She looks like she wants to be defiant, and I raise an eyebrow at her, inviting her to do so. She struggles to find her voice at first, then at last, she fails and frowns at me. I reach out and put a hand on her shoulder, smiling at her.
“I appreciate your spirit, girl, but this is deadly serious. An escaped captive is one thing to the Russian mafia, but an escaped captive with a multi-million-dollar yacht? That’s the kind of thing that has dire consequences. Remember what I said about following my orders. This is where that becomes very important, da?”
She stares up at me, but I don’t move until she replies, somewhat subdued.
“Da,” she says.
“Good girl,” I say, patting her on the head and making her blush so furiously she scowls. “Now, I’m going up to the bridge. Finish that coffee while I steer us into the dock.”
The next half hour is a dull onslaught of communicating with the port authorities and wiring money over to pay for a last-minute docking somewhere I know to be fairly quiet. My Turkish is a little rusty, but they’re used to dealing with Russians. And when a yacht this luxurious makes its way into port, it’s amazing how quickly people start acting more accommodating toward you.
Once we’re safely docked and I’ve arranged for some of that fuel to be put into the tank, I head back down to the master bedroom to see Autumn with her face pressed against the window, peering out. Her empty mug of coffee is on the desk.
“This place looks stressful,” she says, and I laugh.
“Your first impression of Istanbul is fitting,” I say. “I suggest staying in this room while I am out. You do not want to draw the attention of any dock workers, if you can avoid it. The less liability, the better.”
“Wait, what?!” she blurts, suddenly angry. “You’re leaving me here?”
“Of course,” I say, surprised. “I cannot simply trot you out in front of all the world. Do you understand how close on our tail your captors probably are?”
“We would have seen them by now if they were on our tail!” she protests. “This yacht is… well, huge!”
She has a fair point, actually, but that doesn’t change anything. Istanbul is a big city that’s notoriously easy to disappear in, if you really want to. And Autumn is proving to be resourceful. I would not put it past her to escape me and try to catch a flight to America first thing, with whatever money she can scrounge up. And she would probably be picked up by the nearest security guard on the bratva’s payroll and handed back to whatever Gregorovitch monster is assigned to be her handler.
“No,” I say firmly. “Remember what I said, Autumn.”
“You’re not my father, you can’t-!” she tries to protest, but that does it. I pick her up suddenly, so much so that she yelps and starts to kick. I toss her onto the bed, where she bounces harmlessly. While she does, I walk through the door, pull it shut, and lock it with the electronic panel that requires a code.
Not long after, I hear her trying to open the door, and then comes the pounding of fists and kicking.
“Did you lock me in?!” she shouts.
“Da,” I shout back in a calm but firm, parental tone. “I might not be your father, but if you want to act like a child, then I will act like a parent. In the places I’m going, I would lose you in the crowd in the blink of an eye. You will stay in your room until I come back, and that is final.”
I hear an enrage shout from the other side of the room just before she throws herself against the door with a dull thud. The door doesn’t even budge, and I run a hand over my face, groaning. She won’t be able to get out of there, but that doesn’t make this any less of a headache. This is going to be stressful enough as it is, not counting a petulant brat’s rebellious streak.
Dressed in fresher clothes—a black turtleneck, black jacket, pants, and shoes comfortable enough to run in—I leave the yacht with an irresponsible amount of cash on me. As I go, I give a quick nod to one of the port officials I see patrolling the area, and he nods back to me in silent understanding.
The bribe I paid him should keep our presence here quiet. Still, I can’t trust anyone but myself, so I have to be quick.
I make my way out into the streets of Istanbul around noon, and my first stop is off the beaten path. I need to arrange a healthy stock of food and drink supplies to be sent back to the ship, but I can’t use my usual contacts here in the city. Doing that would make me the easiest man in the world for the bratva to track. It would be like not using burner phones.
But even as I weave through the throngs of tourists and businesspeople, I can’t help but think back to Autumn. Part of me feels bad for having treated her like I did. It was for her own good, but I wish there would have been a way to convince her to be more reasonable.
She was running on god knows how little sleep, and she’d been through a very traumatic time, so the fact that she was thinking straight at all was impressive. She is a woman of great mental resilience.
I get into a cab and pay the driver double the rate ahead of time to get where I’m going. He takes me to a neighborhood where I see decidedly fewer tourists, and I slip into a wholesale market to start taking care of business.
Half an hour later, I’ve arranged enough food to be loaded onto the yacht to feed a whole party all the way to New York City. I pay the right people in cash, plus a little extra for their silence, and I make my way out.
But as I’m walking down the street, I notice a liquor store across the street, a quiet and cozy little local store with no English on any of the signs. I pause for a moment. Turkey isn’t a country known for its alcohol, especially compared to Russia, but they have some rather fine wines I’m fond of. A good bottle of exotic wine would be a nice way of apologizing to Autumn for having to be a little forceful.
Apology wine? What’s becoming of you, Vladimir?
I can’t help but feel a little like my younger self as I cross the empty street and approach the store. Making irresponsible detours to please a woman is something I did far too much of when I was Autumn’s age. It feels a bit odd doing this, considering the age difference, but part of me suspects she likes that. She’s a damn tempting traveling companion, regardless.
