AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So, now it’s not a race to save her physical life? It’s a battle for her heart, her mind?”Her soul.Cal reeled internally, his emotions raging. Would Sky realize what was happening? That she was a prisoner in a gilded cage? Would she still try to escape? Find a way out? A way to contact him?
“Listen to me,” Alex said heavily, getting up, walking over to Cal and placing his hands on his slumped shoulders. “What this REALLY comes down to is if Sky’s love for you outweighs anything Alexandrov can do to convince her otherwise. She must love you more, to see through the manipulation he is pulling on her. If Sky loves you more, she WILL try to escape. She will reject Alexandrov’s games, although Sky must be very careful and not show her true feelings.” He gave Cal a gentle shake and released him. “Now, you must go to bed. Put the torture scenes away. We must refocus and reorient ourselves to a new way of seeing her abduction tomorrow morning.”
CHAPTER 13
July 1
“Come, Sky, Ihave something that will cheer you up.” Yerik smiled and held out his hand to her after they had eaten lunch together on the outdoor patio. The pergola overhead was covered with thick vines that grew colorful orange trumpet flowers, their fragrance enveloping the noontime area.
Sky set her linen napkin aside and stood, repelled by him offering his hand. She didn’t want to touch him. “I’m very tired,” she protested. Two weeks had passed, and she realized that he was not going to physically torture her. At least, not yet. Still, Sky did not trust the Russian at all. Yerik had been nothing but kind, thoughtful and seemed truly invested in her welfare and state of mind. When she told him irritably that she hated wearing the clothes he insisted she wear, he asked what she’d like to wear instead. And she pushed further and demanded to be able to wear a bra and panties. He’d eagerly seen to her request. Her heart ached for Cal. She lay in a beautifully appointed apartment, reminiscent of the condo she’d stayed at in Coronado, with Japanese-like decor. In fact, the entire massive villa, with the exception of the Russian sex slaves he kept, was all in the same spare, tasteful design.
“Please?” he pleaded. “I promise you, this is worth seeing.”
Grimacing, Sky rose. The servant pulled her chair back so she could stand. She wanted for nothing. The best of food. Constant servants to do her bidding. If she wanted a glass of guava juice, all she had to do was asked for it. Yerik discovered her passion for board games. Every evening, after dinner, they would play Monopoly or Scrabble. She found him to be warm, engaging, and even an enjoyable companion. He’d even made her laugh last night. A first. The look on his face was one of humble pleading. His green eyes danced with mirth, and she had come to realize when Yerik had that expression, he had a surprise of some kind in store for her.
“I promise,” he said, “you will be awed. You will love what I show you.”
Sky refused to touch Yerik. She shied away from any kind of close contact with him. He seemed to realize her discomfort and dropped his hand. Yerik gave a sharp order in Russian to a man she’d not seen here at the villa before. He snapped to attention and did an about face and quickly left the pergola. “You have a surprise for me, don’t you?”
He grinned. “Vlad had said you were extraordinarily observant of people, and he was absolutely right.” Yerik gestured for her to come around the table. “Come, walk with me? I’m going to show you a new path to a place you have not been before. I think you will be magically transported by what you see.” He waited patiently for her to walk around the table. Yerik thought the Levi’s she wore, the tennis shoes, and the dark green tee made her look less beautiful. But Sky was more at ease wearing loose, comfortable American clothes that were not sexy or revealing. Above all, Yerik wanted her to be relaxed. Happy even, although she rarely smiled. He could see Sky was grieving for the man she was going to marry. And every day, he schemed to find ways to get her mind and heart off that man and centered on him, on the fact that she was HIS family, whether she accepted it yet or not.
The flagstone path was three feet wide, and Sky had begun walking it at least once a day with Yerik because she hated being indoors so much. He’d been good for his word: she had the freedom to range in or outside the massive villa hidden beneath a triple canopy of jungle trees. He’d let her know she was in Costa Rica. If she asked a question, he’d usually answer it. And Sky kept a mind map in her head of the villa’s layout. Yerik had not told her where she was in Costa Rica, but she knew from her many walks outside the villa, casing the place, understanding her prison, that it was in a mountainous area. Computers were nowhere to be found. She’d have quickly figured out where she was with Google GPS.
The sun was hidden by soft, gossamer clouds at noon. Sky had come to realize the jungle breathed in and out, just like a human being. Each morning the clouds floated above the tops of the trees, silent, twisting, graceful and beautiful to watch. By noon, the low hanging clouds were burned off by the intense equatorial sunlight. The sky would turn a pale blue and then, around four p.m., almost like clockwork, thunderstorms would pop up and roll noisily over the area. As they walked, she noticed that Yerik always shortened his stride for her sake. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man who reminded her so much of Vlad. Sometimes, when Yerik caught her off guard, she would see Vlad’s intense face staring at her, not his. It always frightened Sky.
“Today, I’ll show you another passion of mine,” Yerik said, excitement in his deep voice.
The path paralleled the deep, quiet green river on the eastern side of the villa. Sky had found it calming to sit by the water. The path winded downward on a gentle slope. On either side of the carefully maintained and swept path, jungle rose over a hundred feet tall. Sky realized it was a jungle she could run through. It had lots of trees, but very few bushes beneath them because the sunlight couldn’t penetrate to the jungle floor. It made it possible for her to escape. But she had to know where she was at, where there might be a highway or road, to find civilization. To get help. To get home to Cal and into his arms. To be held, loved, and cared for once more. Sky yearned for him, crying herself to sleep nearly every night, missing him so much.
