiting their turn.”
I want to scream for the redhead to run again, but she has more gall than all the women in this compound combined. “He will kill you if you touch me.” Her threat is stern and to the point, fortified by a strong backbone. “When Nikolai discovers what you have done, he will kill you both.”
I peer back out of the keyhole when the shuffling of feet sounds through my ears. It has me missing what a dark-haired, blue-eyed man replies, but no amount of thickness can detract from the roar of war that thunders down the corridor a few seconds later.
“He’s here! Nikolai is here!” bellows up the stairwell a mere second before gunfire gobbles up the man’s shouted warning.
The corridor fills with men as the redhead strays her eyes to Vladimir. “I told you he’d come. It’s time to pay your penance, Vladimir. The prince has arrived to collect his throne.”
The back of Vladimir’s hand collides with her cheek so forcefully, even my teeth feel the brunt of his hit. “The sale has been canceled. I'll refund your money by the end of the week.”
I bang on the door, wordlessly pleading for Vladimir to leave the redhead alone when he drags her down the corridor by her hair.
He doesn’t pay me any attention. He’s too busy repeating to the man not happy his sale has been canceled that it’s his way or death.
There are no in-betweens when it comes to this man.
When Vladimir and the redhead disappear into the room I was just punished in, I press my back against my door so I can cradle my head in my hands. The sound of a chain being run through the pulley is too much for me to bear. It reminds me that the pain skating across my back isn’t the pleasurable version some women love. It’s because I was humiliated in the very room Vladimir plans to kill the redhead in.
I saw the gleam in his eyes. He only ever gets that look when death is on the agenda.
With my head occupied by horrible thoughts, the time between Vladimir dragging the redhead to her death and a funky wet substance seeping under my door darts by remarkably quick. When I dab up droplets of the liquid onto my fingers, I’m torn between being excited and uneased. The sickly smelling liquid is gasoline, and there are more than a few droplets.
When I return to staring out of the peephole, my heart launches into my throat. Four men are splashing gasoline on the doors lining the corridor while another two soak Vladimir’s room from top to bottom, dosing it with way more gasoline than needed.
Vladimir is a madman, but not even someone as evil as him would burn down an entity bringing him in thousands upon thousands of dollars every night. That’s why my emotions don’t know which way to swing. If they’re planning to burn this place down, that can only mean one thing.
&nb
sp; Vladimir is dead.
That should be a good thing, but the fact gasoline is being tossed around while padlocks remain on doors reveals it isn’t.
Vladimir’s captives are being sent to hell right along with him.
We’ll be tortured even more than we already have been.
That isn’t acceptable.
That’s not right.
We’re not animals, so why are we being treated as if we are?
“No!” I shout in Czech, annoyed that Vladimir’s victims will be forced to hell with the men who brutalized them. “You promised you’d come back! You said help was coming.” As tears threaten to slide down my cheeks, I bang my fists on the thick wooden door. “You lied. You lied to all of us.”
I don’t know why the redhead’s deceit is hurting me as much as it is. She was a stranger, so I should have treated her promise as if it were a grain of salt, but for some stupid reason, I trusted her.
How foolish was I?
I continue shouting until the potent smell of gasoline becomes too much for me to bear.
It’s time for me to give in.
To give up.
I’m not strong enough to keep fighting.
“I tried,” I whisper after raising my eyes to the ceiling. “I gave it my all. I’m sorry I failed you again. Please don’t be mad at them. I did the best I could. It just wasn’t enough.” It’s never enough.
As madness steamrolls into me, the deafening thud of people running booms into my ears. Although I’m broken and confused, I peer out of the keyhole again, gasping when I spot the female I saw earlier outside my door.
Is she keeping her promise?
Did she remember us?
Did she remember me?
“Move away from the door,” she requests in Czech, peering at me through the hole. She looks different than she did mere minutes ago—stronger and somewhat relieved.
When she gestures for me to move back, I scoot to the far corner of the room I generally hide out in. I block my ears when the bang of a gun being fired is closely followed by a boot being kicked against my door. When the fortified material shoots open with a whack, I bury my head into my knees. The redhead isn’t alone. She’s with a man who has dark hair, bright blue eyes, and the sneer of a murderer.
Although I don’t immediately recognize him, the dingy conditions Vladimir made me entertain his ‘guests’ in means I must remain cautious. He’s attractive, but that doesn’t mean anything. Only my ‘guests’ lack of morals made them hideously ugly, so I can’t be certain he wasn’t one of them.
I peer at the duo through lowered lashes when the unnamed man instructs for the redhead to stay behind him. He’s so protective of her, his possessiveness is almost suffocating. I haven’t seen that from a man before, especially not in this country.
“It’s okay,” the redhead mutters in Czech, stepping closer to me. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
My eyes bounce between her and her partner when he warns, “Not too close, Ahren.”
I shouldn’t like the fact he thinks I’m a fret, but I do. It means I’m not wholly broken. There’s still some life left in my eyes.
Nodding so he’s aware she heard him, the woman the man refers to as Ahren slowly bridges the gap between us. Although my intuition is warning me to remain cautious, there’s something in her eyes I can’t disregard. She’s been hurt before, the scars peeking out of her shredded shirt exposes this, much less her soul-exposing eyes, but she also looks at peace. Like she has the world at her feet.
I discover that is the case when she whispers in Czech, “The devil is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
I want to burst into tears. I want to shout my relief into the humid night air, but instead of doing either of those things, I accept the hand she’s holding out in offering.
