Page 51 of The Lazarov Bratva

I’m cold, covered in only a single sheet, and there’s a light chill in the air around me that turns into a biting shiver as I take in my surroundings and the reason I can’t move becomes clear.

Rolling my head to the side, jet black rope encircles one wrist. At a glance, I see my other wrist in the same trouble, and it takes no guess to figure out what the pressure around my ankles is.

Is this some kind of joke? It has to be, right?

I test the rope, wiggling my wrists back and forth as tension snaps across my chest and my next breath is haggard. Racking my brain, last night is caught up behind a fog wall, and I can only recall flashes of faces I can’t quite connect to names just yet.

“Fuck,” I whisper softly, pulling harder at the rope, but other than dragging the fibers painfully against my wrist, the knots don’t budge. The rope is secure, and by extension, so am I.

How the hell did I get here?

What the fuck happened last night?

I remember Katja and two men whose names are lost to the drunken depths of my mind. They were cute but nothing compared to—Kristof! He bursts sharply into my mind, and I wince, screwing up my eyes as a whole host of memories floods to the forefront of my mind. Memories that don’t feel real. That was a dream, surely?

Did he really fuck me?

Or did I fuck that guy and just fantasize that it was Kristof? Honestly, that’s more believable, given how Kristof consumes my thoughts more than any other man has. With that certain in my mind, I open my eyes and cast a quick glance around this new room.

What I see makes my heart freeze in my chest, and terror lances down my spine.

The room is bare and simple, four walls and a thick-looking door at the far end with no visible handle. There are no windows, and the only light comes from the four small, twinkling circles above me. A shallow alcove in the far left corner houses a silver toilet without a seat and a shower nozzle attached halfway up the wall. To my immediate left is a simple wooden nightstand with a tall glass of water. To my right, taking up a large portion of the room, is a sleek black cage with straight bars. It’s empty, and from the size of it, I know I don’t want to meet the dog that surely lives there.

I take it all in, and something terrible unlocks inside me.

This isn’t my home.

This isn’t a dream.

Did the man from the bar… did he kidnap me?

Terror seizes me. I open my mouth and scream for all I’m worth.

“Help! Help me! Please!”

I scream until my throat burns and I dissolve into a flurry of short, sharp coughs. Then I groan and begin pulling harder at my restraints. Moving my body alerts me to other aches and pains that litter my body. My shoulder throbs, my breasts ache, and my core throbs painfully in time to my pounding heart. There’s no denying that I definitely slept with someone last night, and reality collides with fantasy in my mind.

Whoever it was, they’ve taken me and bound me here, naked.

Tears start to well in my eyes. I can’t remember what happened to Katja, either, and my fear for her makes me scream louder. We got separated at some point because I remember seeing her upset, stumbling through the crowd, but my mind blurs with what happened after.

I’m so stupid, so fucking stupid!

This was supposed to be a night of fun, a night to let loose and have fun, and somehow, I’ve ended up in the hands of some crazy serial killer. No one knows where I am, no one knows to look for me, and for all I know, Katja is lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

Fear, cold and clammy, wraps around me like a wet blanket, and I shiver desperately as I rock back and forth. My wrists and ankles rub raw, but the ropes don’t budge, and soon, my desperate screams are interrupted by sobs.

I don’t want to die here. I don’t want to be a piece of meat for whatever coward snatched me.

I just want to go home.

I scream until my voice starts to break and each breath drags over my raw throat with flickers of pain. I switch between screaming and begging for help, desperately hoping someone like a neighbor or a pedestrian might somehow catch wind of my screams and come looking to help me.

No one comes.

Nothing in the room changes other than the warmth of the sheet as my temperature rises with my panic. I scream until I can’t anymore, and with a last, scared wheeze, I slump down onto the bed and sob softly. Tears trickle down my face, landing in the shell of my ear, and I ache to wipe them away, but I’m trapped.

I’m completely and utterly trapped in a room that looks like it’s from a Saw movie. There’s a desperate moment when I look around, half expecting to see a tape with the words Play Me scrawled over it, but there’s nothing.

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