by Jaden Wilkes
She wiggled away from him and jumped to her feet but stayed in a crouched, fighting position. She probably looked like a fucked up wrestler, with her hair wild and her robe hanging open, but she didn’t care. “Tell your boss to fuck off,” she grunted and tried to tie her robe shut. “Tell him I’m not in the fucking mood, and if he thought he was going to get some hot ass tonight, tell him forget it.”
She watched him get up slowly, as if injured, but she knew it was a ruse to get her to drop her guard. She was no longer unschooled in the ways of fighting and had learned more from Nico than she would have ever thought. On some level she was pleased that Dimitri decided to test her, she was holding her own against a more experienced fighter than herself.
He spoke again, his face twisted and angry. He spat on the floor next to him, blood foamed as it hit the expensive carpet. He sized her up and moved to her left warily. She followed him with her head but didn’t move. She was ready when he lunged this time, and deflected his blow.
He didn’t go down as she had hoped though, and in an instant, his hands were wrapped around her throat. He meant business, and his aggression startled her. If he was one of Dimitri’s, she would expect him to hold back, this man clearly was not.
He wasn’t expecting her collar, that was her advantage. His hand squeezed and his eyes bulged with the exertion, but she was completely unaffected. His thumbs pressed into her neck, but she barely felt the pain. She was concentrating on getting away, so as if in slow motion, she brought her knee up as hard as she could. She hit balls with full force and was extremely satisfied at the pained grunt he emitted.
He didn’t let go, but it gave her an opportunity to bring her hand up through his arms, link it with the other and push down as hard as she could. The makeshift lever gave her more power than she would have simply pushing him, and she succeeded in breaking his hold.
He took a step back and she punched him directly on the nose, matching the spot her foot had made contact minutes before. Fresh blood spurted out and he howled, screamed what were obviously obscenities in his native language, turned and fled the room.
Columbia shook her hand, she thought she might have broken a bone it gave her such a surge of discomfort. She went to the bathroom and ran it under cold water to alleviate the pain. While she was there, she treated her scraped leg with alcohol and antibacterial ointment. Who knew what kind of disgusting things he would be carrying under his nails?
She was pissed off. More than pissed off. She’d thought Dimitri’s mysterious good humour had been about taking her to their special room, lashing her to the great wooden cross in the centre and giving her a session with the riding crop. This didn’t happen often lately because of her constant training. When it did happen, she felt high from the release, the freedom from every day life that he offered her at the end of a whip.
He hadn’t planned that at all, he had planned this stupid attack instead. She felt foolish for having been so excited, so she stripped off her robe and pulled on some comfortable yoga pants and a loose top instead. She wound her hair up on top of her head in a loose bun and decided to remove her carefully applied makeup.
She sat at her little dressing table and rubbed a cotton swab across her face and eyes, removing any trace that she had been anticipating a night of fucking with her Dimi. He was an asshole and assholes didn’t get pussy.
She sighed and realized of course she’d still fuck him tonight, but she’d ride him and make him pay.
She finished with the makeup and heard the light scrape of somebody crossing her floor. Dimitri must have returned to take her punishment for his little set up.
“That didn’t go as planned, now did it?” she asked and pretending to inspect something on her eyebrow. She didn’t want to give away how upset she was, not yet anyhow. Wait until she was writhing on top of his cock and he wanted to come. She would pull off and leave him frustrated for a few minutes until he begged her to finish him off. She smiled at the plan. When he didn’t reply, she said, “I had a surprise for you tonight too, but you ruined it.”
“You are the surprise, I think,” a male voice said from behind her. It wasn’t her Dimi.
She jumped and turned around on the chair to see a very tall, lithe, pale man in her room. His arm was extended and there was a gun in his hand pointed directly at her.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked, mentally going through her inventory of available weapons. Nothing within arm’s reach. She made note to start stashing items throughout their space as Nico had suggested weeks ago. At the time, she had mocked him for his paranoia, but now damned him for being so right.
“I would like to know who the fuck are you?” he replied in lightly accented English. He was Russian, she was sure of it. His accent was too close to Dimitri’s for him to be something else.
“I am who I am, I live here,” she said and stood as if underwater, the air felt thick and difficult to move through. Every sense in her body told her he was here to do her harm; this was no trick of Dimitri’s.
“You live here?” he laughed, “That’s rich. A whore who claims residence in the house of her customer.”
She immediately realized that this man had no idea who she was; he was here for Dimitri, not her. “No, in Hong Kong. I live in Hong Kong. Who are you? Are you a friend of the other guy? Do I have to service you too?” She sighed in a dramatic fashion and did her best to look worn out. “The others have done their worst to me though, I’ll warn you I’m not that lively at the moment.”
He looked her up and down and said, “Looks like you were just leaving for the night. I’m afraid this is a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We can’t let you go.”
“I won’t tell anyone that you’re here,” she said and did her best impression of a pleading prostitute. “Please just let me go.”
“I’m afraid that won’t happen,” he warned and took a step towards her, keeping the gun leveled at her chest. “You are much more dangerous than you appear, or my colleague is much worse at fighting than he indicated.”
