by Jaden Wilkes
“You foreigner? Need money.”
Dimitri unrolled a large wad of bills and flipped a few hundred Euros off. “Is this enough?” he asked, making sure the guy got a good look at the rest he had on him. He was using himself as bait.
“Da,” the man said. The window slammed shut and the door locks disengaged. The door opened and the man held out his hand. “Money first, then go,” he said.
Dimitri handed him the money and shoved the rest of the roll back in his pocket. He made a show of doing so, he was sure the man would have the information spread around the club by the time he made it to the bar.
“Thanks,” he said as he walked around the bouncer. He might have spoken English, but he didn’t understand sarcasm.
Dimitri entered the club, passed the coat check girl and found himself a small table off to the side. He flagged a waitress and ordered a scotch, neat. He had planned on nursing his drink, taking his time and keeping his senses clear.
But he hurt, he felt the need to fill the emptiness inside of him, so he kept drinking.
The club was plush, with red velvet and black leather everywhere, including the girls who were hired to entertain the men. Each one of them was wearing leather corset with red velvet accents…and each one of them had a distant look in their eyes.
Dimitri sipped his third scotch and was hit with a longing for Columbia that almost left him breathless.
He was slowly slipping into his old habits, his detached demeanor and heartlessness. He couldn’t deny his love for Columbia though, and he couldn’t hide the need he had for her.
He wanted to kill. If he couldn’t fuck his love, he would kill somebody on her behalf. He scanned the room looking for his target, the biggest fish in this tiny pond, but somebody big enough to make waves when he was left on the steps of a whorehouse.
He spotted a small crowd in the corner opposite him. People were crowded around a shorter, flamboyant man in a white suit and matching white shoes. He stood out and seemed to be important.
Dimitri wanted to take him down; he wanted to see his blood staining the fabric of his white suit. He wanted to release his rage onto this man, tear into him to ease his own pain.
He downed another drink and watched the ebb and flow of people around the white-suit. He determined he was the centre of all transactions going on in the club, drugs or sex, it went through white-suit.
Dimitri ordered another scotch. His waitress took the bills and raised her eyebrows. He waved her off and let her keep the change. She smiled at him as she left, a sexy look full of promise if he wanted.
He missed Columbia even more than before. He couldn’t imagine life without her, life where a single look from a waitress he was generous to would become the highlight of his night.
His future would be bleak without her. It would be meaningless without her.
White-suit was on the move, he stood up and the people fell away from him, clearing a path as he exited the club.
He had two bodyguards flanking him, and that appeared to be it.
Dimitri downed the last of his drink and left shortly after. He hoped white-suit hadn’t gotten right into a vehicle; he needed a few minutes to lure him away.
White-suit was smoking a cigar at the bottom of the stairs. His bodyguards stood motionless, as though carved from stone.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to follow me,” he said to Dimitri. His voice was high for a man, and his accent was distinctly Romanian. “What is your business with me?”
He knew Dimitri spoke English; word had traveled fast in that little club.
“We have some shared interests,” Dimitri said, “is there anywhere private we can talk?”
“Go get the car,” he barked to one of his bodyguards. To Dimitri he said, “Let’s go for a ride.”
A sleek black SUV pulled up and the remaining bodyguard opened the passenger door for them. Dimitri followed the other man into the backseat, the drinks and his sorrow making him reckless tonight. Both bodyguards were in the front. Dimitri hadn’t heard either of them speak as of yet.
“What are you after?” white-suit asked as they pulled away from the curb.
“Information,” Dimitri replied.
“What kind?”
“The kind that leads me to getting a girl back. She was last seen in Vienna, and possibly taken to a house in the country here.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place, I don’t deal in girls.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, it doesn’t change a damn thing. I don’t trade flesh.”
“How about I cut a pound of flesh from you and see what you have to say?”
White-suit started to laugh, a deep belly laugh. He seemed genuinely amused at Dimitri’s threat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, “do you know who I am?”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are, you are going to tell me where the girl is being held.”
“Karl,” white suit said in a low warning tone. The bodyguard in the passenger seat turned around and held a gun at Dimitri’s face. “We’ll be letting you out up here,” white-suit said. “This has been a most unproductive conversation.”
The SUV pulled over onto a fairly busy street. The sidewalks were wide, well lit and storefronts boasting everything from DVDs to Girls Girls Girls in flashing neon. “I won’t leave until you tell me who you’re working with. Where would they take her? Who has the mansion in the countryside that’s guarded like a fortress?”
Dimitri knew this was mostly information Boian already had, but he wanted a fight. He was ready to kill and he wanted it to be this man.
“I have said I have nothing to tell you. Please leave the vehicle or Karl here will be forced to shoot, and that would ruin the leather.”
Dimitri hated this man, his high-pitched voice, his nasally whine, his superior tone. Alcohol fueled rage clouded his judgment, he pulled his knife and lunged for him, drove the blade to the hilt in white-suit’s neck. The bodyguard in the driver’s seat hadn’t clued in to what had just happened, but Karl started to yell in Romanian.
