by Nicole Fox
I can’t let anyone see that I’m hurting, that I’ve been mortally wounded.
Even as my heart bleeds, I have to pretend I’m fine.
I have to be fine.
2
Courtney
My arms are tied behind my back, feet bound together at the ankles so tightly my feet tingle, and I don’t realize I’ve woken up because someone entered the room until the blurry shape in front of me takes the shape of a large, red-haired man.
Devon.
The little bundle in his arms is Olivia, and I instinctively try to reach towards her, pulling at the bindings on my wrists.
“She’s fine,” Devon says, rolling his eyes as though I’m being ridiculous. “Sleeping like a … well, like a baby, I guess.”
He laughs at his own joke, but the rumble of his laughter feels like an earthquake. Like the walls will come crashing down at any second. It sends a sharp jolt of dread through me.
“You ought to be taking care of the other daughter. She isn’t looking so hot.”
I turn and see Tati curled against the wall. She isn’t bound like I am, but she is shivering, wearing nothing but her thin cotton nightgown in this cell.
“You’re a fucking monster,” I spit. “Why are you doing this?”
“Language,” he warns before tipping his head to the side, considering. “Actually, I guess since little Deafy here can’t hear us, we can say whatever we want.”
I’m grateful at the moment that Tati is deaf. She didn’t wake when Devon came into the room, so although she is cold, at least she is sleeping. Hopefully dreaming of being somewhere far, far away from here.
“Why are you doing this?” I repeat. “Is it for revenge?”
Before he drugged me earlier, Devon told me that Dmitry killed Rurik, which I already knew. But what I didn’t know was that Rurik was Devon’s secret father. Knowing that, revenge is the only motive that makes sense.
Devon grins, and like his laughter, it fills me with sickening dread. “Fun.”
“Is this about money?” I ask, trying to get to the root cause here. As Dmitry’s wife, I can barter and trade with other families just as he can. “Dmitry tried to give your mother money. If you wanted money, you should have just asked for it. You still can. I can authorize anything you want.”
“It’s not about money for me,” he says, still smiling. “It was for Dmitry, though. He wanted a hefty price for the three of you.”
It feels like a fist is gripping my heart. I can’t move or breathe. Everything in the room seems to still. “What?”
“Dmitry sold you,” he says plainly.
I’m shaking my head before the words even fully sink in. “No, he didn’t.”
Devon shifts Olivia in his arms, and I sit up, desperate to hold her and touch her and see her tiny face. Then, he pulls something from his pocket.
Immediately, Dmitry’s voice fills the air.
It’s too grainy for me to think he’s actually in the room, but the deep, familiar timbre of it still makes me inhale sharply.
“I want territory and weapons. Whatever you can offer in exchange. Three of them, all female. The merchandise is worth the price, believe me.”
The words are stilted and staggered, nothing like the smooth-talking man I know and love, but it is Dmitry’s voice nonetheless.
“He called around and offered you to anyone who would listen,” Devon says. “I just happened to offer the highest price.”
“I don’t believe you.” I clench my jaw and inhale through my nose, pushing aside my desperation to hear the recording again. To analyze it.
I trust Dmitry, and I can’t allow one ten-second recording to change that.
He wouldn’t sell me or the girls. He’d never do such a thing. I know that, regardless of what the recording says. It could have been taken from any of his business transactions. Or several conversations could have been spliced together.
Devon shrugs. “Believe what you want, but I’m not lying. I bought you and no one is coming to save you.”
Tati stirs in her sleep, and Devon looks down at her, his eyes sparking. He steps forward and presses the toe of his shoe into her back, shaking her awake.
I slide across the floor like a seal, no arms or legs, and position myself between them. “Don’t you ever touch her.”
He snorts. “What are you going to do about it?”
Tati groans behind me, and then I hear her gasp.
I turn, and her eyes are wide and red-rimmed from crying. She is staring past me at Devon, horror written into every line of her face.
I don’t have my hands, so I can’t sign to her. Instead, I speak slowly so she can read my lips. “Everything is fine. I’m here. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t lie to the girl, Courtney,” Devon says with a laugh. Then, he waves. “Hi, Tati. Your dad is gone. I’ll take care of you now.”
Her eyes go even wider, and I spin around and hiss at Devon to leave. Even though I know he’ll leave with my baby, I tell him to get out.
I can’t protect them both. As much as it kills me, I can’t take care of them both, and Tati is the one who needs me right now. Olivia is sleeping and clearly being cared for by someone, so Tati has to be my priority.
Devon shrugs and turns to leave, and I actually feel my heart split inside my chest. Half of it wants to jump out of my body and follow Olivia to wherever she is being taken.
Then, the door slams shut with one last grinning leer from Devon as a parting gift, and I swallow my sob and turn back to Tati.
“We’re going to be okay,” I say to her as tears begin to fill her eyes again. I shift closer to her so she is pressed against my side. Her skinny arms wrap around my waist, and I can feel the cool of her skin through my shirt. She needs a blanket.
After a few minutes, she pulls away and asks where her dad is.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But he’s coming for us. I know he is.”