At night, she ached with loneliness, thinking of Cal holding her, remembering the times they’d made love, the intimacy so strong and beautiful between them. Sky knew Cal was going crazy trying to locate her. She knew Jack Driscoll’s team would be deeply involved in trying to find her. Alex could help them in ways no one else could because he had run with Vlad’s team in Peru. She took a deep breath, trying to stay ahead in the fucking mind game that Yerik played with her. Never once did she fall for his kind look or his tearful, emotional moments when he spoke about his dead son. None of it touched her. She wouldn’t allow it. But she was doing her damnedest not to let him see that. If he thought she was a helpless victim incapable of escaping, she would let him think that, and eventually he’d let down his guard. Already, only one soldier remained in sight when she walked outdoors. There used to be two guards. When she did escape, it would catch them all by surprise. And Sky swore she would escape, she would or die trying. It sickened her to be with Yerik daily. It was like rubbing salt in the open wound of her torn, bleeding heart. Yerik had spawned Vlad. He had been bad seed, evil and sadistic. Sky never forgot for a moment that that bad seed had come directly from Yerik.
“Ah, here we are,” he announced proudly as they walked around a long, gentle curve in the path that revealed a large, oval meadow.
Sky looked and saw huge wire cages that stood ten feet tall and probably twenty feet wide. There were birds in each of them. Frowning, she counted fifteen such cages. They were all arranged neatly beneath a huge tin roof that protected them from the rain. “What are these?” she wondered. Gazing around, Sky had never realized this meadow existed. It was just another piece of the puzzle of trying to find out where she was at, what escape routes were available.
“My dear daughter-in-law,” Yerik said grandly, “welcome to my world of falconry.”
Frowning, Sky winced inwardly. For the last week, he’d been calling her that, as if it were a beloved term of endearment, he was bestowing upon her. She hated every time he said it. Her lips thinned, but Sky didn’t want to upset Yerik. She’d seen him slap a servant who had not brought his coffee soon enough to him. She’d seen bruises on beautiful Catarina’s arms two mornings ago. Sky knew Yerik slept with one of his three sex slaves every night, without fail. Her heart wrung with agony over their plight. Guiltily, she was relieved that Yerik had not made any type of sexual advance toward her. At least not yet. And she hoped with all her heart and soul that he never touched her, because she’d fight back. She’d never allow Yerik to rape her. Sky would die first. But he didn’t know that, and she wasn’t going to broadcast it, either.
Every room had four cameras in it. She knew that in some hidden room, guards monitored the video feeds of the complex on over forty television screens. And Sky was sure some Russian soldier was watching her sleep at night. It was disconcerting, invasive, triggering all of Sky’s paranoia. Vlad had tried to get into her bedroom at least once a month when she was at the Zimmerman household. She never slept well knowing he was stalking her, always keeping her door locked. Sky was afraid to tell her foster parents about it, for fear of being blamed because Vlad had lived with them much longer than she had. Sky had thought they would believe whatever lie he told them. Then, she would be kicked out of the house, out of their lives. And Sky couldn’t bear that, because for the first time in her life, she was being loved, as if she was their child.
She followed Yerik down the path. There were two men waiting for them with heavy leather gauntlets on their left arms. The taller man, a thin Latino, stepped forward, producing two more gloves and gave them to Yerik.
“My dear,” Yerik murmured, “this is known as a gauntlet. It is a specially designed glove to go on like this,” and he pulled his onto his left arm. The leather was supple, yet thick. He wiggled his fingers and pulled the cuff of the glove halfway up his forearm. “Now, you must put yours on.”
Sky gritted her teeth as he picked up her hand. His fingers were long and smooth. Every morning before breakfast, Yerik has his hands manicured, clear nail polish brushed on his fingernails, his feet massaged by one of his female servants. She wanted to jerk her hand out of his, but forced herself not to react as he gently pulled the gauntlet over her hand and settled it expertly around her lower forearm.
“There!” Yerik murmured, pleased as he stood back and observed how well the glove fit her. “Now, you look like a falconer.” He gazed over at the thin Latino. “Juan, bring me Casca.”
“Si, Don Tobar,” and he quickly turned, running to a second set of cages behind the first row.
“Now,” Yerik said in a conspiratorial tone as he waited for the raptor to be brought to him, “you watch what I do, Sky. And then, once I have taught you, we will transfer the White Hawk, a personal favorite of mine, to your glove. She’s a beautiful raptor found only in Central and South America. Her favorite haunts are woodlands such as these.”
“Okay,” she said, seeing the man return with a white hawk with black banding on its wings and a black bar across its white tail. It’s beak and legs were yellow.
As the hawk cried out, it sounded like a bleating goat to Sky. The raptor opened its wings that appeared to be about four and half feet in length, which made Sky gasp. It was a big raptor.
“Do not be afraid,” Yerik said with a smile. “This is Casca. She is a three-year-old female White Hawk. Females are larger than males. Her wingspan is nearly five feet. She is impressive, is she not?”