The wetness in my eyes jumps into hers when she drags her thumb against the week-old welts on my wrists. I was handcuffed to my room last week when I attempted to escape while dinner was being served. Vladimir’s goons put them on extra tight, hopeful the pain would discourage me from moving too much when they punished me with more than their fists. All it did was leave slash marks embedded in my skin and grew my determination to escape to an unprecedented level.
“Thank you.” My praise doesn’t feel adequate to truly express the emotions pumping through me, but they are all I have, so they’re all I can offer. “Thank you very much.”
The weeping wounds on my back sting when I trudge toward the door of my cell. It’s amazing how euphoric it feels seeing it hang from its hinges. It’s so badly damaged, it won’t hold a woman captive again any time soon.
The entanglement of emotions already holding me hostage take on an entirely new meaning when my slow trek to the stairwell that’ll lead to my freedom has my eyes locking in on a face I swore I’d never see again. “Ana!”
Forgetting about the pain rocketing through my back, I galloped down the stairs to greet the woman I went to hell and back for, praying the hard times are now behind me.
Ana’s eyes are as wide as mine, her cheeks just as pale. “Kristina, you’re here. How are you here?”
I don’t answer her questions. I can’t. I just wrap her up in a firm hug before sending my thanks to God. I fought the devil and won. That’s a victory worth praising even if I had to go to the depths of hell for it to occur.
Five
Trey
I stop assisting a badly beaten woman into the back of an SUV when Nikolai and Justine arrive at my side. I’m pleased to report Justine is uninjured from her time with Vladimir… if you exclude her massively dilated eyes and the nasty red welt on her neck.
“Is this everyone?”
While jerking up my chin to Nikolai’s question, I assist another two women into one of the SUVs that drove Nikolai’s men straight onto Vladimir’s battlefield. We lost over a dozen men to free Justine from the sex-trafficking ring Vladimir was planning to shunt her in.
It could have been worst. I was a second from flicking a lit match onto a gasoline puddle when Nikolai ordered us to search the compound for the women Justine promised to free.
I won’t lie. I’m a cruel fuck who could be accused of mistreating women more than once, but even I struggled to keep a level head when door after door exposed Vladimir didn’t just store his favorite whores here. He had victims—many of them.
Some were on the verge of death. Others had succumbed to their injuries. Then there was her, the petite blonde standing at the back of the pack, unsure whether she should flee or stay.
If any of the inane thoughts in my head have a chance of transpiring, she should run. She can barely walk, she looks like she hasn't eaten in days, and her hair is matted and tinged with blood, yet my cock still stirred when my eyes landed on hers.
I want to say it’s because she has similar features to India, a girl I wanted but couldn’t have, but that would be a lie. It was only when our eyes locked and held did my cock begin to twitch, and I started my assessment of her enticing body from her feet.
If all I wanted her for was her cock-thickening body, the thickness in my pants would have stood to attention the instant my eyes landed on the tiny apex at the top of her grubby thighs. Her nightgown is so thin, she’s practically naked, yet it took me returning her prolonged stare before my cock commenced paying attention.
Her eyes are her most exposed feature. They reveal she’s a fighter, she just has no clue how strong she is. If I were a real man, I’d show her how no amount of torture can bend the toughest spines. Regretfully, I lost who I was long before she became Vladimir’s captive, so I have no right to act heroic.
When Nikolai kicks my ankle with his boot, I’m reminded that I failed to answer his question. “Yes, but we need to move quickly.”
Like a perfectly-timed skit, sirens break through the joyous sobs of the women seeing daylight for the first time in weeks. Even the unnamed blonde is sheltering her eyes with her hand as she peers up at the rapidly blackening sky. She do
esn’t mutter a peep like the dozen or so women surrounding her, though. It’s as if she finds sanctuary in silence as I once did many moons ago. It makes her even more intriguing.
Needing to keep my head in game mode before the ugliness of my past rears it horrid head, I shift my focus back to Nikolai. “Where do you want them taken?”
“Take them to Clarks, but no one is to move until I say so.” His reply pleases me greatly. If this were a standard whore-for-exchange program the Popovs generally run, Nikolai wouldn’t care what happens to these women. The fact he’s issuing a hands-off order means he’s hoping to move his sanction away from the sex-trafficking industry Vladimir has been pedaling the past decade.
Vladimir was only removed from his throne mere minutes ago, but the benefits are already rolling in.
That’s extremely rare.
I nudge my head to the left when Nikolai asks, “Where’s Rico?”
“He’s getting our guest ready for transport.”
When a smug grin tugs my lips high, the blonde watches me as I did her earlier. The almost extinguished blaze in her eyes burns brighter the longer she stares at me. I can tell her hands are itching to cover the rosy pink buds sitting high on her chest, but she keeps them balled at her side, aware her secrets won’t be exposed by her thin nightgown.
She really should close her eyes.
Our stare-down is interrupted by a commotion at my side. Malvina, Nikolai’s ex-fiancé, is being marched down a set of stairs by Nikolai’s once-dead big brother.
Even ghosts resurrect when news circulates about Satan being sent back to hell.
From what I’ve overheard the past few hours, Rico and his wife were country hopping the first two years of their son’s life. They only settled down in a coastal town many miles from here when Blaire’s father fell ill. Although he’s now recovered, I don’t see Rico packing his suitcase again any time soon.
