Page 96 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

It’s been a few hours since Taras left. I’ve been thinking. Planning.

Rose said escaping the house is impossible. She might be right, but I’m not willing to carry on without trying. I’m not willing to live in this prison day in and day out, servicing Taras Kreshnik, without making an attempt to get my life back. To escape and reclaim my child and my freedom.

And I’m not leaving without her.

“Rose?”

She sniffles and lifts her head slightly.

“I have a plan.”

I tell Rose what I’m thinking in a quiet voice. The walls in this part of the house are thin and I don’t want anyone to hear what I’m saying. Taras has created an environment where the women on his staff tattle on one another to earn favor or more privileges. If anyone heard what we’re planning to do, they’d alert the guards immediately for the chance at a new bottle of shampoo or a bag of candy.

He’s got everyone chained up like monsters. So they act like monsters.

I don’t want that to happen to me. Or to Rose.

She listens, blinking up at me, her expression blank. I truly can’t tell what she’s thinking. Is she horrified I’d try to fight back so soon after my last attempt got her beaten?

I debated telling Rose at all, thinking it might be best to carry out the plan and drag her along. But my fear is that she’d get lost in the shuffle because she won’t understand what I’m doing.

I don’t want that to happen. If I get out of here, Rose gets out of here, too. I won’t have it any other way.

When I finish explaining, I watch her, waiting for her to tell me to fuck off. I wouldn’t even blame her. I’d completely understand.

Rose sits up, wincing as she stretches out her bruised limbs. Then she turns to me and nods once. “Okay.”

“You want to?” I whisper. “Are you sure?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says, gesturing to her swollen face. “I’d rather die than live like this. And I do think we’re going to die if we stay. I want out.”

“We aren’t going to die, Rose. This will work.” I hope I sound more confident than I feel because, as we begin setting the plan in motion, I’m nervous. Trembling with an intoxicating mix of terror and adrenaline.

Rose lays down on her bed, facing the wall, and I go into the bathroom.

Every possible weapon or suicidal instrument has been removed from the room, leaving it depressingly bare. But there’s one thing in the bathroom Taras and his guards didn’t think of. One thing that could be the difference between life and death.

I climb up onto the small sink, my feet on either side of the basin. Then, after a silent countdown, I thrust my elbow straight into the mirror above the sink.

Shards of glass rain down into the sink and on the floor.

I take one more deep breath before I jump off of the sink, landing hard on my heels, and begin to scream. I wail and carry on even as I grab a large piece of glass and cut a line into my thigh. Blood blooms over my skin. I begin spreading it around, making the damage look worse than it is.

I hear a guard sprinting down the hallway. When the door to our room is thrown open, I’m lying on a layer of shattered glass on the bathroom floor, my bloody leg pulled to my chest.

“Help! Help!” I dissolve into hysterics.

The guard, as I hoped, has no idea what to do with me. Taras’s men are used to inflicting pain, not curing it.

“I… I’ll get Dr. Bardhi,” the man stammers.

He runs out from the room. Rose lifts herself out of bed and slides her bed frame two feet closer to the closet door while I scream and shout to cover the sound of the metal legs scraping across the tile floor.

Dr. Bardhi runs into the room a few moments later. “My God! Arya, what happened?”

I start to wail even louder and try standing.

He stops me at once. “No, don’t stand,” he orders. “You could have opened an artery.”

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