Page 214 of The Harbinger
“I’m glad you’ve finally gotten used to my presence, but unfortunately, you won’t be around long enough to do much else.” He stopped at my cell door, tucked his hand into his pocket, then pulled out a hankie and covered his nose and mouth in a makeshift mask.
I hung my head and held back the tears.
“Come now, don’t be depressed. Tonight is a celebration. You should be joyful.”
I snorted. “The only joy that comes from this day is knowing I’ll never see your ugly face again.” I tucked my hand behind my back, hiding my nervous tick. Maybe if I made him mad, he’d snap my neck and make it quick. “Maybe now that your wife and son are dead,” I hissed, trying not to cringe at my salty words, “you can snuff out your miserable life and rule the underworld with them. Isn’t that what you believe?”
Ruslan tsked with a smile growing wider on his lips. “My dear girl,” he snapped his fingers.Like father, like son.The guard stepped up to the cell door and opened it. “If you think I’d mourn either of them, then you don’t know my world as much as you think you do.”
Mr. Hulk rushed towards me, a grimace on his face, his nose scrunched. He lifted my grimy, dirt-covered body off the ground, his features telling me all I needed to know about how bad I truly stunk.
If he could control me with his two fingers, he’d hold me far away like a soiled towel.
My sore hips jutted against my tattered dress, the spectacle visible in the dim light.
“There was one thing…” he said from behind me as his men pulled me up the stairs, my toes dragging along the edges. “How did you meet Nikolai?”
I inhaled the crisp, pine-scented air and felt my eyes water. The sun was low in the sky, but its bright rays still burned my retinas like it was high noon. I squinted and groaned, my vision turning to a bright red that caused my eyes to throb.
“Joke’s on you Ruslan. I never met him until after I met your son.” My chin trembled as my eyes watered.
“Lying won’t save you.”
“I don’t need saving.”
His men pulled me to the car as Ruslan spoke. “Be that as it may, my men will stand with you while you prepare for the evening. If you try to escape or harm yourself in any way, they have been ordered to do unspeakable things to you.”
My chin trembled, and Tiny, the smallest of the three guards, I’d so aptly named him, opened the door.
“Let’s not pretend to be anything we’re not,” he sneered, his breath hot on my face. “We’re devil-worshippers, not pious saints. And who’s to say the demons wouldn’t appreciate a little defilement from time to time?”
My chest seized like an iron fist had clamped down on my lungs. Ruslan barked an order in Russian, and the thugs yanked me away from the car door, dragging me towards the trunk. The lid sprang open with a metallic groan. “You stink worse than an animal,” Ruslan snarled. “You’re not riding up front like a civilized human.”
They shoved me inside, my broken finger catching painfully on the rough interior. I howled in pain, but the lid slammed shut, sealing me in with nothing but the sound of their muted voices as the car pulled away.
A single thought echoed through my mind like a gunshot: I wasn’t ready to die.
All of Sacha’s hard work to keep me safe had been for naught. I single-handedly destroyed everything he had put in place in one swift night. Now that I had killed him, Ruslan wouldn’t rest until he had taken my life in retribution.
I pulled my broken finger to my chest and stared into the darkness once more until the bouncing stopped, and the car doors slammed.
The trunk popped open, and for a brief moment, I entertained the idea of making a run for it. I could run, my twisted ankle felt as good as new, but the lack of nutrition and weakness ate at my muscles. And then there was the massive form of Ruslan’s hulking bodyguard looming over me.
There was no escape.
My stomach bottomed out as I glanced around. He’d brought me home? Sacha’s home. I could no longer call it my own, even though that was what Sacha intended.
But of course, he’d bring me here. This was where the altar was.
Mr. Hulking Bodyguard yanked me out of the trunk with such force that my bare feet hit the icy ground with a jarring thud. I shuddered as chills wracked my body, and I rubbed my arms where his grip had left a residual ache.
As I stood there, dazed and disoriented, my attention was drawn to three women emerging from the house. Their faces were obscured by the telltale white masks, but the memories of that fateful night came crashing back to me with the force of a freight train.
I had tried to keep the memories at bay, to push the realization that I had lost control of my body and killed Sacha to the back of my mind. But now, standing there before those three women, everything rushed up to me like a wave, threatening to overwhelm me.
“These women will prepare you for tonight’s ceremony,” Ruslan growled, his voice laced with a warning. “And you’ll do well to remember what I’ve told you.”
There were worse things than death.