by Lana Sky
“He taught you to what? Inspect his money?” His harsh laugh proves he doesn’t know whether I’m lying or not. Not that it matters. Logic means less to him with every passing second. He craves the rage and chases it with flared nostrils and a trembling fist. But curiosity wins out. “You really expect me to believe that?”
I don’t. But again, it doesn’t matter. “He only ever talks to me about money,” I explain, even though saving my life is futile. I’m tired. Resisting him is too damn hard. Too fucking bloody. I want it to end. “He made a bad deal once. His father nearly killed him. So he taught me to…” The words trail off, broken and worthless. I doubt he even heard me.
He wants to fight. He wants to kill again. He wants to justify whatever hatred has eaten him alive. He can’t have that narrative ruined, not even for his own benefit.
But silly me. I nearly forgot the one constant of the world that has yet to prove me wrong: money. A man values nothing more.
“You want to make yourself useful?” he wonders in a hollow tone.
I sense his intention even before his shoulder tenses, but I’m too tired to move. He throws the briefcase at me. It bounces painfully off my hip and falls open, spilling its contents over the floor.
“Then count it. Every last fucking bill. If you’re off by so much as a cent, I’ll gut you and send you to your fucking husband in pieces.”
He slams the door in his wake so hard that it jerks on its hinges. Loose bills flutter in the air, falling down softly to coat my body like snowfall. I’m tempted to ignore him. To let him kill me when he returns. Give up here and now.
I’m so tired…
But it would never end there. Nothing comes between a man and his money.
CHAPTER 10
I t takes me hours to capture and count every last bill, but I do so carefully before tucking the final amount away in my mind. The series of numbers sits heavy and out of place there, like some foreign trinket I never sought to add to my collection. One my husband certainly wouldn’t approve of. Picturing Robert’s scorn, I’d almost prefer physical penetration—at least my new tormentor would have to leave my body eventually.
But this, I will never forget: He carries five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars on his person. Or at least he did. Now, it’s all nothing more than pretty paper, considering that few respectable institutions would accept bills quite literally stained with my blood…
Will he punish me? Retaliation would be the least of my worries, however. I’ve caused so much more than a stranger’s death by blowing the whistle on Xavier’s deceit. I’ve lost Mischa his accountant, which I assume is not an easy position to fill in his line of business.
And for good reason.
“No motherfucker worth his salt keeps shit written down anymore,” Robert used to tell me, his words rushed with paranoia. “No. A smart man hides his secrets where no one would think to look. That’s the key, Elle. Somewhere safe.”
Like locked inside a woman’s head…
Rotting wood creaks nearby, betraying footsteps. Rushed. I stiffen at the realization that someone’s standing above me before I can even turn my head in their direction.
“God have mercy…”
The hunched shadow seems familiar. Vanya? Either he teleported to my side or delirium is stealing my consciousness bits at a time. I can’t see his face, just a blur lacking any definition, but his voice rings out clearly.
“Sleep,” he insists, prying the last bloodied stack of money from my grip. “You’re safe… Just sleep.”
His voice trembles with the grim truth that he has no way of honoring that promise. Not really, yet he chooses to lie anyway. Out of pity or denial?
I’m not sure.
I’m too tired to really give a damn either way.
P ain keeps me tethered to my body, pulling me in and out of wakefulness—too strong to ignore for long, but too intense to suffer at the same time. Like a toy ball, I’m bounced between consciousness and delirium, but terror is the tiebreaker.
It scuttles at the edge of my awareness, growing more potent the more I become aware of the scent flooding my lungs—and the voice in my head. Deep. Guttural. Merciless.
“Look at me.”
I can’t. My eyelids are too heavy to lift. Whenever I try, I only see indistinguishable smears of light and shadow. So I just feel instead. Pain, pain, pain. But, beneath it all…relief?
