I manage to crawl up the first few steps, my throat and chest burning from being strangled, but Viktor has recovered faster than me. His swift footsteps are my only warning before a tight grip seizes my hair, wrenching me to my feet. I scream at the sting in my scalp, certain I feel a few strands tear free.
“I wanted to take my time with you,” Viktor rasps, swinging me around and shoving me into the closest wall. My bruised face slams into the brick, sending a bursts light and agony through my head. “But now I see I’m going to have to break you sooner rather than later. You need to be taught a lesson, dorogoy, and you’re going to get it right now.”
His fingers tighten on the back of my neck, pinning me in place and adding more dizzying pain to the agony pounding in my head. His body comes against my back, and the motherfucker is aroused, turned on by beating and strangling a woman half his size. Viktor pants in my ear like a beast, rubbing his erection against my ass and slipping a hand around my body to cup my breast. He squeezes until I cry out, squirming and trying to buck him off me.
“That’s it,” he says with a deranged laugh. “Fight me, Elena. I like it better when they put up a fight.”
Despite knowing my struggles only turn him on more, I can’t let go of the need to resist. I twist and try to angle my most vulnerable parts away from him, but I’m too weak, too battered and broken.
He cups between my legs, fondling and trying to press into me through my panties. Tears spring to my eyes and roll down my face, each drop hot and searing. I clench my teeth to keep the pitiful cries muffled, and push away the words to beg him to stop. If he likes it when I fight, he’ll only enjoy it more when I start to beg.
I press my forehead against the wall, defeated. There’s no more strength left within me, and Viktor will have his way. My shoulders shake with choked sobs, my body trembling so hard I can hardly stay on my feet.
My blood roars in my ears, so loud and insistent that I almost don’t hear the gunshots firing off from somewhere in the house. Viktor goes still behind me, tension coiling through his body and telling me that I’m not crazy. I heard the staccato bursts of semi-automatic weapons, and now I can hear raised voices calling out in both Spanish and Russian.
Thank God.
I suck in a deep breath and throw my head back to scream, knowing it’s impossible for me to be heard over the commotion, but too desperate to care. Diego is here, close enough to intervene. I’ve fought as long as I can, and now I need him.
“Help! Somebody help me! I’m down here, please!”
Viktor claps a hand over my mouth and jerks me away from the wall, taking me to my knees on the ground. I jerk my head back and forth, creating enough space to bite down on one of his fingers. He howls when my teeth sink in, my jaw clamping until I break skin and the taste of his blood fills my mouth. I hold on tight, refusing to release him as he tries to pull his hand away from the steel trap of my teeth. I’ll gnaw this thing down to the bone if I have to. Letting go isn’t an option. Bits of flesh tear away and Viktor’s blows across my shoulders rattle me to my core. But I snarl like an animal, feeling like one as I tear at flesh like a rabid dog. Viktor’s screams are smothered by pounding feet on the stairs, and then the oppressive weight of him falls away, leaving a piece of him clenched between my teeth.
I roll away from his body, which hit the floor beside me with a heavy ‘thunk,’ spitting the chunk of his finger out of my mouth and gagging on the taste of him.
“It’s all right, Elena. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
The voice murmuring reassurances at me is thick with a Russian accent, sending a fresh wave of fear and adrenaline through me.
“No!” I scream, skittering away from the heavy hand that falls onto my bare shoulder. “Get away! Don’t touch me!”
I press against the wall, drawing my knees up to my chest and staring over them to find Oleg crouched in front of me. He’s holding an AK-47 in one hand, but the muzzle is lowered toward the floor and his face is a mask of horror and pity as he looks me over.
“It’s all right, little one,” he murmurs, working one arm out of his suit jacket, then switching the gun to his opposite hand to finish shedding the garment. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to save you. Your husband is here, finishing off the traitors who worked with my son. They didn’t just betray you and Diego, dorogoy. They betrayed me too.”
