by Brynn Ford
I look up at him. “Found who?”
His head tilts toward the envelope in my hand. “Open it.”
It isn’t sealed, so I lift the flap and reach inside. My fingers touch the corner of a small rectangle and I know what it is before I pull it out. Still, when I see the photograph for the first time, it’s jarring.
“How the fuck did you—” I stop mid-sentence, flipping the photograph over to look at the back.
Twenty-two.
Thirty-seven.
Two numbers.
My ex-girlfriend is twenty-two years old.
Just like the numbers on Anya’s photos of her sister, Lidia, I know the second number is the measurement from the rifle scope.
Thirty-seven yards.
They were thirty-seven yards away from her when they took this photo.
Every muscle in my body tightens, my pulse thumping rage through my veins.
“If you hurt her, I swear I will kill you, Nikolai.”
His forehead tilts down toward me with narrowed eyes. “If you hurt me, she will die. I expect you have a good enough reason now to comply and behave.”
I have been complying.
I have been behaving.
Anya’s well-being is enough to keep me in line.
But this…
This is next level shit.
I finally feel the fear Anya must have been feeling all these years with her photos of Lidia. I feel Anya’s eyes on me, and I turn my head to catch her curious gaze. With shaking hands, I reach over to hand her the photo.
“Who is she?” Anya asks as she pulls it from my fingers.
“My girl—” I correct myself, “My ex-girlfriend. She, uh…she left me a few days before I was taken. In Kyiv.”
I really don’t want to tell her this right now, but I can see the apprehension on her face. For whatever stupid reason in my illogical brain, I’m more concerned with allaying Anya’s potential jealousy over a relationship that no longer exists in any sense of the word. I care about Emma a great deal. The thought of something happening to her because of my actions here threatens to unravel me entirely, and I am truly scared shitless about this photograph.
“You’ll receive a new one weekly now that we know who she is and where she is.”
“You’re a goddamn monster,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “It’s business. Anya, go take a shower. Don’t wash your hair, but clean thoroughly.”
Jesus fucking shit.
A thick wall of tension whips up around her as she slowly rises to her feet, ready to comply. “Da, khozyain.”
She looks at me and I see her swallow hard, worry dulling the sparkle of her eyes. If I could beat Nikolai to death right now without consequence, I would. For a million reasons, I would, but I would rip out his heart for taking away her spark.
If he even has one.
“Go,” Nikolai snaps, sensing her hesitation.
She rushes off to his bathroom and a few moments later, I hear the shower water running. Nikolai moves to the bar cart next to the fireplace, pouring three glasses of what I think is whiskey. He picks up two and brings one to me, taking a seat in the armchair that Anya has vacated.
I look down at the golden-brown liquid in my glass, unsure whether I should drink it or not. I was only just barely legal to drink in the States—just a few months past my twenty-first birthday. I’d gotten drunk a few times before, just like most of the raging, rowdy teenagers I went to high school with, but this was a new drink for me.
Part of me wants to throw it back and ask for a second, just to dull the pain of knowing they’re watching Emma, of being held hostage, of all this shit. The other part of me wonders if he’s drugged my drink, though I watched him pour it cleanly myself.
“You make a good partner for her. I’m pleased with the progress you both are making with your routine.” He sips from his glass, leaning back casually and crossing an ankle over his knee.
I scoff, “Thanks. I’m so fucking glad that our partnership entertains you, Master.”
He smiles sideways. “I’m not as put off by your sarcasm as you think I am, Ezra. I’m actually somewhat intrigued by it.”
I don’t respond, instead deciding I need to partake in drink. I lift my glass to my lips and tilt it back, taking several long gulps until its emptied.
“I’d like to see you and Anya take your performance to the next level. I’ve been watching your lifts. The way you read each other so clearly without words. You’re very in tune with each other, very in sync. I’ve had her try this once before, but she had no connection with her partner and it failed spectacularly. I think it will work quite well with the two of you.”
“Okay,” I say, setting my empty glass on the small side table between our chairs. “What is it?”
“I’m sure Anya has made you aware by now…I have a bit of a fetish for the art of bondage. I’d like you to use rope in your routine.”
My jaw clenches and my shoulders tense. “I think I’d remember her telling me something like that.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Well, I’m telling you now.”
I stretch my neck, tilting my head from side to side. “Okay, so what is it you want us to do?”
“I’ll leave the artistic incorporation up to the two of you. But there are certain things you need to know about using rope safely, so I’m going to give you a demonstration tonight.”
I laugh. I can’t hold it back.
Does he really expect me to believe he gives a fuck about using rope safely?
“Why does it feel like you have more than a demonstration planned?”
He hides his secretive smile behind his glass as he takes another sip. “As I said, Ezra, it’s a fetish of mine.”
Fuck.
Anya’s in his shower right now, cleaning thoroughly, as he asked her to. I feel nausea roll through my gut and a punch of adrenaline through my veins. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. There’s no sense to my sudden agitation because there’s not a goddamn fucking thing I can do about this situation.
