Page 17 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

Boris steps closer. “Breathing. Sedated. Didn’t fight much.”

“She’ll be pissed when she wakes up, I bet.”

I reach forward and press two fingers to her throat—pulse steady, strong. Her skin is warm. She’s young. Not the kind of person who ends up out here unless someone drags her in by force.

I already know how this will go. She’ll wake in a strange house, tied up, blood in the air. She’ll see Yuri—see the wound, the infection—and she’ll want to fix it. That instinct’s why she’s here. It’s what I’m counting on.

“Get her inside,” I say. “Now.”

Boris nods, moves without hesitation. He lifts her with practiced strength, cradling her like something fragile. I turn back toward the house, already issuing orders.

“Put her in the side room. Tie her to the chair. Not too tight—just enough she won’t go anywhere.” I pause on the porch, hand resting on the frame as Boris carries her past me. “She wakes up,” I murmur, “I want her afraid.”

Then I go inside.

Chapter Four - Elise

The first thing I feel is pain.

A dull, persistent throb at the back of my head, like someone’s lodged a stone behind my skull and wrapped it in fire. My neck aches—stiff, raw—and when I try to shift, my muscles scream in protest. My arms are heavy. Too heavy. The skin along my wrists stings, and my legs are pins and needles, cold and stiff beneath me.

I blink slowly, but everything’s out of focus. Light stutters overhead—an old bulb flickering, casting the room in fits and starts of harsh illumination. The air is damp. Cold enough to sting when I breathe too deeply. The smell hits next: wood, rot, dirt, and something metallic beneath it all. Blood, maybe.

My breath catches.

I sit up—or try to—and the world lurches. My hands are bound. Not tightly, not cruelly, but enough to remind me I’m not free. Rope around my wrists, crossed in front of me. Ankles too. Loose, but deliberate.

Panic sharpens through the fog.

I twist, pulling against the bindings. No give. My skin rubs raw. I shift again, trying to find the source of the pain in my neck. Something sharp. A sting. Like a needle.

Memory kicks in hard and fast. The hospital parking lot. The cold. The sudden, searing prick behind my neck.

My phone falling. Someone behind me.

My heart hammers against my ribs, loud enough to drown out thought. I squeeze my eyes shut, force air into my lungs, hold it, let it go. I’m trained for trauma. I know how to breathe through panic, how to assess under pressure. Except this isn’t triage. This isn’t blood in the ER or a mother wailing or a code blue.

I open my eyes again, blinking hard to focus. The room is small—rough, unfinished wooden walls. Dirt floor. Low ceiling with support beams thick with cobwebs. There’s a single door to my left, closed. No handle on this side. A window, high and small near the ceiling, offers just a sliver of the outside.

I shift toward it, awkward with bound feet, and manage to lift myself enough to see.

It’s night. No streetlights. No city noise. Just trees.

And beyond them—a field. Empty. Stretching out beneath a charcoal sky. A fence in the distance. A barn, maybe. Some kind of shed. I can just make out the curve of a silo against the clouds.

A farm. I’m on a fucking farm?

The cold gets worse the longer I sit still. It seeps into my fingers, my toes, the base of my spine. I try the ropes again, twisting, testing. Whoever tied them knew what they were doing—tight enough to restrict, loose enough to avoid bruises. Medical precision.

My throat is dry. I swallow and taste fear, stale and bitter.

A sound from upstairs—boots, maybe. Heavy. Pacing.

I freeze. They know I’m awake, or they will soon.

I scan the room for anything—tools, sharp edges, anything I could use. But there’s nothing. Just old crates, stacked in the corner. A metal folding chair. An empty bottle on its side. Useless.

The ropes bite deeper as I test them again. I grit my teeth, twisting my wrists hard, but there’s no give. The bindings hold. Someone did this carefully. Not a brute job. Not sloppy.

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