“Don’t call me that,” I whisper, my voice low and weak. My throat is on fire and I can’t even tell where the pain plaguing my body is coming from anymore. “I don’t want to hear that word ever again.”
Oleg nods in understanding, gently taking hold of my shoulder to urge me to my feet. I don’t resist when he slips his jacket over my shoulders, partially hiding my half-naked body from view.
“Diego,” I whimper, as he wraps an arm around my waist and holds me against the side of his bulky body. “I need … where …”
“Shhh,” Oleg croons, patting me like a father comforting a crying child. “He’s here, little one. He’ll take you home and everything will be all right.”
For the first time I notice that the house above us has gone silent. Clinging to Oleg, I let him help me up the stairs. It’s slow going, but we eventually step into what turns out to be a sprawling beach house in a modern design. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sting of harsh, white light, but the stench of death penetrates my senses. The scent of blood and burning smoke coats the air, and beyond my blurred vision I see mangled and broken bodies littering the floor.
Diego’s voice snatches me back from the brink of oblivion. “Where is she? Elena! Oh my God … Elena!”
I find him rushing toward me, his white T-shirt stained with blood and bits of what might be someone’s brains. His face is speckled with more droplets, and his skin has gone ashen at the sight of me, his eyes wide and wild.
“I found her in the basement with Viktor,” Oleg says, gently handing me over to my husband. “He … I’m sorry, moy drug. What I witnessed isn’t fit for conversation.”
Diego handles me with care, sweeping me off my feet. But I can feel the violence thrumming through him, hear the rage in his shaking voice.
“Where is he?”
I assume he’s referring to Viktor but can’t bring myself to care. The conversation starts to sound like it’s coming from far away as my hold on the world begins to slip. Oleg says something in response, but I understand none of it. My head falls against Diego’s chest, and I latch on to the sound of his heartbeat, fast and unsteady, but strong. I can’t even bring myself to care about the blood wetting my cheek. I take hold of his shirt, twisting it in my grip and holding on tight.
We’re moving now, Diego’s steps jolting me in his arms and sending fresh waves of pain through me. When I whimper, he tightens his hold on me and presses his lips to the top of my head.
“I’m sorry, gatita,” he says in a low, broken voice. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Sounds come from me, but I’m not sure I’m forming actual words. The warm, fresh air of the outdoors kisses my skin, and I hear ocean waves from somewhere in the distance.
“I have you now,” Diego says. “You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me? Nothing like this will ever happen to you again, I swear it.”
“Y-you … came,” I manage between the shudders wracking me. I think shock is setting in, or maybe it’s relief that has me feeling as if my soul is detaching from my body.
“Yes,” he reassures me. “I will always come for you.”
“I … thought …”
Diego squeezes me tighter and it hurts, but the pain is sweet, poignant. It’s the best feeling—one of being safe and protected, knowing that the torment has come to an end.
“I know,” he says. “I should have known better. You would never have left me that way. I should never have doubted you.”
I want to be angry with him for assuming the worse, but I don’t have it in me. It was all part of Viktor’s plan, making Diego think I had
left with him willingly. What he didn’t count on was Diego’s determination to keep me by any means necessary. He didn’t count on me being willing to fight to the death to get back to the man I love.
Jovan’s voice interrupts before I can respond. “What the fuck? What did that motherfucker do to her? I swear to fucking God—”
“Open the door you idiot,” Diego snaps. “I need you to get her out of here. Now.”
I cling tighter to Diego’s shirt as my body dips and settles on to the leather seats of a car. “No … don’t … don’t leave …”
I crack my eyes enough that I can see Diego looming over me, his hands sweeping my hair back from my face. He looks like murder on legs, like death personified. Through the veil of worry over me, I can see the determination in his features, the resolve driving him.