Nikolai is going to do what Nikolai is going to do, and God help the person who thought they could stop him.
Though I want to jump out of my chair, snatch him by the neck and throw him into the fucking fireplace, I know I can’t. I can’t if I want to keep her safe.
Anya.
And I guess Emma now, too.
The shower water clicks off and Nikolai rises from his chair. He sets his drink on the bar cart again, then heads for the bathroom door. He doesn’t knock or even pause, just barges right in. I expect to hear Anya shriek in surprise, but that’s real-world me. Slave-world me knows better. She’s no longer surprised by Nikolai’s behavior, by the way he treats her. I, on the other hand, don’t think I will ever get used to it.
Anya’s strength and poise through suffering are absolutely astounding, though suffering is putting it mildly. She’s superhuman in her courage, a goddess of resilience. I just wish I knew those admirable traits under different circumstances.
A minute passes with them both in the bathroom and I have no idea what’s going on. I stay in my seat, though I’m squirming to jump and run and fight. I’m fighting every instinct I have because I have to. I have to keep my cool to keep her safe. Not that she’s ever really safe here, but I have to think in terms of relativity now. And relatively, she’s better off if I do as I’m told. Nikolai is going to hurt her either way and the least I can do is not make it worse.
She exits the bathroom first and I immediately look away because she’s naked.
I want to look at her.
Fuck, do I want to look at her.
But she’s not walking toward me naked by choice. She’s doing it because he’s instructed her to. She hasn’t consented to me seeing her without her clothes on, and fuck if I’m going to be
a piece of shit like Nikolai.
She’s still walking toward me—I can see her in my peripheral as my legs bounce in anxiety. I’m forced to shut my eyes as she gets close enough to touch. I’ve become so in sync with her over the last few weeks, just as Nikolai observed, and I can feel her presence all around me.
“Ezra,” her voice is quiet, yet strong and insistent, “you need to shower and come back out in your underwear.”
My eyes snap open and lift right up to meet hers. She looks scared, nervous, but at the same time, I see that superhuman resilience telling me that she’s determined to be okay through whatever the hell is happening here.
I have to admit how glad I am to see that determination in her because I don’t have it for myself. She’s so much stronger than I could ever be, and I have to rely on her—I have to trust in her to get through this.
Whatever this nightmare is going to be.
My eyes linger on hers, probably longer than Nikolai is happy with, and I nearly want to smile at her when her look tells me to keep my stupid, sarcastic mouth shut and do as I’m told.
I will do as I’m told, as much as it goes against everything I am. I will do as I’m told because I know the consequence of breaking the rules here.
The least I can do is lessen Anya’s suffering and I will take on mountains of my own for the blue-eyed girl I might just be falling for.
Chapter 16
Anya
Ezra disappears behind the bathroom door as Nikolai rounds on me. I feel a thousand different emotions right now and I’m not clear on a single one of them.
“Come here,” he tells me, and I go to him without pause.
I’m standing naked in front of him and he takes every advantage, raking his eyes over my body, leering with lust and devious intent. I’m used to this with Nikolai, used to him seeing me bare. He’s seen every part of me, violated every part of me. Though it never really gets better, it does become easier to accept, to become complacent.
His hands cup my cheeks and he bends, bringing his lips close to mine. “I’ve missed you. Kiss me, Anya.”
I close my eyes first to retreat inward before he presses his mouth to mine. His lips part immediately, tongue pressing, insistent that I do the same. I open my mouth and he doesn’t hesitate to taste me.
I always have a difficult time when he first starts to kiss me this way. He wants me responsive, but my initial response is always forceful rejection, though I’ve learned to hide it. I used to show it with pushes and shoves, kicks and shouts of protest.
I know better now.
I force my tongue to swirl back around his. It’s not that Nikolai is bad at kissing—he’s quite good at it. He’s quite good at all of this. That’s what makes it so much more disgusting, because he knows how to make me give in and want what he’s doing to me.
It makes me feel disgusting for wanting anything from him, but he knows my buttons and triggers, he knows everything about me and how to make me needy for his touch in a truly shameful way.
I hear the bathroom door click open as I’m still kissing Nikolai and feel a new kind of shame…a worse kind of shame…a guilty kind of shame. It’s one thing to have to endure such atrocious violations of will from Nikolai, but an entirely different matter to have a witness to it.
I had a witness once before, with Jamal, my first dance partner here at Mikhailov Manor. Jamal and I had grown close during his time here. I liked him. He liked me. Nikolai knew it and took advantage of it.
Things were far more violent in those early days, before I understood my place and my inability to escape captivity. When Nikolai raped me back then, I fought. I resisted. I screamed. I can only imagine how difficult it was for Jamal to watch.
He’s been gone for a long time, and I don’t want to think about him anymore.
Ezra is here to witness my shame on a whole new level, to witness my complacency to Nikolai’s abusive will. I just pray that Nikolai has no intention of making me orgasm. I don’t want to imagine what Ezra would think of me then.
Would he think I enjoy Nikolai and his touch just because he’s capable of manipulating my senses so effectively?
