Chapter 5 FIVE

JUDEA’S SCREAMS bounced off the walls the rest of the night while I rolled over in bed, trying to smother the sound with pillows over my face. It was impossible to sleep when the image of my brother strapped to a chair, being brutally tormented, kept replaying in my head like a sick loop I couldn’t stop.

I kept getting up, pacing the room, trembling, rubbing the skin around my neck just to feel something normal. Back and forth. Back and forth. Over and over again.

At one point, I twisted the doorknob even though I knew it was locked from the outside. Then I went to the windows and pushed them open. The cold wind hit me first, then the reality that the room overlooked a mountain. When I leaned out to gauge the distance, the wind whipped my hair into my mouth and eyes, tangling it around my neck. One jump from this height meant my skull smashing against rock and my brain splattered on display.

I swallowed a knot of dread and stumbled back to the bed. My shoulders ached. My brother’s screams kept the panic boiling and I needed it to stop. I needed to block the sound out, but even under the pillows, I could still hear him.

By the time it finally died out, morning light was already filtering through the white drapes, and I was drenched in sweat. My hair stuck to my face, my skin clammy despite the chill creeping in from the fog that hung over the mountains outside.

It took a few seconds—through the blur in my eyes from getting a few minutes of sleep in—for reality to sink in that I wasn’t in my Uni apartment anymore.

I wasn’t safe.

I wasn’t anywhere familiar.

A pounding headache dragged through my skull, and with my throat dry, I cursed at the Russian men who had dragged me off campus and at Sergei for sending them.

I’d only slept maybe an hour, but it was enough to shove me into one of those vivid dreams that had been hitting me ever since I quit coke.

This time, surprisingly, it featured my father.

He stood over the old, rusted double burner from our house in Oklahoma. A pan sizzling in front of him. Grease stained the apron he wore, which was the first strange thing I noticed, because I had never seen my father cook, not even once. But now he had a floral apron tied around his waist, the same one my mother used to wear. He was smiling as he chopped something, glancing at me across the room where I sat perched on a wobbly dining chair, toes curled in anticipation like a kid waiting for breakfast.

Then, my gaze dropped to my fingers and I realized with a shock that they weren't thin or aggressively chewed on like my real ones.

They were soft and plump like a child’s, smeared with a streak of red.

For a second, I thought the red was jam—strawberries, maybe.

It was sticky

But it wasn’t jam sticky.

I leaned in closer and a second later, my eyes blew wide.

Blood!

While I panicked frantically, dad kept chopping, humming beneath his breath like he didn’t hear the noise I made when I finally realized what was in the pan. Not bacon, or meat, but fingers.

Shredded, frying, reddening fingers…

And the blood was on my hands while somehow, his stayed clean with every chop.

Before I could shake off the remnant of the nightmare, three bangs slammed against the room door causing me to jolt into a sitting position.

“Hey!” a voice barked from the other side. “Boss wants you up in ten minutes. We’re leaving!”

My throat burned when I croaked, “Leaving to where?”

“Wherever the boss wants,” he replied.

“Well, I demand to know.”

“Wherever the boss wants,” he shot back, louder.

I pressed my palm to my temple and groaned through the pounding in my skull. “Where is my brother?”

“What do you think?” the voice sneered.

“Is he still alive?”

There was a pause, then a huff. “You ask too many questions and it disgusts me.”

Since I knew exactly how to get under this asshole’s skin, I pushed it further. “Well,” I said calmly, “you’re entertaining my questions, aren't you?”

And in response, the bastard drove a kick into the wood—hard enough to rattle the frame—before his footsteps disappeared down the hallway. “Fucking bitch doesn’t know how to shut up,” I heard him mutter as he went. “She thinks she's a princess here.”

I clenched my jaw, feeling utterly sick, muttering a string of curses into the empty room.

However, the ten minutes rolled by faster than I expected. I was still sitting at the edge of the bed, rubbing the sore skin around my neck, when I heard the sharp click of keys turning in the lock.

A second later, before I could brace myself for whoever would be walking in, the door burst open.

I flinched, instantly shrinking back.

Sergei Morozov filled the frame, arms crossed across his chest, a scowl on his face. He was wearing a simple gray cotton shirt and tight jeans but his muscles beneath the material flexed with every rise and fall of his chest. He had a baseball cap pulled low, and his brown hair spilled slightly over his ears and forehead beneath the brim.

“Get up, we’re leaving.”

His left lip was tilted in an expression of pure disgust, a movement that clearly enhanced the scar that ran from the corner of his mouth up to his cheek.

He looked like he hated me this morning.

“Where is my brother?” I asked immediately, the question ripping itself from my throat before I could stop it.

His face darkened instantly. “I think I made it clear last night that speaking or asking questions without being told to will get you the wrong type of answers. I do not want to have to kill you, Anya.”

He didn’t look like he was bluffing.

“Get up. We’re leaving,” he repeated.

I got out of the bed, nearly swaying when my sneaker-clad feet—which I hadn’t taken off last night—touched the ground. Through the fog in my head, I wobbled like a toddler learning to walk, never taking my eyes off my preparator.

While for a few seconds yesterday, Sergei had looked at me softly, now he showed pure disgust beneath the shadows of his baseball hat.

I tried not to ask. I fucking tried, but my brain and my lips weren't cooperating, and I fucking asked, “Where are we going?”

It looked like a fuse blew behind his eyes. “NO QUESTIONS.”

He took a step forward.

I stepped back, the memory of his fingers around my neck gutwrenching. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”

That didn’t stop him.

In two heavy strides, he was across the room, and looming over me. I was supposed to be scared and threatened—I was scared and threatened—but my eyes kept locking on the plump, red curve of his mouth. His pheromones, from this proximity, was strong and musky beneath the faint scent of his cologne.

Yesterday, I’d guessed he was roughly seven feet tall, but I wasn’t certain. 6’5, maybe? Nothing less. This fucker’s height was real. He was so tall, I had to tilt my head up to look at him.

And he looked as strong as the men I’d read about, fantasied about, the men I’d closed my eyes and envisioned while lanky college boys touched me.

“Don’t push me, Anya,” He gritted,  “I’m already restraining.”

My stomach turned queasy at the warning.

“Sorry,” I repeated, my voice small like a child’s. “I won’t ask any more questions. I promise.”

For a few seconds, he just glared.

His eyes fell to my trembling lip, and then past it, to my neck where I was sure his fingers had left bruises from last night.

I almost wondered what would happen if I pushed him.

If I let him lose his restraint, would I be dead?

Or worse—better—would he take that lethal restraint and use it, his massive hand crushing my throat while his fingers—two of them—pumped wildly into my pussy?

Horrible thoughts, but I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to him, the man that had murdered my father, and most likely even my brother too.

But fucking hell, looking at the veins slithering up his folded arms, I wanted him to touch me.

Not to kill me, but to use that brutal strength to pin me against the bed, making me whimper as he teased me with his fingers.

Whilst I was ruminating over this psycho putting his hands on me, he turned to walk away, and I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

However, he paused as soon as he reached the doorway, and without turning back, tossed the answer to my  over his shoulder.

“If you must know,” he said.

The suddenness of the reply leaving me stunned.

“We’re going to Oklahoma.”

My mouth fell open.  “What?”

In two words, he confirmed my worst nightmare. “Nichols Hills.”