“It’s only for a little while, gatita,” he says, stroking my battered cheek. “Jovan’s going get you home so Antonella and Mariana can clean you up and Dr. Molena can examine you. I have to finish neutralizing the threat to us … to you. Do you understand? I have to take care of Viktor. I can’t breathe thinking of him walking the same earth as you. But when I’m done, I’ll never let you out of my sight again.”
I let go, my hand falling limp at my side. The strength to respond escapes me and I turn my head away from him, closing my eyes. I understand what he has to do now, but that doesn’t stop me from hating it.
“Go,” Diego says to Jovan. “Take care of her, Jovan. I need her safe.”
“Consider it done, jefe.”
My head is heavy, my neck too weak to go on holding up. I register Jovan maneuvering me so I’m more comfortable, then clicking the seatbelt across my lap.
“Hang in there, tiger,” he murmurs, patting my arm. “You’re the toughest bitch I know. You’ll make it through this.”
It’s the last thing I remember other than the roar of the engine when Jovan starts the car. With a jolt, it speeds off into the night and I finally allow myself to fall back into the dark void of nothingness.
33
Diego
In the days following Elena’s homecoming, it feels as if a heavy blanket of death has fallen over the house. The staff are silent when I walk past, but I hear them whispering among themselves—talking about my wife’s ordeal and speculating over whether she’ll ever be the same again.
After returning home that night, I went straight to the bedroom to find Dr. Molena bent over Elena, inspecting her injuries. I was helpless, impotent in my fury at the sight of her, broken and bruised from head to toe. Molena assures me that there are no broken bones or signs of internal injuries—just superficial wounds that will heal, a bit of dehydration, and fatigue. He leaves her a bottle of pain pills and a nurse who will sleep in the room next to ours to monitor her progress and keep fluids flowing through the IV embedded in her arm.
Once we’re alone, I stand for what feels like hours and watch Elena, who’s lost to a drug-induced sleep. Her face is black and blue, one eyelid swollen. Fingerprints show me where Viktor had his filthy hands all over her—her cheeks, her throat, her waist, one of her breasts. Her stomach is an angry reddish-purple, and her legs are slashed with cuts caused by what I find out was glass.
With her out cold, I have no way of knowing what exactly he did to her, and it drives me crazy to speculate. He wouldn’t have stripped her down to almost nothing if all he wanted to do was smack her around a little bit. The thought of him taking her against her will, degrading and using her, makes me tremble and fills my throat with bile.
Aside from guilt over what was done to her, I also have to wrestle with knowing I would have gone after Elena faster if I’d had more faith in her. I was convinced she had left me, and I left her to suffer in Viktor’s clutches like the asshole I am.
It doesn’t matter that it only took a few hours for us to track them down and for me to pull my head out of my ass long enough to see the truth. Within those hours, she might have endured a variety of horrors … things I could have saved her from if I had been there.
I’ll have to live with my own failure for the rest of my life, but I also intend to spend that time making it up to her. Even knowing she might hate me for doubting her, I can’t bring myself to let her go. It might be the right thing to do, but everything within me rebels at the thought of releasing Elena to live a life separate from mine. No one will protect her like I will. No one will love her with the visceral intensity driving me to hold on to her.
Elena sleeps for twenty-four hours, and I spend every second of that time sitting at her bedside. The nurse comes to examine her after she wakes, assuring me that everything is fine. Her body will heal, but it’s her spirit I’m worried about.
My wife isn’t the woman I’ve come to know and love. She doesn’t tear into me for not being here to protect her, or cry on my shoulder over what Viktor did to her. Elena is like an empty shell, staring off into open air as if being haunted by ghosts I can’t see. I might have slaughtered my way through that house to free her, and removed the threat of Viktor so she never has to fear him again … but I can’t fight the invisible. I can’t tear down the memories of what she endured in that basement.
She eats when I coax a tray onto her lap, and lets me carry her to the shower to bathe her every night. She lays limp and placid when I dress her and comb her hair, her eyes dead and unseeing. When I kiss her cheek and tell her I love her, that I’m here and she’s safe now, Elena only stares at me without blinking.
