“Thank you.” My praise doesn’t feel adequate to truly express the emotions pumping through me, but they are all I have, so they’re all I can offer. “Thank you very much.”
The weeping wounds on my back sting when I trudge toward the door of my cell. It’s amazing how euphoric it feels seeing it hang from its hinges. It’s so badly damaged, it won’t hold a woman captive again any time soon.
The entanglement of emotions already holding me hostage take on an entirely new meaning when my slow trek to the stairwell that’ll lead to my freedom has my eyes locking in on a face I swore I’d never see again. “Ana!”
Forgetting about the pain rocketing through my back, I galloped down the stairs to greet the woman I went to hell and back for, praying the hard times are now behind me.
Ana’s eyes are as wide as mine, her cheeks just as pale. “Kristina, you’re here. How are you here?”
I don’t answer her questions. I can’t. I just wrap her up in a firm hug before sending my thanks to God. I fought the devil and won. That’s a victory worth praising even if I had to go to the depths of hell for it to occur.
Five
Trey
Istop assisting a badly beaten woman into the back of an SUV when Nikolai and Justine arrive at my side. I’m pleased to report Justine is uninjured from her time with Vladimir…ifyou exclude her massively dilated eyes and the nasty red welt on her neck.
“Is this everyone?”
While jerking up my chin to Nikolai’s question, I assist another two women into one of the SUVs that drove Nikolai’s men straight onto Vladimir’s battlefield. We lost over a dozen men to free Justine from the sex-trafficking ring Vladimir was planning to shunt her in.
It could have been worst. I was a second from flicking a lit match onto a gasoline puddle when Nikolai ordered us to search the compound for thewomen Justine promised to free.
I won’t lie. I’m a cruel fuck who could be accused of mistreating women more than once, but even I struggled to keep a level head when door after door exposed Vladimir didn’t just store his favorite whores here. He had victims—many of them.
Some were on the verge of death. Others had succumbed to their injuries. Then there was her, the petite blonde standing at the back of the pack, unsure whether she should flee or stay.
If any of the inane thoughts in my head have a chance of transpiring, she should run. She can barely walk, she looks like she hasn't eaten in days, and her hair is matted and tinged with blood, yet my cock still stirred when my eyes landed on hers.
I want to say it’s because she has similar features to India, a girl I wanted but couldn’t have, but that would be a lie. It was only when our eyes locked and held did my cock begin to twitch, and I started my assessment of her enticing body from her feet.
If all I wanted her for was her cock-thickening body, the thickness in my pants would have stood to attention the instant my eyes landed on the tiny apex at the top of her grubby thighs. Her nightgown is so thin, she’s practically naked, yet it took me returning her prolonged stare before my cock commenced paying attention.
Her eyes are her most exposed feature. They reveal she’s a fighter, she just has no clue how strong she is. If I were a real man, I’d show her how no amount of torture can bend the toughest spines. Regretfully, I lost who I was long before she became Vladimir’s captive, so I have no right to act heroic.
When Nikolai kicks my ankle with his boot, I’m reminded that I failed to answer his question. “Yes, but we need to move quickly.”
Like a perfectly-timed skit, sirens break through the joyous sobs of the women seeing daylight for the first time in weeks. Even the unnamed blonde is sheltering her eyes with her hand as she peers up at the rapidly blackening sky. She doesn’t mutter a peep like the dozen or so women surrounding her, though. It’s as if she finds sanctuary in silence as I once did many moons ago. It makes her even more intriguing.
Needing to keep my head in game mode before the ugliness of my past rears it horrid head, I shift my focus back to Nikolai. “Where do you want them taken?”
“Take them to Clarks, but no one is to move until I say so.” His reply pleases me greatly. If this were a standard whore-for-exchange program the Popovs generally run, Nikolai wouldn’t care what happens to these women. The fact he’s issuing a hands-off order means he’s hoping to move his sanction away from the sex-trafficking industry Vladimir has been pedaling the past decade.
Vladimir was only removed from his throne mere minutes ago, but the benefits are already rolling in.
That’s extremely rare.
I nudge my head to the left when Nikolai asks, “Where’s Rico?”
“He’s getting our guest ready for transport.”
When a smug grin tugs my lips high, the blonde watches me as I did her earlier. The almost extinguished blaze in her eyes burns brighter the longer she stares at me. I can tell her hands are itching to cover the rosy pink buds sitting high on her chest, but she keeps them balled at her side, aware her secrets won’t be exposed by her thin nightgown.
She really should close her eyes.
Our stare-down is interrupted by a commotion at my side. Malvina, Nikolai’s ex-fiancé, is being marched down a set of stairs by Nikolai’s once-dead big brother.
Even ghosts resurrect when news circulates about Satan being sent back to hell.