His eyes were glittering blue, like a washed out sky. They didn’t contain one lick of compassion. Columbia had seen those eyes on her stepfather, and she recognized them in this man. This one would not be swayed. If she let her guard down, she knew in her gut that he would rape her and kill her.
She wondered where Dimitri was and if he was unharmed. If they hadn’t found him yet, she might have a chance. The intruder would most likely not want to fire his weapon to avoid alerting her Dimi. “Listen, I’m not involved in whatever thing you all have going on here, so just let me go,” she said and edged closer to the high dresser with an elegant ivory hairbrush on it. If she could reach it, she could wield it against her soon to be attacker.
“I have told you before, that is not an option,” he replied with a smile on his face. It was out of place given the current situation. It unsettled her. His finger caressed the trigger and he looked back over his shoulder, a nervous tic perhaps, but she took that moment to make her move.
She crossed the room to the dresser and grabbed the hairbrush. He was right behind her and reached for her as she lifted it and whipped around to face him. He was moving fast and she used his momentum to her advantage. She struck his face and dodged his grasp by sidestepping.
“You are going to regret that,” he said and held his hand to his face, gun still in his hand, unfired. She had been right. “I’ll tell you what, take me to your boss I’ll kill you quickly. I might even kill you before I fuck you.” He looked at her breasts and licked his lips, and added, “Maybe,” with a sneer.
She lashed out again and made contact on his arm this time, the gun flew from his hand and skittered across the floor towards the bathroom. He managed to get a hold of the hairbrush as she drew back, wrenched it from her hand and threw it to the side. They were both without weapons now, and the concierge’s lesson rung deep in her ear. She frantically thought about how she was going to take down this opponent with o
nly her bare hands.
“I don’t know anything,” she cried out, dropping her shoulder slightly. “I’m just here for a visit.”
“Oh I believe that,” he replied, “but that doesn’t change anything. I’m still going to fuck you, dead or alive.” He leaned down and made a grab for her breast, but she managed to escape his grasp before he made contact.
“You have to catch me first,” she said and ran towards the bathroom. She reached for the door and almost made it when he tackled her to the floor. She hit with a grunt and didn’t get away as lucky this time, her head made contact with the smooth marble near the bathroom entrance.
She felt the lights dim in her head and fought passing out. She didn’t want to lose consciousness with this fucking monster on top of her. “Fuck yeah,” he said close to her face, his breath reeking of cigarettes and rotten meat, “I have to get a little of this tonight.” He squeezed her breast and pinched her, hard.
Columbia didn’t feel a thing though; she was slipping in and out of consciousness and only partially aware of what he was doing. She felt her body being lifted and he carried her to the bed, their bed. Dimitri? Was Dimitri carrying her? She couldn’t quite focus but it all felt different, out of place. His body didn’t feel right and his scent was foreign to her.
“Dimi?” she whispered and tried to open her eyes. Her head was throbbing; she struggled against the stabbing pain in her temple. She must have a concussion, and in a flash it came back to her. She started to fight as he laid her on the bed, on Dimitri’s side. He reached down to choke her but found no purchase on the collar she wore.
“You do know the man I’m looking for,” he crowed and tore at her shirt. She kicked at him, but he was wiry and hard to fight in her current dazed condition.
“I do,” she said and forced herself to concentrate. His hands moved around her collar and found her throat, squeezed and pressed down. He straddled her, forcing the air from her lungs, and shifted his weight to his hands, choking her harder. She could see little lights break out on the sides of her vision and the room started to go dark again. She clawed at his arms and tried to break free, but could not.
She frantically reached for something on Dimitri’s side table and found nothing that could be used as a weapon. Her attacker was so focused on watching her gasp for breath that her desperate grasping didn’t even register on his face.
She stretched farther and her hand finally found the six-inch shard of glass Dimitri had packed with them from Vancouver. She never did understand the story behind it, but he said he kept it with him to remind him of the balance needed to prevent himself from descending into madness.
She clutched it in her left hand and felt the sharp edge cut the skin on her palm. The blood made her grip slippery, but she thrust upwards with all her might and made contact.
The intruder pulled back with his hands now at his own throat. He was clawing at his own flesh and seeking the glass in his neck, but could not pull it out. She had buried it deep in his carotid, only an inch or so remained exposed and his blood mingled with hers, making it impossible to remove.
He pushed himself off the bed; she could hear wet gurgling sounds coming from his throat, like the last of the bathwater going down the drain. It sickened her on some level, but on another level she was grateful just to be alive.
She sat up and rubbed some feeling back into her own neck, she touched the spot on her forehead where she had hit the floor and felt a large bump forming.
The intruder was backing up towards the bathroom, his one hand on his throat and the other stretched behind him looking for something to grab onto. He bumped into her delicate dressing table and fell against it, knocking it over. All her glass bottles scattered across the floor, most of them breaking, and he twisted and fell forward into the shards. She watched with clinical fascination as he gave one last tug and finally pulled free the broken glass in his neck.
