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I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I’m breathing too fast and not at all at the same time. My chest feels tight and I can’t seem to gulp enough air to fill my lungs but then I’m overfilled and near to bursting.
Master is Demyen’s father?!
I’m fucked.
Done for.
Master is going to break me. But then he’s gonna kill me, and Demyen’s going to watch him do it with that same dark glare on his face.
Demyen. He was here. He was sitting right in front of me.
Talking to hisfather.
I grab one of the larger pillows off the bed and hold it over my face. Then I just scream. And scream. And scream.
Only when I break down into sobs do I allow myself to fall onto the bed and give in to the shattering heartbreak and despair. I’m all out of time, and I’m realizing now that I didn’t have much to begin with.
Master knows who I am and what I did.
To Tolya. To hisson.
I thought this new life as his slave was going to be hard just by the nature of it alone—but he’s got a score to settle with me. Vengeance to play out. Whatever he’s done to women before, he’s going to do far worse to me.
How long has he known? Did he always know? Is that why he went to such lengths with Raizo to buy me?
How did I not recognize him as Demyen’s father?!
A thought suddenly occurs to me. A theory, really. I’ve never actually seen the symbol Master branded me with—not in its entirety or on purpose, since I’ve usually done my best to avoid acknowledging it.
Now, I need to see it. I need to see what’s been permanently seared into my skin by the Zakrevsky patriarch who wholeheartedly, with every fiber of his being, believes I’m personally responsible for Tolya’s incarceration.
I roll off the bed and yank the closet door open so I can use the dressing mirror to get a good look. Or at least, a good enough glance. I rip the bandages off and peer hard at the rippled flesh beneath my buttock.
I can’t make out the specific details of the brand itself—a crest, maybe?—but there’s one feature I do, without question, see very clearly.
The letter Z.
Z for Zakrevsky.
I don’t know how I manage to make it to the bathroom before I puke up what little contents I have in my stomach. Even after there’s nothing left to hurl, my stomach muscles clench and spasm and still try to expelsomething.
My fingers fumble for the handle. Flushing away my bile shouldn’t feel so poetic, sofinal, but it does. I sit there on the tiled floor, hair falling in front of my face, and watch the water swirl and dive and drag my dripping tears down with it.
If only I were small enough to just escape this way, too. Hell, even a sewage line would be better than staying here.
The bedroom door opens, then quickly shuts. If I’m lucky, it will just be a housekeeper or one of the other slave girls.
But this is me, and my life, so of course I’m not lucky. Of course it’s Master, who quickly comes into the bathroom, grabs me by the hair, and yanks me to my feet.
“What’s the matter,umnitsa?” he coos scornfully in my face. “Are the pieces finally falling into place?”
For the first time since I’ve been here, I let him see me cry. I don’t hold back, either—my whole body shakes with sobs, and I don’t care that he sees me break down in front of him.
