by Monica James
I risk a glance around the table and notice a few of the men’s eyes slipping to half-mast. Their chins droop to their chests because they can no longer hold up their heads.
Thy drugs are quick.
Thankfully, Aleksei is too preoccupied with patting his new pet to notice.
“Fuck it,” Saint says, cutting through the silence. “Let’s drink. Your success is mine.” I risk a glance at him and see he holds the bottle of vodka with the red label—the non-drugged one.
Aleksei nods, and when his head wobbles slightly, I know the drugs, mixed with the copious amount of alcohol he’s consumed, are kicking in. He raises his bottle to salute Saint, and they both gulp down the vodka. Saint guzzles his, baiting Aleksei to beat him, and he does.
Aleksei consumes the entire bottle, then attempts to slam it onto the table. However, it seems his hand-eye coordination is failing him because he misses the table and the bottle shatters into tiny slivers when it hits the floor. He tries to pinpoint the noise but blinks quickly as though he can’t focus.
“Wh-what d-did you doooo?” he asks in a slur, sagging low into his seat as he tries to grab me. But all he clings on to is air.
The effects of the drugs hit me too as I grip the edge of the table to maintain my balance. I blink once as the world flickers into blurred lines. The world moves in slow motion around me as I peer around the room, noticing the comatose men.
Some are slumped onto the table while most are sound asleep in their chairs or mumbling incoherently as the drugs seep into their system.
I know the drugs have hit them quicker because of all the vodka they’ve had, but I am half their body weight and don’t drink nearly as much as they do, so I know I only have minutes until my fate matches theirs.
“Y-you wi-will pay.” And those are the last words I hope to ever hear from my kidnapper because his head hits the table with a harsh thud. He’s out cold.
I can finally breathe again.
“Aнгел, come! We have to be quick.” I feel someone slip their forearms under my armpits and yank me up. I’m as floppy as a rag doll.
I have no control over my body and sag forward, but Saint won’t allow me to fall. Regardless of how I feel about him right now, he will keep his word and give me back my freedom. Just as he promised he would.
“I’m sorrreee.” My swollen tongue makes it hard for me to speak, but I need to apologize to Saint. I judged him when I shouldn’t have, and my anger was misdirected. I’m angry with myself for…for falling for the bad guy. Because when I inhale his scent and bask in his touch, I know that’s exactly what I’ve done.
I blamed him for me feeling this way, but there is no one to blame but me.
“Shh, it’s okay. Just lean on me, okay?” Like I have a choice. My legs are like overcooked spaghetti.
We commence a slow stagger, but to where, I don’t know because my eyes are sealed shut. I’ve read that before one dies, the last sense they lose is their hearing. I wonder if maybe I’ve poisoned myself because that’s the only thing I’m relying on right now because my body feels like it’s shutting down.
“I-I can’t feel m-my…body,” I wheeze, my heart beating frantically.
“I’ve got you, and I promise, I’ll never let you go.” Those words throw a warm blanket over me, and I allow Saint to lead the way. But one thought pounds against my temples, and I fight the urge to surrender to the darkness.
“Kill…him,” I push out between winded breaths.
I can’t leave this yacht knowing he’s still alive. After everything he’s done, this stops now. No more women are to take my place because I want this to end with me.
“We don’t have time.”
With the last bit of strength I have left, I use my weight to try to hold him back. It’s a lame attempt, but it has the desired effect. “Please.”
I want to say so much more, but I can’t, and I know we’re running out of time.
Just when I think Saint is about to pick me up and haul ass, he exhales loudly and then groans. We take a few steps forward, then I feel the soft plush sofa under my body as Saint lays me down gently. “Cover your ears,” he instructs before placing a frantic kiss to my forehead.
If I could move my arms, I would.
It feels like minutes, not seconds, but when I hear a gun being cocked, I know it’s really over. I’m safe.
Or so I thought.
“Drop your gun.”
There must be some mistake. I’m surely hallucinating. But when I feel myself being hauled to my feet and the cold barrel of a gun being shoved against my temple, I know this is really happening.
“Zoey,” Saint wheezes, his anguish clear as we are once again at gunpoint because of her. “Don’t do this. Come with us. We can finally go home.”
I don’t know how she’s awake, but she is, and with everyone out cold, it’s only us. Considering how this entire thing started, it seems fitting.
“What did you do to Alek?” she screams. The sound shreds my brain, and I moan in pain. The need to sleep overpowers me, but I force myself to stay awake. “Saint!”
I hiss when the metal stings my slick skin. Her patience is wearing thin, but so is Saint’s as our window of time to escape closes. “Give her to me and…and you can live.”
Both Zoey and I gasp because what he just said has drawn a distinct line in the sand.
“You’d chose this bitch over me?” Zoey cries, her betrayal and surprise apparent. “Over your own flesh and blood?”
Time stands still.
“I will always, always choose her. You’re dead to me, Zoey.”
The ultimate “fuck you” one could ever say to a sibling or to anyone, for that matter. My heart swells, knowing he chooses me. No one has ever done that for me. I was never important enough to be someone’s number one.