My fingers perform an agonizing journey to my jaw, brushing something stiff and dry secured there. Gauze? Someone must have bandaged the wound on my face again, as well as draped me beneath what feels like cotton. The bedsheets? They’re warm against my throbbing skin—which is the only part of my body in any semblance of comfort. My skull is a fragile shell that barely contains my thoughts. They threaten to spill out at any moment, like so much blood already has.
Breathe, Ellen. Breathe…
“Look at me.”
All I can do is tilt my head in the general direction of his voice. As if to betray me, my vision slowly returns, and his features come into stark focus before I’m ready. Cold gaze. Harsh expression. He’s cleaned the blood from his hands and changed his clothes, at least. His hair hangs freely down his shoulders, contrasting with his hooded, empty eyes.
“You have five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in real bills,” I croak out before he can issue another command. “One hundred bills were fake—ten thousand dollars altogether.”
He scowls at the deceit, but his anger lacks the fire it should. He already knew. Maybe he counted the money after I did, using my own tricks for his benefit? Whatever the reason, testing my skills isn’t his reason for waking me.
“Get up,” he says, proving my instinct correct. “You’re coming with me.”
My heart hammers a pathetic resistance. No. No. No. I’m too tired. I can’t do this again. I can’t be sold, but I can’t fight him, either. My eyelids fall, trapping tears stinging beneath them. “Just kill me.”
“When I’m good and ready.” Again, his voice lacks any real emotion. Something’s tempered his anger, allowing him to hone it, at least for now. “You will come with me. Get up.”
My head pulses in torment as I haul myself upright. The room is devoid of anyone else. Judging from the stiffness in my muscles, I’ve slept for a few hours, maybe longer. An entire day? The blackness beyond the window offers no clues. I have to decipher what I can from the man staring down at me. His knuckles have bruised and my cheek smarts in sympathy. So it has been hours, at least. Was Vanya the reason for my long reprieve?
I don’t find him lurking in the doorway, and disappointment joins the flood of emotions racking my body. So much for his promise.
“Hurry up,” Mischa snaps, already near the door.
I bite back the agony moving inspires in order to stand. The room spins around me, distorted by the fact that I only have the use of one eye. When Mischa heads into the hall, I do my best to follow him, but my body sways unsteadily. Before I can regain my balance, both legs twist beneath my weight, and the floor rushes to meet me.
Only a grip on my shoulder keeps me from crumbling into an unceremonious heap. Mischa. Without a word, he pulls me after him, navigating the cramped floorplan.
It’s either my imagination or fact, but he moves at a pace I can manage. When I falter, he uses his grip on me to keep me on balance. There’s no cruelty in his touch for once. Just strength and a foreboding feeling I can’t escape. We don’t run into Vanya on our way to a wooden door that opens onto a decrepit porch. Near the steps leading to the ground level, a van is parked. Mischa steers me to it without explanation and climbs into the back seat after me.
This time, our driver is joined by another man who’s quietly sporting a gun on his lap. The moment the door closes after us, the van lurches into motion, heading down a gravel road.
I’m not dumb enough to look back at the house we left behind, so I stare at my hands instead, noticing more signs of simple kindness. Someone cleaned the blood from
my fingers. They bandaged my foot as well and treated the other open wounds on my neck. It’s a show of mercy I’m not used to. Poor Vanya holds enough humanity for two households, and the thought is sadder than anything I’ve experienced up until this point.
If only he could share part of his soul with the man beside me.
As if sensing the direction my thoughts have taken, Mischa places one of his hands over his right hip, near his blade. A lethal reminder.
“You disobey me here, Little One,” he begins harshly, “And—”
“You’ll kill me,” I finish for him. I don’t know where the defiance comes from.
“So, your husband taught you to count his money,” Mischa says carefully. When I gather the nerve to look, his expression is unreadable. “Why?”
I consider lying, but the answer spills over my tongue before I can craft a good one. “He said I was the only calculator he could trust.” Parroting those words out loud sends a chill down my spine. It feels wrong. Like I’ve betrayed some secret hidden in Robert’s madness. It feels…strange.
“Calculator? Did he have you do this for him often?”
