Thirty Days of Hate

by Ginger Talbot

  It’s him. Pushing forward to the front of the group. Bulky body armor, gun in hand, devil mask with curling horns. Cataha. And this time I’m sure it’s the real one.

  Suddenly, a crazy thought occurs to me. I’ve got a GPS tracker in me again. If Cataha took me, Sergei would move heaven and earth to find me, and he could end Cataha. The Pevlovagrad Oblast’s nightmare would finally be over.

  Everyone else is running away now, scattering. I don’t run away. I stand stock still, pretending to be a deer frozen in the headlights.

  A group of men surround me. One of them grabs my arm and hustles me towards Cataha.

  He looms over me, a figure torn free from nightmares and let loose in our world. The red and black mask glistens in the cold sunlight.

  “What’s your name, girl?” he demands, leaning towards me. His voice is raspy, and I think, It’s really him. I feel sick with fear and hate. When I look at him, I see oceans of blood, I see the eyes of the dying. The ghosts of the murdered are screaming in my ears.

  I glare at him. He’ll probably kill me, but I’ll die fighting. “Well, I can tell you one thing, motherfucker, it’s not girl.”

  One of the men smacks the side of my head with the butt of his gun, and I bite down on a cry of pain. Sparks explode behind my eyelids. He raises the gun to hit me again, and Cataha rasps, “Stop!” He points his gun at a cowering family who are trapped in the middle of the parking lot. A moon-faced man and his moon-faced wife, hugging their chubby little boy, condemned to death because they ran in the wrong direction. They cry, hugging each other, and the hatred that floods my body threatens to choke me.

  “I said, what’s your name?” he husks, his terrible voice rasping over each word.

  I grit my teeth. “My name is Natasha Vodianova.” That is the name on my fake ID.

  He cocks his head to the side. “You sure?”

  “Am I sure about my name?” I snap. “Yes, I was born with it, I’ve had it my entire life, so I’m pretty confident.”

  “You’re from America. Where in America?”

  Damn my accent. I’ve worked really hard to lose it, and I can frequently pass, these days, but apparently he’s not fooled. And I know that American girls are especially prized.

  “New York. What the hell does it matter?”

  “Bullshit,” he rasps. “You don’t have a New York accent.”

  Before I can answer, I hear the pop of bullets, and the man who hit me with the gun staggers. There’s a hole in his forehead, and his eyes are rolling back.

  Cataha’s men scatter. They close in around Cataha, shielding him with their bodies.

  “Bring her! Bring the girl!” I hear his hoarse screech. There’s a hailstorm of gunfire, and I duck and run as fast as I can while half bent over.

  I should have let him take me. I should have followed his men. Why am I such a coward?

  That would have been too obvious, though, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t he have suspected that I have a GPS tracker if I’d just let him take me? I am kneeling, I am dazed and terrified, I don’t know what to do or where to go.

  A strong hand grabs me, and I scream and flail until I realize it’s Sergei. He hauls me up by my arm, throws me into the back seat of a car, and hurls himself in after me. The door slams shut.

  “Are you hit?” he demands urgently. I look down and realize with amazement that there’s a bullet hole in my coat. No, three bullet holes.

  “I don’t– I don’t– I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can’t feel anything right now.”

  The car screeches out of the parking lot. I hear a chopper overhead. Other cars are following us. Sirens wail as police and fire trucks rush past us.

  “Take your coat off.”

  I wriggle out of my coat, and he runs his big hands up and down my body until he’s satisfied that I’m not injured.

  I hug myself, shaking violently. All those innocent people… I pull my knees up to my chest.

  “I thought you were dead.” I can’t say the words louder than a whisper, because they’re so terrible.

  The grim, dirty streets of Pevlovagrad slide by us as we speed away from the scene of carnage at the market.

  “And that upset you?” His voice holds a bitterness I’ve never heard before. He’s sitting right next to me, but he sounds so distant he might as well be on the dark side of the moon.

