by Tillie Cole
My stomach filled with butterflies at seeing his beautiful face again. Checking in on him each morning had become my daily ritual.
Jumping from my bed, I made sure the bedroom door was locked and I ran to my laptop. Zaal had fallen asleep early last night before I’d gone to bed, after minimal movement all day. But I knew he’d be awake right now, right this minute. He was no longer pacing the floor and snarling at anyone who came near as of this week. Rather, he’d sit against the wall, his head often hanging low, his large body twitching and sweating. But he didn’t move. His jade green eyes were dull when he stared off into space, his attention fixed on nothing.
I didn’t know why, but I watched him, watched him lying there like a broken and abused animal. My chest would ache and no amount of rubbing over the skin could soothe it.
I’d always felt kind of trapped, mentally and emotionally lost in this Bratva life, and staring at Zaal Kostava, the man I was conditioned to hate, just broke my heart. Because he mirrored how I felt. Especially of late, I felt broken and scarred on the inside. He looked broken and scarred on the outside. I felt a connection to the Kostava. I supposed he and I were kindred spirits.
Opening my laptop, I expected to see Zaal in that same slumped sitting position, tied up in chains, hair matted and dressed only in the black pair of sweatpants Luka had insisted he wear when he was drugged that first night.
I clicked on the desktop icon, chose the camera for the basement, and waited with bated breath as it connected. As Zaal came into view, my heart immediately fell. He wasn’t sitting up as expected. He was still sprawled on the ground, body eerily still.
I leaned in closer willing him to move. But two hours passed and he hadn’t even flinched. A deep pit had formed in the center of my stomach. He looked … what if…?
I swallowed a thick lump in my throat and felt an unfamiliar hollow feeling in my heart. I knew he’d been getting worse, his demeanor had changed dramatically over the past few days. But he was strong. I thought he’d survive. I thought it was another phase of his recovery. He’d had several over the past couple of weeks.
Leaving my laptop on the dresser, I jumped off my bed. Hands on hips, I stared at the locked bedroom door and forced myself to do something I vowed I would never do.
I needed to see him up close.
I reached up and palmed the necklace lying on my chest. I thought of why my father had disapproved of Zaal’s rescue. Of why Luka had had to bring him all the way out here to the Hamptons rather than to a holding cell in Brooklyn. But no matter how much I tried to persuade myself not to do what my heart was urging me to do, a pair of jade green eyes would dominate my mind, taking it captive, and with it all rationality. Derr ‘mo! Those eyes! The sadness they held. The torture, the hurt and confusion shining in their depths, calling to me.
I had to go. He needed me.
Eto piz ‘dets! This is fucking crazy! I thought silently in Russian.
Rushing to my door, I took a deep breath at the top of the stairs and frantically ran down. Savin and Ilya, clearly back from patrolling, came busting out of the kitchen.
“Ms. Tolstaia?” Ilya enquired, “What’s wrong?”
Pushing my hand through my hair, I said, “I was at my window and I think I saw someone outside. Maybe more than one. I can’t be sure?”
Savin straightened and immediately pulled out his Glock. Ilya moved toward me. He looked me straight in the eye and ordered, “Stay here!”
In seconds, they’d run out of the house. Knowing I had only a short amount of time, I hurried to the hidden safe, entered the passcode, and retrieved the basement key.
With shaking hands, adrenaline fueling my reckless plan, I arrived at the basement door. Without overthinking any rebuke from Savin, Ilya, or Luka, I entered the dark room and quietly closed the door behind me.
Pausing on the tiny landing, I inhaled a shuddering breath. Move, Talia, I told myself, just move. He needs you.
Leaving the key on a ledge, I placed my trembling hand on the handrail and began my cautious descent. With every step on the wooden stairs, my heart beat louder and louder.
When the expanse of the dark room came into sight, and my gaze fell on an unmoving Zaal Kostava, it took all my self-control not to rush over and beg him to awaken.
I couldn’t hear his breathing. His back was facing me, his oversize body curled into a fetal position, like the pain had been too much to bear. His bloodied and bruised arms and legs were completely stiff.