I should lie. “No. Yes.” Once again, the truth spills out against my will. My tongue burns, as if every word is poison being expelled from my system. Will I survive without an antidote? Who knows. “He kept an accountant, but—” Enough. I bring my hand to my mouth, pressing my lips closed.
Beside me, Mischa stays eerily patient. He waits long enough for me to hope that he’ll let it go. “But?”
I don’t recognize the sound that trickles from my throat. A groan? A laugh? Whatever it is sounds too distorted to recognize. “But you cannot fuck your accountants into submission, can you?”
In my right mind, I’d never say something so vulgar. So cold. In my right mind…
“How many ‘numbers’ did you keep for him?” Mischa asks. “Do you remember them?”
“N-no.” The lie sticks this time, though not for Robert’s benefit. “He only ever had me double-check his real accountant.”
Does he believe that? I can’t tell. Even in the close confines of the back seat, he takes care to avoid any contact between us. If I couldn’t see him from my peripheral vision, he could have been light-years away. A distant shadow clawing its way through my past in search of something to feed on.
This time, he lets me huddle in silence for a few minutes longer, and I use the reprieve to gather my scattered senses and lock them up tight. It’s the pain that makes me so reckless. My thoughts are harder to string together. My fear of Robert takes more energy to grasp. I need to stay silent. Silent…
But silence here sounds different than it did at Winthorp Manor. There’s no fragile peace to be found. Just my racing heartbeat to count the seconds, and the sound of Mischa’s knuckles cracking in a menacing fashion.
Then…
“Why do you hate him so much? R-Robert?”
At the sound of my voice, remnants of anger flare, igniting whatever calm he’s maintained until now. Poof! There’s no more eerie patience. “I suggest you focus on yourself, Ellen Winthorp.”
I obey, facing straight ahead once again. I’m painfully aware of the fact that he hasn’t covered my eyes yet, though I can’t make out much of our surroundings beyond the van. Just flickering shadows, broken every now and again by an impenetrable sky.
I’m more than willing to play by his rules: Shut up. My teeth clench tight against disobedience.
But he ruins his own game. “You haven’t asked to go back to him.”
No. I don’t like this line of questioning. It’s far too dangerous. I turn to the window, but his palm finds my chin, reinforcing the fact that, at any second, he can make me look at him.
“You haven’t pleaded,” he adds softly. “When that man saw you in the woods, you didn’t run. You didn’t cry out. I know you saw him—”
“I’m of more use to Robert alive than dead,” I say.
But that’s not it. Once again, he’s peered beneath my skin without permission, seeking what lurks below the surface. Secrets I can’t name. Horrors I won’t face—not again.
“You shouldn’t worry about being useful to him…” He brings his mouth near my ear. “Most wives are willing to barter for their husbands.”
Barter? I lick my lips tentatively. “W-what do you want?”
He lets me go and pretends to mull it over. But there’s a reason why he brought me along to wherever he’s going. One I’m not sure I want to discover in full.
“What I want is simple.” He snatches my wrist and presses something against my palm: a stack of bills. “Count.”
He doesn’t mean by amount. Slowly, I flip through each bill, feeling the paper for imperfections. “They’re all real,” I deduce once finished.
For whatever reason, he doesn’t take the money back just yet. Instead, the trip comes to a sudden stop in darkness. Near darkness, anyway. Faint light betrays the shapes of other vehicles parked nearby. A garage? Distracted by him, I missed any sign of civilization.
Or any hope of escape.
“Come on.” Mischa shoulders the door on his end open, while his men wait in the vehicle. Jerking his chin, he indicates for me to follow, but not them.
I shiver as my bare feet hit the icy pavement. We’re underground, definitely in some kind of garage. Up ahead, an elevator waits, opening its doors as if on cue the moment we approach. Mischa enters first, pulling me in after him. I sense that unnerving calm once again. He’s determined.
To sell me?
