Page 75 of The Pakhan’s Heir

I see the apartment coming up and the car turns down the block, taking the alley behind it. Of course we’re going through the service entrance. Who would tolerate seeing a young woman dragged through the apartment lobby?

The next thing I know, I’m being pulled out of the car and pushed toward the service elevator. My father gets in with me, then tells his men to stay available. It’s not until he closes the gate that I realize that he’s planning on killing me himself.

The outer doors close and we’re on our way up. “You are such a disappointment,” he says through clenched teeth. “After everything I’ve done for you…” He stands a little straighter and despite his wounded shoulder, he straightens his jacket. “I suppose I should have expected this. Alex Molotov is a much older man than you and you are so naive. I was a fool to think you might not be entranced by a more experienced lover.”

The elevator stops and so does my heart. The outer doors open to the back hallway leading to the kitchen and he pulls the gate open. Then he grabs me by the hair and drags me out, pushing me down to the floor.

“Letting yourself get pregnant,” he growls as he advances on me. “I could have forgiven almost anything that you’d done with him. But bearing his child?”

He goes to kick me and I pull my legs up, guarding my stomach. The heel of his shoe lands in the meat of my thigh. I cry out in pain as I start scrambling away from him.

“You’re going to take this beating, you ungrateful little tramp! And when I’ve had my fill of you, I’m going to slice that demon out of you and toss it out the window!”

He reaches for me, grabbing my hair and yanking me up, then slapping me across the face. He hits me again. The third time his hand raises, my arms go up and I dig my nails into the side of his face, dragging them through the skin of his cheek. He grunts and pulls back, his hand releasing my hair. I fall back to the floor and as he glares at me in shock, I manage to get to my feet.

I start to run, but he’s on my heels, grabbing my hair again and yanking me back. I flail, my hands hitting his head, his face. He yanks me around by the hair, throwing me into a wall. He presses his good arm to my throat, pinning me there. The air is squeezed from my throat as he puts his weight behind it, crazed eyes swirling as he glowers in my face.

“You little bitch,” he snarls. “When I’m done with you—ARGGGH!!!”

I grab his wounded shoulder, digging my thumb into the hole of his jacket and deep into the warm, squishy insides of his shoulder. He screams out in agony, flinching away from me and releasing me all at once.

I cough and sputter in the rush of air through my sore throat as I push him away and start half running, half stumbling down the hall. The sound of his rage bounces off the walls around me as I push through the kitchen door.

He’s right on me as I clear the kitchen and make it to the living room. I grab one of the crystal lamps on the end table by the couch and throw it behind me. It shatters as it hits him in the face and he goes down.

I keep running, sprinting madly for my room, my mind on autopilot to find safety. I take the stairs two and three at a time, running down the hall until I get on the other side of my bedroom door. I lock it just as I hear him stomping up after me.

He’s going to break it down, I think as I step away from the door, my entire body shaking violently. What do I do?

His footsteps approach, stomping like an elephant, then the whole door shakes as he bangs on it. “Nona! Darling! Open the door!”

I’m looking around the room frantically for a weapon. Getting through that door is only going to be a matter of time and I need to be ready. But with what? This bedroom that I left months ago is virtually untouched save for all my personal belongings.

And then I spot my nightstand. I run to it and push it across the carpet to the door, bracing it against the wood as he pounds against it. At least I can buy myself some time.

“Get this door open! Now, you little bitch!”

It won’t be enough. He’s not going to stop until he gets through. Madness takes me as I run to the window and open it.

We’re on the twenty-third floor of this high-rise. It’s the bottom third of the building, but if I jumped, there is no universe where I would survive. And there is no ledge for me to climb out onto. It’s just glass all the way down.

Glass. That’s it.

I close the window and look around for something heavy to break the glass. There’s nothing. Not a single chair or a baseball bat.

The door starts to splinter and I run to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me. Through it, I can hear the muffled sound of Papa cursing mixed with the wood in the door splintering.

On the sink is a small, but heavy-bottomed glass sitting next to the faucet. I pick it up and look at the mirror above it. That’s going to have to do.

I stand back, then throw the glass at the mirror as hard as I can. The mirror splinters in a dozen shards, some of them falling into the sink. I get a washcloth and wrap it around the biggest shard.

A great muffled crash sounds in the bedroom and I know he’s through it. I stand back from the bathroom door, holding the shard of mirror out in front of me.

If he means to kill me, fine. I’m not going out without a fight.

“Nona!” he shouts. Then I hear his footsteps stomp to the door. The knob jiggles. “Open up! Let’s have a discussion about all this.”

A discussion? He has lost his mind. I shout back at him, “Leave me alone!”