And then they’d try to break me again.
And again.
I was in the box.
I drew in a shaking breath. In the early days I would have screamed until my throat was raw. I would have pleaded to deaf ears. I would have battered myself against the walls until my body was covered in bruises.
It had never changed a thing.
I closed my eyes. Not that it mattered, for there were no senses in this room. No smells. No sounds. No sights. Just me and my mind and my body, my twisted body, my cramped body.
I curled myself up as tightly as I could go, pressing myself into the back wall.
I took in a long, long, deep breath.
I held it.
I let it out.
I retreated far, far, far within myself. To a place those bastards could never find me.
I was lost.
Chapter 7
There’s a soft sobbing noise, and I see a young blonde girl curled up alongside a thin mattress. She must be about six years old. She’s in a ragged dress.
I kneel down beside her. “It’s going to be all right,” I reassure her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
She shakes her head. “They’re hurting me. I beg them to stop, and they won’t!”
I tenderly run a hand down her hair. “You’re stronger than they are.”
“No, I’m not!”
I gently tap her bruised arm. “Perhaps, right now, you aren’t stronger out here,” I explain to her. “But you’re stronger in here.”
My hand goes to rest tenderly on her head.
Her shining eyes turn to look up into mine.
They are like mirrors.
I say to her, “Do your best to remember their faces. Try to remember their names. Because soon they won’t be able to run. You are the one who will have the strength to get free. To set in motion their downfall. To make sure that everything which happens – to you and the others – is reconciled.”
Her voice is tight, and her hand moves to her chest. “After I find Alex.”
I nod in understanding. “After you find Alex.”
She wipes at her eyes. “I will do it. I’ll find a way.”
“Every new day is a new chance. You treasure those chances.”
Her eyes shine. “I will.”
Darkness shimmers in at the edges of my vision, and with it comes staggering, coursing pain. I twist against it, turn, breathe in, and deliberately block it out.
I delve within.
The scene tumbles. Time drifts.
The girl is sixteen now, and the black silk dress fits her with absolute precision. The handlers barely watch her, for three years prior they finally broke her. Since then the girl has been a model whore. The months of training and refinements have brought in a ten-fold increase in profits.
This party with the real estate tycoons will be the most lucrative one yet.
She’s standing by one of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows overlooking the harbor. She’s holding a glass of Crystal in her perfectly manicured hand. She seems to barely see the beautiful scenery.
I murmur to her, “You’re ready.”
Her hand moves to her chest. “If I get this wrong, I fail in my promise. In my promise to save Alex. To bring people to justice.”
“You won’t fail. This is your chance. You’ve sacrificed all these years to reach this opportunity.”
“But I’ll be leaving vulnerable people behind. People who need my support to make it through a day.”
“They will find their own strength, until the day you are able to come and tear down the walls of this entire organization. But for now, you have to go.”
She nods.
She puts down the Champagne flute on an elegant mahogany table.
She turns to pick up the matching solid mahogany chair.
With all her strength, she flings it through the plate glass window.
A cascade of glass shards, screams of panic -
She leaps through.
Spinning. Whirling. Blackness. Pain.
Agonizing pain.
It goes on … on … on … through time immeasurable …
At long last my vision clears.
Sasha is younger, so much younger, and he holds me as I shake, shake, shake.
He groans. “You didn’t have to do this, Nadiya. God, I wish there was somehow I could help.”
“Your sister? She is safe?”
He nods, brushing back my hair from my damp face. “She got away. She’s starting a new life. Nobody will know where to find her. Not me, not anybody. She’ll be safer that way.”
My stomach feels as if it is consuming itself. As if my entire body is wrenching itself inside out.
He says, “There should have been another way. One which didn’t involve you getting yourself addicted.”
“But there wasn’t,” I say between gritted teeth. “Your sister is free. That’s all that matters.”
Fresh pain washes over me, and I groan in staggering agony.
He holds me close, rocking me, rocking me …
The world spins. Time has no meaning.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
There is only pain, and pain, and pain.
I am lost.
Chapter 8
A sliver of blinding white light, as sharp as a razor’s edge, sliced into my vision.
I blinked against it, barely able to breathe against the agony.
From somewhere came a scrape of something metallic.
I groaned as I pushed back, melding myself to the back of the cell.
A voice came, hoarse with disbelief.
“Nadiya?”
Chapter 10
A man’s voice called again, hoarsely, “Nadiya?”
The word tunneled its way through the pain. The name seemed familiar. But surely I was Leisha? That had been my name when my mother had stood in the doorway of our beautiful home. When I had stepped onto the train with my uncle, preparing for the trip to Kiev.
When my world had turned upside down.
There was a square of light, now, filling my vision. But the shadow of the man retreated back. There was some distant conversation and then it was quiet again. I could see, at a distance, his form moving to sit.
The doorway remained clear.
