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I swiped my tongue over my lips. “Parrots?” I breathed.
He made a sound between a snort and a scoff. “I fucking hate parrots.”
That snapped me out of whatever trance I’d been thrown in. I caught the innuendo loud and clear. He thought I talked too much.
I lifted my eyes and held his gaze. “Either way, you’re insane. Only a sicko would enjoy seeing another person locked up and in pain.”
That stupid smile reappeared on his face. “Don’t you mean sadist?”
“You’re both!”
He pulled my sweater closer, rougher. “I will never let you go, milaya. You’re stuck with me.”
“Never!” I glared as fiercely as I could. I would not let him get inside my head. I had to hold my ground—even if his grip practically pulled me onto my toes. “I’ll leave this smelly place and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
After I was done, I realized I’d made a big mistake. A terrible one. I’d evoked something in him. I had awoken a deeper darkness I had never seen before. I’d threatened the devil, dared him to do his worst. And I wasn’t prepared to take his wrath.
His fingers curled until the tips of his blunt nail scratched the fabric, grazing the bare skin on my chest.
Dark brown hair fell onto his forehead as he looked down at me, and the strands were as dark as the intentions lurking behind his expression.
“I fucking hate parrots, but I love a good challenge.” The corners of his lips twisted into a mischievous smile. “Trust me, it doesn’t matter how far you run. I promise you; I'll always find my way to you.”
Chapter 1 - Ava
I will never let you go, milaya.
I woke up startled, breathing as if I had run a marathon, clutching the sheets tightly as if my life depended on it. I closed my eyes. His voice, that deep, rich timbre, haunted me again, echoing incessantly in my ears.
Inhale.
I should have grown used to it by now — the nightmares that return from the past every night, as they always do. Sometimes I wished they were nothing more than nightmares, bad, horrible dreams that drenched me in cold sweat and gave me a headache every morning. But they weren’t. No matter how much I wished for it, I couldn’t erase the reality that it had happened.
The damp smells. The repeated drip, drip, drip in the corner of the dark room. The flickering dim yellow light bulb. The dark silhouette. And ghostly eyes.
Him.
All of it.
I remembered it as if it had happened hours ago, and just like the nights before, a cold, strange shiver ran down my spine.
Exhale.
I opened my eyes, but he refused to go away. The sinister crook on his lips mocked me and he whispered “milaya” in my ears, with that strong Russian laced in every word.
It didn’t take long after the night in the horrible basement cell, I heard his name. And I dreaded what it did to me. How I felt at the sound of his name.
Viktor Voronin-Varkov.
Even his name spelled terror like the evil that dances and lurks in the shadows, waiting to devour something.
I’d fallen victim to him once, but I couldn’t blame it on anyone. Not even him. I had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and gotten kidnapped by the notorious Rafail Varkov—Viktor’s boss. But I wasn’t the subject of the Bratva boss’s anger, and that left me in the hands of my biggest nightmare.
At that time, I had not given up hope because I knew that my father would free me from him. What I didn’t know was that physical freedom is no guarantee of total liberty.
He lived rent-free in my head for the last year, his words playing on repeat.
“Trust me, it doesn’t matter how far you run. I promise I will always find my way to you.”
