by Stella Noir
“Well, this view is awfully familiar.”
I felt my heart jump into my throat at the sound of the voice behind me, then gasped as I felt two hands on my ass cheeks. Then two thumbs pulled my skin apart, exposing everything to the person behind me.
“Is it the same for you, Brooklyn? Deja vu.”
I knew whose voice that was and I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved or terrified.
“Lucas,” I said as I felt his hands move down one of my legs to the place where it was tied to the bed post. I heard him laugh softly as he untied both of my legs, then watched him as he came around the side of the bed and untied one of my arms. He looked down at me with that smile I remembered so well and that made my skin crawl.
“W–What are you doing here?” I said as I flipped over onto my back and crawled backward across to the other side of the bed.
One of my arms was still tied to the head of the bed, and I kept my eyes glued on Lucas as he got onto the bed and crawled after me. I knew now that all of my fears about him were true. Not only was he kidnapping and forcing girls into a life of sex slavery with his father, he was working with this Russian man. They were working together.
“Get away from me! You’re part of this, aren’t you?”
“Part of what? Syrnyk’s secret hideaway camp? No, I’m not part of it. Believe it or not I’m here to help you.”
I pulled the bedspread up over my body and stared at him in horror as he untied my right arm. After he was finished I tried to crawl away from him toward the foot of the bed, but the chain that was attached to the metal cuff around my neck was anchored and it prevented me from moving an inch.
“Help me how? My God, Lucas, no!” I said as I covered my head, trying to shield myself from the gun he had just pulled out of his jacket.
“Hey, Brooklyn, calm down. I’m here with Adrian. We’re getting you out of here.”
“He’s here? Adrian is here?” I said, looking up at him with tears streaming down my cheeks. “Where is he? That man. The one who bought me from your father … I think this is his house! I think he’s going to come back in here any minute…”
“Yeah, I know, Brooklyn. His name is Mihai Syrnyk and he’s a pretty dangerous Russian mobster. So if you want me to cut this chain and get you out of here before he comes back, cover your ears. Now, Brooklyn!”
I did what he said and jumped when the gun went off. Then I looked up at him in disbelief as he pulled the chain links apart where he had shot them. I couldn’t believe that he was actually here to help me. Not after everything that had happened. I didn’t know what to think, but if I wanted to get out of this place I had to trust him. Or at least go along with him until I saw a chance to get away from him.
Lucas grabbed my hand and pulled me off the bed and toward the door, but I held him back by digging my feet into the carpet. “Wait a minute, Lucas! I don’t have any clothes on! At least give me your jacket!”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Here you go,” he said as he slipped he jacket off and handed it to me. I put it on and buttoned it up, then followed him to the door.
“Where are we going?”
“We need to find Adrian and get the hell out of here. We came in through some caverns that go on for miles underneath this house, and that’s the way we’re going to leave. We don’t seem to have anyone after us up here, so I’m hoping we can get back down into the caverns unnoticed.”
“But the man, the Russian mobster guy … he got a phone call any yelled at someone in Russian. I think he knows.”
“Then that means we need to hurry. Come on!”
Lucas reached for the doorknob just as the door flew open.
“Drop the gun.”
I didn’t recognize the man at the door but he must have worked with the Russian man. He had an accent too and he seemed very calm. Like he wasn’t concerned in the slightest about the fact that Lucas had broken in and was trying to take me.
I wasn’t sure if Lucas was going to do what the man said, but after staring at him for a long time he finally dropped the gun. It made a dull thud as it hit the carpeted floor, and my heart sank into my stomach at the same moment.
“Okay, you got us. Why don’t you just take me to your boss and we can settle this whole thing,” Lucas said with a smirk on his face. I had no idea how he could be so confident in a situation like this. But this was his life. He must have been really familiar with this kind of business deal.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. And after that I’m sure you won’t be smiling anymore. He knows exactly who you are. He’s been waiting for both of you. You, little girl,” the man said to me. “Tie his hands behind his back.”
I took the plastic tie from the man’s hand and tightened it around Lucas’s wrists. At any other time I would have been thrilled to incapacitate him like this. But knowing that he was one of my only hopes of getting out of here made the job painful.
The man behind us told us to stop when we reached a door that was open, unlike every other door we had passed.
“There’s something I’d like to show you in here, Lucas Bellini.”
He grabbed Lucas by the collar of his shirt and pushed him into the doorway. The inside of the room was visible from where I was standing, and what I saw was disturbing. Inside the room were six bodies thrown onto a pile in the center of the room. I recognized the body of my father, but the other five weren’t familiar to me.
“Your associates, yes? Looks like you won’t be able to count on their help now,” the man behind us said as he yanked Lucas backward.
Lucas didn’t look into my eyes when he turned back around, but I could see that he was shaken by what he had seen. Lucas told me that he was here with Adrian, but his body wasn’t on the pile in that room. I was relieved, but I was also starting to worry. I didn’t think this was going the way Lucas had thought it would.