All the warm and fuzzy feelings soon disappear, however, because when Zoey roars and cocks her gun, it’s now or never. “Fine then. Her blood will be on your hands!”
I try to fight, but it’s useless, so I brace for death.
It never comes.
“Drop it, Saint, or I kill your aнгел.”
That voice belongs to the man whose brother we killed. It seems not even being drugged can stop him from seeking revenge for his brother’s death. I don’t need my sight to know what’s unfolding. Two guns versus one.
All this because of me. But I am done. Tired. The fight in me withers, so I surrender.
“Let,” I pant, trying to stand upright on my own. “Let him go. I won’t fight.”
“That’s not an option,” Zoey says, her grip on me weakening. It seems that even though she woke from her drug coma, she’s still drowsy. I wish I could use that to my advantage, but I can’t.
I can taste defeat.
“Yes. She must pay for what she did to my brother, Kazimir. You both must.” He’s always been privy to what went down. He was just biding his time.
When Saint bursts into laughter, I wonder if he’s finally lost his mind. I know I have. “Your brother cried like a little girl. Begging for his life.”
“Shut up!” roars Adrian, but Saint does nothing of the sort.
“He pissed his pants right before I put a bullet between his eyes.”
I recognize what he’s doing. He’s baiting Adrian to train his gun on him and not on me. I know Saint, and my life is always more important to him than his. I don’t need my vision to recognize that.
The room explodes into pandemonium as Russian words boom around me. Zoey shrieks when gunshots sound around us. The deafening noise splits me into two. I expect her to let me go, to duck for cover, or at the very least, to cover her ears, but to my horror, my hearing doesn’t fail me as I hear the trigger squeak. She’s going to shoot me.
“No!” A guttural scream leaves me, and I try to break free, but it’s hopeless. And I do something I haven’t done in a very long time.
I pray.
Please God, give me the strength and welcome me hom
e.
I await my death, but it seems God isn’t done with me yet.
“Forgive me, aнгел.”
I don’t know what he’s seeking absolution for…until I hear an echoing boom that rattles me to the core. I propel backward, the force so fierce that it knocks the sandals from my feet. I don’t feel the pain in my body until I hit the floor.
Everything grows numb, and all I can focus on is the pain.
“Forgive me, aнгел,” he said.
Why?
Because Saint has caused this searing pain eating me whole—he just…fucking shot me.
I carry that certainty with me as I finally succumb to the darkness, unsure if I’ll ever see the light again.
I shot her to save her because if I didn’t, Zoey or Adrian would have, and their shot would have been fatal. But it doesn’t seem to make a difference because now, I’m just as much of a prisoner as she is.
Day 40
I HAVE NO idea of the time. Or day. Or where I am, for that matter. I feel neither here nor there. One thing is certain; I’m wrapped in silk sheets that smell of lavender. A strange thing to notice, but my senses are on high alert because I’m smelling something different from the past few weeks.
No longer the open sea.
The fact I can’t feel the subtle sway to the waters has me guessing I have finally arrived where I was always destined to end up.
I’m on land. I’m in Russia.
Through my fuzzy brain, I try to think back to the last thing I can remember, but all I feel is pain—literally. My left shoulder feels as though red-hot pokers have pierced it, and my whole body aches.
With the slowest of movements, I gradually open my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear my blurred vision. It takes a few seconds, but when I eventually focus, I can’t deny my surroundings are quite a sight.
I’m clearly in a bedroom, but this room looks like it once belonged to royalty.
A gold wallpaper ingrained with blue and gold flowers covers the walls. The high ceiling is domed, I think, and covered with the same wallpaper. The wooden furniture has red velvet cushioning. Thick silk drapes the king-size bed I’m lying in, and the color scheme matches the wallpaper.
Regardless of all the gleam in this lavish and comfortable place, it’s still a prison—just with shinier bars.
I try to sit up, but my head spins, and I groan, falling back down onto the pillow and rubbing my brow. When the door opens, and a young woman enters with a jug of water, I can’t help but shrink back. “W-who are you?” It takes me two attempts to speak, but she understands me perfectly fine.
“Oh, you’re awake?” She has a definite French accent.
“Where am I?” My voice sounds like I gargled glass, and that pitcher she holds suddenly has me wetting my very dry lips.
She closes the door gently and walks over to the bed. “You’re in Russia. At Aleksei’s home,” she explains, reaching for a glass on the bedside table and pouring me some water.
Even though she confirmed what I already knew to be true, my stomach still turns at the thought.
“My name is Sara.” She passes me the water, and I am far too thirsty to care if it’s drugged or not. I reach for it and tip back my head to drink it all down. It gurgles in my empty belly.
“How many days have I been here?”
“Two.”
My exhausted brain attempts to do the math. Remembering Saint said we were roughly three days away from Russia, that means I’ve been unconscious for five days.
What the hell happened?
“Where is the man I arrived with? Saint,” I ask, hoping she knows who I’m talking about. But more importantly, hoping I did, in fact, arrive with him in tow.
When she averts her gaze, I sit up, ignoring the pain shooting straight through me. The blankets pool around my waist, allowing me to see I’m in a white nightgown. I can also see a bandage poking out of the collar where my shoulder is strapped.
