Page 80 of Hateful Vows
When I’m done, my voice is hoarse and my throat screams at me. I’m delusional with the need for water.
At least Irina is safe. She’s home with Aleksei, with our men. She’ll take care of my mother, of Lucie. A sliver of hope tells me she’ll come for me. I’m hers to kill, no one else. She promised me. My life is hers to take, not this absent bastard who’s trying to play with my mind.
A cruel laugh escapes me. It bubbles up until it becomes an unhinged cackle. I barely recognise myself.
Steps echo beyond the door and the hinges squeak as the door to my prison opens. The figure standing in the doorway is shrouded in darkness. I can’t see their face, but the malicious intent in their posture is unmistakable.
Still, I laugh in their face. I’ve never feared for my life. When the grim reaper will be ready to take me, I pray she spares my loved ones. And they’re safe now, I’m sure of it. Me? She can take me if she wishes, I don’t really care.
“You obviously don’t know who my wife is,” I chuckle. “She’s going to love chasing you to the end of the Earth.”
“Is that so?” the masculine voice says and it sends a shiver down my spine. The words are careless, but the intonation… It’s almost familiar. It pulls at a thread in my brain but no matter how hard I yank on it, it escapes me.
My neck hurts to keep my head angled toward the door. When the man steps into view, he wears nondescript black clothes and a black balaclava that hides his face. I barely make up his eyes with how bright the lamp shines in my irises, rendering me almost blind. When I close them, sparks of blue and white fill my vision, pain lancing at the back of my head. The migraine starts latent but grows sharper as the light remains.
“You should kill me now,” I tell the man with a chuckle. “Irina will tear you to shreds.”
He hums softly but doesn’t raise to the bait. His steps are silent as he moves around the table, observing me like I’m a creature in his lab. The mirth I felt minutes ago vanishes when, from the pocket of his trousers, he takes an ominous syringe full of a clear liquid. He doesn’t even strap my arm to feel for a vein. He doesn’t need to. No matter how much I wiggle as the man approaches, my whole body is strapped to the table, elbows, wrists and ankles bound tightly. He finds a vein at my inner elbow, gloved fingers seizing me with force and making me sick, and injects me with the poison.
But it isn’t poison.
It’s pure fucking heroin.
The drug shoots in my system and my body immediately softens, my muscles releasing tension in one go. The heaviness makes my lids droop and my heart slows until all I feel is the perfect cloud underneath me, holding me with care. The lingering headache and shivers disappear, replaced by the rushing feeling of comfort and warmth.
My mind empties and I get the smallest flash of brown hair on top of my captor’s head. It reminds me of Irina though hers is darker. Even the most Earth-shattering orgasm pales in comparison to this. But it’s close and her face appears at the back of my mind.
I float into this state for what feels like days.
When it leaves my body, I barely have time to turn my head to the side before I vomit on the table and myself, choking and sputtering. The liquid sloshes on the metal table to move to the back of my neck and nausea invades me again. But there’s nothing for me to wretch.
I stay like this, in a pool of my own vomit for hours. Other bodily functions start to scream at me to release and I hold it as long as I can.
But I’ve lost track of time.
And eventually, I let go, shame coating me like a second skin. Tears pool on my face and fall to the table.
When the man doesn’t reappear, my body shakes with sobs. Stripped of dignity, nauseous and permanently coated in my own filth and the cold sweat of self-loathing and dread, I hold onto my beautiful wife’s and infuriating lover’s sneering faces, laughing manically at the visions of them behind my eyelids.
But soon, the need for water and food eclipses them and takes over every other instinct, including hope.
THIRTY-THREE
IRINA
Two weeks.
Two weeks of little sleep, little food, meetings at midnight and goose chases at sunrise. Every single scrap of evidence and traces of Dante we get leads to a new dead end.
The purple under my eyes looks painted on. My cheeks are emaciated and I permanently live in tactical gear, barely removing the scraps of fabric to get three hours of sleep in between bouts of frantic search.
Aleksei and I have moved into the mansion to be close to our men. Most of them have taken up residence here as well, sleeping on cots piled in the guest rooms, or on the floor if nothing else is available. I’ve had to hire five cooks to prepare food for the little army we keep here at all times.
Even sunny Lucie barely talks anymore, only coming out of her room in the morning to ask if we found anything. Some mornings, she doesn’t even ask, simply glances at us, at the despair that clings to us like a permanent tattoo, and leaves again.
I thought I was strong. I spent so many years carefully crafting my walls so the pain of losing anyone would never hitme. I let anger fester inside to feed my hate and eradicate silly affections that would have made me weak.
And in a short amount of time, Dante has destroyed it all. And now, his absence is a living beast inside my chest. It haunts me, day and night.