But as I cross the road, I hear a shout from down the street near an alley. Furrowing my brow, I look over at a small group of boys who are staring at me with wide eyes, as if I’m the most interesting thing they’ve seen all day. I quirk an eyebrow at them, and one of them points… behind me.
I blink at the same time that I realize a car engine is roaring toward me.
And in just as much time, I reach for the pistol hidden in my jacket, spin around, and aim it at the driver of the car full of men that’s barreling toward me. Pushing off my left leg, I dive to the right and fire off three rounds into the front windshield, just as a hail of bullets rains down on me.
I feel a sting on my bicep before I hit the ground, and the squealing screech of tires comes next. The car flies past me, swerving to the right and crashing into a fire hydrant.
My shot was a lucky one. The driver must be dead.
I get to my feet and take cover behind a crate sitting outside the store I was about to go into, and I watch Russians spill out of the vehicle, all armed to the teeth. I take aim at the nearest one as one of them shouts orders to the other, but the leader spots me and fires off a blind shot in my direction. It shatters the glass of the store behind me, and I rush inside to vault into the store.
It isn’t much, but it’s better than the flimsy cover that a crate supplies.
The shopkeeper shouts at me in frantic, angry Turkish, and I have to ignore him on my way across the storefront. My enemies are moving into position, and I manage to see one slipping between two cars parked across the street. With a quick shot, he goes down, and I only have three more men to worry about.
One surprises me by appearing around the side of the shattered glass, and he jumps in after me. He’s too close to waste a bullet on, so before he can lunge at me, I reach up to the shelf behind
me and grab a bottle of wine by the handle.
CRASH!
A shower of red wine and deadly shards of broken glass pour over the man after I break the bottle over his head. He goes down hard, either unconscious or dead. I don’t care which. After an encounter like this, I’m going to have to rocket out of Istanbul so fast I won’t have time to check.
I feel a bullet whiz past my ear, and I take cover as I hear the two remaining men outside shouting to each other. One of them gives away his position this way, and I pop out of cover just long enough to fire a round into his heart. He crumples in the street, and I hear the sound of boots running… away?
Shit!
I can’t let any of this hit squad get away. I jump out of the window and chase after the man who was barking orders a few moments ago. He’s making a beeline for the car, and I can’t let him get there. I stop, aim, and fire.
The bullet goes through his lower back and out his gut, and with a cry of pain, he hits the ground… still alive. I rush over to him and stomp on the hand that’s reaching for a backup pistol in his jacket. His wrist snaps, and he cries out in pain.
“Coming after me? Fine,” I snarl. “Endangering little children?” I point to where the crowd of boys had been in the alley, which is now thankfully empty. “That is unforgivable.”
“When they hear how you’ve been carrying on-” the enforcer grunts, but I twist my heel on his broken wrist, and he cries out in pain.
“With that gut shot, you won’t be telling anyone anything,” I snarl, and I put a bullet in his head.
I turn around to see the shopkeeper looking at me with a sheet-white face. I put my gun away and hold my hands up, jogging over to him. He backs away, stammering a dozen pleas, but I take out a fat stack of American cash and put it on the counter.
“For damage,” I say in broken Turkish. “Sorry for mess.”
He looks stunned at me as I give a smile and back away, then dart down an alley, rushing through several like it until I find a cab far away enough that it wasn’t scared off by the sounds of gunfire.
Without asking, I jump into the back seat and thrust about $100 to the bewildered driver.
“Dock 402,” I grunt, and a twinge of pain makes me look at my arm.
The dark fabric is glistening with blood.
“Hurry!”
Autumn
“Goddamnit, this stupid phone!” I groan in frustration.
I toss the thing across the bed, where I’m sitting cross-legged on the plush bed sheets, a fluffy pillow propped up behind my back.
I have to admit, as annoying as it is to be left behind and locked up in this glamorous room, it could definitely be worse. Maybe that is the main difference between a guy like the ones who captured me in the first place and a guy like Vladimir; they’ll both keep me captive, but one type will throw me in a dark, dank hole in the wall. The other will leave me locked up for my safety, supposedly, in hands down the most luxurious suite I have ever seen in person. I can’t deny that.
All around me, I’m surrounded by the fruits of someone else’s hard, hard labor. The sheer amount of skill and precision that goes into designing a place like this is off the charts. Someone funneled a hell of a lot of cash into making this yacht feel like heaven on earth. Especially with all the white and gold fixtures on the rest of the ship. It’s like someone designed it to resemble the gates of heaven themselves. As if there’s anyone alive who could possibly know what heaven would even look like.
Though, if there’s one thing I have gleaned from all my years of voracious reading, it’s that human beings are constantly trying to imitate heaven. I wonder what kind of instinct that is. What purpose does it perform? Is it a coping mechanism for the struggles of life? Is it an attempt at exacting control over the one thing none of us can escape: death?
Whatever the reason, it sure leads people to build some seriously striking architecture and interior design eye candy.
