31
Isa
Pavel barked orders at his son in Russian, and Dima shifted me off his lap so he could stand. The motion of his hands on my waist guided my body through the movements, imitating them as if I was still alive.
As if my heart hadn’t stalled in my chest the moment I realized that Pavel wanted to trade me for Rafael. He had to know they would never follow through on that deal. He had to know that it would only end in both of us being held captive and in danger.
He had to know that would be the final straw that broke me. I could survive most anything.
Just not that.
In the corner of my eye, I watched Dima step around the desk. His gaze felt heavy on the side of my face, but I couldn’t tear my attention off the black screen in front of me. Off the lack of Rafe’s face.
Even as cold as he’d seemed, I’d taken a few moments of comfort in the sight of his face staring back at me. The cold surface was a ploy, a deception to make Pavel and Dima believe I didn’t matter to him as much as I did.
“Behave, ??? ?????,” Dima said, finally nodding his head at his father where he stood behind me. There was nothing but silence when he left the room, and Pavel studied me relentlessly as I dealt with my grief.
“It is a shame,” Pavel said finally, standing beside me and taking my elbow in his grip. “I hoped for Dima’s sake that you didn’t truly loveEl Diablo.It will pain him to realize you will never truly love him in the way he hopes.” He lifted me to my feet, ignoring the way I stumbled and clenched the edge of the desk in my desperation to remain next to the one connection I had with Rafe. It didn’t matter that it had been severed, that his face no longer filled the screen.
I couldn’t bear the thought that it might have been the last time I felt his eyes on mine, the last time I looked into that dark and dangerous stare.
No matter what he led the Kuznetsovs to believe, Rafael Ibarra loved me, and he would come for me. I knew that with every fiber of my being, and I knew that no matter what happened, we wouldn’t go down without a fight.
We’d protect one another. We’d struggle and be together again. We would find a way, until the moment that death parted us forever.
Pavel guided me to a shelf against the wall opposite of his desk, lifting a file from the organizer on the top. He opened it, extracting a photo and handing it to me while he studied my face. I took it in a trembling grasp, my thumb running over the photo of a girl. It was like looking at a ghost, a girl who was barely alive and suffocated in the weight of her own mistakes.
How long had I lived that way, suffering and unable to cope with the choices I’d made to the point that I never truly experienced anything?
“I didn’t recognize you at first,” Pavel said, reaching over a veined finger to touch the photo where the scar showed on my thigh. It was summer in the photo, one of the rare instances my mother had managed to maneuver me into shorts before I was older and my protests made it not worth the effort. “But that scar of yours is unique. I’ve sold hundreds of young girls, scouted out thousands as potential products. Never have I come across that scar,” he said, shifting his eyes down my body. From his vantage point and being taller than me, I knew there was no way he could see the white lines that wrapped around my thigh, but I still felt the weight of his stare as if his eyes caressed my skin.
“You’re a fool,” I said, handing him back the photo. I wanted nothing more than to deny that the girl in the photo was me, but he and Dima knew enough. I’d all but confirmed it that day when I video chatted with Dima unintentionally, and anything I might not have provided would have been confirmed by Odina anyway. “All of this for one girl? I’m not worth a war.”
“Your husband would seem to disagree,” he observed. He replaced the photo in the file on the shelf, using his grip at my elbow to steer me from the room. “He’s spent the last several hours preparing for exactly that, gathering the forces he has at his disposal and local enough to be of use to him.”
“How do you know that?” I couldn’t imagine a world where Rafe hadn’t yet discovered that Sigrid had betrayed him, that he hadn’t been as relentless as a bloodhound in the pursuit of finding everyone who’d been involved in her betrayal.
I wasn’t sure if my sister still breathed, and something empty inside me pulsed with concern. Not for her life, but for my lack of capacity to care. Was it possible to be human and not care if my twin was dead?
Could I be any better than the monsters I claimed to hate?
“Sigrid is most likely dead, but that doesn’t mean I do not have spies within Stockholm who can see preparations being made.”
Pavel led me down the hall, not pausing to give me time to fully take in my surroundings. The flash of columns on one side supported a nook with a sitting area, the other side covered in heavy blue and gold curtains that I suspected covered windows. Why anyone would want to hide the view of the flowers and grounds outside was beyond me, but I wasn’t about to ask my captor why he shunned all things beautiful.
We crossed through what had to be the front entryway, the grand foyer of marble gleaming as he tugged me with a relentless grip. A woman and two children hurried down one of the curving staircases, her feet freezing in place as her eyes locked on me.
There was disbelief there, accompanied by a flash of hurt. She turned her eyes down to her children, touching the tops of their heads softly. One was a little boy who couldn’t have been more than six, and the other boy was even younger than that. “This is why you’re sending us away?” she yelled after Pavel. “So one of his whores can come out of the basement?”
Pavel froze, wrenching my body around when he spun so suddenly I almost couldn’t catch my balance. I stumbled, only that hold on my elbow keeping me upright. “I am sending you away to keep you alive. What do you think Dima will do with the woman he’s grown tired of when she becomes too much of a nuisance for him to truly enjoy his favored pet?” he asked, the growing harshness of his tone making me blink back my shock.
The woman was the mother of his grandsons. To be so calloused when discussing her murder at her husband’s hands… I’d thought I knew what monsters were. I’d thought Rafael was a nightmare given flesh.
I’d been wrong. He was a dark knight, too tarnished to be white, but sweeping in to protect me from the evil who sought to break me in his own twisted way. To use me until there was nothing left and then burn the shell of who I’d been to ashes in the wind.
I couldn’t meet the woman’s eyes as she nodded, putting hands on her children’s backs and ushering them out the front door. The kids disappeared, accompanied by a woman dressed in a black uniform that they seemed comfortable with. She turned at the last moment, clearing her throat until I met her gaze. “He’ll tire of you too.”
“I hope so,” I said back, my gaze torn from hers as Pavel took me toward an elaborate path of rooms. She steeled her shoulders, stepping into the light outside and disappearing from sight. I had the uncomfortable realization that if Dima had his way, she might never return to her own home.