The man shut the door and pushed us forward until we came to a double door. He pushed the doors open and threw us both into the room.
“Adrian!” I yelled.
There he was on the floor hovering over the Russian man with a gun pointed at his face. “Kill him, Adrian! You have to do it now!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. If you pull that trigger and Syrnyk dies, the girl and your brother will be killed before you can turn around and say goodbye. The choice is yours.”
Adrian didn’t move. He kept the gun on the Russian man, but he didn’t turn around. His hands were steady and his finger had the trigger pulled back halfway. I prayed that he would just do it. I was terrified of what these men would do to us now that I saw what was in that room.
“Lucas?”
“He’s not lying. He’s got a gun on us and everyone else is dead. But something tells me you don’t want to let Syrnyk get up off the floor. It’s up to you.”
Adrian stared down for another minute, then sat back on his heels and set the gun down on the ground.
“No, Adrian!” I screamed. “Don’t think about me! Just kill him!”
Adrian turned and looked up at me as he stood. He looked so sad and so defeated.
“I tried, Brooklyn. I tried.”
The Russian man picked up Adrian’s gun and stood up next to him. “So pathetic. I couldn’t have brought you here faster if I had sent you an invitation. It truly amazes me how stupid a man can be when he’s in love. When he thinks he’s doing something noble for a woman. But that’s exactly what I was banking on. And now that you’re all here I am very excited to watch my plans become a reality.”
The look on Adrian’s face broke my heart. As I looked at him I realized that he was probably ashamed and he felt like he had failed me, but he hadn’t. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and amazement that he had actually found me. He had gathered men together and had enlisted the help of his brother who he hadn’t spoken to in a year, and he found me.
I knew if we were about to be killed by this man, I would die happy knowing we had been able to see each other one more t
ime. I wanted to run to him and wrap my arms around him and take away the sadness in his eyes. I wanted to hold him and tell him that even though he’d made mistakes in the past, that nothing he’d ever done with me was wrong. I wanted to tell him that he was perfect. Even with his flaws, to me Adrian was perfect.
“As you know, the men who brought you here to my house are dead. The men you left behind you in the caverns have been taken care of as well. You have no more ‘backup’ as you call it. And since you were good enough to dispose of your own father for me, most of my work is already done. Now what we have come to is the fun part.”
“What is your connection with my father?” Adrian said through his gritted teeth at the Russian man.
“I’m sorry … I’m not exactly sure who you’re talking about,” the Russian man said with an evil smile in his eyes. “Are you referring to the man who raised you, or are you referring to the man who donated his sperm to create this sad life of yours? Don’t fool yourself into thinking that I don’t know there is a difference.”
“I’m referring to my father, Fredrick Bellini. I’ll repeat my question. What is your connection with my father?”
“Believe me, I understand to whom you are referring, but you still seem to be under the wrong impression. Both of the men you speak of are here, and both are dead. When you say the name Fredrick Bellini, I know who you are speaking of, but when you say my father I regret to inform you that you are speaking of the wrong man.”
“This is all just a bunch of bullshit! I asked you a question and I want an answer! Why was my father waiting for me out in the woods on your property? What do you have to do with him?”
“Very well, you will have your answer. And perhaps it will help you understand your fate as it has played out. I have big plans for all three of you, but I can put them on hold for a little while longer so that you understand why you are here. Why all of you are here,” the Russian man said with a smile as he looked at Lucas and then at me.
“When I was a boy growing up in the Ukraine my family was very poor. My father toiled every day and came home covered in black soot, and yet we still had very little food on the table at dinnertime. My family was always cold and hungry, especially my sister. I would give my sister most of my food and all of my spare clothes so that she could be at least a little bit more comfortable. I loved my sister very much, and I would do anything for her so that she did not have to suffer.
“One day my father brought home more food than any of us could eat. He brought home new clothes and shoes and blankets and we had coal in the fireplace for the first time in months. And we lived like that for a long time. Eventually I came to forget about how dire our lives had been and how desperate everything had felt. It seemed that all of the hard times were in the past, and our new life where we had the basic comforts that every human being deserved felt sure.
“So far, in this story I may not have emphasized how much I loved my sister. She was everything to me. But one day I came home from school and my sister was gone. I asked my mother and father where she was and they wouldn’t tell me. She was gone for weeks, and then for months, and I went mad begging my parents to tell me what they knew.
“Finally one night I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. She had been taken away from my family because of a debt my father owed. Do you know who took her away from me, young Mr. Bellini? Can you guess? It shouldn’t be very hard, because your family has been in this business for many, many years.
“Fredrick Bellini took my sister away from me. He took the one person I loved more that anyone in the world, the one person I loved more than myself. And I’m sure you know exactly what happened to her.”
The Russian man stared at Adrian for a long time before continuing. “When I was old enough, perhaps thirteen years old, I went to the Odessa Mafia and asked them about the Bellini family. It took me a while to gain their trust. I had to work my way up from the bottom, you see. I had to do jobs, kill and steal and learn how to intimidate people. I was thirteen years old and I had to cut the hands off of full-grown men who were twice my size.
