My EX's Mafia Twin

3. The nightmare so far begins.

3. THE NIGHTMARE SO FAR BEGINS.

Katarina.

My body is heavy, so heavy that opening my eyes or moving my little finger becomes a challenge I can't manage.

Despite the constant ringing in my ears and the pounding headache, I hear voices.

Russian.

They continue to speak in Russian.

This time I don't understand what they are saying, they speak too fast for my foggy brain. What I do know is that they are dragging me into a place that feels cold and damp. I feel one arm being lifted, hear it being grabbed in shackles and move to the other, until I'm dangling, my feet barely grazing the floor.

My head hangs from my neck and though I want to get up and look at where I am, I can't, I just can't.

Suddenly, a hand runs up my thigh, tantalizing bare skin.

I tense, struggling to put up a fight, but my body still doesn't respond.

"Remember, she's still the boss's daughter, we were warned about her" a husky voice speaks in Russian.

The hand caresses me some more and when I think I'm going to be raped, the touch disappears and leaves me alone.

"f**k, it's a shame."

Laughter, demeaning words and footsteps walking away.

And I fall back into oblivion.

|...|

I am finally able to open my eyes, slowly and with difficulty, but I open them, blinking a little at a time until I get some lucidity.

At first I don't understand what's going on. All I see is an empty, damp, musty room. The cold seeps into my bones, the ball gown is still on my skin and when I try to cover myself with my arms for warmth, I can't. I'm hanging in shackles.

I am hanging in shackles.

I move my arms, only to stagger in the air because my feet barely touch the floor. My shoulders feel as if they are going to pop out of my skin from the weight they bear and little by little the pain in the rest of my body awakens, increasing my agony.

What am I doing here?

I move my wrists from side to side, looking for an escape, but only succeed in making the iron scrape my skin, making this position more difficult.

"Get me out of here!" I scream, but in reality my voice comes out as a hoarse, hurt scratch. "Get me out of here!"

I scream some more, but no one comes.

I shake hard once more and feel something tear at my shoulder, my feet lose support with the floor and my body lurches back and forth, dangling like an offering, a sacrifice about to be taken.

I swallow a scream of agony as the pain in my shoulders becomes unbearable.

What the hell is this?

I look in all directions, trying to make sense of this, but it doesn't make sense.

Nothing has.

My skin goes goose bumps when I hear footsteps, heavy footsteps approaching me. They walk in what I'm sure is an empty hallway, the soles of their shoes hitting the damp floor causing me to shiver slightly and the footsteps feel closer and closer, leaving me with only the option of waiting.

Imposing.

Vulnerable.

And exposed.

I am at the mercy of whoever enters, I am at the mercy of whoever.

With difficulty, I move my head back in an attempt to move my hair away from my face and as my fingertips touch the solid floor again, an older man enters. He is big, tall and his features are dark, dangerous. As soon as his eyes meet mine, an evil shiver runs through my body.

"You are the spitting image of your mother."

I slap my wrists against the shackles, ignoring the pain, I just want to get out of here.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Demyan Ivanov, milaya."

"I'm not your sweetheart" I growl at him.

And an almost secret smile stretches across his lips.

"Your mother must have taught you Russian, milaya, I'm glad."

The way this man looks at me, it makes me nauseous. There's no lust there, just a deep, twisted satisfaction. Like he likes what he sees. Like he already has a plan for me.

"Who the f**k are you, you son of a b***h?"

I tense as he takes several steps forward, until he stops right in front of me, his body trying to intimidate my much weaker one.

"Be very careful, Katarina Volkov, don't mistake kindness for weakness. You don't want to know what happens to men who insult me less than you have."

"Kindness?" I growl, moving my wrists that are held tightly in shackles. "You call this kindness?"

"This position is a warning of how far my reach goes if you disobey."

I look at him defiantly as he grabs my chin roughly, making my jaw ache. But I don't focus on the physical pain, I focus on the rage I feel inside.

"Let go of me."

His black eyes slowly roam over my face, taking in my every feature. It is unsettling and alarming how he evaluates me so closely, until he releases the words that turn my life upside down.

"My daughter... isn't it wonderful to see how you are physically identical to your mother, but you've managed to let my character dominate your personality?"

I blink, looking at him unflinchingly.

"You're out of your mind."

"Am I?" He raises an eyebrow at me, releasing my jaw to pull a lock of my hair back. There's no affection in his gesture, just a cold calculation that matches the ice in his eyes. "Soon after she married Elijah, on one of her visits to Russia to visit your grandmother, your dear mother had an affair with me and returned to your country with a gift from me in her womb."

"No, she didn't."

