Page 10 of Brutal Knight

I start to writhe and buck, pulling at the ropes holding me to the bed, feeling them burn as they rub against my skin. I try to focus on the pain, try to make it wake me up from the haze of drugs.

But it doesn’t work that way. I can’t magically get stronger or better just because I’m afraid and in danger.

Victor swings a leg over me, crawling onto the bed, on top of me. He doesn’t need to, but he pins me down, fury sparking in his eyes as he uses his bulk to press me into the mattress. I don’t want to look. I don’t want to see how much he hates me or how much pleasure he’s going to get out of doing this.

My stomach churns, acid rising up my throat. I think I’d throw up if I had any food in me.

“I’ll have to break you in,” Victor growls. He shoves my chin up, one rough hand dangerously close to my neck as he forces me to look at him.

I keep trying to pull free. My breath is coming in harsh bursts, the panic settling in. Tears sting at my eyes, but I can barely cry at all. I don’t remember the last time I had a drink of water. I feel dizzy and weak, nothing left in me to fight with.

The fury is sapping away, despair settling in my heart. I don’t want to give up, don’t want to let myself be dragged down by hopelessness, but I can feel it sitting in my chest like a heavy weight.

There’s nothing else I can do. I can’t fight him.

“I thought Dmitri already broke you,” Victor says. His other hand moves down, over my body. I try to ignore the way he’s touching me, where I know he’s going. “But you’ve obviously forgotten whatever lessons he taught you.”

I can’t stop myself from feeling the hand on my chest. The one on my neck. My body is shaking. I’m too high, too tired. Even my tears aren’t good enough to cloud my vision and save me from watching what’s happening.

Victor stares down at me, his grip bruising.

“I won’t have a disobedient wife.”

I try to kick. I can feel my mind starting to drift, starting to separate from the horror of what’s happening. Parts of my brain start spinning fantasies to draw me away from reality—what life will be like married to Victor, how many times it’ll take before his violence ends in what it was always meant to.

Dmitri never came quite close to killing me. Something tells me Victor won’t be the same.

The thoughts make it worse. I keep pulling and I realize that I’m saying something. I don’t know when my brain gave my mouth permission to talk, but I can hear myself saying no.

I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to give him that, but I know I can’t stop myself. The fear is too great. I don’t want this, I don’t want to suffer it again after everything. I don’t want this. I want to leave. Now.

Terror digs its nails into my skin. It keeps me tethered, not letting me disconnect. The drugs are keeping me weighted to the earth and my body, to this moment.

I know what comes next. I start to scream.

But then the door slams open somewhere I can’t see, and the noise is deafening.

Voices shout. I can hear more people, people I didn’t know were somewhere near. It makes me want to throw up. I realize that Victor probably had some of his men around. He was ready to rape me with them right there.

The sound of gunshots echoes around me. Victor doesn’t have time to move. Everything happens so fast.

His body jerks as several bullets hit his back, and something warm splashes across my face. A trickle of blood dribbles from his mouth, and then he falls on top of me, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings. I can feel his blood pooling out onto me, running over my skin and clothes. Bile rises in my throat, my breath choked off by horror and disgust.

Men run into the room, moving quickly and gracefully, like predators. My gaze darts their way, and I recognize Connor among them.

For just a moment, I allow myself to feel a rush of relief that Victor is dead. That I’m not about to be assaulted.

But even if those things are true, the relief isn’t real. I have to remind myself that the fear is more true. I may have been saved, but I’ll be a captive again. I’ll be right back where I started, and this was just a delay. Just a horrific stop on the train ride I can’t get off.

One of the men with Connor approaches the bed, tucking his gun into the waistband of his pants before grabbing a knife. He starts to cut away my bindings, working on the ones around my ankles first.

I pull at my hands again, and the binds around my wrists feel looser. Maybe something was jarred when Victor collapsed on top of me, but this time the rope is loose enough for me to slip out. As soon as the man finishes slicing through the binds on my ankles, I claw my way out from under Victor, his body so heavy I think it’s going to crush me. I can barely breathe, or maybe I’m hyperventilating. I don’t know.

I slip to the floor, and my hands are sticky with blood. My legs are just as wobbly as I thought they’d be, but I can’t wait for them to work. I lunge forward, starting to run, afraid that the man who cut the ropes will stop me.

He doesn’t.

But Connor catches me around the waist before I make it two feet from the bed.

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