  “Of course it upset me! What do you think I am?” I cry out, shocked. I stare at him in disbelief. His face is set in grim lines, and he looks out the window instead of at me.

  “You’re the woman who’s fighting to get away from me every minute of the day.”

  Seriously?

  “That’s…that’s…you know why I’m doing that!” I cry out. “You told me you were married to Ludmilla; you told me you were a pimp. You climbed in a plane and flew away, leaving me so devastated I barely got out of bed for weeks. For eight long months, that was my reality. I fell in love with a lying, married pimp. I lived with that sickening feeling in my stomach every minute of every day. And now you expect that I should instantly trust you again?” I fling my hands up in the air in frustration. “You know what? We’ve had this conversation. I’m not going to go over it again. I am angry at you, and I am hurt, and I don’t trust you. But that doesn’t mean I want you dead. If anything happened to you…” The thought floods me with such devastating sorrow that I choke on a sob. “I would never get over it.”

  He turns his wintry gaze back to me. “Do you mean it?”

  There’s doubt in his voice. I’ve never seen him show the faintest trace of doubt in any way. I actually believe in him right now, at least about this. He wants reassurance. He wants to know that he matters to me.

  My heart hurts at the thought of him wondering if I care whether he lives or dies. No matter how angry I am with him, he can’t think that. “Of course I mean it. I don’t lie to you, Sergei. I care about you. I want you to be happy. Do you really question that?”

  He doesn’t answer for what feels like a long, long time. “Sometimes.”

  “Do you think that you could hurt me so deeply if I didn’t love you? Do you think you could make me so very angry and ready to freaking murder you if I didn’t care about you to the very depths of my soul?”

  At that, he manages a grim laugh. “No. I suppose not.”

  “Even at the worst moments, even for these many long months that I thought you might actually be a human trafficker, I still loved you. Always.” I look him in the eye. He has to know the whole truth. “But if you were a trafficker, if you are a trafficker, and if I had a gun…I’d kill you. No matter what my feelings for you are. No matter that it would destroy me. If you were like Cataha, I’d kill you. You need to know that about me, Sergei. You need to know what I’m capable of.”

  He takes my hand in his, gently, as if he’s afraid to apply any pressure at all. “That’s more than fair, since you’ve seen what I’m capable of. But you need to know two things. One, I have never been a trafficker, and I only told you that to save your life. And two…I will never let you go.”

  So you think.

  I let him pull me close to him, and I sink into the heated strength of his body.

  “How did Cataha find us at the market?”

  “I’m not exactly low-profile. I can’t be. Aside from the fact that I stand out physically, I travel with a large crew. Somebody saw us, called it in, and betrayed us. We’re working on finding out who.”

  “How many men did you lose? How many civilians were killed?”

  His tone turns grim and his muscles tense. “Two of my men, six of theirs, and at least four shoppers.”

  I feel queasy, the slices of wedding cake roiling in my stomach. “I’m sorry for your loss. God, I want that bastard dead so badly.”

  He shifts in his seat and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Do you understand the danger now? Why I can’t let you go on rescue missions anymore? Damn you! Why are you not afraid?”

  Thank God he doesn�
�t know that I almost willingly handed myself over to Cataha and his men.

  “Of course I’m afraid!” I cry out. “But so are those girls. Girls just like me, snatched from their families, from their lives. My family did that to them, made them suffer unimaginable terrors. And most of those girls ended up dead, and their families never even knew what happened to them. You’re not the only one who’s tarnished by their past. You’re not the only one who needs to do some good in this world, Sergei.”

  “When I take out Cataha, will that be enough for you?” he demands.

  I consider that. “I would need to keep working to help take down traffickers.”

  “Will you ever be content with working behind the scenes?”

  “You want an honest answer? Maybe. I don’t know.”

  I look down at my arm, and the air around me swims and turns hazy.

  Oh God. It’s coming for me again. The sickness.

  I see rot and corruption, filth crawling over everything. I pull away from him and start punching the car door again and again.