“But I did it and I gained their trust. And the longer I worked with them the more I found out. I found out everything about Fredrick Bellini and his business. I found out everything except where my sister was. I have never found her and I have never found the person that she was sold to, and I have accepted the fact that I will never see her again. Your father took the one thing that I loved most in the world away from me. As you may be able to imagine, I’ve spent my life planning the revenge I would take on your father and his family!” He paused a moment, panting like a madman and staring at Adrian with wild eyes. “And now, thanks to you, I will have it.”
“So your plan is to kill all three of us? That’s it?” Lucas asked with a smirk. “You could have done that a long time ago and saved us all a lot of trouble.”
“You have a very smart mouth. But you will find that soon it will betray you in ways you never imagined. No. I’m not going to kill any of you. As I have said before, the little girl is mine. She belongs to me now and she will stay with me. She is a fair exchange. Your father took my sister so I take his daughter. But since she has not been trained and I cannot count on her submissiveness, she will be placed in a cell for as long as it takes so that she learns her place.
“Now as for the pain I suffered at the loss of my sister, the pain that Fredrick Bellini began to inflicted on me from when I was a young boy, I will take his son,” the Russian man said as he looked over at Lucas. “His son by blood will be mine to train. Not for my own enjoyment, however. I’m not interested in having a male companion. But I don’t think I will have any problems finding a buyer.
“You will be placed in a cell in the caverns as well, my friend, and you will receive the same training and the same discipline as the other trainees. Then you will be sold into a life of slavery, not unlike all of the girls you have gladly trained and sold yourself. But the first step for you will be removal of your teeth and your finger nails—anything that can be used as a weapon.
“Don’t think I don’t know all about you, Lucas Bellini. About what you’ve done to the poor girls in your care. It seems that the sadistic nature your father possessed was passed directly on to you. You two are very much alike, did you know that? Don’t think I will allow myself to be tricked by you. I know you. Your work is impressive, but it is nothing compared to what you will experience in my training grounds. You will leave here a very different man, indeed,” he said as he smiled and wagged his finger in Lucas’s pale face.
The Russian man turned back to Adrian. “I have something special in store for you, my friend. You are not the blood relation of Fredrick Bellini, but because of your love for the little girl your pain will be exquisite for me to watch. It almost makes me giddy to think of how you will suffer. You will be anointed with the privilege of knowing what is happening with your beloved Brooklyn. You will witness her training and her life with me. You will watch the changes she goes through as she becomes devoted to me and only me, forever.
“I will make sure that your eyes cannot be shielded from watching the events of her transformation unfold, and I will make sure you cannot escape or fight back. Your arms and legs will be disabled and you will be propped up in a chair against the wall, and I will make sure that you are made to watch every single thing that is done to your precious little girl! So you see, death would be the easy way out. And not one of you will be taking the easy way out.”
ADRIAN
“Get moving, Bellini.”
After hearing what Syrnyk had planned for us I was in a state of shock. I looked over at Lucas and I could tell he was as petrified as I was over what he had heard. There was no one left down in the caverns. Grady and Alek and all of the men we had left down there were dead. And he was sending us back down to the caverns to turn us all into his fucking toys. My body was covered in sweat and my legs were shaking as I was pushed ahead of everyone down the hall.
“Why are you doing this? We didn’t do anything to you! It was their father. He’s the one you want to punish!”
“Ah, but he is dead and cannot feel the pain his actions have caused innocent others any longer. Someone must pay the price for what Fredrick Bellini has done. And don’t forget, little one, he is your father too.”
“But I never knew of him as my father! I have no connection to him!”
“Blood is thicker than water. Isn’t that what they say?”
I heard Syrnyk laugh at his little joke as he continued to push me toward the elevator.
“If you want to punish someone, let them go and keep me here!”
“Brooklyn, please.” I couldn’t stand to hear her try and convince him to spare my brother and me. If it weren’t for my family’s business she wouldn’t even be here.
“You’re awfully forgiving for someone who was taken as a slave to be trained by these men. It is useless to try and sway me, little girl. You have no idea how long I have waited for this moment. To watch the three of you obediently accompany me to your cells and hear the lock click as you are safely sealed inside is a sight I will remember forever.”
Syrnyk pushed me into the elevator, then grabbed the collar of my shirt and forced me against the back wall, holding me there while we descended into the depths of the caverns. Everything he had said was swirling around in my head as I racked my brain trying to figure out a way to disarm at least one of them.
There was no way I was going to let this happen.
When doors opened up into the caverns, I heard Lucas and Brooklyn exit the elevator, then I was thrown out behind them.
“Is anyone down here?” Syrnyk asked his man.
“Everyone is dead. Our men swept the caverns after these two came up into the house and we lost them all in the process.”
“How many did you bring with you, Bellini? It doesn’t look like your plan worked out very well, after all. Even buying my own men didn’t pay off. But now you know how loyal my men are to me. Even to the death they won’t betray me. And the ones that do will suffer greatly.”