Dimitri twisted the knife and pulled back, stabbed again and twisted. He was in a red-hot rage, a tunnel vision filled with the image of white-suit dragging Columbia away. It didn’t matter that white-suit hadn’t done it himself; he knew who had her and he was involved some way.
A loud crack split the air brought him back into focus. White-suit was bloodied and torn, blood soaked through the fabric of his clothing, staining it a bright red. Dimitri felt hot, thick blood down the front of him; arterial spray, he assumed.
Another loud crack brought him right back into reality. Karl had just shot at him, shattering the back window of the SUV. The bullet had gone wide, missing him.
Dimitri looked down and realized most of the blood was his own. Karl had shot him. The bullet had exited in a bloody mess and lodged itself in white-suit’s abdomen. Karl had contributed to his boss’s death.
Dimitri started to laugh until the pain began to rise; his back stung and his front ached. He couldn’t stop the bleeding and time began to slow down. He fell backwards and felt the door open.
Karl had jumped over into the back seat and kicked Dimitri hard, connecting with the jagged exit wound. Agony flooded his body and he fell out of the vehicle into the street.
He had a vague sensation of floating, and suddenly was too heavy to lift his face from the wet gutter he had fallen into. People walked on by, not one noticed the big foreigner bleeding to death on the street.
The lights of the shops blinked on and off, Girls Girls Girls flashing in his peripheral vision like fate was mocking him.
His last thought as he fell into the darkness at the edge of his vision was how he didn’t need girls; he needed only one girl, and one girl alone.
Columbia.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
COLUMBIA
“Get up, princess,” Mike’s voice broke through her current dream. She had
been sunning herself on the rooftop deck in Hong Kong, Dimitri on one side, Nico on the other. She had felt warm, glowing, loved, and safe.
Stark reality was the opposite. She was terrified and shivering in the frigid temperatures. She thought it was still around the ten-day mark since she’d been taken, but the seasons must be changing. The basement they were in was freezing the last couple days.
“Come on,” Mike said and lifted her up from the cot. “We don’t have all day. My boss, remember the king? Yeah, you do. Anyhow, he needs information now.”
He half carried and half dragged her down the hallway, to the door she’d tried to reach in her one bid for escape. It opened into a corridor that could have been in any hospital she’d ever been in. It was sterile, cold and white…and very clean.
He nudged one door and it swung wide. It lead to a room that looked like an operating theatre, at least anything she’d seen on television. There was a tall hospital bed in the centre and something resembling a dentist’s chair off to one side.
He took her to the chair and strapped her down. She couldn’t move and she could barely breathe. She felt on some level that she should fight back more, give them a run for their money, but she didn’t have anything left.
She felt like she was betraying Dimitri and their baby by not fighting. She wanted to cry but had no tears…and in some deep, dark place in her mind she felt like dying, she wanted to die, but couldn’t bring the thought to light.
“Stay tight,” Mike said and moved to leave. He turned back and smiled, a terrible grin that stretched his face to almost inhuman proportions. “Be a good girl, this next guy is a real bastard.”
She fled to the safe spot in her head and thought about her situation. She was overwhelmed with guilt for not fighting harder. She had never fought that hard, not with her stepfather. She knew that her strength now came from Dimitri at her side, without him in her life, ever present, she became the terrified little girl who used to curl up in the dark on her bed and pray for him to be finished.
She was reverting back to that girl, curling up on herself, running back inside and praying it would be over soon.
But still, she should fight…she reached deep inside herself and tried to find the spark, that flash of anger that would help her struggle against her captors.
She came up empty. She was empty without him. Empty and nothing; as she’d been as a girl.
Unable to muster any courage, Columbia felt herself slipping back into a dream with Dimitri. She could feel his rough hands on her warm flesh, his fingers prodding her and hurting…
She woke up to three men gathered around her. Her filthy jeans were torn off and her panties were gone. Her upper body was still strapped tight, she struggled against the bonds but found no leeway. She whimpered and closed her eyes.
“Ah, we’ll have none of that,” said the one in the centre. He was dressed in a white doctor’s coat and gave off an vibe of education and madness. He sounded German. “Stay with us, dear, or I’ll have to give you an injection.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him, finding one small spark of defiance to hang onto.
“There, that’s better. Now I need to know your name.”
She remained tight lipped. He smiled and gestured to the men beside him. They each grabbed one of her legs and pulled them wide open. The doctor produced a terrible looking instrument, metal with spiked edges lining it. It looked like a torturous dildo.
“I am going to shove this inside your vagina,” the doctor said, “Each time you defy me, it goes in an inch more. It will hurt, so I suggest you start talking before I shred the inside of you.”
She didn’t say a thing, but closed her eyes and fled to a safe spot in her mind.
He penetrated her with it, just a short distance but he had been right, the pain was excruciating. She screamed but said nothing beyond incomprehensible groans and sobs.
“I’ll remove it if you tell me your name,” the doctor said, “if you don’t tell me, I will push it in farther. I’m essentially inserting razor blades into your vagina, if you haven’t caught on. The deeper I go, the more irreversible the damage will be.”