Over time, she finds the strength to move around on her own. Her voice returns, still raspy from being strangled, and so weak it nearly brings tears to my eyes.
“I’m fine,” she says when I ask her if she’s okay.
“I can do it,” she tells me when I try to help her down the stairs.
I hold her at night, and she curls into me as if seeking comfort. But she never talks to me about what happened—never offers me any words other than ‘good morning,’ ‘good night,’ or simple yes or no answers to my questions.
After a week I start to wonder if this will be the rest of our lives—Elena floating around the house in her leggings and sweatshirts, her gaze unfocused and faraway. She doesn’t seem to take pleasure in the things she loves. Her books lay in her lap, open to the same page every time. She stares at the words without reading them, and I have yet to see her turn the page. Her yoga mat is rolled up and pushed into the corner of our closet, forgotten. She lounges by the pool but never gets into the water. When she opens her design book to sketch, the silhouettes of gowns, jackets, and slacks are sharp and frantic—like the outlines of demonic figures instead of fashion models.
My kitten is lost, maybe broken beyond repair, and I can’t seem to reach her.
Is she too traumatized to move forward, or is she punishing me for my sins? I deserve to be punished, to feel alone while lying next to the woman I love and know I didn’t have to lose her this way. I deserve to long for her and be denied every time she sets those shuttered eyes on me, hiding the deepest secrets of her soul.
I kidnapped her, imprisoned her, forced her to accept my dominance and the ring on her left hand.
I did this and I will pay the price for it, even if Elena never forgives me. Even if she never smiles at me or opens her body to me again. There will never be another woman for me, even if I’ve lost her forever.
She’s been home for about a month before she finally cracks.
I enter our bathroom, worried she’s been in the shower for too long and needing to check on her. Through the glass I find her curled up on the tiles, sobbing and shaking as the water batters her nude body. Her bruises have healed, but she’s still drenched in pain, carrying the internal scars.
I open the shower and step in, still fully clothed and not caring about the water soaking me. My Elena is crying as if her heart is broken, and I have to be here for her. I have to hold her.
“Elena,” I whisper, crouching and pulling her into my arms. “Come here, gatita. That’s it … L
et it all out.”
She wraps her arms around me for the first time in weeks. My throat tightens at the helpless sounds she makes, whimpering and mewling like a frightened child.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, for lack of anything else to say. “This is my fault. I know that. I wasn’t here to protect you, and I should have been. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Elena presses her hands into my chest, putting some distance between us. I cling to her waist, trying to bring her back, but she bats my hands away. Her eyes are narrow slits, burning into me with accusation. This is what I’ve been waiting for, and I find myself relieved because it’s a nice change from her eerie stillness.
“You’re mad at me,” I say, when she goes on silently staring, her chin trembling as water drops sluice down her face. “I deserve it. Let me have it, gatita. I can take it.”
She slams a palm into my chest, then another. Then she slaps me across the face, the blow stinging against my wet skin. I stand still and let her pummel me, her open-palm blows turning into fists that jab my torso like little hammers. She’s stronger than I expected after what she’s been through, and I absorb the dull ache of each punch as penance for the pain I’ve caused her.
When she’s finally worn herself out, Elena stands before me huffing and sniffling, her tears mingling with the cascade of water making her hair cling to her face and neck. “I am mad at you,” she whispers with a slow shake of her head. “I’m so fucking furious, I could scream.”
Her words hurt more than her physical blows, and I nearly stagger under the weight of them. “I know. I failed you.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “But you didn’t fail me by leaving to go after Viktor. It was the right thing to do—the best thing you could do based on the information you had. I’m not even mad at you for leaving me here, or the fact that I got kidnapped. I knew life with you would have its share of dangers. What happened that night at the docks, and Viktor showing up to kidnap me … both those things were outside your control.”
Marrying the Mobster: American Gangsters 1 (Leave Me Breathless) Page 25