He spoke again. His voice was low and tender. “Nadiya. It’s me. Alex.”
Alex. I knew Alex. Alex had the blue eyes and had given me the medallion. The medallion which had sustained me when all hope seemed lost. I had often wondered, in those depths of hell, why they had let me keep it. Surely my feeble attempts to hide it had not gone unnoticed. Undoubtedly it was because they were waiting for me to get just a little bit older. To reach a state when I was well trained and fully formed. For then the process of tearing me apart would be so much more shattering.
But I had stolen from them that pleasure. I had leapt out the hotel room window into the deep harbor waters below. I had swum, swum, swum, until I was lost in the wide ocean.
And I had become Nadiya.
Alex said, “Nadiya, you can do it. You can leave your prison.”
I looked at that square of light. It was an illusion. There was no way out. I was trapped in here until they dragged me out. If I moved toward the light, the door would slam shut again, backed by raucous laughter. And then the nightmares would resume. The slipping away of my sanity.
I had no control.
Alex murmured, “You can do it. You need to do it, Nadiya. You need to leave that box under your own power. To release its hold over you. That’s why you took all the doors off of every cabinet. Every closet. Because of this … this thing.”
I thought of my home, with its stack of doors. I thought of how the sight of a cabinet with a closed door brought tension to my shoulders. For it was dangerous. A threat.
And now I was within the box.
Alex’s voice wrapped around me. “You have the streng
th, Nadiya. You have the courage. You can do it.”
I couldn’t move a finger. I was wrapped as tightly as my body would twine.
He said, “For Olga. For all the others.”
I thought of Olga.
I thought of the countless women I had known, women whose only crime had been to be born with a body that men had craved. Women reduced to the status of animals. Of objects.
My resolve hardened.
For them.
I cautiously, slowly, straightened my fingers on my right hand.
Nothing. No alarm bells. No slamming of the door.
I released my left hand. Carefully, oh so carefully, I twisted my body so I was crunched down on my hands and feet. Pain accompanied every movement, but I pushed through it. My head now faced the window of light. I could still barely see beyond it.
I drew in a deep breath.
I stretched forward, so I was right at the edge of the door.
No motion responded. No sight of a guard.
Alex’s voice was a mere whisper. “You can do it, Nadiya.”
I leaned my head forward.
This would be where the door was slammed shut. Where I was launched back into the cube by the force of the impact. Where my head would ache, ache, ache –
Nothing. No motion. No sound.
I carefully reached out a hand, into the open space.
I put it down on the cold floor.
A lightness lifted me.
My second hand followed.
Then one knee.
A second.
Another stumble, and I was fully out onto the ground, breathing hard, the box behind me.
Alex crawled to me, coming to a stop before me. His eyes were shining. “Nadiya. I am so, so proud of you.”
My eyes were beginning to work again. The sunlight streaming in through the high windows had that golden strength of late afternoon.
How long had I been in the box? Nearly twenty-four hours?
I turned to look to him.
I blinked in shock.
“Alex, you’re hurt!”
Chapter 10
I could see him more clearly now. His face was battered and bruised. His black silk shirt was bulkier around his right shoulder and a dark stain was leaking through from within.
He was bleeding through a bandage.
He absently put his hand to the area and it came away red. “I’ll be fine,” he reassured me. “Just need a fresh bandage, is all.”
The pieces began arranging in my head.
I’d been in the box for nearly a full day.
This warehouse had been full of highly trained soldiers.
My throat went dry as my eyes went up to his. “Who else was involved in the rescue? Is anyone else hurt?”
He took my hands in his.
“Sasha was also shot. He was hit in the leg. They’ve got him bandaged up. Laryssa dislocated her shoulder but the woman is a trooper – she popped it back in again herself. There’s others who were scraped and dinged, but nothing life-threatening.”
My throat was tight. “And the victims? I counted five women in the cage when they brought me in.”
He nodded. “We got them all out to safety. The said that they didn’t know of anybody else in the complex, besides you, of course. We’ve searched every corner.”
His gaze held mine. “We had to saw our way through the lock of your … your cell. When I realized the state you were in, I asked the others to drop back. I thought it might help you if you were able to come out on your own.”
I took his hands in mine. “It did. Thank you. Thank you, for everything.”
His eyes shadowed, and he looked down.
Fear twined back into my soul. “Alex, what is it?”
He brought his gaze up into mine. There was an uncertainty in it now.
I laced my fingers into his. “Tell me. Whatever it is, we can face it. We’ll handle it together.”
He took in a long breath.
He spoke.
“Mikhaylo is dead.”
Chapter 11
I stared at Alex, not quite making sense of the words. The seemed like sounds wholly unrelated to each other.
I said, “Mikhaylo.”
He nodded.
I said, “Mikhaylo is.”
He said, “I’m so sorry.”