  Sergei grabs my arm. “What are you doing?” he shouts at me. “Do you want to get away from me that badly?”

  “Me! Me! I want to get away from me!” The words tear out of my mouth, high-pitched and hysterical.

  His fingers tighten around my arm like steel. “Willow, calm down. What just happened?”

  “It’s my flesh, Sergei.” Tears run down my cheeks now. “My polluted, dirty flesh. Sometimes I just have to hit things. I’m filth, do you understand that? I had a teddy bear that came all the way from Russia, when I was a little girl.” I’m heaving with sobs. I try to push the memory to the back of my mind, but I can’t. “It sat on my windowsill, and I loved it. Its fur was as soft as silk, and it was dressed in a little frilly gown. My father brought it home for me. Can you imagine how many children were raped to pay for that filthy, evil teddy bear?”

  Where has all the air gone? I’m gasping and heaving, struggling to breathe. I stare into his eyes, desperately searching for understanding. I want to see disgust there, the disgust that I deserve for being a Toporov.

  He should agree with me. He should push me out of the car into the filthy snow and drive away as fast as he can. He should leave me to freeze, to melt into the snow.

  I dread these moods, how they swoop down without warning and seize me up in a whirlwind of self-loathing. “Why don’t you hate me?” I scream at him, balling up the fist of my free hand and punching my leg as hard as I can. “Why don’t I make you sick?”

  The outside world has vanished. I feel as if I’m in a suffocating bubble, sucking in toxic fumes that cloud my mind.

  He strokes my hair, and his voice has gone tender and soft. “Because you were a little girl who didn’t know what your father really was. Because it was never your fault. And because…”

  He looks as if he wants to say something else, but he stops himself. He just shakes his head and pulls me into his embrace. He wraps his loving arms around me and holds me tight while I scream and struggle and try to claw at my face. All the while, he’s kissing the top of my head and murmuring, “It’s all right, it’s all right. I’m here, baby. I’ll never let you go.”

  Hysteria bubbles up inside me, and I might be laughing, or I might be crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  His strong body is an anchor, holding me close, keeping me from floating away. “Don’t be sorry. I’m the last person to get upset at you for letting the darkness take you sometimes. But I’m with you, Willow, always. I won’t share you with the darkness, because you’re mine, only mine. I won’t let you hurt yourself.” He kisses the top of my head again, with amazing tenderness.

  The darkness starts to fade. Light seeps in. I can feel again, his muscles bunching as he holds me against him, the vibration of the car motor, the frantic flailing of my aching heart.

  “That’s your job, is it?” My voice comes from far away.

  His arms tighten. “I hurt you the way you like it. The way you need. You are punishing yourself when you have done nothing wrong. And I won’t allow that. It is my job to protect you, and protect you I will.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Day six…

  I spend the rest of the day in a quiet funk. Sergei’s in his office, dealing with the aftermath of the attack at the Brick Market. He leaves a bodyguard with me the entire time he’s gone, however. I think he’s afraid I might hurt myself.

  Our dinner together is quiet; we barely speak to each other. He tells me that he’s found out the name of the person who called Cataha – someone at the market overheard one of the merchants phoning him. He doesn’t tell me what he did to the man; he doesn’t have to.

  I fall asleep in Sergei’s bed, wrapped in his arms. He just holds me, stroking me gently, and doesn’t say a word.

  But when we wake up, everything is back to what passes for normal around here.

  After breakfast, Sergei leads me into the drawing room and gestures at several three-ring binders splayed out on the coffee table. Pictures of wedding decorations in one book, wedding dresses in another, and flowers in the third.

  “There’s a change of plans. We’ll be getting married in Sweden,” he tells me. “I want Lukas to be able to attend, and your family, and this will be safer. Look through these books and give me some answers.”

  I refuse to sit down, and I don’t even spare the books a glance. I wrap my arms around my waist. “Can you please just slow down?” There’s a snap of impatience to my voice. “Just give me a few months, at least?”

