Page 31 of Bratva Sacrifice

She sighs when I press her head to my shoulder again. “Is okay, koshechka,” I tell her. “We are almost home.”

Within moments she is again asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Catalina

My mouth is dry and tastes like something died in it. My head pounds with a relentless ache. What happened last night? My limbs feel like dead weight. I attempt to roll over in bed in an effort to slide out of the path of the sun, which is already too hot on my face.

I can’t manage it. Everything is too much. It’s like I’m drunk, or—or—

Drugged.

Memory comes surging back in a searing wave. My stomach pitches and rolls; a groan slides out of my throat.

“Don’t move so much, koshechka.” A hand clasps my hip through the blanket draped over me. “You want water?”

Oh, God. Alexei is here. Somehow I push through the deadened sensation of my limbs and force myself over onto my stomach. “You drugged me, you sick motherfucker.”

“Such a smart mouth you have, Katya,” he says on the back of a snicker, as if he’s pleased with it. “But, no. Anatoli drugged you. I only told him to do this.”

My fingernails curl into claws. There’s a streak of dried blood on my inner arm. A pinprick mark over my vein. I remember screaming, now. I remember the pain of the needle penetrating my skin.

I remember sleeping with a man I never really knew. A man I thought was someone else entirely. A man who hunted me down and manipulated me into a fake relationship. A man who keeps my dead brother’s burner phone in his jacket pocket. Like a toy, or a trophy.

My stomach heaves. My vision is blurry; my eyes refusing to focus for more than a second or two at a time. But even through the dizzying distortion, I know this isn’t my motel. It isn’t even his house—or the house I thought was his.

The thought galvanizes me enough to cobble together what little strength I have in me at the moment. I shove myself toward the edge of the bed, tip over it—fall off.

“Blyad,” Alexei snaps as I land on the floor in a sprawl.

It was a higher fall than I expected, and my legs won’t support me. My right knee aches. And I’m naked. A sob collects in my throat and my shoulders shake with the force of it. I can hear Alexei stomping around the bed, gritting out a succession of Russian words I don’t understand beneath his breath.

I would run, if I could will my legs to cooperate. I would fight, if I could find even a fraction of the strength I just expended only to fall off of the bed. I can’t do anything except to crawl so fucking slowly toward the nearest wall in search of something to brace myself against. I’m pitifully, painfully aware that he lets me find it. That I’m at a distinct and awful disadvantage.

By the time I manage to pull myself upright and lean my head back against the wall, my chest is heaving with exertion.

Alexei crouches before me. He’s wearing grey sweatpants and nothing else other than that medallion that dangles from the chain around his neck. His brows are drawn down over his green eyes. A muscle tics in his cheek.

I want to bury my head in my arms and sob, but I’ve already exhausted myself. Instead I just—let my head fall, chin to my chest. Defeated already.

Alexei’s hand touches the top of my head, stroking my hair. His accent is thicker, his English less precise. “Enough, koshechka. You are not yet well enough for this.”

Because he fucking drugged me!

“Anatoli says he maybe give you a little too much sedative, though probably you will recover before dinner.”

I take several deep breaths, flexing my fingers in my lap. They tingle with a strange pins-and-needles sensation. My heart is racing. My knee still aches. But I think I can dredge up one last burst of energy. I just have to bide my time.

“Until then,” he says, “you will stay in bed and recover.”

His hand falls away from my hair, and he reaches for me.

I put every last ounce of energy I have into the swing of my arm, the curve of my fingers into claws.

He catches my wrist easily in his fist. “Enough, Katya,” he says again, and his voice is pitched to a patronizing tone. His thumb rubs my inner wrist, right over my pulse. “You want to fight, you do it later, when you are recovered.”

I can’t fight off the slide of his arms around me. My head spins as he lifts me away from the wall and off the floor. Despite my best efforts, I end up right back where I started. Worse, even. On my stomach, my face buried in the fluff of a feather pillow beneath my head.