Chapter 18
1435 Words
18Yulia
My pulse hammers with anxiety as we walk silently to the bathroom. I can feel Lucas’s anger. It’s different from what I’ve seen from him before—colder and more controlled. He’s both furious and resolved, and that frightens me more than if he had just exploded at me.
He lets me go into the bathroom alone as usual, and I close the door behind me, leaning against it to gather my thoughts and calm my frantic heartbeat. The food I ate at dinner is like a brick in my stomach. I haven’t felt the bite of terror in over a week, and I’ve forgotten how powerful it can be.
He lied. He lied when he promised not to hurt me. I could see the dark intent on his face, feel the barely restrained violence in his touch.
He’s going to do something to me tonight—something terrible.
Feeling sick, I use the toilet and wash my hands, going through the motions despite my panic. The knowledge of Lucas’s betrayal is like a spear through my chest. In the beginning, I suspected he may be playing me, but as the days went on, I slowly began to lose my natural distrust of him, to believe that the bizarre domesticity of our arrangement might continue for some time.
To hope he truly won’t hurt me.
Dura. Dura, dura, dura. The Russian word for fool is like a jackhammer in my skull. How could I have been such an i***t? I know what Lucas is. I see the demons that drive him. My captor is a man who walked away from a good, safe home to embark on a life of danger and violence, and he didn’t do it out of love for his country.
He did it because it’s his nature—because he needed to find an outlet for the darkness within.
I’ve known others like him. My instructors. Obenko himself. They all share this trait, this inability to be part of a peaceful society and abide by its laws. It’s what makes them so good at their jobs—and so dangerous.
When conscience is nonexistent, it’s easy to do what needs to be done.
“Yulia.” A knock on the door startles me, and I realize I’ve just been standing there, absorbed in thought. “Are you done?” Lucas’s deep voice breaks my paralysis, and I spring into action, my fear drowned under a wave of adrenaline.
“Almost,” I call out, raising my voice to be heard over the running water. “Just need to wash my face.”
Leaving the faucet on to mask the sounds of my movements, I kneel and open the cabinet under the sink. There, among extra toilet paper rolls and tubes of toothpaste, is the object I hid for just such an eventuality.
It’s a small metal fork I snitched from the kitchen two days ago, slipping it into my shorts pocket while Lucas was washing the dishes. He’d left it inside the kitchen drawer that holds napkins and other small items, likely without realizing it was there. I took it while getting fresh napkins for the table and hid it here, hoping I’d never need to use it.
Well, I need it now. The little fork is not much of a weapon, but it’s sturdier than a plastic toothbrush.
Ignoring the part of me that revolts at the idea of injuring Lucas, I take the fork, slip it into the back pocket of my shorts, and close the cabinet.
I can’t allow him to break me.
My brother’s life depends on it.
Lucas takes me to the bedroom, once again leading me there without speaking. I don’t make the mistake of jumping him as soon as I come out—I won’t catch him by surprise the second time. Instead, I walk as calmly as I can, trying not to focus on the little fork burning a hole in my pocket. I know Lucas always looks at my hands, so I keep them loose and relaxed at my sides, fighting the instinct that screams to protect myself, to strike now.
“Strip,” Lucas says, stopping in front of the bed. His pale eyes are hooded as he releases my arm and steps back. I can feel the hunger within him. It’s dark and potent, despite the cold anger evident in the hard lines of his face.
This won’t be a tender lovemaking session. He’s going to hurt me.
It takes everything I have to reach for the edge of my short tank top and pull it up over my head, baring my breasts to his gaze. My throat is so tight I can scarcely breathe, but I drop the tank top and face him without flinching. The worst thing I can do is show him how terrified I am—and how desperate.
“The rest,” Lucas prompts when I pause. His expression is unchanging, but I see the growing bulge in his jeans. “Get it all off—or I will.” His arm muscles flex, betraying his impatience.
I force my lips into a teasing smile. “Oh, yeah?” Slowly, very slowly, I reach for my zipper, praying that my hands don’t shake. “And how exactly are you going to do that?”
At my challenge, Lucas’s nostrils flare and he does precisely what I counted on.
He reaches for me and hooks his fingers through the top of my shorts, yanking me against his hard body. I gasp playfully, as if excited by his roughness, and while he’s distracted, I slip my right hand into my back pocket, grab the fork, and strike.
In a blur of motion, my hand flashes toward his face, the fork targeting his eye at the same time as my knee jerks up, aiming for his balls. Each injury might disorient him for a few crucial moments, and the two together should give me enough time to run.
It should’ve worked—with any other man, it would’ve worked—but Lucas is not like any other man. As fast as I am, he’s even faster. In a split second, he jerks back. The fork grazes his cheekbone and my knee hits his inner thigh, and then he’s on me, twisting my right arm behind my back in a swift, merciless motion. His fingers squeeze my wrist, making my hand go numb. The fork slips out of my fingers, and in the next instant, I’m on my stomach on the bed, his big body pinning me down. I can feel his erection throbbing against my ass, sense the rage and lust radiating from him, and the old fear flares, the memories washing over me in a sickening tide.
No. Please, no. I can’t move, can’t breathe. I’m pinned, helpless as rough male hands rip away my clothes. The man on top of me wants to punish me, to hurt me. I struggle, but I can’t do anything, and the dark panic engulfs me, sends me spinning out of control.
“No, please, no!” I’m scarcely aware of my screams and cries, of the pleas that tear from my throat. All I can feel are his hands dragging my shorts down my legs and his knees digging into my thighs to hold me restrained. There’s no tenderness in his touch, nothing but raw, vengeful lust, and the terror is all-consuming as his fingers invade my body, thrusting in violently as I scream and sob in pain.
“Stop, please stop!” It’s no longer Lucas on top of me, no longer the man who gave me pleasure. It’s the brutal monster of my nightmares, the one who ripped me apart body and soul. The edges of my consciousness recede, spiraling into the past. “Don’t! Please stop!”
The monster doesn’t stop, doesn’t listen. “Who am I?” he growls, his fingers relentless. “What is my name?”
“No, stop!” I thrash under him, mindless with fear. I don’t understand what he’s saying, what he wants from me. I need to get away. I need him to release me. “Let me go!”
“Tell me my name, and I’ll stop.” There’s something wrong with that statement, something that should give me pause, but I can’t think, can’t concentrate on anything but the dark, swirling terror.
“Let me go!”
His fingers push in deeper, his voice hard and cruel. “Tell me my name.”
“Kirill!” I scream, desperate for any hope, no matter how slim. I’d do anything, say anything to make him stop.
He doesn’t stop. “My full real name.”
“Kirill Ivanovich Luchenko!”
“Who am I?”
“My trainer!” The darkness consumes me, destroys me. “Please, stop!”
“Your trainer where?”
“At UUR!”
“What is UUR?” His body presses down on me, suffocating me with its weight. “What does it stand for, Yulia?”
“Ukrainskoye—” The oddity of it all finally penetrates my terror, and I freeze, my mind flitting in agony between the present and the past. It doesn’t make sense. Everything is different, everything is wrong. The fingers inside me are rough, but they’re not ripping me apart, and there’s no cologne.
There’s no cologne.
“What does it stand for?” the man repeats, and for the first time, I hear the strain in his familiar deep voice.
A voice that’s speaking English.
No. Oh God, no. The realization is like an arrow puncturing my lungs.
It’s not Kirill on top of me.
It’s Lucas.
It’s always been Lucas.
He made my nightmare come true, and I broke.
I told him everything.
- Writer