It made no sense. I said, “Dead.”
His words came tumbling out of him. “After they took you, they were careful. They did a vehicle swap in a busy parking garage. We lost track of them – and you.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “We were frantic. We were searching everywhere. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if he vanished into pure ether.”
I knew. I knew how good Mikhaylo was at remaining unseen.
He glanced toward the other room. “At last your software activated – but even that was a challenge. We had access to the servers and data, but with all the layers of encryption they used we didn’t have a clear destination. It was midday before we finally pinpointed the region. Before we began the building-to-building search. Before we made it to this warehouse.”
He looked around. “It was a fortified stronghold. Guards at every door. Well armed. Well trained. We couldn’t risk causing harm to anyone within. But every minute that passed …”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine what they could be doing to you. What you could be suffering.”
A spear of pain daggered my calf, and I shuddered. I reached down to press hard into the ache.
His eyes widened in awareness. “You’re hurt. I need to get you to –”
I shook my head. “You need to tell me what happened.”
“We finally made it into the main room. There were guns blazing on all sides, but it was clear the tide was finally turning. A man went running for an armored vehicle. I realized it was Mikhaylo. If he got into that thing – if he blasted out through our protective curtain – he just might escape. And if it took us this long to find him once, who knew if we’d ever find him again.”
I bit down on the pain. I needed to hear this. “What did you do?”
“I stepped out into the open. I called to him, Olga sent us for you.”
My breath caught.
He nodded. “Mikhaylo stopped. At those words, he stopped. He turned and fired three rounds at me. One got me, here.” His hand went to his shoulder. “But I returned fire. And my two shots struck his chest.”
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Nadiya. I know you wanted him alive. I know that you wanted him to suffer for years. To feel some small portion of what he forced countless women to endure.”
Mikhaylo was dead.
It still was too much for my mind to accept.
Slowly, carefully, I pushed myself up to standing. My legs almost seemed unable to hold my weight. But then Alex was at my side, his arm supporting me.
I looked past him, to the space which led to the main warehouse.
My voice was hoarse but clear.
“I want to see him. I want to see Mikhaylo’s body.”
Chapter 12
Alex held me up as I shuffled along on aching feet. The distance to reach the corner seemed fairly short, and somehow long minutes ticked by before we reached the juncture. Before we turned the corner.
The room before us had detectives and technicians. Ukrainians and forensic specialists.
All motion stopped. All eyes turned to me.
At the center of the space, a body lay splayed on his back. His open eyes stared up at the ceiling.
The two holes in his chest had long since congealed.
Alex said, “I had them leave him as he lay. I knew you would want to see him, just as he fell.”
The rest of the room was a tableau.
I stared at Mikhaylo’s body. Surely he was a vampire. Surely he was some form of undead. And the moment I approached him, chest wounds or no, he would leap to his feet. He would grab a hold of my arms and he would rip out my heart. He would fl
ay me. He would … he would …
Mikhaylo’s body lay still.
I took one step toward it. Then another. Alex was there, resolutely by my side, supporting me. There was not another sound in the room. Just my slow footsteps and the rasp of my own breathing.
At last we reached him.
His corpse did not move.
His head did not turn. His sightless eyes did not narrow.
I tentatively reached out a foot toward his arm.
I nudged my toes into his arm.
Fear coursed through me, panicked, unreasonable, irrational –
The corpse lay cold.
I stared at those wounds in his chest. Wounds made by Alex. He had returned fire.
I said, hoarsely, “He tried to kill you.”
Alex gave a wry smile. His free hand went again to his wound. “Takes a lot more than a hit in the shoulder to kill me.”
I looked at the corpse. Mikhaylo had been taken down by two bullets. Two bullets from the hand of the man I had sworn my life to. If Alex hadn’t fired, Mikhaylo could very easily have killed him. Mikhaylo could have taken away from me the one person most important in the entire world.
My foot’s nudge at Mikhaylo’s arm was harder now. “I’m glad you shot him, Alex. Maybe my dream of Mikhaylo rotting in prison for decades was naïve. Maybe he would have found lawyers to sow doubt about his involvement in the companies. Maybe, once convicted, he would have bought or threatened his way out and had escaped. And then he would have made it his mission to make every person here pay. Ever man, every woman, even remotely involved ...”
The thought sent cold fear through me.
Alex said, “But now he’s dead.”
I stared at the corpse. At what remained of Mikhaylo. His decomposing skin. His stilled blood. Nothing remained any longer of what made Mikhaylo so evil.
That evil was wholly gone from our Earth.
Relief coursed through me.
We had done it.
I glanced at the computers. “And the data? We have it?”
Laryssa stepped into the room. Her face was bruised and her hair was pulled back. Her clothes were torn and askew. She nodded. “We have everything, liebchen. We have the locations and the names. We will get them free.”
Becoming Lost Page 3