28
Isa
Guards hauled open the heavy wooden doors, and Dima wasted no time shoving me inside with his grip on the back of my neck. I stumbled in, my ankles burning with the jarring motion and leaving me to fall forward. I caught myself with palms smacking against the inlaid wood floors, hurrying to get my feet back underneath me. Pavel sat behind his desk, eyeing me with disdain briefly before going back to the paperwork in front of him.
“Tired of your new toy so soon?” he asked his son, his throaty and accented voice forming the words I knew had to be for my benefit. If he hadn’t wanted me to hear just how disposable I was, he would have asked in Russian.
His cold stare came back to me as I stood, holding my chin high and glaring at him. “She’s pregnant,” Dima growled, tossing an arm my way. Pavel studied me, that cold gaze dropping to my belly and studying it intently as he leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands over his chest. Dima accused, “You wasted too much time. If you’d only brought her to me sooner—”
“This is good,” Pavel argued, leaning forward with a cruel smirk. “Do you know what our buyers would pay for an Ibarra brat to play with?”
“She’s mine. I have waited this long, and I will not sell her,” Dima said, approaching me. He grasped my dress in his hands, tugging the fabric until it laid snugly against my stomach to show the small bump to his father. “I want to get rid of it.”
“You will do no such thing,” Pavel said, standing and moving around the desk. He grasped my chin, turning my face side to side and studying the marks his son’s hand had left. “You can keep your precious pet, so long as you do not endanger the child. I want it alive, and I will decide what we do with it in the end. Just think of how we can torment Rafael. We not only have his American whore of a wife, but we have the only heir to the Ibarra legacy. We can controlEl Diablo, Dima.”
“He will never give you what you want if you allow your son to touch me. You must know that,” I spat, wincing at the way the twist of my face hurt the swelling of my cheekbone.
“Surely you must know that he assumes you’ve already been raped and used. That is the Kuznetsov way, and your husband is very aware of what we do with the women under our control,” Pavel said, stepping back. He eyed the bandages on my wrists and ankles and leveled his son with an unimpressed stare.
I had a feeling if it had not been for the baby, he’d have tied me in barbed wire all over again to undo the small kindness his son had shown.
“Take her to her room. I’ll send Karine and the kids to the summer house until you have your new toy under control,” Pavel instructed Dima.
Dima nodded, reaching out to take my hand in his.
I slapped it away, the crack of my skin against his echoing through the still office. He wrapped that hand around my wrist, pressing into my wounds. I refused to cower, to show the pain he caused on my face. Holding his glare with one of my own, I knew he would break my wrist before I gave in.
Rafael had earned my submission. He’d shown me what it was to be loved by him, and how things could be on the other side of our battle of wills.
I would not allow Dima to break me, not when I’d survived so much just to be reborn.
“Gentle, Dima. Isa is now our guest, and if you were wise you would remember that she is vulnerable. No matter how she may bluster and put on a brave face right now, she’s already given you her weakness,” Pavel said, grinning as he moved to sit behind his desk once more. “After all, what mother wouldn’t do anything to protect her child?”
I turned back to Dima, watching his face twist with satisfaction. He took my hand once again, grinning happily when I didn’t slap his touch away. “I have something I want to show you, ??? ?????.”
He dragged me out of the office, his frenzied pace up to the second story of the palatial property straining my ankles. Blood soaked the bandages as the movements continued to aggravate my wounds.
The room he brought me to practically dripped with amber and gold, from the patterned wallpaper to the cream bedding with gold threads. It couldn’t have looked more like a gilded cage if he’d tried, the rich luxury of European royalty had to be a play on the notorious Amber Room that was lost to history.
“I had it designed for you,” Dima said, leading me into the intricate room. “A queen should have nothing but the best.”
“I may beaqueen,” I snarled. “But I will never be yours.”
“And yet here you are, in the rooms I designed for you. In the bed I will share. I have already won, Isabel. The time has come for you to accept it,” he said, forcing me to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m sure you must be tired. I’ll allow you to take a nap before dinner, but first…” He stood, grabbing a remote off the nightstand. A screen popped down from the ceiling, and after the press of a few buttons, my face filled the blank screen.
No. Not mine. Odina’s.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Dima said, clasping my chin in his grip. His lips touched mine softly, raising bile I wouldn’t even attempt to push back. Perhaps if I was sick all over him, he wouldn’t risk touching me again.
He pulled away, staring at my lips and then making his way to the door. It closed behind him, the mechanical sound of the passcode-controlled locks clicking into place.
With trembling hands, I lifted the remote and found the play button. I hesitated, wondering if I really needed to hear whatever my sister had to say. Rafael’s name had already been carved into her neck, and she wore the same dress I now wore.
The one they’d changed me into after knocking me unconscious. I hadn’t even had a moment to realize the dress wasn’t my own, but I longed for the one I’d chosen earlier that morning.
It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Pressing the button, I watched Odina’s face contort with hatred. Listened to her tell me how she hated me. She detailed her suffering at Dima’s hands, the feeling of water filling her lungs in his tank and his knife carving through her to mark her with Rafael’s name.