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My thought of escape fades. I can’t even turn my head. To run, even if I could get out of the chair he’s taped me to, would be impossible. Not that I’m getting out of the chair. There’s duct tape layered around my chest and shoulders and again at my legs binding me to it.
“I could smash your head in with this and be finished with it, you know?” he asks me as he comes back into view holding a brick in his hand.
I eye that brick, lick my lips, and try to swallow so I can talk.
“But what would be the fun in that?” he asks, dropping it to the ground. The thunk it makes when it lands makes me wince.
“My mother.” I need information. Anything. And I need to buy time for Lev to find me. Because he must be looking for me by now. He’ll find me. Won’t he? He and Gleb will find me. They have to.
Hot tears sting my eyes.
What if they do, and it’s too late, and he kills Lev too? Or both of them. What will happen to Josh?
“Aww. Poor baby. Are you sad?” He brings his face inches from mine, tilting it to the side, feigning concern.
He’s going to kill me. I know it.
This won’t end well for me.
“Are you scared, Kat?”
“You killed my mother.” My voice has steel in it. I don’t know how. Maybe the hate I feel for this man gives me strength.
“I did. Yes. She was a two-bit whore, though. No great loss.”
His words are so careless, so unfeeling. A lost human life is no great loss? My mother’s life?
I draw my head back and do the only thing I can bound as I am. I spit in his face.
It lands square on his cheek, and I know he didn’t expect that. And I know the moment he straightens up that I’ll pay for it. Using the back of his hand, he wipes my spit away, and when he meets my eyes again, I see pure rage.
He uses the hand he just wiped his face with to slap me. It comes down so hard across my cheek that it sends my chair falling over, and my head bouncing off the concrete floor. Everything goes dark again, and I think this is it. This must be it.
“Although…” he starts. Hauling my chair upright again, he takes my face in both hands to make me look up at him. My vision is fading, though. Coming and going. “It’s not like she worked the streets. She was the kind of whore who only fucked men with money. Stay with me, Kat.” He gives my face two lighter slaps. “Or this won’t be much fun. I’ll tell you what.” He steps away, and I try to look up at him. “I’ll give my nephew a call. Get him on his way. The way things are looking, you aren’t going to be hanging on for much longer.”
He walks away, and my head droops, my eyes closing. I taste blood when I lick my swollen, tender lip, and I can’t open one eye at all anymore.
I hear him talk.
And then I hear Lev.
I make a sound. I want to tell him to take care of Josh. To tell Josh that I love him and that I’m sorry. But all I can manage is a low moan. I can’t even lift my head anymore.
“Where were we?” Vasily asks.
Again, I’m not sure how long I’ve been out because he’s tapping my face to get my attention.
“That’s right, your mother. She was a high-end escort.”
What?
“Did you know that? Somehow, she got connected with Katerina Mikhailov, though. Maybe at a club or something, who knows? And then she met Gleb. How do I know this, you ask? Or you would ask if you could talk.” He chuckles at his own joke. He has his hand in my hair again, tugging my head backward. “I said stay with me, for fuck’s sake. You don’t want me to have to go get your little boy, do you?”
I shake my head and try to say Josh’s name, but it comes out as a gurgle of blood that drips down my chin.
“What’s that? Got your attention? Josh, right? Cute kid. Looks like my side of the family.”
“Stay away…”
“That’s how I got her to do it, you know,” he continues, pulling up a chair to sit across from me. “Told her I’d tell Gleb about her past. He wouldn’t want to be fucking a prostitute, after all.”
My mother was a prostitute?
“I mean, who knows if you’re even his. She’d spread her legs for anyone who looked twice.”
He stands then and cocks his head to the side.
“Your boyfriend sure is taking his time, isn’t he? Let’s keep this interesting,” he says, coming to me, pulling my head back.