The master bedroom is a different beast entirely, though. It’s glamorous and comfortable to the maximum, of course, and no expense has been spared in the pursuit of building a truly remarkable, awe-inspiring room. But it’s not all shiny white and gold like the rest of the ship. There are a lot of shining ebony features that, along with the various accoutrements of kinkdom and the slightly dimmer mood lighting, make this place more of a boudoir than an enclave of heaven itself.
Maybe closer to hell, at least where the sins of the flesh are concerned.
Whoever designed this room clearly has some lofty ideas about sex and control. There are so many items in this room meant to restrain someone. A willing participant? Maybe. But judging by the fact that I was being held in the walls like some kind of trapped mouse, I have a pretty strong idea of what kind of man would put me there. The kind of man who genuinely delights in the pain of others. He would drink up my tears and lick his lips at drawing my blood, watching me writhe and squirm under his torture devices.
I shudder to myself, trying to shove that image out of my mind. It doesn’t do me any good to dwell on the hellishness of what could have happened. I escaped it. Or at least, it seems as though I have. I mean, I don’t know how I ended up separated from the filthy villains who kidnapped me from my tour group. Is it on purpose?
Did they intentionally shove me into the wall of this room and leave me there? Or did somebody in the chain of command drop the ball? Am I just the human trafficking equivalent of when the airline accidentally ships your luggage to the wrong state? Just a misplaced item, not valuable enough to go chasing after.
I’m conflicted about that line of reasoning. On the one hand, if they have in fact lost track of me, that’s a good thing, right? It means they might not ever be able to find me and drag me back into the hellish underworld of buying and selling human bodies. I could feasibly escape them, return to America mostly unscathed but with a sour taste in my mouth and a shadow over my shoulder that will prevent me from ever visiting my beloved, romantic Russia ever again.
On the other hand, if I’m so easily forgotten and left behind… well, what does that say about me as a person? As a woman? As a commodity? Because even though I certainly do not want any of those sleazy men to touch my body, there’s still that nagging insecurity that whispers cruelties to me like, if you were more beautiful, they would never have let you go and you are so worthless that not even the slimiest of men bothered to keep tabs on you.
“Bullshit,” I say out loud, almost to scold my own thoughts for turning on me. “Come on, Autumn, you’re better than that. You’ve really fallen from grace if you’re going to let the opinions of literal sex perverts determine your self-worth.”
I groan and stretch out on the bed, grabbing the cell phone and deciding to fiddle with it a little while longer. I slide the screen open, but it immediately prompts me to type in a very long password.
“Ugh,” I sigh, counting the little asterisks that hide what the password actually is. I wonder if it’s just a randomly-generated combination of digits and letters or if someone went through the effort of entering a personal code. Who does the phone belong to? Who brought it here? Why the hell was it stashed under the bed in the master bedroom like an afterthought? Who was it meant to help?
Surely not me.
I doubt my captors would have any reason to provide me with a cell phone.
Hell, they left me locked up in that hole in the wall without so much as a light bulb to illuminate the room, much less any technological comforts like a phone. Not that I would have any idea what number to call anyway. I’m not from Russia. I don’t know people here—just the folks I went on the school-sponsored tour with, fellow classmates and rivals. I don’t know their numbers. I have no need for them.
The only number I still have memorized in my head, tucked away forever, is Ms. Hardwick’s personal cell number. She gave it to me long ago, when we first started working alongside one another and we hit it off.
Normally, she was a very reserved person, a young professor who wa
s nervous about crossing any lines or boundaries with students. She never wanted to be seen as different or stand out too much in the department. It’s a male-dominated department, and even in a more progressive area like New York, that’s still pretty intimidating for a female professor to handle. She was constantly looking over her shoulder, afraid that one of her smarmy colleagues would swoop in and take credit for her work or find some way to hang her up and stall out her research.
Those assholes were always jealous of her, jealous of me, jealous of our harmonious partnership. There were even whispers among some of the crude, stupid boys in my class that we were having some kind of illicit affair. But that was an absurd accusation, not even worth exploring for a second.
We did work well together, and we spent a lot of time hunkered over gigantic, dusty old books in the oft-neglected Russian lit section of the university library, comparing notes and whispering passionately about philosophy and poetry and morality and everything in between.
But it was purely platonic, a mentor-student relationship. Even though I’ve never had a boyfriend or even anything close to a boyfriend, I know that I’m only interested in men. Ms. Hardwick, on the other hand, was a total mystery in that regard. I seem to recall her once mentioning an ex-lover named Nat, but who knows if that was a Nathan or a Natalia.
I didn’t ask.
It wasn’t important.
Not compared to the topics we usually discussed together. We were just good friends. She was the most important person on the planet to me. And then she was gone. Just like that.
I still have her number immortalized in my mind, but it’s useless information, just clogging up the storage in my brain. That number probably belongs to someone else now. A stranger who has no idea who I am or how much that phone number used to mean to me.
I feel the familiar ache in my throat as I fight back tears. I’m not going to cry. Not right now. I have other things to think about than the loss of my beloved mentor. I’ve got a cell phone password to try and crack.
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