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There’s a variety of jeans, shirts, camis, bras, panties, dresses, and even some shoes. Anything that could’ve been purchased for me clothing-wise was there, and I’m taken aback. I naturally assumed when we got to where we were going, I’d be able to have some new clothes at that point, but I’d been sorely mistaken. Come to think of it, Nazyr did ask me last night what my clothing size was. I guess I know why he wanted me to answer him.
Honestly, this is shocking to me. Nazyr seems so much more human than Duarte. It seems like he cares, and while he might be lying to me, I don’t think he is. He’s a bad man, and I’m not blind to that fact, but Nazyr has a heart. I can see it through and through. There’s part of me that wants to keep my guard up with him, a natural instinct, I suppose, but there’s a small sliver of me that wants to trust every word that passes through his lips. I won’t be as foolish to trust him that way until he’s proven himself to me, but my gut instinct is that I should relax a little bit, which terrifies me. I haven’t felt this way in years, yet I feel it with some man I haven’t even known for twenty-four hours. It’s ridiculous.
There wasn’t much conversation between Nazyr and me last night. He ended up heading to bed early and said I could stay in the hotel suite. I ended up chatting with Paulo, who is Nazyr’s driver and security, I believe. Paulo is originally from Mexico and was recently sent to work for Nazyr. He told me good things about his new boss, which I suppose is adding to my calm feelings and why I seemingly want to trust him.
I pick an outfit out of the bags in front of me and then go into the en-suite bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day. Nazyr got us a three-bedroom suite at a local hotel, and I was a bit worried he was going to make me sleep with him. I was relieved when he told me about the sleeping arrangements. I don’t think I’ve been this relieved in a very, very long time.
I turn the shower on medium-high heat and wait a couple of minutes to let the water warm up. I look over at the counter, and there’s a large makeup bag. I unzip the top and rifle through it, seeing I have a toothbrush, toothpaste, facial cleanser, moisturizer, and a few small things like mascara, an eyebrow pencil, and some eyeshadow. There’s no foundation or concealer, but I’m certain it’s because he doesn’t know my shade.
I smile to myself and grab the facial cleanser from the bag, then head into the glass shower. As the water pours over me, a sense of relief washes over me as well. I miss my little girls more than anything, but I need to have some sort of faith in Nazyr that we’re going to get them back from Duarte.
My shower doesn’t take long, especially since there’s shampoo, conditioner, and body wash already in the shower. They’re fresh bottles, which I can only assume means they were purchased for me. I don’t know how I slept through Nazyr or Paulo coming into my room last night, but I did. Usually, I’m a very light sleeper.
I get out of the shower and use the hotel’s hair dryer to dry my hair in record time, then pull a brush through it. I draw out my eyebrows so they look a bit better. They don’t look bad naturally, but they have an unmangled sort of feel to them. I apply a little bit of mascara, but nothing crazy then put on my clothes. I don’t know if Nazyr hand-picked every item, but if he did, he did a really good job. A fabulous one, in fact.
When I finish dressing, I’m wearing a pair of black jeans with a cutout over each knee, white tennis shoes, and a white shirt, with a khaki-colored dress shirt over the white one. I tie the front of the shirt to make it look a little better, then exit my bathroom and the bedroom. As I walk out into the common area, I immediately spot Nazyr sitting at the breakfast table.
He’s sipping on some coffee, and there’s a full plate of food in front of him. My stomach rumbles, and there’s another plate of food across from him with a metal cover over the top of it.
“Mona, come sit.”
I swallow and do as he asks, heading over to take the seat across from him. As I sit down, Nazyr takes the metal cover off my plate, and I’m in awe at the spread in front of me. Duarte might have had me at his home for years, but that didn’t mean I ate what everyone else did. The only exception was when I was pregnant with my daughters. He’d feed me as much as everyone else then and give me extra food since the girls needed more nutrition.
On the plate in front of me is toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and even a fruit spread. There’s even a full glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee for me too.
“Eat up. I’m going to interrogate you over breakfast, so you’ll need your energy,” Nazyr says in a joking manner, which has me nervously smiling in response.
I take a sip of my orange juice and wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t at first, so I will. “Thank you for getting me set up with some clothing and toiletries.”
“My pleasure. When we get back to Grozny, I’ll have more for you, but in that case, you can go out and pick your own. I had to enlist the help of my right-hand man’s wife to make sure I wasn’t purchasing awful things for you.”
Where is Grozny? I’ve never heard of that city before, but Nazyr has a Russian look about him… and he speaks Russian, so it has to be near there. Maybe it’s located in another smaller country around the border?
“Where is Grozny, and how am I getting there?” I ask him, bringing my thoughts aloud. I don’t know where in the bloody hell my passport might be. I know Duarte might’ve had one for me, given I went out of the country with him a couple of times to events, but nothing lately. I think he started to realize I was becoming more of a risk, speaking up on some occasions and talking back.
“It’s in Chechnya, which is now the Chechen Republic. I was able to get a photograph of you and have a contact of mine make a passport for you. It’s legitimate, and no one will ever question you on it. Look, I’m going to get straight to the point. The only reason I took you out of Duarte’s estate is that I knew he was going to kill you. He wouldn’t have offered you up in a sale, and even if he did, you would’ve ended up with someone much worse than him. It’s my belief he only offered you to me because he wanted to sweeten the deal with my family and because he knew enough about me to know I’d treat you well.”
I don’t think Duarte gives a rat’s ass about how I’m treated. “He doesn’t care about how I’m treated, and you’re a foolish man if you think he ever did. How does a man who cares about me give me these?” I point to the scars on my face, and Nazyr raises his eyebrows. I’m sure he had assumptions about how I got them, but what he didn’t do was ask me about them.
“How and why?”
I’m midway into a bite of toast, so I chew quickly and then swallow. “Because he fucking felt like it, I suppose. Duarte never needed a reason to treat me badly. He just did it because he could. Because I was his.” Unaddressed rage storms through my blood for the first time in ages. I was never really allowed to let my emotions get the best of me before, but Nazyr doesn’t seem to give a shit. He wants to know what happened, and thus he’ll get my full reactions because of that.
“The first time he didn’t like the dress I had on for a dinner party when he, in turn, was the one who had the dress sent to my room. He told me I looked horrible, and I lashed out at him. I pointed out the fact he provided it to me and that it was his fault if I looked as bad as he said.”
Nazyr inhales slowly, and I notice his nostrils flare shortly after. “What about the second time?”
“He said I was staring at one of his friends.” As I say it, I realize how minuscule it was. Duarte would find any reason to put his hands on me at any given time.
“Did he beat and rape you, along with what he did to create those scars?”
Man, Nazyr wasn’t kidding. This really is an interrogation.
I’m biting on some of the bacon in front of me, and as I finish chewing, I answer him. “Nazyr, Duarte did whatever he damn well wanted, so I’m sure you already know the answer.”
“Understood. Now, I need to know if there’s anything else he did to you. Anything more vile and horrid than the rest, than what you eventually and unfortunately became accustomed to.”
Suddenly, there’s a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. There is something he did that was worse than anything else. Something I will never, ever be able to forget about. It’s something I see when I close my eyes, and I feel like it will haunt me for the rest of my days.