Tati’s chest rises and falls rapidly, and then she squeezes her eyes shut and rubs her palms against her temples.
Her headaches have been getting worse. The doctors we’ve taken her to have hinted that it could be a response to the trauma she has endured—her own parents being killed (by Rurik, we’ve since learned) and me being kidnapped. Tati’s life has been anything but simple, and her fragile body doesn’t know how to handle it. So, the confusion manifests itself as headaches.
She lays her head in my lap, and I desperately want to reach out and stroke her hair, to offer her any kind of comfort I can. So, I lean forward and lay my cheek against hers. The position is painful and uncomfortable, but I can’t worry about myself. Not when my girls are suffering.
Tati and I lie like that until she falls back asleep.
While she sleeps, I replay the recording in my head, praying it’s all a lie. Praying that I didn’t just lie to Tati.
Please let Dmitry be coming for us.
I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until the door bangs open, and I startle awake. Tati jumps up, surprised by my movement, and we huddle together as a guard backs into the room dragging another prisoner.
The Yakuza guards have been cruel, and I think this man is one of them—seeing only his inky black hair from the back. But when he turns, I see he’s a white man. With incredibly blue eyes.
Then, I see the woman he’s pulling into the room.
“Sadie?” I gasp.
I don’t want Sadie to be here. I don’t want anyone to be locked in this cell, but I’m still momentarily relieved when I see her familiar face.
As soon as she sees me, the same emotions cross her face. “Courtney?”
The guard lets her go, and Sadie hurls herself away from him, cowering on the floor next to me.
The dark-haired man follows her, but rather than going for Sadie, he grabs me.
“Don’t touch me,” I growl, pulling away from him. The man ignores my command and hauls me to my feet.
“Hold still before you fall,” he says coldly.
I almost throw my head back to hit him in the nose, but then my ankles are freed. Blood rushes down to my feet and toes, and I sigh with relief. Then, he unties my hands.
I roll my wrists and my ankles, and almost say thank you before I realize I’d be thanking my captor. I haven’t been here long enough to succumb to Stockholm syndrome just yet.
“Do you need to use the restroom?” he asks.
I want to spit at him and refuse, but then I think of Tati. I kneel down in front of her and repeat the question, grateful to have my hands to sign to her.
Tati eyes the man at the door and then looks to me. Nods.
The man lets me stay with Tati as he walks her across the hall to a small bathroom and then back into the room. He doesn’t say anything or smile or show any human emotion, but he is gentler than the other guards.
When we get back into the cell, Sadie is still shivering in the corner, and the man ducks into the hallway for another second before returning with three blankets. He throws them in a heap on the floor the way you’d toss treats into a dog kennel at the pound. Then, he nods to Tati.
“Is she okay?”
Tati’s face is pale, eyes squeezed in pain, and she is rubbing at her temples again.
“She gets migraines,” I say harshly. “These conditions don’t help.”
He bends down, reaching towards her gently, and I jerk Tati away.
“I have medical training,” he says flatly. “A little, at least.”
I want to tell him to shove his medical training so far up his ass he chokes on it, but I also don’t want Tati to be sick. What if she has a fever from being in here? What if she’s truly ill?
Reluctantly, I nod, and the man reaches out and touches her pulse with two fingers. His blue eyes shift to the ceiling as he counts. Then, he lays his forearm over her forehead. Finally, he massages the lymph nodes under her jaw.
“She’s fine for now,” he says, lifting himself to standing. “Do you need anything else?”
Water, beds, food, my baby back … The list goes on and on, but I don’t want to ask this man for anything else. Not until I know his intentions.
He turns to Sadie. “Do you need anything?”
She whimpers and turns away from him. For the first time, an emotion flickers across his face, though it’s gone so fast I can’t register it. Then, he leaves.
The moment the door is shut, Sadie crawls to me, silent tears streaming down her face. Her words are jumbled and blubbery and snotty, but I gather the details.
She was taken from her bed in the middle of the night by strangers. They didn’t tell her where she was being taken or why, and she thought it might have been because of her connection with the Italians, but all of the men she saw were Japanese.
“They wouldn’t answer any of my questions and no one will tell me where Devon is,” she says. “He might be dead for all I know.”
Devon’s name on my friend’s lips cools me to my center. She doesn’t know. Sadie has no idea she has been betrayed by her boyfriend. Her long-term, serious boyfriend
She and Devon live together. They have a shared bank account and were thinking about adopting a dog. They have a life together, and I’m about to bring it all crashing down.
“He isn’t dead,” I say softly, cradling Tati’s head in my lap, smoothing down her blonde hair.
Sadie’s eyes go wide, hope flaring inside of her. “You’ve seen him? Is he here?”
I nod to both questions. “He is here, but it isn’t what you think, Sadie. He’s working for them.”
A line forms between her brows.
“Actually, I think he’s leading them,” I admit, shaking my head to try and deny the horror of it. “He came in here earlier and said that … he said Dmitry sold us to him, but I know that isn’t true.”
“You’re wrong,” Sadie says quickly. “Devon wouldn’t do this to me. Why would he do this?”
I try to explain to her that he’s the secret child of the man who betrayed Dmitry, that Devon is doing this out of revenge, I think, for what Dmitry did to his father.
