Page 141 of The Umarova Crime Family

“Mona, come sit.”

I swallow and do as he asks, heading over to take the seat across from him. As I sit down, Nazyr takes the metal cover off my plate, and I’m in awe at the spread in front of me. Duarte might have had me at his home for years, but that didn’t mean I ate what everyone else did. The only exception was when I was pregnant with my daughters. He’d feed me as much as everyone else then and give me extra food since the girls needed more nutrition.

On the plate in front of me is toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and even a fruit spread. There’s even a full glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee for me too.

“Eat up. I’m going to interrogate you over breakfast, so you’ll need your energy,” Nazyr says in a joking manner, which has me nervously smiling in response.

I take a sip of my orange juice and wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t at first, so I will. “Thank you for getting me set up with some clothing and toiletries.”

“My pleasure. When we get back to Grozny, I’ll have more for you, but in that case, you can go out and pick your own. I had to enlist the help of my right-hand man’s wife to make sure I wasn’t purchasing awful things for you.”

Where is Grozny? I’ve never heard of that city before, but Nazyr has a Russian look about him… and he speaks Russian, so it has to be near there. Maybe it’s located in another smaller country around the border?

“Where is Grozny, and how am I getting there?” I ask him, bringing my thoughts aloud. I don’t know where in the bloody hell my passport might be. I know Duarte might’ve had one for me, given I went out of the country with him a couple of times to events, but nothing lately. I think he started to realize I was becoming more of a risk, speaking up on some occasions and talking back.

“It’s in Chechnya, which is now the Chechen Republic. I was able to get a photograph of you and have a contact of mine make a passport for you. It’s legitimate, and no one will ever question you on it. Look, I’m going to get straight to the point. The only reason I took you out of Duarte’s estate is that I knew he was going to kill you. He wouldn’t have offered you up in a sale, and even if he did, you would’ve ended up with someone much worse than him. It’s my belief he only offered you to me because he wanted to sweeten the deal with my family and because he knew enough about me to know I’d treat you well.”

I don’t think Duarte gives a rat’s ass about how I’m treated. “He doesn’t care about how I’m treated, and you’re a foolish man if you think he ever did. How does a man who cares about me give me these?” I point to the scars on my face, and Nazyr raises his eyebrows. I’m sure he had assumptions about how I got them, but what he didn’t do was ask me about them.

“How and why?”

I’m midway into a bite of toast, so I chew quickly and then swallow. “Because he fucking felt like it, I suppose. Duarte never needed a reason to treat me badly. He just did it because he could. Because I was his.” Unaddressed rage storms through my blood for the first time in ages. I was never really allowed to let my emotions get the best of me before, but Nazyr doesn’t seem to give a shit. He wants to know what happened, and thus he’ll get my full reactions because of that.

“The first time he didn’t like the dress I had on for a dinner party when he, in turn, was the one who had the dress sent to my room. He told me I looked horrible, and I lashed out at him. I pointed out the fact he provided it to me and that it was his fault if I looked as bad as he said.”

Nazyr inhales slowly, and I notice his nostrils flare shortly after. “What about the second time?”

“He said I was staring at one of his friends.” As I say it, I realize how minuscule it was. Duarte would find any reason to put his hands on me at any given time.

“Did he beat and rape you, along with what he did to create those scars?”

Man, Nazyr wasn’t kidding. This really is an interrogation.

I’m biting on some of the bacon in front of me, and as I finish chewing, I answer him. “Nazyr, Duarte did whatever he damn well wanted, so I’m sure you already know the answer.”

“Understood. Now, I need to know if there’s anything else he did to you. Anything more vile and horrid than the rest, than what you eventually and unfortunately became accustomed to.”

Suddenly, there’s a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. There is something he did that was worse than anything else. Something I will never, ever be able to forget about. It’s something I see when I close my eyes, and I feel like it will haunt me for the rest of my days.

I’m forced to close my eyes for a moment, and as I open them, Nazyr’s determined stare bores into me. He knows there’s something more, something much worse than anything else Duarte has done to me.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” Nazyr is trying to be reassuring, but I know this isn’t going to be easy to vocalize.

I take a few moments and then finally speak. “Every year I’ve been with Duarte, I’ve been pregnant.”

I watch as Nazyr adds up how many children I have. “I had a third pregnancy. It was earlier this year, and I was six months pregnant when Duarte lost his temper. He pushed me down a flight of stairs. I broke an arm and a leg, but those didn’t matter compared to the most unimaginable loss I’ve ever had.”

“I am so sorry you had to go through that,” Nazyr tells me, and I have no doubt in my mind that he’s being completely and utterly genuine.

“Duarte said I looked at him wrong. That’s why he did it. That was the fucking excuse he gave me. He’d been beating me left and right since then whenever he felt the itch, I suppose. He blamed me for losing our son, but he always called him ‘his son’ as if I was nothing.”

Nazyr immediately stiffens, and I’m not sure how to take it. Surely, he isn’t angry with me, right?

“I’ve told you I’ll help you get your children back, and that is a promise I intend on keeping. If Duarte can do these things to you, I’m sure he can do them to your little girls as well. Now, it won’t happen immediately, but I will make sure that we get them out as soon as we can. We’ll need time to develop a plan, and I’ll need to speak to my brother and let him know the magnitude of the situation we’re dealing with.”

His brother must be the top dog in his family, so I have no choice but to let Nazyr handle things as he sees fit. “All right, so what do you want me to do in the meantime?”

“I think if you stay with me, that will be the best choice for you. I, of course, won’t force you to stay. If you want to leave, you’re more than welcome to; however, leaving comes with uncertainties and possible threats. If you choose to stay with me, you’ll be under my care and protection until we can get your girls back, and then we can have another discussion about what your future will look like. So, what will it be?”

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