Reality hit home—he’d died.
Derr ’mo! What had Jakhua pumped him full of? Had whatever was leeching from his system for the past two weeks been too much for a person to bear? Even for a man as formidable as Zaal?
Folding my arms over my waist, I walked silently toward his comatose form, flinching as I saw the chains that held him so tightly in place. His tanned skin was pale and, finally seeing for myself that he was gone, I fell to my knees beside him and my shoulders sagged.
I’d watched this man for weeks; long hours spent in fascination, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t hate him. I wanted to, felt obliged to … but, hell, it had been impossible.
How could anyone hate a man breaking so badly? A man who had never known love? A man filled with such pain? A man kept chained in the darkness?
An urge hit me. I needed to touch him. I had to, something within me told me to reach out. No person should die in such a way. Alone, with no caring person there to offer comfort in their final hours.
My mind raced with the scant information I had about his life. He was now twenty-nine. That meant he’d endured over twenty years of being experimented on like some clinical rat. Twenty-one years of being subservient to the man who had caused the demise of his family. Twenty-one years of killing, on instruction, anyone in his path.
Lifting my hand, I hesitantly placed it on his bicep. I gasped at the coldness of his skin. It felt like ice. My eyes closed as I offered a prayer to God to save his dark soul. Opening them again, I studied the mass of tattoos, cuts, and scars, and every finely toned inch of his muscles.
I’d never seen anyone like him. He was … he was perfect. Yet, savagely imperfect at the same time.
My hand drifted farther down his body, and across the brightly colored skull tattooed on his back. I knew he probably had these forced upon his flesh. Luka had told me how the gulag owners wanted him to look more aggressive by sporting sinister tattoos. It seemed that Levan Jakhua shared exactly the same whim. And they worked. The artwork of images of death made him like something from your nightmares.
Then my gaze met the slave number on the top of his neck where his long hair had parted, a smaller version of the “221” branded on his chest.
My hand traveled to touch the black ink and a flood of tears blurred my vision. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed, “I’m sorry you had this life.”
I went to withdraw my hand. Was moving away to tell the byki that the captive had died. But just as my palm went to move, it fell from Zaal’s ice-cold skin. Before I knew it, strong hands were gripping my biceps, and a familiar pair of jade green eyes were suddenly boring into mine. Two hundred and fifty pounds of prime muscle were pinning me down.…
I shook my head and glanced at Zaal, now sleeping. I couldn’t help but remember the feeling of his huge body towering above me, his sharply featured face so primal and raw. At first I’d been terrified, but when Savin and Ilya had found me, their mutual looks of rage as they met my eyes, all fear vanished as he pushed me back to protect me.
This monster, this animal, this apparently unsalvageable man had protected me. And now, alone, here I sat with him. My obsession in the flesh. My forbidden addiction.
It should have been my chance to get away. I knew he’d be sleeping for the next few hours. Hell, I knew his daily routine down pat. But as my mind tried to convince me to go, my heart kept me rooted to the spot.
Glancing to Zaal, I edged closer. Taking the chance while I could, I brushed back his dirty matted black ha
ir from his face. My lips parted and I drew in a sharp breath as his features were revealed.
With my forefinger, I slowly traced his broad forehead, then his nose and, finally, his jaw. He was beautiful, exotic, and every inch a man. But he was severely unkempt, his hair dirty, and his body still peppered with weeks’-old bloodstains.
Looking about the sparse room, there was nothing in here to clean him with. I couldn’t leave him like this, soiled and riddled with filth.
Determined, I got to my feet and headed up the staircase. As I opened the door to the basement, Savin and Ilya were suddenly in my face.
They were livid.
“What were you thinking by going down there?” Savin asked coldly. “He could have killed you.”
Ignoring Savin, I walked around him and headed into the downstairs bathroom. Searching the cabinets, I quickly found a bath sponge, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, some towels, and a hairbrush. Gathering them in my hands, I headed to the kitchen, and located a large bowl.
