Page 19 of Dark Bratva Christmas
“Are you okay?” Helena asks, eyeing my pacing. I take a seat by the window and stare outside instead of answering.
I would give anything to be out there right now, taking a walk in the snow with a hot chocolate in hand, admiring all of the Christmas-themed window displays and the lights decorating different brownstones.
It's my favorite time of year and I'm locked in a room where I don't get to experience any of it. This is hell. I’m in hell.
“I want to go outside,” I mutter, staring out at the lights.
“Maybe soon,” Helena replies, and I roll my eyes at the vague answer.
I tune her out as she restocks, and I focus on a house in the distance. It's a beautiful colonial style manor with a Christmas light display so bright and detailed that I’m sure it draws a lot of attention.
I almost smile at it.
Mikhail and I used to talk all the time about how we would do stuff like that. Coming from the families we do, we never got to experience the warm, fuzzy Christmases you see in movies. Sure, we both had Christmas Eves and Christmas Days with big, fancy dinners, but that was it. I never got to experience the magic of it.
We wanted to make our own traditions. We wanted to go to Christmas markets, walk around and admire all of the light displays, tell our children that Santa Claus is real, and do our best to create that magic.
And I highly doubt Matysh will want any part of that.
Raising a child with him isn't going to be any different than my own childhood. They're going to grow up way too fast, knowing what their family does. The world is going to be a cold, dark place where magic can't exist.
My heart squeezes at my inability to protect my future child from it.
Maybe I could run. Maybe I could escape this hell.
Though I have no idea what I'm going to do when I leave, but…maybe it would be worth a try.
My room is on the third floor of the estate, and thanks to the obnoxiously high ceilings, it's a little too high for me to jump down without, you know, breaking every bone in my body.
I usually have a few hours between every check-in Helena does throughout the day. She's just made my bed, so I can expect lunch to be served in a couple of hours. It's not a huge time window, but I think itmightbe enough to make something happen.
It’d at least give me some excitement. Even if they have to drag me back.
I pace back and forth as I try to come up with a plan. I think about attacking Helena when she walks in, but that thought isimmediately shut down. Not only do I not want to fight Helena, but I am in no state to fight.
That's not even taking into consideration the guards that will immediately rush in and break it up if they hear a commotion.
I could try shimmying along the ledges of the house. Outside the window, I've noticed there's about a two-inch ledge leading to the balcony, which I imagine is outside of Matysh's room. But there are some obvious risks associated with it, one of them being falling to my death.
On top of that, if Matysh is in his room, he's going to spot me and that can't end well.
I settle on a classic escape plan—tying all of the bedding in my room into one long rope. I immediately pull everything off of the bed. Thanks to the luxurious standard of everything in the estate, I have a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, a duvet cover, and a duvet insert. All of which are California King size.
It's like Matysh wanted me to escape when he put that size of a bed there.
I’m literally going insane right now.I know I am. It’s fine.Maybe I will die.
Then everyone can really have a war.
I start tying knots in the bedding, really doubting my skills as I continue working. The funny thing is, I was in the Girl Scouts.Unfortunately for me, there was too big of a focus on selling cookies and not enough on survival skills.
Midway through my knot tying adventure, I feel a lurch in my stomach that gives me pause. Panic swells in my body, settling in around my neck the way it often does when I feel I'm going to be sick.
“No...” I say, rushing to my feet and running to the bathroom. I drop to my knees in front of the toilet just in time to vomit in the basin. When I'm done, I sit back and stare at the mixture of bile and breakfast in the bowl, running my fingers through my hair. “No, no, no...this cannot be happening.”
I look at the counter where Helena has unpacked the items she restocked in here, seeing a myriad of period supplies. Pads, tampons, even a diva cup, because I'm sure she didn't know what I preferred when she shopped.
Oh my god, I was due for my period. Days ago.