"Why do you think your father hates you so much, huh?" He asks slowly. "Elijah Campbell is not your real father, I suspect deep down you always knew that, didn't you, Katarina Volkov?" He laughs as he vocalizes my mother's maiden name. "He didn't even give you his last name, what was his excuse?"

"Katarina Volkov would have more impact on the world than Katarina Campbell" I repeat robotically.

"And you believed him?"

I just stare at him as he looks at me with mock pity.

"Why would he raise a daughter who is not his? It doesn't make any sense."

"He saw you as a business" he says simply, "I also suspect that he used your unhappiness as a form of revenge towards your weak mother. And what famous man wants to expose an infidelity on the part of his wife? A man's ego can be very easy to break" he moves closer to me. "I can think of a thousand other excuses, choose the one that makes you happiest."

None of this makes me happy.

"And what's yours?" I ask, moving my face in his direction, "What's your excuse for letting another man raise your own daughter?"

"Selflessness" he takes a step away from me, looking down at me in his imposing height as I lie there, dangling like the object he thinks I am.

"Just say it, what do you want from me?"

"You will give me the connections I need, the alliances to enlarge my empire" he holds out his hands. "Welcome to your new world, Katarina Volkov, welcome to the Bratva. You will never go back."

I laugh, looking away until I look back at him.

"You said it, I am Katarina Volkov," I emphasize, "do you think the world will not notice my absence?"

"Katarina, Katarina, my milaya" he denies slowly towards me, "who would notice you when at present your career is already underground?"

"What?"

He laughs, the son of a b***h laughs.

"Did you think your lack of important roles were a coincidence?" He puts on an expression of regret, regret towards me, which makes me clench my molars in rage. "I've been planning this for almost three years and now that the cards are finally in place, you'll begin to play your role as my daughter."

"You'll have to kill me first."

"Or your mother" he raises his eyebrows at me, smiling.

"My mother?" This time I'm the one laughing. "The same one who looked the other way while I was kidnapped? Why do you think I would care what you do to her?"

He answers me nothing, as if he knows my words are lies. He seems to look down on my performance.

Knowing how he has me in the palm of his hand, at his mercy... it only makes me hate him more.

My father?

I don't have a father.

I've never had one.

And I'm beginning to understand that I never had a mother either.

At least, not the woman I expected her to be.

"Come here" Demyan Ivanov says to someone, a man who until now I notice was always hidden in the shadows. "You know what you have to do, you are the only one I trust to educate her."

And stepping back, Demyan walks away, leaving me in the hands of an unknown man, not that anyone here looks familiar. They're all a threat and it will freeze hell before any of them get away with it. But with him gone, my body seems to remember the weight of the last day and my head drops, hanging from my neck with no strength at all.

The strength I tried to maintain in front of Demyan fades and all that remains is my bruised body and the emotional weight of his revelation.

"Don't you dare touch me" I warn the asshole as I hear and see his footsteps approaching me. His feet are all I see, I can't see anything else, my head refuses to lift.

It's as if I don't speak, Demyan's goon advances and slowly begins to remove the shackles, one by one. My feet struggle to kick, but the truth is that the effort only makes my shoulders scream in agony. I bite my teeth, choking back a wrenching sob as a doll is released. Unwillingly and hating myself for this show of weakness, my body falls forward. My face crashes into a strong chest and an all too familiar scent that, moreover, haunts me every night, invades my nostrils.

Katarina, you're freaking out.

My other wrist is released and I grit my teeth again, choking back the wrenching pain my body suffers. I stagger and as I begin to slip to the floor, a firm arm reaches across my waist and pulls me tighter to that warm body.

I feel myself fade, my back and head fall back, his arm around my waist squeezes me like a shackle, muscular and strong, able to hold me with ease. And with my eyes about to close... I see him.

I blink, struggling not to disconnect.

Not now.

Abundant beard covers his jawline, jaw and cheeks, but that does nothing to hide the scar that runs across his face, from one corner of his brow down, diagonally across his cheekbone and cheek.

His abundant lashes frame the brown eyes that haunt me at night, darker and more devoid of feeling than I remember, but the same eyes I can't get rid of no matter how hard I try. A pair of eyes I'd recognize in the midst of a million others.

His brown hair, more frayed than I remember it, is pulled back in a bun, but a careless lock falls across his forehead, brushing against his scar, further shadowing his eyes.

For a moment I doubt, I doubt it's him.

It can't possibly be him.

"You..."

"Shhh, ice princess" he whispers to me in his hoarse voice, "rest, the nightmare so far begins."

And with his face swimming behind my closed eyelids, I fall into another nightmare.