She thought she must be bleeding by now, but didn’t say a thing.
The doctor sighed and was about to thrust his instrument farther when the door opened.
It was Mike.
“What the fuck did I say about leaving her intact?” he roared and knocked the doctor away from Columbia. The instrument fell to the floor with a loud clatter. “She is mine after we’re done with her, if you fucking ruin her, I will have your cock on a platter. Do you understand?”
The doctor fell back and Columbia could see his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, like a fish she thought with a detached observation. She closed her eyes and pretended it was Dimitri protecting her. Why didn’t he let her go then? She shook her head and forced herself to open her eyes, to see Mike, and blame him, not her Dimi.
She was starting to lose her grip on reality and it felt almost like a blessing.
“Now proceed, but nothing more in her cunt. Or her mouth. Or her ass. I will be needing all of those in the near future.”
Mike’s word was apparently the law, because after he left, the doctor scuttled around like a kicked puppy. He fussed over a metal table on the side of the room and finally chose a large metal railroad spike and a ball-peen hammer. He held them up, examined them and made noises of approval.
“Perfect,” he exclaimed and turned back to her, “I’m sure he won’t mind your foot being fucked up. It just makes it harder for you to run away.”
He had the guards strap Columbia’s legs to the chair and he crouched at the end. He pushed a couple of levers and she was raised and her head set lower than her feet. He positioned the spike against her left foot and said, “Let’s start over. Tell me your name.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes and braced herself for what was coming. Nothing could have prepared her.
He struck the spike with the hammer and Columbia felt something in her foot snap. She screamed and tried to writhe to escape the pain, but it was impossible.
She finally settled into choking sobs, unable to breathe through the intense feeling in her foot.
“I applied extreme pressure to the joint between the phalange and metatarsal of your big toe. I shattered the phalange,” the doctor said, “I didn’t even have to break the skin. Isn’t that amazing? The pain will dull soon enough, once your body convinces itself that everything is okay. Endorphins will flood your brain and you will believe you are going to be okay.” He held the spike against the bottom of her foot, just an inch or so above the previous point of contact. “But you won’t be,” he said, “this one will hurt worse than the last.”
Columbia tensed up and bit her lower lip so hard she could taste hot blood flood her mouth. She whimpered and braced herself for it, for the sharp shock of the spike breaking another bone.
“Tell me your name and tell me who you work for,” the doctor said, “and I will let you go back to your room.”
Her mind was a maelstrom of emotion and panic and fear. She had this stupid, stubborn streak that wouldn’t let her capitulate, even in the face of such pain and terror. She knew even if she told him everything, the mad doctor would still hurt her, causing pain seemed addictive to him.
She also didn’t want to give up Dimitri’s name. She felt like if she held onto it, kept it close to her heart and never said it out loud, she would keep him safe.
And in the midst of the red-hot searing shockwave, she felt a spark of joy.
If he were dead, if they had killed him, they wouldn’t be asking.
So somewhere outside the walls of her prison cell, her love was living and he was fucking with her captors, pissing them off.
She could take it, she swore to herself, if it meant he was alive.
The doctor drew back his hand and smashed the spike against her foot. Something exploded this time, and she felt blood pouring from her foot rig
ht before the pain overtook her and she lost consciousness.
“That was your metatarsal,” she heard the doctor say as she slipped away, “that’s not going to heal.”
Her last thought kept her breathing, kept her moving forward, kept her alive…somewhere outside these walls Dimitri was alive, he was longing for her and…
He was coming for her.
*****
“Columbia,” the voice whispered somewhere in her subconscious. “Are you okay? Please, talk to me.”
She stirred and tried to dive back under, into the warmth of her dreams, into Dimitri’s arms. The voice was persistent.
“Please wake up, I need to know you’re okay.”
It was whispered and full of urgency. Something triggered in the back of her head and she knew she had to reply. If she didn’t wake up, she might never wake up.
She forced herself to the surface, for Dimi, for their baby.
She was freezing cold, her jeans and panties had been left somewhere and she just had her filthy, torn hoodie and the thin blanket for warmth.
Her foot throbbed and when she tried to sit up, the pain made her gasp and cry out.
“You’re alive!” Iryna whispered. She was unable to disguise the relief in her voice.
Columbia felt more human suddenly, having somebody else giving a shit about her survival.
“Yeah,” she replied, her voice a soft croak. She could barely talk, her mouth was so dry and her head hurt so much.
“What did they do to you?” Iryna asked.
“They hurt my foot,” Columbia replied and forced herself to sit up. It felt as though all the blood in her body rushed to her extremities, the pressure was intense and she was half expecting her foot to explode. She could feel her pulse in her toes and the skin was hot and tender to the touch.
The bottom of her foot was scabbed over, but when she wiggled her toes, she could feel bones grinding against each other. She had to pee but didn’t know how she’d even cross the five feet to the bucket on the other side of the cell.
She stood up and cried out again, hating how weak she sounded, hating to expose her vulnerability to the other girl.