“How can I help you?” he asks, like this is a normal function and not one of my nightmares.
“Tequila and lime, please.” I inhale again, deeper.
“Make mine a Vodka neat.”
My world stops.
My breathing stops.
Everything stills.
I feel Sergei step beside me and it’s like a heavy blanket is thrown over me, weighing me down, pinning me to the ground. He says nothing as the bartender pours our easy orders, and I stand there with my heart thumping in my ears. There’s something wrong with my legs, they won’t move. I want to run, my brain is screaming for me to run, but my legs won’t fucking move.
The bartender slides our drinks across the bar, Sergei takes his, but my hands have also forgotten how to work, so my liquid courage stays mocking me on the counter.
“It’s time to come home, moya lyubov’.” He takes a sip of his drink and speaks in a calm but firm voice.
The last eighteen months of freedom disintegrates in front of me, my heart rate skyrockets, and I break out in a cold sweat from panic. My body’s reaction to him is instinctual, it’s why I am paralysed, but my mind is still fighting, my mind is always fighting.
“I’m not coming back.” Good girl Lilly, it doesn’t matter how quiet those words were said, it doesn’t make it less true.
“Feeling brave, are we?” He turns to face me, and I can see him from the corner of my eye.
There’s no way I want to do the same, so I stay focused on the bottle of Malibu in front of me. But his voice knocks my bravado down and my knees want to buckle from his words.
“I can’t imagine this little act of rebellion can be worth what will happen when you get home. Can you?”
Bile rises in my throat, and his confidence sends chills throughout my body, but breaking down is not an option. I won’t give him that. He’s trying to scare me, but Ren says he can protect me. It’s not going to happen; I’m never going back.
So, I don’t turn and don’t answer him. I don’t drink either, because my body has forgotten how to function, I just stand there. But even in this it’s defiant to him, so I will hold on to whatever slither of power I have.
Even if it’s fleeting.
“Seems to me you have forgotten how to behave.” He steps closer, close enough that I can feel him as he smells my hair and breathes in deeply. “Oh, but how I am going to enjoy teaching you again.”
His voice drips with desire, desire to hurt me and make me submit. Then he reaches into his pocket, and I hear the unmistakable clinking of handcuffs. The sound that is committed to memory. The sound of pain.
I flinch and close my eyes, and tears prickle under my lids.
“Eyes,” he commands.
And like a trained puppy, I turn to face him. His stare is filled with rage and lust, so intense it tells me all I need to know.
He has not given up.
He will never give up.
I am fucked.
“You have until Friday.” He doesn’t look away as he puts his empty glass down. “If you’re smart, you won’t keep me waiting that long.”
With the gauntlet thrown, he turns and storms to the other side of the bar and out an exit that leads away from the party. But his words linger over me, his warning, his promise.
I gasp in air, gripping the bar to help me stand. My heart races, and my throat is closing up. Over and over, I inhale, in and out, trying to calm my raging emotions.
I need out.
I need out of this place.