Ilya walked to the counter. His eyes fell on the items lying on the top. “You can’t be serious?” he asked incredulously. I didn’t say a word as I ran the hot water and filled the bowl to three-quarters full.
“Miss Tolstaia, you’re not going back down there. We can’t allow it.”
My back stiffened and I turned to face Ilya, who’d been joined by an angry-looking Savin. “I’m going to say this as politely as I can, guys. I’ve known you both my entire life, your fathers served mine honorably. I both love and respect you as friends, and as my guards, but I will not be ordered around by you. I’m not twelve, and I don’t need your fucking permission to do anything.”
I lifted the bowl and set it next to the other items. Seeing a shopping tote bag on a hook, I filled it with the products I’d need and pulled it over my shoulder. Looking at my byki, I added, “Yes, I’m a woman in the Bratva. I’m controlled by my father, my Pakhan, and now, my ‘knayz’ brother. But I’m telling you now, I refuse to be spoken to like a fucking errant child by you two.” My eyes narrowed. “I’m going back down to the basement to clean the man who has been left down there to rot for two friggin’ weeks. The man I believed had died alone on that God-awful hard rubber floor, and there’s sweet fuck all you two can do about it.”
I lifted the bowl and walked around them. Ilya cussed and Savin stepped in my path. “He’s a Kostava,” he said in a deadly hush. “You’re a Tolstoi. Yet you help him? The knayz helps him? I don’t get what the fuck is going on. He should have been slaughtered when he was found. Hung up and paraded through the streets.”
For a moment I felt a flash of shame. Real shame that I was about to help the enemy. But something stronger overcame this shame—a need to help Zaal. A need to get close to him. I couldn’t explain it. Of course, it was irrational, it was wrong, but I had to. He had no one else.
I was it.
Ignoring the men, I headed for the basement, and Ilya called out, “We’ll be watching that monitor, miss. If he so much as touches you the wrong way, we’ll come down and I won’t hesitate to kill him.”
It wasn’t a threat. His words were a promise.
Mu‘duk, I muttered under my breath, and resisted telling him to fuck off. When I reached the small landing of the basement, I saw the switch that controlled the security camera directly before me. Turning to bolt the two inner locks of the basement door, I then smiled directly into the stair’s camera hanging from the ceiling, and cut the live feed. Last thing I needed was Ilya and Savin watching me wash Zaal down.
When I walked down the stairs and returned to Zaal’s side, I set the bowl down and carefully began to wash his body. Blood and dirt eventually gave way to tanned skin. I gently washed every inch of him, and when I reached his face, it was to find a pair of unfocused green eyes, staring up at me.
My hand froze but I stared right back.
My heart raced and my cheeks flushed with heat.
Zaal studied me, his eyes widening, then he began to move.
Quickly shuffling backward through fear of what he might do, I stopped when he dragged his lethargic body into a slumped sitting position. His gaze dropped to the bowl and then to his half-washed torso.
He looked back up at me and I could see confusion clouding his features. He watched me and I watched him. The room seemed to increase in temperature and a powerful magnetic tension formed between us.
Zaal’s attention fell to the sponge in my hand. His black eyebrows pulled down and, lifting his hand, he ran it over the clean side of his body.
Swallowing, watching his array of facial expressions communicate without words, I slowly shifted onto my knees. Zaal’s eyes snapped to mine and he tensed. Perhaps he perceived me as a threat?
I held up my sponge, and his wary eyes narrowed. Edging closer, I nervously whispered, “I was cleaning you.”
The clean hand moved to the soiled and sweat-ridden side of his body. He fixed his gaze on me once more and dropped his hand. He focused on me blankly. I moved ever closer. His nostrils flared, his hands clenched, the chains attaching him to the wall rattled at even this slight movement.
But I kept moving forward until I was within touching distance. Stopping, I held up the sponge and gestured to the bowl of hot water. Clearing my throat, trying to chase away the nerves starting to overwhelm my body, I said quietly, “Can I keep going? Can I continue to clean you?”
He didn’t react, but his cheek twitched, then twitched again. I didn’t know if that meant he wanted me to or not. Deciding to continue regardless, I carefully dipped the sponge into the soapy water. Zaal’s torso was on full display and he tensed, as though I was about to strike him.
