Page 19 of Dance with Death

He releases my wrist and turns away, settling back in his seat. He ignores me again in favor of his phone. When I’m certain his attention is locked on his screen, I rub my hand on my jeans, urgently wiping his saliva from my finger as I finally release the breath I’d been holding.

Soon after, we lift into the sky and I look out the window at the grounds below. The dense forest stretches on for miles around Mikhailov Manor.

The first time Nikolai took me off the grounds by helicopter was to attend my first quarterly meeting. That was several weeks after my one and only escape attempt where I’d gotten myself lost in the woods and came face to face with a gray wolf. Nikolai had come after me and found me just in time.

That one attempt had been all I needed to know that escaping wasn’t possible. But when he flew me away that first time weeks later and I looked down at the forest below—just as I am now—I fell into a crippling panic. It took the view from above to cement the fact that I was completely and utterly at his will—at the will of the four families.

It reminds me that I never stood a chance of breaking free.

Ezra doesn’t stand a chance of breaking free.

I press my palm to the window as we pass over the shadowed outline of Mikhailov Manor, trading it for dark and desolate wilderness.

I’m forced to watch as we leave my love behind.

My possibility, my hope, every good thing Ezra brought to my life is gone.

Done.

Over.

And I don’t know if my heart will ever beat the same way again.

Chapter 6

Anya

We spend thirtyminutes on-board the helicopter before we land on a private airstrip. It belongs to the four families—owned and operated, just the same as the airstrips in Italy, Ireland, and Louisiana—and I can make an educated guess that it’s off-grid from the authorities. We transfer from the helicopter to a private plane owned by the Vittoris and in no time at all, we’re taking off into the night.

This next part of the journey will be long. I recall from my previous trips with Nikolai to the quarterly meetings hosted by the Vittoris that the plane ride was four or five hours nonstop.

Those hours with Nikolai in close quarters had always been trying. Thankfully, he’d spent most of that time on his laptop or phone, preparing his sales facts and figures for the meeting ahead. When he wasn’t doing that, of course, he was enjoying the free use of my body for his pleasure.

As the plane levels out at its cruising altitude, Vigo pockets his phone and turns on me with that twisted smile. My heart hammers for the uncertainty of how this time will be spent alone with Vigo, remembering how Nikolai could so brutally use and abuse me, and wondering how much worse it will be with this monster.

My hands tremble as my mind flashes back to when Vigo used me once before.

Suddenly, I’m very aware of the pills in my pocket and even more aware of how my ankle throbs and burns. Travel hasn’t been kind to the swelling, and I feel the pain of it more and more as minutes pass. But that pang in my gut that tells me to wait to take another pill, to bide my time, to get through for now because I’ll need them more later, returns with unsettling force.

“Get up,” Vigo commands. “Come to me.”

I should behave as I’ve always done for Nikolai.

I should get up and go to him without question, and I should do it immediately.

But he was right before. Ezra has brought my fight back to life and I can’t seem to let myself do as I’m told. Ezra had nearly managed to bring me back to the woman I was before captivity, and I knew how dangerous that was now.

Yet, in a visceral way, it somehow feels like a betrayal to do as I’m told now. If I were a better slave, I would say it feels like a betrayal to the master I’ve known for over three years, but that’s not true.

Obeying feels like a betrayal to Ezra and to the light and fight he brought back into my life.

Stupidly, I ignore the command and tightly press my eyes shut. I send a private message to Ezra in my mind that he ismineand I can nearly hear him echo back his own promise.

Yours.

Vigo speaks with an eerily calm tone and I open my eyes to see a sickening smirk on his face. “I think you underestimate my disregard for your well-being,schiava. I will happily jump up and down upon your broken foot.” He repeats his command, “Get up. Come to me.”

I stare at him. “No.”

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