“Even if that were true,” she bites back. “Why would Devon take me? He wouldn’t. You’re confused and upset and trying to find someone else to blame.”
“I’m not trying to find someone else to blame. He’s to blame, Sadie! He admitted it to me.”
Sadie slides away from me, arms crossed over her chest. “You never liked Devon and now you’re hallucinating or something. You’re hungry and stressed. You aren’t thinking straight. It makes way more sense that this would be Dmitry’s fault. He’s the one with powerful enemies who runs around killing people. He’s the reason we are all here, I’m sure of it.”
I want to argue and defend Dmitry, but I don’t have the energy.
Sadie may not be right about a lot of things, but she’s right when she says I’m hungry and stressed. I am overwhelmed and so far out of my depth, the pressure is crushing. I don’t want to talk about why we’re here. I just want to focus on getting out.
“We all need to sleep,” I say softly, leaning down to press a kiss to Tati’s cheek. “We need to rest if we are going to try and get out of here.”
“I can’t sleep,” Sadie says.
I lean forward and grab a blanket to throw to her. “Try. They want us to be disoriented and weak. We have to stay strong.”
Her chin is still set and determined, but Sadie takes the blanket and pulls it around her shoulders.
I cover Tati and myself and then gesture for Sadie to join our huddle. “We’ll be warmer if we’re together.”
Tensions between us are still high, but she knows I’m right. And despite her claims about Dmitry, I know Sadie is not my enemy. The truth about Devon’s role in all of this will come out soon enough, and when it does, Sadie will need a friend.
I lean my head back against the wall and fall asleep with Tati on my lap and Sadie leaning on my shoulder.
I awake again to a loud noise, but I don’t jolt this time. Tati stays asleep in my lap, blissfully unaware of the loud voices in the hallway, but Sadie sits up and pushes her blanket to the side, ready for whatever is about to come through the door.
Then, I hear a baby crying.
My baby.
“Shut up, shut up!” a deep voice growls.
I sit taller. “Devon?”
“It’s not Devon,” Sadie says next to me.
“Stop crying,” the voice begs again, sounding more and more frustrated.
“Devon,” I call, ignoring Sadie’s dismissal. “Give her to me. Let me help her. Give her here.”
The crying grows louder, and I know Devon is waiting outside the door. Nothing can make a person more desperate than a baby who won’t stop crying. I know. I’ve been there.
“Let me hold her,” I say. “She needs me. Let me help.”
The crying continues, but Devon doesn’t say anything or more. There are no footsteps on the other side, and I wonder if this isn’t some kind of torture in itself. Letting me sit five feet away from my screaming baby without letting me do anything to comfort her.
I can feel my chest opening, my heart breaking, and I want to kick down the door and gouge his eyes out for letting my baby girl suffer in any way.
“Let me help,” I say again. “Please, Devon.”
Sadie growls next to me. “It isn’t Devon.”
Her words, however, die on her lips when the door opens and Devon steps inside.
He doesn’t even look at Sadie. His eyes are bloodshot and sagging. He has obviously been up for a while with Olivia.
“She won’t stop,” he says. “What’s wrong with her?”
He hands her to me, and Tati sits up. She flinches away from Devon but then she sees Olivia and clings to me, offering a finger to her baby sister.
Olivia clutches Tati’s finger and immediately stops crying.
Love fills my heart, warming me from the inside out, and I’m so relieved I want to cry.
“Devon,” Sadie
whispers next to me. Her voice is raw and broken and stunned.
Devon smiles at his girlfriend, and then turns back to me. “Put her to sleep.”
I’m too wrapped up in the sight of Olivia to fully focus on Sadie’s horrific realization. I stare into Olivia’s blue eyes—the same shade as her father’s—and sing her to sleep. The words are nonsense. Just random bits of different songs set to a soothing melody, but she falls asleep anyway. She’s exhausted from her crying and it only takes a few minutes before she is blissfully, peacefully asleep.
The moment it happens, Devon steps forward and pulls her from my arms.
“I will kill you,” I spit between clenched teeth. “If you harm my baby at all, I will—”
“What?” Devon laughs. “Good luck killing me from inside this cell.”
Then, he turns and is gone.
I stare at the door, resolution solidifying inside of me.
The moment I have the opportunity, I’ll kill Devon.
I will slaughter him for what he has done to my family.
Even if he is somehow telling the truth and Dmitry did sell us, I’ll still kill Devon for buying us. For scarring Tati and letting Olivia cry. I’ll murder him.
When I finally turn and take in the rest of the room, Sadie is blinking fast like she is having a seizure, her lips moving around silent words.
“Sadie?” I ask, reaching out.
The second my hand touches her, she collapses forward in a puddle of tears.
“I can’t believe it,” she moans. “Why? Why?”
I can’t answer her questions, so I don’t try. I just rub her back and sing the same song I just sang for Olivia, hoping it might help.
3
Dmitry
Three days have passed since my family was taken. It feels like three years.
I tried to go back to the house once, but I didn’t even make it through the front door.
It felt like crawling into a grave. Like curling up in a coffin.