Page 121 of Deadly Knight
“You’re okay,” she whispers. “You’re safe.”
I’msafe? I wasn’t the one raped over and over.
More steps move closer, words of Russian being shared back and forth. Everything past the woman in my arms, who’s finally stopped screaming in my head, is muted. I barely catch words likerecordedanddays.
They can’t touch her.
Not again.
I won’t survive it.
I scramble to my feet, body swaying after being tied to a chair for all the hours they forced themselves on her, and push her behind me, glaring at the figures between the bars.
Bars?
Two women approach slowly but I shove Katya towards safety, arms out and teeth bared, fuckingdaringthem to approach.
Two women? There should be four men.
“Stay the fuck away.”
One flicks a black braid over her shoulder and lifts her hand, gun in one, the other empty. Her finger remains off the trigger. “Dimitri…”
The men never called me by name.
Katya slides in front of me, despite my attempt to shield her. She says something low to the others before twisting, her hands coming up to my cheeks again. The swelling over my one eye makes her blurry and unfocused, but also somehow clear as hell. I’m able to make out her braided hair, track sweater, and yoga pants, a knife in one hand.
She’s not naked. Not been raped. Not destroyed.
More so, she’s armed.
The fog over my vision lifts slightly.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “We’re here. Me, Vanessa, and Anastasia. Your family. We’re here for you. I’m so, so sorry, Dimitri.”
Vanessa, Anastasia…Katya.
Bars.
Recording.
Mikhail and Andrei.
It all comes back to me then, a series of images. Beatings and torture as I’ve been kept captive, forced to wait out the undetermined length of time until Vanessa realized I was taken and traded me for my father. Then the TV they wheeled in and forced me to watch the recording ofthatday. How long ago was that?
“Katya.”
She smiles tentatively, and I hate how uncertain she seems. I cover her hands again with my own, the extra pressure on my face painful from the numerous hits taken over the weeks.
“Everything’s fuzzy.” I lift my head, finding my cousin slowly approaching the door. “Sorry.”
Anastasia comes up beside her, holding a USB stick. She grimaces, glancing between Katya and I. “Fuck, I never could have imagined…fuck, Katya?—”
“Don’t.” Katya shakes her head, her hair brushing against my face. I breathe in the scent of citrus. A scent fresher than anything else this cell could offer.
I hold out my hand for the drive, intending to destroy it once we’re safe, and Anastasia hands it over without question. “Do you know how long they’ve had that playing?”
“They had it on a loop. The stream was seventy-two hours long—three days—and it was about halfway through.”
