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I almost trip, and I brace myself on his shoulder by accident.
“What the fuck!?” he barks, nearly pulling me down the stairs behind him.
“That was an accident. I wasn’t trying to push you,” I reply, trying to avoid a sense of desperation as my anxiety climbs.
“I don’t fucking believe you,” he replies, motioning behind me for his driver to come closer.
Before I’m able to process what’s happening, I feel a pair of handcuffs close around my free wrist, with the other being handed to the driver by Luka.
I don’t have the chance to shake him from me.
I’m trapped.
“Hey, you really don’t need to do this,” I plead. This time, my voice is choked by the growing sense of dread in my throat.
I pause again, feeling the driver tighten the cuffs to an unnecessary degree. “Please, Luka, it was just an accident. You don’t need to do this,” I continue, waiting desperately for him to turn around, take the cuffs off, and scold me instead.
The driver maintains a firm grip on my left forearm, moving me close behind Luka as we make our way down into the basement.
Even with such a huge house, I never would have expected the basement to be so vast. It feels like the kind of place you would see in a horror movie, featuring a trapdoor to hell. There are no windows down here, so the only light comes from the soft glow from the upstairs just before the door is closed on us.
Using the light from his phone, Luka leads me through a labyrinth of hallways and shelves before he reaches a door at the end of the maze. Even with the limited light, I can see that the door has peeling red paint on it.
“Here’s where you’ll be staying, along with someroommates,” Luka says as he opens the door. When he shines the phone light inside, I see at least five or six other women chained to the floor with three or four beds scattered throughout an unusually large room.
“What the fuck? Luka, what is this?!” I shout, feeling the driver's hand gripping my arm to the point of leaving bruises.
“I’m your sister. You can’t do this to me!” I plead, noticing a horrid smile crawling across Luka’s face.
“Jesus, are you that fucking dense? Really?! I knew you weren’t extremely bright, but damn, I did not expect this to take you this long,” Luka replies, his tone a mix of anger, exasperation, and pity.
“But what about the documents you showed Akim?” I ask, hearing the familiar absence of an echo as I speak. The soundproofed walls absorb my cries like snow on an eerily quiet winter morning.
He laughs. “Did you actually look at any of that shit? I was honestly not too pleased with the photoshopping that was done for those papers. I was half expecting Akim to catch it and put me on my ass,” Luka replies, his pompous sense of self-righteousness returning as the color drains from my face.
I feel like a complete idiot. How could I have let him lure me into his house like this? Even after I got a bad feeling in the beginning? Luka wasn’t even friends with Akim. Why would I trust him and his intentions so blindly?
I consider thrashing and writhing around to break free from the driver’s grip, but the face of one of the other girls catches my eye. She sees what I’m thinking, and she subtly shakes her head as her eyes plead with me not to challenge Luka.
If there’s anyone I should believe at this point, it’s probably her.
The tension in my arms loosens at her silent warning, and I try to come to terms with the fact that, at least for now, I’m trapped here.
But not for long.
I can’t let them keep me here.
Akim wouldn’t let them hurt me. He’d rescue me the moment he learned something was wrong, and that won’t take long if he couldn’t reach my phone. He’ll come for me.
Or will he?
Luka’s driver leads me to the very back of the room, handcuffing me to the radiator as it sputters steam into the air.
“Don’t struggle, or I’ll chain your whole body to it,” he growls as he finally releases his grip on my arm. Even though I’m in a significantly more difficult situation, I feel relief as he lets my arm go.
“Tomorrow, we’ll catch you up on your role here, but for now, I think it’s important that you get some sleep,” Luka says with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Hearing him pretend to care about my well-being with such disdain makes my stomach turn.
Without another word, Luka and his assistant leave the room, and I can hear them deadbolting it shut from the outside.