Memories crash into me, followed by a deafening BOOM! Instinctively, I reach for my shoulder…the one Saint shot me in. My mouth pops open because the image of me being manhandled by Zoey before she was seconds away from blowing out my brains comes to life.
I would be dead by now if not for Saint’s bullet, which is ironic in every sense of the word. He shot to wound, not to kill. But I don’t understand why I’ve been out for five days. Unless Saint is playing down his gunshot wound to the shoulder, then something else caused me to be comatose for the past five days.
“I don’t know where he is,” Sara explains, placing the pitcher on the table.
“Has he come to see me?” I ask, but it’s in vain. I know the answer.
“No.”
“Why have I been unconscious? I don’t remember coming here.”
Sara frowns. “Aleksei, he made me do it.”
“Do what?” I ask slowly, sitting against the headboard.
“He told me that I was to keep you…comfortable.” Her pause has me guessing that means he did to me what I did to him.
He drugged me.
“I need to leave.” I’m about to throw the blankets off, ready to flee this prison once and for all, but Sara’s eyes widen, and she latches onto my forearm.
“Please, don’t! He will kill me,” she pleads, and I see the truth in her eyes.
I owe this woman nothing, but I can’t help but feel sorry for her. She’s being held captive by Aleksei as well.
“Why are you here?” I ask, needing to know what role she plays, and if she can be trusted.
Sara looks similar in age to me with long dark hair. Once upon a time, I would have guessed her dull and lifeless light brown eyes sparkled. “I’m a prisoner too,” she says. Even though she doesn’t know my situation, it’s evident I’m here against my will.
“Alek has me working off my father’s debt. He borrowed money from him but couldn’t pay it back.”
She doesn’t need to continue. I can fill in the blanks.
The inevitable looms. “Is he…?” I gulp, unsure how to even phrase this. “Is he your master too?”
She nods slowly, her large eyes filling with tears.
I don’t understand any of this. If Alek has ample women at his disposal, then why does he want me?
However, when I think of my purpose, that I’m to take over for Zoey, his number one, I assume that Alek parades one “special” girl around to all his friends like a prized pig while the others, like Sara, are there to scratch an itch when he gets bored.
Judging by her clothes, which look like something Cinderella would wear when scrubbing the floors, she serves as his slave in every sense of the word. We all have a purpose to Alek, chess pieces to move to win the game.
“Zoey has been in here.” My blood turns cold when she shares this with me. “Be careful of her. She will do anything to make sure no one takes her place. You aren’t the first girl.”
Her confession leaves a bad taste in my mouth as those other girls were “trained” by Saint.
“At first, Alek makes you think he cares, but his true colors will eventually shine through.” She tugs at a loose thread on the duvet, betraying her guilt. “We’re all just his property to do with as he pleases.”
Saint was right. It sounds like Sara fell victim to Alek’s charm too.
“I want to see him. Alek,” I add, and she turns a ghastly shade of white.
“He’s attending to some business. He won’t be back for an hour or so.”
“Well, in that case”—I kick the blankets off and turn my body, placing my feet on the soft carpet—“I want to see what my cage looks like.” Because that’s what this place is.
Sara must read my determination because she quickly offers her hand to help me. I feel like a ninety-year-old woman as I come to a slow stand. My legs wobble, but once I gather my bearings, I commence a slow shuffle toward the door.
However, when I see an en suite, I make a beeline for it as I’m desperate to use the toilet and brush my teeth. Sara gives m
e privacy to do my thing. When I look at my reflection in the oval mirror, I almost fall backward as I don’t recognize the person staring back at me.
The dark circles under my eyes look almost bruised. My skin is a sickly white, and my hair is a knotted mess. But appearance aside, the sparkle has gone. When I look at myself, I see a stranger. I have lived her life, but I no longer see the Willow Shaw I once was.
This person is angry and intent on revenge. She will do anything to make sure those who hurt her pay.
A red toothbrush in a wrapper sits on the marble counter as well as toothpaste. I make use of both. As I’m brushing my teeth, I open the drawers and am disgusted when I see all the things you’d expect to see in any bathroom.
But I don’t want any of the expensive makeup or perfumes. The drawers are filled with lotions, as well as brushes and other beauty implements. I slam the drawer shut and spit out my toothpaste.
I wash my face with water, which will have to do for now. I’ll take a shower after I take a look around.
Sara waits for me by the door. “We have to be quick. Alek didn’t give me permission to let you out of your room.”
I can’t stop my eye roll. “Permission? Screw him. I don’t need nor do I want a minder.”
Sara looks saddened by my claim. “Willow, you will soon learn that here at красная долина, we don’t have any choices.”
What the hell is красная долина?
“How long have you been here, Sara?” I ask, her sorrow palpable.
She straightens out her white apron, eyes downcast. “Thirteen months.”
I gasp in horror. “How long until your father’s debt is paid off?”
“I am enslaved to Alek for the rest of my life.”
I don’t know what to say because I want to say so much. “That must be some debt your father owes.”
She doesn’t reply.
I don’t press because Sara may be my only ally in this place. We walk, or I hobble, toward the door as I know she will be my shadow from here on out.