Chapter 4 FOUR
HEART VAULTING in my throat, pulse banging behind my ears, I cowered, closing my eyes. I was absolutely fucking terrified of this man, bold enough to murder father, strong enough to render Judea useless.
Though, while I braced for the hurt, it never came.
However, his shadow hovered over me until, “I’m not going to hurt you, Anya…”
I didn't open my eyes, didn't answer.
The only sounds were my breathless panting and Judea’s miserable snivel, underneath the low, distant hum of the music
His voice was hoarse and velvety as he rephrased, “I don’t want to hurt you.
Which seemed like a joke because he immediately leaned in and yanked me clean off the floor like I weighed nothing.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins as he swung me over his shoulder. I hit and punched and writhed, a screaming mess of panic, but he never wobbled or slowed down.
My head and hair dangled, the blood rushing, and bile rose up my throat.
The pound of music was immediately replaced by questions from his men the moment he stepped out of the torment room.
“No torture, Boss?"
“Why not? You said to bring her for the torture…
“Like her brother.
“Gun for father…”
“Knife for brother…"
I didn't miss the letdown in the last gruff, accented voice. “So why no torture?”
Sergei said nothing. He just kept walking. The silence from him, and the way the other men seemed let down that I wasn't getting hurt, made the bile crawl higher. If I was in a better situation, I'd flip them off for wanting me to be tormented like a pack of bloodthirsty demon.
I was squirming and kicking for what felt like minutes, held up by one of his arms, when I heard the sudden sound of a door creaking open.
Then I was dropped—not gently—my butt slammed hard onto the cold surface of a marble floor, and the instantaneous pain was near numbing.
I looked up, blinking through the tears in my eyes.
Surprisingly, he'd brought me into a bedroom when I'd expected to be strapped into that chair right after Judea’s death. But this room he’d brought me to looked like it had been specifically cleaned out for me. It had high ceilings, the walls painted a deep grey, and a massive bed with clean purple—a detail that caught my eyes as I briefly scanned—sheet was pushed into the corner.
Over my head, Sergei hovered silently like he was rethinking the decision to drop me like he'd done.
Looking at him now, under the bright light, this big man had an almost innocent, childlike gaze in his eyes. Blank, stoic, but I couldn’t figure out how a man—his shirt bloodied, his fingers stained—could hold the innocent childlike look I was seeing.
He looked softly at me while I glared at him.
For a few seconds, it was overwhelmingly calm. No music, no screaming, no burn in my throat. Just me, him, and the silence biting in while he watched me beneath long lashes.
I tilted my head
He immediately mirrored the action. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, fuck, you don’t!”
He stepped closer, dropping the knife in his hands with a sharp clank against the titles. “Anya—”
Breathless and shaking from all the screaming, I scrambled backward, my ass scraping the marble. “Don’t call my name like you know me, you bastard!”
That stopped him.
For the first time in minutes that I met him, I saw a genuine smile grace the tips of his lips. Which could have been my mind playing tricks on me altogether, because as soon as it appeared, it was gone.
It chilled me to the very bones. Because the looks he gave me as his eyes, beau—
Grey, sexy—
No, I refused to acknowledge that he was painfully, gut-wrenchingly beautiful despite his scar.
He looked like a Nordic god in the wrong era. Like pure Myth, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Hefty shoulders, muscular arms in a plain basic navy blue shirt and oversized grey sweatpants. His plump lips, the lazy look he had in his eyes, every tilt of his head as he watched me….
I refused to acknowledge that he looked like he knew. Like he knew what my sheets smelled like, what my moans sounded like, how I liked my coffee. And the very thought of that knowledge terrified me.
Before I could get another word out, he moved. Two strides and he was over me, dropping into a crouch that brought his massive chest level with my face.
His bloodied fingers gripped my chin, forcing my face up. He pulled me so close our lips almost touched.
The entirety of his being assaulted my senses: the pheromones, the blood, the skin, the warmth.
“If I wanted to hurt you, Anya,” he growled, “I would have done so years ago in Prague when you ran from home at eighteen.”
My heart hammered. “What the—”
“Or Berlin, when you cut your hair and worked at the river-side bar after your father blocked your credit card?”
I gasped.
He leaned even closer, breath hot against my chin.
“Did I hurt you then?”
Without waiting for my response, he gave his answer. “NO. And last semester? When you fucked your Literature and Arts professor—” He paused as if the words hurt him to say and my eyes stung with shame. “Did I hurt you even then? —NO.”
“Did you know I watched you for years? — NO.”
“When you endlessly visited that underground orgy club in your freshman year…. Did I hurt you then?— FUCKING NO.”
Everything he was saying was spot on. My secrets, all of my them, right in the palm of his hands like he'd been God watching me all through my self destructive years.
I’d been bad.
I’d never been good.