My heart fell again.
Had he not had any human contact at all? Had no one ever cared for him? Touched him? Spoke to him other than to issue a command to kill, or to pump him full with drugs?
He didn’t move as I approached very slowly, but his eyes watched me like a hawk. Holding out the sponge, I said just as quietly, “I’m going to run it along your arm, is this okay?”
There was no answer, just another twitch of his jaw and a narrowing of his green eyes.
Averting my attention from his face to his large arm, I pressed the sponge against his skin and met hard muscle. My lips parted and my heart raced. I could feel him watching me; I blushed under his scrutiny.
The deathly silence in the room only intensified the mood of the situation and his wet skin bumped in my wake. He was solid muscle. His skin was nearly golden in tone, but my chest tightened at seeing the mass of jagged scars marring his skin up close. They were everywhere, more than I’d realized. Round marks that looked like they’d once been open holes, red raised scars that looked like burn marks. I’d seen them through the surveillance feed, but up close? They were horrific. I didn’t even want to imagine how they could have been caused.
Swallowing back my shock, I glanced at Zaal, who was still watching me. His head was angled slightly to the side. I tried to cast him a smile. And when I did, his lips parted, the top boasting a perfectly shaped cupid’s bow.
Snapping myself from my stupor, I sank the sponge into the bowl and made quick work of his arm and tattooed back. Reaching for the towel, I dried him off, then said, “Can I clean your front?”
Zaal didn’t move from where he sat, prompting me to shift to place myself in front of him. His chains were in the way, but at least he could move his arms, baring his packed torso. Eyes widening, I drank in every sculpted inch as he allowed me to clean his broad chest.
The bold 221 tattoo glared at me; his black hair was clumped and fell in knotted disarray. Offering the sponge for him to see, I shuffled on my knees until I was positioned between his legs, cradled in close proximity to his imposing frame.
For a moment I entertained the certainty that this close, if he wanted to, Zaal could easily kill me. If he was truly the untamed savage, the crazed monster he’d been acting for the two weeks here at the house, he should kill me now.
But when I found myself mere inches from his face, my eyes met those stunning jade irises, and any fear I had fell away like butter sliding off a hot knife.
Electricity seemed to crackle between us as we breathed the same air. Zaal stared and stared, until, raising the sponge, I pressed its wet warmth to his chest. This close, with my ear hovering just below his mouth I caught his sharp inhale of breath.
My thighs clenched at the desperate sound and warmth spread between my legs. I could feel myself blushing, and my hands trembled.
Overcome with a heady attraction, I focused on the task of cleaning the traces of blood and dirt from his skin. My hands ran over his muscled chest, over his bulging traps that sat perfectly on top of large round shoulders.
My breath came in short quick pants as my hand slowly traced down his washboard abs, showcasing more muscles than I knew it was possible to produce. Eventually, I found my sponge at the waistband of his sweatpants.
I paused. He needed cleaning desperately, but I wavered. I knew he was naked beneath his pants. I must have hesitated too long; Zaal suddenly moved, his chains clattering off the hard floor. I jumped back at the sudden movement and my frightened eyes darted to meet his. Once again, Zaal was watching me carefully. His long rough fingers slipped under the elastic of the waistband, then slowly pushed the pants off his waist and over his thick thighs. The pants stopped as the chains from his ankle shackles prevented him from freeing himself completely.
Our fixed attentions hadn’t dropped as he removed his pants. I was transfixed by his expression, the parting of his lips and the slight color that had graced his defined tanned cheeks.
My heart drummed. He was naked. I hadn’t expected him to remove his pants. I wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed.
Finally, inhaling a shuddering breath, I reached out and dipped the sponge in the bowl. Lifting my hand, I drained out the water with a squeeze of my fist, and feeling breathless at what I might find, I risked a look down.
My hand froze, suspended in the air as I met the sight of his tapered waist, his muscles forming a sharp and overly defined V that led to a dark cropping of hair and …