As expected, blood pumped out of the open wound and he seemed to succumb quickly after that. Columbia waited on the bed, numb over his death, and waited until she was sure she could stand. She walked to where he lay, face down, and squatted next to him. Blood was pooling around his head and his body still pushed the last of it out in a sluggish rhythm. She touched him, expecting him to be metallic or made of some other substance; half thinking he was more machine than man.
He was hot, his body reacting to the wound and working overtime to stay alive. He gave one last gurgling cough and died. She could tell the moment he died although she had no definitive proof. She hadn’t had this luxury with her father, and now she remained, touching his shoulder and feeling his soul exit his flesh.
He went cold fast, and soon he seemed less a man than a slab of meat. She dipped her finger in the pool of blood and dragged it through, making patterns in the lukewarm liquid. It felt like motor oil on a hot day, but was thickening fast. She pulled her hand back when she realized what she was doing, and wiped it on her pants.
She stood and surveyed the scene, the body and the broken dressing table and the gun. She rushed to the gun and picked it up, feeling its weight in her hand made all of this seem more real. She wasn’t sure how to use it, but decided to take it with her anyways. She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know where her Dimi was and she didn’t know who these men were. She was certain it was Sergei behind this, and she didn’t know how or when she was going to do it, but she was going to kill him if it was the last thing she did. Not just for almost destroying her beloved, but for dragging his filth into her safe place and bringing her into the fight. This meant war.
Chapter Nine
Columbia crept down the hallway outside the master bedroom on cat toes. That’s what Nico had called them, when she walked on the balls of her feet, not allowing her heel to drag or her step to fall heavy. In one hand she held her twelve-inch blade, the one she kept stashed in her dresser drawer. Dimitri had it custom made for her, the sharpest steel with a beautiful inlaid handle that was perfectly weighted for her grip.
She vowed to never leave it far from her reach ever again. She needed a leather strap to keep it on her body at all times from here on out, one that matched Dimitri’s.
She carried the gun in her other hand, not entirely used to the feel of it. It felt unbalanced somehow, and she decided she needed shooting lessons if they all made it out alive. When they made it out alive.
The penthouse was silent, which was unusual for this time of the night. The regular staff had gone home, but with Dimitri and Nico around, there was bound to be something going on. Both men were larger than life in their own separate ways, and both men loved music and it was rare there wasn’t something playing in the evening.
It just felt too quiet. This is what Dimitri must have meant by a sixth sense when he was schooling her last time they fought. A sixth sense is a belief in yourself, in knowing that your body and your instincts will tell you everything you need to know about a situation before you even open your eyes or pause to listen.
Spidey sense, Columbia had called it and thought to herself she must have none. She appeared to possess this instinct after all, the animal-like awareness of her surroundings that life in the modern world had cut off. She knew there was something wrong.
She paused at the office door, leaned in and checked it out. It was empty, and Nico’s desktop workstation looked abandoned. The monitor was displaying a screen saver, some football club’s logo flashed across the screen. He was a Windows guy he always said. Dimitri was all Apple, all the way and would taunt him for being attached to an outdated operating system. Columbia had zero preference, so she usually just sat back and laughed at their mock battles and shook her head.
Now she remembered enough about computers to know that the screen saver would have kicked in about fifteen minutes since the last time he touched the keyboard, and would run like that for ten minutes until it set the computer into sleep mode. Nico had been interrupted on his nightly rounds of whatever he did for Dimitri. That worried her.
She crept further along the hall, Nico’s bedroom door was closed, but it almost always was. She’d never even taken so much as a peek in there. She tested the handle and found it unlocked. She turned it slowly, took a deep breath and opened the door. She poked her head inside and looked from left to right. There was nobody inside, but Columbia was pleasantly surprised at how well decorated and masculine his bedroom was. Similar to Dimitri’s before she came along and added her touches. Dark wood and leather furniture mingled with some modern art pieces on the walls.
Not wanting to linger, she pulled back and reminded herself to check out his new space in Malta. She wanted to know more about him, realizing that most of their time together was spent talking about her. If they all made it out of this, she pledged to be more interested in Nico as a human being, not just as a training partner and occasional third for her and Dimitri. The thought of losing him brought her affection for him into sharp focus, although it paled in comparison to her all-out desperate need for Dimitri.
She moved slowly towards the living room and stopped at the end of the wall. She felt awkward carrying both weapons in front of her so she tucked the gun into the waistband of her pants, hoping it wouldn’t go off. She really did need to learn more about them before she shot herself by accident. She knew that moving beyond this point would leave her exposed and vulnerable in the wide-open space, so she proceeded carefully.
She peeked around the corner and saw Nico seated on one of the low-lying leather sofas. There was a single man dressed similarly to the others standing guard. He appeared to be watching the entrance from the back hallway, as if expecting somebody.
Nico’s face was a mask of indifference, but the way he fidgeted and tested the limits of his handcuffs let her know his true state of mind. He was hunched as if in pain, and had a bruise forming above his left eye. She could see blood oozing out of it and fought the urge to rush across the room and comfort him while demanding to know where Dimitri was located.