Page 18 of Savage Bratva King

I ignore the conversation and focus on the name. Tamara. It’s better than nothing.

The door creaks open to reveal a dimly lit chamber with concrete walls and a low oppressive ceiling. The concrete floor is covered in slime and moss, and the air, when we step inside, is dense and damp. In the center of the room is a pool that sits flush with the floor.

I breathe in and splutter, the dankness clogging my parched throat.

But the sisters appear to be unaffected. Perhaps this is what they do for pleasure, come down here and swim around the cold pool for the sheer adrenaline rush.

Fear clamps around my chest like a vice, and I let it. Fight or flight. Without it, I don’t stand a chance.

As the witch drags me towards the pool, the chill raises goosebumps on my arms and the back of my neck. I glance around for some kind of makeshift weapon that I can retaliate with. Anything. But with a mounting sense of dread creeping through my veins, I realize that all I can use to my advantage is the slickness underfoot.

She forces me to my knees. “Tamara, are you sure this is what Leonid wants?” I manage before her sister grips my hair in her fist and pushes my face into the water.

The shock is immediate. The freezing water feels like millions of tiny needles piercing my skin, and my body instantly reverts to panic mode. My muscles tense, and I open my mouth to scream. My eyes, my ears, my nose, my lungs… My entire body has been invaded by the icy liquid, and panic continues to flood my veins, making it impossible to think. My skin is on fire and frozen at the same time, and my brain is struggling to understand the agony.

I can’t breathe. My arms thrash around in the water, trying to get purchase and push myself back out, but it’s so deep, and my body is so cold that my movements are sluggish and futile.

She yanks me out of the water by my hair.

I don’t have long. Water pours off my burning face and fills my eyes, and I choke more water out of my lungs. I scrabble around my whirring thoughts, trying to remember what I was going to do, but I can’t think… Fear bubbles beneath my stinging skin, and I don’t know how to contain it.

Too late.

My face is back underwater, and I don’t have the energy to fight it. All I can do is think about the pain filling my skull. I close my eyes… My entire body is numb and trembling so violently that I fear I’ll slide out of the maniac’s grip and submerge myself.

But if I do, I’m taking her with me.

The thought appears from nowhere like a light being switched on.

She drags me out a second time. I can’t feel my face. I can barely suck in enough oxygen to keep the blood pumping through my veins, but I cling to the one thing that’s keeping me in the present.

I’m taking her down with me.

With a surge of adrenaline, I twist around to face her cold, dark eyes, and allow my body to go limp. An eerie warmth floods my body as I lean backwards, throwing myself into the pool, my hair still twisted around her hand.

I see it in her eyes. Shock. A perverse flicker of admiration perhaps. Then her hand hits the water, and she tries to free herself, but the momentum and the slippery ground is pulling her down with me.

My head and shoulders sink beneath the surface.

The shrieking panic is gone, and in its place is an irrational sense of warm, comforting peace. She didn’t win. She didn’t break me. If I get out of this alive, I will be stronger than she will ever imagine, and she’d better start running.

Then, I’m no longer in the water. I’m lying on the slick, icy ground, and someone rolls me onto my side, and hot liquid is pouring out of my lungs. I cough and splutter. I can’t feel any part of my upper body. I can’t even open my eyes to see what’s going on because my brain is still trying to make sense of it all.

But I’m still alive.

I won.

“I said teach her a lesson. I didn’t ask you to drown her like a fucking animal.”

I recognize the voice. It’s cold and powerful and dangerous, but somehow, I get the sense that it is on my side.

“Get out of my fucking sight, Ivana.”

Ivana. Now I have both names. I store them away inside my head for later use.

Warm strong arms wrap around me. I feel myself being hoisted off the ground as if I’m as light as a feather. Then, my head is resting against a solid chest, and I can hear thethump-thump-thumpof Leonid Ivanov’s heartbeat as he carries me out of the room.

He might’ve come to my rescue this time, but I will never forget that he gave the order, and a tiny spark of hatred ignites inside me.

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