I find myself staring down at my fist, desperate for a distraction. I’m still holding his money. At least a grand, maybe more. Is this my going price? My stomach clenches at the thought. Robert always claimed that I was worth diamonds, but what would he give to have me back now? Morbid imagery pops into my head: diamonds drenched in blood.
“Stay close.” It’s the only warning my captor bothers to issue before the elevator doors part, revealing a long hallway decorated with burgundy wallpaper and rich ebony carpet.
Faint music drifts from a pair of closed doors up ahead, where a man in black is waiting, his expression stoic. When we approach him, the man steps aside.
“Pakhan,” he greets.
As the doors open, I’m suddenly self-conscious of how I must look: like a prisoner of war being paraded after her captor. I run my free hand halfheartedly through my hair, but it’s no use. Blood and bruises can only be obscured by so much.
The room beyond contains at least five people, spread throughout a grand layout that resembles a casino. A luxury bar dominates one wall, while a poker table seats three of the five men. They are wearing suits and sharing a cigar between them. The atmosphere is light and friendly, while the remaining men linger on the periphery, their arms crossed, their eyes straight ahead.
One of the figures at the poker table spots us and rises to his feet. “Mischa! Welcome! Welcome!” He’s tall. Maybe forty, with a thinning goatee and piercing, green eyes. Unlike Xavier’s imitation, his suit is real and tailored to perfection. As we approach, he reaches out to Mischa and then firmly clasps his hand. “How kind of you to enter my humble abode. It’s just a spare room, for me and the boys.” He gestures to the two men beside him, and they aren’t mirroring his charming grin. They’re on edge.
“Nicolai,” Mischa says, drawing his hand away. He’s wary as well. Tension hardens his posture, disrupting the otherwise calm surface he projects.
“Well…” Nicolai smiles in a chilling display of ivory teeth. “I know you’re a busy man, so best to get business out of the way,” he says. “Now, tell me again how you cheated me out of my money?”
The words have the effect of striking a match near a pool of gasoline.
Whoosh!
“It wasn’t intentional.” Mischa stiffens and jerks his chin toward me. “My previous accountant made an error. But I have the full amount.”
He snatches the wad of bills from me and places them down on the poker table.
Nicolai snaps his fingers and one of the seated men quickly counts the money. “It’s all here,” the man declares once finished.
“Excellent.” As Nicolai claps his hands, his smile returns, but it never reaches his eyes. Chilling and endless, they hone in on me. “And who is this?”
“A new toy of Ivan’s,” Mischa explains. A lie. But why?
“I see…” Nicolai nods, rubbing his chin. “He always did have a soft spot for his women.”
“Her old owner was an accountant,” Mischa says, continuing his distortion of the truth. “He taught her to count. She’s the one who noticed Xavier’s mistakes.”
“Hmph.” Nicolai chuckles in amusement. “I assume he’s been shown the error of his ways?”
“Permanently,” Mischa declares so viciously that I shiver.
“Excellent.” Nicolai clasps his hands together once again. “Now that that nasty business is taken care of, I suppose all that’s left is for you to carry out that favor you owe me. For the inconvenience.”
A slight narrowing of his eyes is the only clue to Mischa’s confusion. “Favor?”
“After all, I’ve always supplied your family and organization with unwavering loyalty and support,” Nicolai continues, still smiling. “You fuck with my money, even by accident, and you fuck with a domino chain that extends well beyond the Mafiya. My other clients don’t like scandal, you see.” He shrugs dismissively as if to say, Can’t be helped. “As retribution for such an error, I will humbly accept whatever help you see fit to bestow, Pakhan.”
“Of course.” A muscle in Mischa’s neck twitches, but his voice never loses that low, cautious cadence. “What do you need?”
“Nothing big.” Nicolai snaps his fingers a second time and a door near the back of the room opens.
Two people enter, and it’s almost like watching a mirror image. A small, ragged figure trails a man nearly twice her size. Her shoulder-length hair makes her childish features seem even larger—enormous brown eyes and a little nose. She’s young. Too young. When they reach the poker table, her companion sets a gray duffel in the center and unzips it.