I looked away, turned my head to the side to stare at the wall, and heard him heave a sigh behind me.
“If you won’t listen, then maybe you don’t need your ears. Maybe you don’t even need your whole bloody head.”
I saw him raise the sledgehammer from the corner of my eye, but then he stopped, maybe for the camera.
“Wait, this could kill you,” he said, and I heard the crack when the hammer landed on the concrete floor of the room. “I don’t want you dead just yet.”
His hands grabbed me by the sides of my head, and he forced my head back. He was bent over me, smiling, his medium length brown hair falling forward.
“Did you know, lovely Katya, that I asked your darling Alex to give me everything you both have in New York in exchange for you, and he refused.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Really, because I can. He just doesn’t understand what could happen to you here, that’d why I decided to make an educational video. To teach him.”
My lips were sealed.
Maxim leaned closer to me and whispered. “That’s why I need you to beg him to save you. Cry and weep like a little baby because I promised some dogs a bone, and you’ll be what I’ll throw to them if I don’t get what I want.”
“If you think I will cry, Maxim, then you don’t deserve the credit people give you.”
He hushed me and shook his head as if he was scolding a child. “You don’t understand what these men will do to something so…seductive as you. If you think I’m a wild animal, wait until you meet my friends, it will be a whole treat, I promise. They will tear into you like cardboard, so do something for yourself, my dear. Do what I tell you, ok?”
He eased up a bit, but I spat in his face and said loud enough so Alex and anybody else watching could hear me.
“Khuy tebé! I will do nothing for you.”
Maxim let me and wiped his face.
Then he took my head again and bashed my face with his forehead. I grimaced, but he’d only just started.
The assaults were fast, hard, precise.
He walked around to my front, stepping to the side so the camera could capture it perfectly. Then he placed a hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly, and buried a punch in my stomach.
I lurched forward against the restraints and his strong hold, but he didn’t stop. The punches kept coming until I coughed out blood, whether from the assault on my stomach or the injury in my mouth, I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t care; all I focused on was not crying out.
Not a sound would come out of me, not for his pleasure.
He came back again, gripping my throat and pulling at it while pushing down on my shoulder with his other hand. It felt as if he was trying to dislodge my neck from my body, all while strangling me.
“You know,” he said, staring down at me with darkened eyes. “I just realized that this is no way to treat a woman. I mean, of course I’m having fun, but there’re better ways to have even more fun, wouldn’t you agree, Katya?”
I gasped for air but glared at him with hard eyes. My hands gripped at nothing bound behind the chair. I was starting to feel lightheaded.
“Yes.” He let me go, and I fell forward, coughing and gasping for air. Maxim walked around me and gripped my hair, pulling my head back and exposing my neck. Then he leaned down and ran his nose along it, sending bile up my throat.
He took in a deep breath and sighed.
“Ales, I know you have no children yet, but if there were any children about, I advise that you don’t let them watch the next video. Since you refuse to give me what I ask for, I fully intend to enjoy all the assets I currently have at my disposal.”
My hatred for Maxim Triev could not have intensified if he turned out to be the devil himself. But I would allow that video to end like that.
As loud as I could, gritting through the pain maxim was inflicting on my skull, I shouted to Ales, because I knew he was watching.
“Forget me, Ales,” I said, “don’t do anything he says. If you find me dead, I want you to burn everything to the fucking ground!”