Bind Me

Chapter 4

4

Lucas

“How old were you when it happened?” I ask, moving my hand to the back of her neck to massage the tense muscles there. Yulia’s body is shaking as I hold her in my lap, and a fresh surge of rage knots my insides.

Someone hurt her, badly, and I’m going to make that person pay.

“Fifteen,” she answers, and I hear the catch in her voice.

Fifteen. I force myself to remain still and not give in to the volcanic violence boiling within me. I’d suspected it was something like that. Her voice as she screamed had been high-pitched, almost childish, the words tumbling out in either Russian or Ukrainian.

“Who was he?” Keeping my voice even, I continue my little massage. It seems to be soothing her, easing some of her trembling. Her face color matches my white sheets, her blue eyes dark in the dim light of the bedside lamp. She might be twenty-two, but at this moment, she looks impossibly young.

Young and incredibly fragile.

“His name—” She swallows. “His name was Kirill. He was my trainer.”

Kirill. I make a mental note of that. I’ll need his last name to mobilize a search, but at least I already have something. Then the second part of what she said sinks in.

“Your trainer?”

She averts her gaze. “One of them. His specialty was hand-to-hand combat.”

Motherfucker. A fifteen-year-old girl—hell, even a grown man—wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“And the people you work for allowed this?” The rage creeps into my voice, and she flinches, almost imperceptibly. Not wanting to frighten her, I take a deep breath, trying to regain control. She’s still looking away from me, her eyes trained on some spot to the left of me, so I slide my hand into her hair and gently cup her skull, bringing her attention back to me.

“Yulia, please.” With effort, I even out my tone. “Did they sanction this?”

“No.” Her lips curl with bitter irony. “That’s the thing. They didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

She laughs, the sound raw and full of pain. “They should’ve just sanctioned it. Then he wouldn’t have been angry like that.”

My blood feels both hot and icy. “Tell me.”

“He started coming on to me when I turned fifteen, right after I got my braces off.” Her gaze drifts away from mine again. “I was an ugly child, you see—tall, skinny, and awkward—but when I grew up, I looked better. Boys started liking me, and men began noticing me as well. It happened almost overnight.”

“And he was one of the men.”

She nods, returning her attention to me. “Yes. He was one of the men. It wasn’t a big deal at first. He’d hold me a little longer on a mat, or he’d make me practice a move a few extra times so he could touch me. I didn’t even realize he was interested, not until—” She stops abruptly, a tremor running over her skin.

“Not until what?” I prompt, trying to remain calm enough to listen.

“Not until he cornered me in the locker room.” She swallows again. “He caught me after a shower, and he touched me. All over.”

Motherfucking piece of s**t. I want to kill the man so badly I can taste it.

“What happened then?” I force myself to ask. It’s not the end of the story, I can tell that much.

“I reported him.” A shudder runs through Yulia’s slim body. “I went to the head of the program and told him about Kirill.”

“And?”

“And they fired him. They told him to go away and have nothing to do with me ever again.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No,” she agrees dully. “He didn’t.”

I take a breath and brace myself. “What did he do to you?”

“He came to the dormitory where I lived, and he raped me.” Her voice is flat, and her gaze slides away from me again. “He said he was punishing me for what I did.”

The words knock the breath out of me. The parallels don’t escape me. I, too, planned to use s*x as punishment, sating my lust on her body and showing her how little she meant to me at the same time.

In fact, that’s what I did earlier tonight, when I took her roughly, ignoring her struggles.

“Yulia…” For the first time in years, I feel the bitter lash of self-hatred. No wonder she panicked when I had her pinned on the hallway floor. “Yulia, I—”

“The doctors said I was lucky the other trainees found me when they did,” she continues, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Otherwise, I’d have bled out.”

“Bled out?” A swell of rage tightens my throat. “The fucker hurt you that badly?”

“I was hemorrhaging,” she explains, her face oddly calm as she meets my gaze again. “It was my first time, and he was rough. Very rough.”

The motherfucking bastard’s death will be slow. Very slow. I picture myself using some of Peter Sokolov’s techniques on the trainer, and the fantasy steadies me enough that I can ask evenly, “What is his last name?”

Yulia blinks, and I see some of her unnatural calm dissipating. “His name doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” I clasp her shoulders, feeling the delicacy of her bones. “Come on, sweetheart. Just tell me his name.”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeats. Her gaze hardens as she adds, “He doesn’t matter. He’s dead. He’s been dead for six years.”

Fuck. So much for that fantasy.

“Did you kill him?” I ask.

“No.” Her eyes glitter like shards of broken glass. “I wish I had. I wanted to, but the head of our program sent an assassin for him instead.”

“So they deprived you of vengeance.” I know most people would be glad that a young girl didn’t get a chance to commit murder, but I’ve never believed in turning the other cheek. There’s a certain satisfaction in revenge, a sense of closure. It doesn’t undo the past, but it can help one feel better about it.

I know, because it helped me.

Yulia doesn’t respond, and I realize I’ve hit a sore spot. She resents them for this, this agency she refuses to speak about—this “head of the program,” who should’ve protected her from the trainer to begin with.

Would she give them up if I asked her about them now? She’s raw and vulnerable after reliving her painful past. I would be a real bastard to take advantage of that. Except if I do, I could have the information I need, and I wouldn’t have to hurt her.

I would keep her safe, and nobody would hurt her ever again.

Yesterday, I would’ve pushed the thought aside, dismissing it as a weakness, but no more. I have been lying to myself all these weeks, and it’s time to admit it. I won’t be able to torture her. When I try to picture myself using my knife on her the way I did on that trespasser, my stomach turns. Even before her nightmare, I couldn’t bring myself to treat Yulia like I would a real prisoner, and now that I know how much she’s already suffered, the idea of causing her more pain makes me physically ill.

Reaching a decision, I say quietly, “Tell me about the program.” This is my best chance to get the required information, and I have to use it, even if it means exploiting Yulia’s vulnerability. Still holding her gaze, I move one of my hands to her nape and rub it gently. “Who are the people who recruited you?”

She freezes on my lap, and I see a flash of pain contort her features before they smooth into a beautiful mask. “The program?” Her voice sounds cold and distant. “I don’t know anything about it.”

And pushing me away, she leaps off the bed and sprints out of the room.