All my life, all I did was shove myself into situations that spat in the face of my father’s hypocritical idea of a perfect, disciplined daughter. It didn't matter if I murdered or killed; all that mattered to him was appearances, as long as I wasn't a street whore.
And in spite of him, I’d whored.
I'd whored so fucking hard.
Hating myself through the process, but loving the things I did against Malachi Vescovi.
Sergei, seeing the shock on my face, spoke faster now, each fact hitting hard enough to make me shudder.
“New York? Denver?”
“Why were you following me?” I finally found my voice. “Why didn't I ever notice?”
Ignoring my questions, breathing heavily on me, he continued. “The tattoo you couldn't go through with last year?...” With a quirky dip in his tone, “because of your fear of needles? The street race in New Orleans? California? The guy who kissed you on the balcony and said he’d call?”
“WHY—” I fueled my voice with the bubbling anger now. “...THE FUCK WERE YOU STALKING ME?!”
He didn't even flinch. “I think there’s a difference between stalking and keeping track of what’s yours.”
“Yours?!”
He sneered, “I didn't stutter.”
I could barely quell the pound in my chest, “How the fuck am I yours?”
He looked impatient with the back-and-forth.
“Since your wimp of a brother decided to be mute before he dies, I think I should spill your family lore.” A pause, and then he drops the news on me. “Your father gave you off when you were eighteen.”
My mind seized, “The ... .the marriage to appease your father?”
“No,” he quipped. “That marriage was never about appeasing my father. Your father murdered mine long before that deal was ever proposed.”
He paused, letting the implication sink in.
“That deal was struck with me, not my father. Because a butchered man can’t come from the grave to strike a deal now, can he?”
I caught the strain in his voice at the mention of his father’s death, or rather, gruesome death.
My mouth dried, my eyes locked on his. “But—butchered?”
“While he begged for his life,” he affirmed.
I shook my head, tears blurring my vision, “My dad—”
“Into pieces, Anya.” he interrupted me, voice flat. “While we were forced to watch. I…” He stressed. “I WAS FORCED TO WATCH. And he didn't use a clean knife, either. He used a fucking machete. Chopped my father's fingers off, joint by joint, because he refused to sign a fucking paper.”
My stomach convulsed, I trashed in his hold, trying to get away, but that only caused his fingers crushing harder against my chin.
“No,” he rasped. “I want you to fucking listen to every word.”
“Please,” I begged, “Please no.”
He didn't care about my choices here.
“Your father,” he persisted. “Cut my father's tongue and stapled it to the contract he refused to sign.”
His massive hand dropped from my chin to wrap around my throat. It wasn't a crushing hold, but it was enough to seize my breath as he tugged me closer and roared.
“I am the last of the Morozov bloodline, Anya!”
He was heaving now, trembling. His hold around my neck tightened with each word, spittle landing in flecks over my face.
“My sisters, my brother, my mother… all killed like chickens…. WHILE I WATCHED!”
The pressure clamped down on my windpipe. “You-re you’re hurting me,” I choked.
A desperate, whistling wheeze escaped me, and I felt the hot, pulsing strain of the veins popping in my forehead.
His eyes were violently reddened, and the harsh light overhead showed every etch of frown in his face.
I clawed weakly at his wrist, trashing, begging. “Please–”
That only heightened the anger.
“Please? Please?” He echoed incredulously, “When my father begged, did yours show mercy? When he butchered a man in front of his kids, did he bat a lash at their cries?”
My struggle was pathetic.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me—”
“Do you know what the torture does to you?”
“Please—”
“I still hear the fucking screams!” Even Louder, “I can’t fucking go to sleep without being sedated…”
Hot tears spilled over my face, wetting my cheeks. My lower lip quivered. “Ple-please,” I groveled, the word barely audible over the roaring panic in my ears.
He looked too lost in relieving the moment to realise he was breaking his own promise.
“You are an exchange for my family’s lives. A piece of collateral to secure his debt. A debt paid in flesh.” His nostril flared. “And just twenty bullets, just killing Judea, just OWNING you is not fucking enough! It will never be enough!”
He leaned into my ear, his voice a ragged scream: “You hear me?!”
“Yes!” I screeched, wheezing, my chest rising and falling in desperate spikes.
“You fucking hear me!”
Black spot swam in my vision and I swear I nearly saw the gates of hell. “Yes!”
“I own you.” He roared. “Every inch of you! I will do what I want with you and you have no say!”
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it was over.
His hand flew away.
I collapsed onto the marble, every muscle spasming. I lay there, gulping air, throat stinging, my body a single, quivering, wheezing mess.
The terror was absolute.
Sergei was shaking. He got up in one swift, violent motion, towering over me. He didn't look back at my destroyed state, but walked toward the door in heavy steps.
Paused with his hand on the frame, and gave his last words.“And just because I didn’t hurt you all those years, Anya,” he said, without turning around. “Doesn’t mean it never crossed my mind.”