Nikolai pulls away from my kiss, turning his head to look at Ezra. I don’t miss the way his eyes run down over Ezra’s body. I keep my eyes on Nikolai because Ezra is an unwilling participant, too, and I refuse to take advantage in that way.
Though it’s hard not to look.
I see him shirtless nearly every day, as that’s usually how he dances. I admire his physique nearly every day. I want him nearly every day.
But that doesn’t give me a right to join in Nikola’s blatant ogling in a scenario where his choices and rights are as invalid and unwanted as mine.
Still, my greedy eyes dart a glance down to Ezra’s black boxer briefs before rising quickly to his face. I can’t avoid meeting his eyes because his are locked on mine. It pains me to share his gaze because he’s looking at me so intensely. There’s fear and concern there, but I don’t think it’s for himself…I think it’s for me.
“Stand at the foot of the bed,” Nikolai says to me, turning and walking away to retrieve something from one of his dresser drawers.
I do as instructed, facing outward toward the room. Ezra is still standing just in front of the bathroom, which is around the side of the bed. From where he’s standing, he has a clear view of my entire backside and I immediately feel self-conscious. I don’t sense his eyes on me. Ezra is respectful, kind, a gentleman, so it doesn’t surprise me to feel the absence of his gaze.
Nikolai returns with a length of coarse, beige rope and stands in front of me. “Hold still.”
He begins to wrap me with rope, coiling and tying expert knots as he’s done for years. The rope is rough, scratching across my skin, and I know it will burn when he pulls it tight.
He knots it behind my back in the center and wraps it around to my front, crisscrossing at my sternum. He twists the rope to form an “X” between my breasts and drapes the long ends over my shoulders. It’s heavy to wear and it’s already irritating my bare skin. Every movement, no matter how subtle, feels like he’s trying to strike a match against my flesh.
He pulls the ends back through the knot at my back and keeps going, eventually securing my arms so they are pinned to my sides, my palms pressed firmly against my thighs. My bottom half is free and mobile, but my top half is entirely bound in the coils which are rubbing me raw.
“I’m thinking you will dance like this,” Nikolai says. “Except your arms will need to be free, for safety, of course.”
Ezra scoffs behind me, “Safety.”
Nikolai’s eyes snap over my shoulder to glare at him. “I will teach you how to bind her. In your dance, you will control her, move her with the ends of the rope. You are the puppet master and she is the puppet.”
“That doesn’t work with our music.” Ezra’s sharp tone tells me he’s losing his temper.
I’m afraid for him more than I am for me, so I chance it and speak up. “Shut up, mal’chik,” I snap at him. “We’ll make it work.”
Thankfully, he’s quiet again and it only takes a few moments for Nikolai to turn his attention back to me. A wicked smirk tilts the side of his mouth.
“You’re doing well with controlling him,” Nikolai tells me. “I wonder what else you can command him to do for you.”
I swallow. “There’s nothing I want him to do for me.”
“Nothing?” Nikolai questions. “Nothing at all?”
He snatches my chin between his fingers and thumb and pinches, lifting to tilt upward. He bends, touching the tip of his nose to mine.
“I don’t believe you,” he says. “I think there are things you both want to do to each other.”
“I want nothing from him,” I lie. “You provide me with everything I need.”
Nikolai chuckles. “
You’re a terrible liar, Anya. Do you think I don’t know you better than that by now?” He doesn’t move, but his eyes leave me for a moment, glancing toward where Ezra stands, then back to me. “He wants you. And I’m nearly inclined to let him have you, only because I’m curious to watch, to see what happens. To see if he can destroy you all over again in the ways I destroyed you when I first stole you away.”
That’s simply not possible. No one could destroy me in all the ways Nikolai had, especially not Ezra. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Still, if anyone is able to orchestrate such destruction, it would be Nikolai.
I shiver.
Nikolai releases my chin and pushes on my shoulders with both of his large hands. “Sit.”
I lower to perch on the edge of the plush, burgundy comforter. I’m forced to sit up arrow straight with the way my arms are bound tightly against my sides. I wriggle my hands, clenching and releasing my fingers. They already tingle from the restriction, and I think he’s tied the ropes too tightly.
Nikolai kneels in front of me and pushes my knees apart, opening me wide for him. My thighs clench against the exposure he forces, but he’s still able to spread me apart all the same. He isn’t angered by the way my body reacts, and I’m thankful for that at least. I almost wonder if he mistakes the strain in my thighs as desire for him, if he thinks I clench with need rather than protest.
Surely, Nikolai can’t be that delusional. Though he’s had me fooled before…
“Ezra,” he says, “pull the chair around, sit behind me. I’d like to give you a front row seat for Anya’s performance.”
“No, thanks. I’m good,” Ezra replies flippantly, and I hear the edge to his tone, the crack, the pain.
I flinch as Nikolai reaches into his pocket and pulls out his switchblade, flipping it open easily with a flick of his wrist. I whimper. Every muscle in my body tenses as he presses the tip of his knife against the inside of my thigh.