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His men had forcefully strapped me to it, my arms and legs immobile. It was irrelevant how many times I’d begged them to let me go, or how many tears I’d shed. My father had remained passive, not uttering a single word until I’d calmed down, and that had taken me a while.
“Do you know what kind of a chair that is, Ekaterina?”
There had been a certain wickedness in his tone that I’d prayed to God I’d imagined. But as soon as our eyes had met, the devil had jumped out and I’d known he wasn’t going to treat me nicely.
I’d shaken my head furiously and swallowed all the weeping that had threatened to slip out.
“That, my dear child”—he’d laughed as if it were the funniest joke in the world—“is an electric chair.”
My whole body had frozen, and then I’d blinked, allowing a salty sea to fall from my eyes. I’d barely managed not to throw up and had tried to keep a brave face. I’d heard of the chairs of course, and known what they were for. Yet, no matter how brutal and twisted my father as, I’d never imagined he’d do this to me.
“The more you disobey my commands, the more you’ll feel nothing but pain until you learn how to utilize that pain and make it your biggest advantage.”
It was the last full sentence he’d spoken to me. Everything else was commands I couldn’t follow. He’d told me not to cry, so when tear became visible, I got electrocuted. He’d told me to stop trembling, so when I was unable to control my body, I got electrocuted.
It was the worst kind of pain imaginable. Being punished for something I was unable to control, for something I’d been truly afraid of. My father hadn’t cared how much I’d begged, sobbed, or thrown up.
He’d told me I was nothing but a useless child, a useless woman, and that he was beyond ashamed to share his last name with me.
And then, all I could do was beg to be killed. I couldn’t deal with being locked up anymore, with being treated like the worst kind of beast for something that was beyond my control. I begged and begged for him to put me down, yet every time I did that, it made him punish me worse.
The stupid tower I’d been locked in was a cage, and he loved to isolate me from the world.
From the moment the metal door was locked, I was given little to no food to survive. My body was weak, and I was getting sick often. His personal doctors would come to the tower to treat me, but only after I’d been put to sleep with medicine.
My father made it very clear that I was never to set foot into the world again, not until he retired, and he had no plans of doing that anytime soon. Even during winter, when Russia was extremely cold—one of the coldest countries in the world—he barely allowed me any warmth, but as the months passed, I got used to the cold and the frostbite.
He made sure that none of my brothers knew what was happening. From what I’d heard him say to his men on the rare occasions I was visited, they thought I was in some youth camp for the gifted.
Once, I’d tried telling Dominik what was happening after he’d let me out for a while. But the moment my mouth had opened, one of my father’s guards had appeared and warned me. If I told anyone, they’d die. And I didn’t want my brothers to die—I loved them more than anyone; I would’ve rather suffered and put up with all the punishments and solitude than have them being hurt.
“Any time now, Ekaterina,” my father gritted out furiously.
It broke me out of my trance, sorrow and agony overwhelming me. The poor man, whose face was covered in dried tears—and fresh ones, as they never stopped falling—had closed his eyes.
He was embracing what was about to happen, and if I didn’t do it, my father would—definitely.
My hand was trembling as I raised the gun. Slowly, an idea popped into my head. It wasn’t the smartest, but it might be the only way out.
I stared at the metal object in my hand. As soon as I’d thought of it, my hand had stopped shaking. Tranquility was all I could feel, as if it would bring me peace, as if all of this could finally be stopped.
Slowly, I raised the gun and put it against my temple. My eyes closed of their own accord, and I kept rewinding happy memories from when I was younger. Back when Mom loved me, all the stories Aleksei had told me before bed, all the board games Dominik had taught me how to play, all the times Viktor and I had actually got along.
A small smile appeared on my face, and my tears stopped.
I pulled the trigger.
A loud laugh erupted from my father. He pulled out a gun of his own and shot the man dead. I jumped in fright and dropped the gun I held. It hit the marble tiles with a loud thud. I took a step back, fear blooming inside me yet again.
“I had a feeling you would to that, Ekaterina.”
Slowly, he pulled out a syringe from his pocket and tested it before stepping closer. I let out a loud scream as my knees gave out, and I slumped to the ground, eyes wide.
“No, Father,” I begged, “please, please don’t do this. I’ll be good—I’ll do whatever you want me to do, just please.”
My cries intensified the moment he slapped me. The loud impact echoed around the room and my cheek stung—a bruise promised to appear later.
“You had your chance,” he said calmly. His voice was scary when he was angry; however, when it was as calm as a millpond, it was the most terrifying thing. “Only the weakest people in the world take their own lives. And until you learn how to be a strong woman, I have no other option but to train you just like I had to train your brothers.”
