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I shriek, half-gasping, my hands flying up to grab his, trying to loosen his grip. But it’s tight and unyielding. Slowly,horrifically, he drags me up onto my knees, completely by my hair. By the time I’m up, tears are flowing freely down my face, and my body is trembling with the fear and the pain and the strain.
“I wasn’t even going to touch you, today,” says Konstantin, his voice sour. “It was all about showing your precious Aleks how accessible you are to me—how easy it is to lie in wait and get my hands on you. But I have to say, Kat, I don’t much like you.”
I look up at him in horror, only a tiny fraction of it alleviated by the sight of three livid, raised, and bloody scratch marks slowly rising into welts on his cheekbone. I got him good, deep. Somehow, even through my fear, I smile.
Konstantin’s eyes blaze with anger. He tightens his grip on my hair and gives me a hard jerk, one that shakes my whole body and has a fresh wave of tears rushing from my eyes. I grimace, but this time I don’t give him the pleasure of crying out in pain.
“Men always say they like a girl who fights, but I must confess—I’m not much of a fan, myself. Then again, you’re hardly my type. Some backwoods hick who got herself knocked up, and can’t even provide for herself and her son.”
“Fuck you,” I shout. “You don’t what the hell you’re talking about!”
“You should have married him,” says Konstantin, slowly kneeling before me, until we’re eye to eye. “It would have protected you. Not from me, but from others, perhaps. It’s not taken lightly, marriage, in our world. And to threaten a wife…it’s punishable by death. But you? Well, you’re no one. Just some girl Aleks fucked. And only by opportunity, if what I’ve heard is correct. You’re just the easy little sister of his college friend, just some little slut who wasn’t concerned about opening her legs for a gangster.”
I spit in his face. He must not expect it, because he flinches—but his grip only tightens.
“What a class act you are, Kat,” he murmurs darkly. Then he releases me and stands. Over my head, he calls something in Russian—a moment later, his call is echoed by footsteps.
A pair of them. With heavy, slow footfalls.
Any desperate hope of running slips away from me, along with all of my will power, as two of the largest men I’ve ever seen in my life slow to a stop before me. I feel the blood drain out of my face. Terror lights, a cold blue flame, at the base of my spine. I’m so close to throwing up that for a second, I think I might—but my body is shaking too hard. I’m in too much shock.
“Get her up,” says Konstantin, sounding almost bored.
“No,” I say, the word frayed and desperate. “Wait, no, please, I—”
“Oh, now you beg?” He chuckles, watching, a bit of light sparking up in his eyes as each of the men grab me by an arm, and hoist me to my feet. I’m crushed between them. They smell of too much cologne; of metal.Of blood.“Well, let’s hear it, then. A proud girl like you must have a great spirit for begging. Maybe I won’t hurt you after all. Go on.”
I stare at him, then up at each of the men holding me in turn.They could snap my neck in a second. What else could they do to me? I should have said yes, I should have married Aleks—if not for my own protection, for Adam’s. What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with my damnpride?
“Beg,” says Konstantin. This time his hand moves to my chin, gripping firmly, forcing me to look him in his cold blue eyes. “Beg for mercy, Katerina. Beg me for your life. Beg me for your son’s life. Maybe I will find it in me to spare both.”
It’s bullshit, such bullshit. But the weak part of me wants to do it, to do anything at all that he tells me to. Because the truth is that I’m scared. I’m so scared I think I could die. I’m so scared, so sick with fear, that for a moment I would almostratherdie. This is what Aleks warned me would happen. This iswhy Konstantin has kept his distance since arriving. It’s all part of his sick game. It’s all part of terrorizing me, of making me feel safe one second, and scared to death the next.
“Beg,” Konstantin says again.
But I still have some dignity left in me yet. And say what you will about me—you can’t call me a coward. If I were to die today, how would I want my son to remember me? As the girl who gave up, in the face of impossible odds? In the face of death, or torture? No. I am better than that. Since I learned that I was pregnant, I vowed I would do right by my son. I vowed I would do everything in my power to make him strong. That starts withmebeing strong. Even like this. Even when I know I’ll have to pay the price for that strength.
I look up at Konstantin. I meet his cold, hateful gaze. “Fuck you,” I say.
He smiles. It’s a different kind of smile this time, jackal like, snake like. Frigid. He cocks his arm back, and throws a punch.
Stars fly behind my eyes. Pain shatters through my cheekbone. My body tries to fall back, and then to collapse—but I’m held aloft by the two men, who jerk me around as though in punishment for moving.
“That was terrible,” says Konstantin, his voice dripping with faux disappointment. “Surely you can do better than that, Katerina. For your son? Don’t you want to try again?”
“If you’re so desperate to hear someone beg,” I pant, pain still throbbing vividly in my face, “why don’t you get on your knees and do it yourself, you fucking coward?”
Konstantin clucks his tongue. “Now I know you’re not even trying.”
He throws back his arm and I brace, but he doesn’t swing for my face. This time, he buries his fist right in my belly, so hard I feel a surge of bile rush up my throat. I double over, opening my mouth as though to gasp, but no air enters my mouth or lungs,and I hang there rigid, gawping uselessly, my head filling with cotton. I’ve never been hit in the stomach before. It hurts more than I could have imagined. By the time I finally gulp down a breath, the pain is radiating through me, bouncing off my bones. All I want to do is collapse, but the men prevent me from doing so.
Aleks,I finally think, desperately.Where are you?
“Isn’t this fun, Katerina?” Konstantin tips my chin up, forcing me once more to look into his cold, vacant eyes. I’m sweating, tears of strain and distress streaming down my face. When I look at him, I see double. “I like to make a good thing last. Which is why I’m not going to kill you today. You understand, don’t you? I don’t want the fun to end like this. So quickly. It would be such a waste, don’t you think?”
I’m still struggling to breathe. I can’t speak. If I could, I don’t even know what I’d say. I want to be brave and bold and courageous. I want to talk back, put Konstantin in his place, say something scathing or witty. But the truth is that all the fight has gone out of me. I can barely stay conscious. I’m hanging onto this moment, onto light and life, by a very tremulous thread.
“But we do need to make sure that Aleks gets the message, Kat, don’t we?” He nods to his men, and to my surprise, he steps back, sliding his hands casually into his pockets.