  It’s like arguing with a slab of concrete. His expression doesn’t even change. “No, I won’t. Why should we wait?”

  Frustration bubbles up inside me. “Because I need time.”

  “What would be the point?” His eyes frost over. I’m staring at Winter Sergei again, the one carved of ice, the one I can’t touch without burning my hands. “The end result would still be the same. You will marry me. You know that. I know that.”

  I stiffen with anger. I’m not one of his foot soldiers, to be barked at like a cringing dog. “No, actually, I don’t. It’s not a marriage unless I say yes. Not a real marriage. And I haven’t said yes.”

  “This again?” His voice has a dangerous edge to it now.

  “Again. Still. Forever.”

  I turn away from him. If I’m ever to forgive him, if I’m ever to agree to marry him, it can’t be under duress. If he doesn’t let me make up my own mind, I will spend the rest of my life waiting for the time when I can bolt, and sooner or later, even if it takes years, that time will come.

  Sergei’s right about one thing.

  When it comes to getting what you want, timing is everything.

  I look up at him, shivering a little at the chill I feel radiating off him now. “Who is Lukas, and why are you caring for him? What is the secret you’re not telling me?”

  At that, he just shakes his head.

  Right.

  So that’s how much he wants me to trust him.

  One step forward, two steps back. I turn my back to him, but he puts his hands on my shoulders and spins me around to face him.

  “What are you thinking?” he asks.

  I look at him.

  “I’m thinking that you need to take me back to America so I can decide, on my own, if I can ever forgive you or trust you.”

  At that, he shakes his head decisively. “No.”

  “No? Don’t you want me to come to you on my own?”

  “But you might not. So I’m keeping you.”

  “Well, if I didn’t come back to you, wouldn’t that mean we weren’t meant to be?” My words are mean and spiteful, and I fling them at him anyway. I never used to be such a bitch. Not before I met Sergei.

  “Don’t say that to me!” His voice is a lion’s roar, swelling up from deep within. I’ve hit him in a tender spot. His hands involuntarily bunch into fists. His eyes blaze with such rage that fear flares up inside me, and I flinch.


  He points at the binders, and his words crack like thunder, ready to strike me down with their deadly force. “There are bookmarks on the table. Use them. Make three selections from each book. Now.”

  And he storms from the room.

  I flip through the books, and I put paper markers between random pages in each one. It takes me two minutes.

  I’m so angry with him that I ask him to let me sleep in another room that night, and he agrees with a mere nod.

  I’m locked in the room at night. The door is opened for me in the morning.

  We barely speak for the next few days. We eat meals together, but I parry away all his attempts at conversation, and he doesn’t force it.

  The closer to we get to the day he’s scheduled for our wedding, the angrier I get. Exactly how stubborn is he? Would he really march me down the aisle by force on our wedding day? Doesn’t he understand that would ruin any chance we have at happiness?

  During the day, I read, I watch television, I sketch on an artist’s pad that he has sent to my room. He spends most of his time in the office.

  My mood has changed, and he knows it. I have to give him that. He doesn’t force himself on me. He can sense when my “no” really does mean no.

  When I see him, he’s locked away in his own mind. He speaks in a formal, polite tone. He gives nothing away. I can’t tell if he’s angry, or sad. He moves through the day with brisk efficiency, acting as if our upcoming wedding is a business meeting that he’s arranged and that I will definitely be attending.

  * * *

  Day ten…

  I’m sitting in my room sketching a still life of a bowl of fruit when Sergei knocks on my door. The door is ajar, and I can see that it’s him, but he still knocks.

  I remember that terrible time when he first took me, when he and his servants burst into my room whenever they felt like it. When I dreaded every visit because I was being used as a weapon to hurt my uncle, which meant that I had to be hurt.

  “Come in,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.

  He just stands there. “Darya is in the hospital. Here, in Pevlovagrad.”

  I scramble to my feet, panic clutching at me. “What happened?” I cry out.