Madness (Revenge Series Book 3) (15 page)

I need to get my wits together. I can’t panic or lose control of my sanity right now. I need to get acclimated to my surroundings, find the best way to get my hands free, and then get the fuck out of this place. I inhale deeply. Calming my frayed nerves, I look around.

First, I study the women. Both of them are small and appear to be weathered. They don’t look old, but they give off the appearance of having a horrible life. They are slaves, no doubt, working for the man in charge of this horrible place. My heart breaks because it’s probably all they know. More often than not, young girls are snatched from their homes to live the rest of their lives in an inhumane manner.

I choke back the emotion for the women. If it comes down to them or me, I won’t hesitate to kill them to get myself out of here.

I look around the space and notice I’m in a small room. There is a sink off to the side and a small dresser on the other. I appear to be lying on a bed and cuffed by my ankles and wrists to the frame. There is a door opposite the bed and no window.

As my brain continues to wake up from the fogginess, the smells of the room flood in. Urine, blood, and agony cover every surface of this place. My gut lurches, wondering just how many girls have been where I’m at.

My eyes snap back down when the younger of the two women runs a bar of soap over my legs, lathering it up before she washes them. The other woman follows suit, washing the other side of my body. It’s then I look down and see I am completely naked. Nothing is covering me. Every inch of me is exposed for the world to see.

I see a small woman’s razor come out of the drawer, and then I feel it as it connects with my skin. It glides up my legs, feeling ragged and dull. They are prepping me for the sale.

My gut is brewing with an onslaught of emotions. Terror is number one, and closely following is blind fury. I’m pissed. And that is what I need to keep my senses tapped into to stay alive. I have to push the frightened side away if I’m going to get out of here on my own.

The women say nothing while they continue to make me over for this fucked up auction. The more I think about what’s happening, the more I tap into my furious side. I cannot rely on Nikolai to save me. For all I know, he could be dead. There is no one left to help me. But I have to remember how he would be in this kind of situation.

Nikolai wouldn’t freak out or even say anything. He would lie here and wait.

He once told me patience is key, that it is one of his best attributes as a killer. It’s how he survived for so long. He has incredible patience and a side so mean and so vicious it would scare the devil himself. That is who I need to be. I need to be him. I have to channel his energy and tap into that newly formed part of myself. I can feel it deep inside. I just need to submit to it and allow the darkness to take over.

I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor. And if I’m going to walk out of here on my own two feet, then it will take the dark side to get me there.

.*.*.*.

August 22, 2015 9:34 p.m.

The two Asian women preparing me for the auction left hours ago. Once they finished, they tied my hair in a tight bun and gave me a pair of black panties to dress in with high heels for my feet. I was placed in a chair where I remained gagged and blindfolded. And this is where I have been.

There is a lot of noise coming from beyond the door, and I can hear several different voices—men mostly—and so many different languages I lost count. However, the worst sounds are the screams and pleas for help. I don’t know how many there are, but it’s far too many to count. Most of them sound young, school-aged. My heart breaks into thousands of pieces because what I went through when I was fourteen was horrible, but what these young girls are experiencing is tragic. They may never walk out of here, and if they do, they will be subjected to torture beyond their comprehension. My ordeal only lasted an hour at the most, maybe shorter. These girls will experience this for months—years.

The lump forming at the base of my throat starts to work its way up. I want to cry. I am scared, but I’m mostly terrified for those girls. They don’t have any idea what is happening or how they can survive it.

I inhale the deepest of breaths then swallow the lump down, tucking it away with the fear and focusing on slaying anyone who comes in my path. I think about Nikolai the night he held me captive, how cold and menacing he was. I think about how frightened I was and how furious he can become.

The door slams open, startling me. My shoulders jump when two sets of hands grab my wrists and free them.

Patience, Josslyn, patience,
I remind myself. I can’t act unruly, not when I don’t know where they are taking me or what lies beyond that door.

I am forced out of my chair, and a cold, metal collar is fastened around my neck. It’s heavy and smells like rust. There is a slight clicking sound, which I assume is a lock of some sort being put in place.

As one person locks the collar around my neck, another handcuffs my wrist behind my back. I stumble on my spiky heels when I’m pulled by a leash I felt fastened to the collar and dragged from the room. I don’t fight; I simply follow the man pulling me down the hallway like a dog.

My eyes are still blindfolded, though my other senses are in operating order. My hearing is acute. Aside from the metal clanking on the collar, I can hear voices as they pass me in the hall. The cries are still all around me, and as one cry fades, a louder, different one assaults me.

I’m picturing a hallway with doors on both sides and young girls held prisoner inside. The air around me is humid, making my skin sweaty and sticky. Finally, stagnant in the air is the smell of evil. I’m quite certain, if Hell existed, it would smell just like this: musty, rancid, metallic, and soulless.

I am brought to an abrupt halt as the man leading me down the hallway stops. There is a fumbling sound, and then my hand restraints are removed. I shake my arms out as I place them by my sides.

The creak of rusty hinges passes, and then I am ushered into a hot room. The floor underneath my shoes is different. Before, I was walking on concrete, the grit from the hallway crackling under my high heels. However, now the floor is softer and creaks. Perhaps wood? Then my eyes are shocked as extremely bright lights slice through my lids. I flutter them open, trying like hell to adjust to the lighting.

“American!” the man leading me shouts into a wireless microphone, tugging me around in a circle. “Thirty-three!” he shouts then switches off the microphone and tosses it to the floor. I know exactly what he is doing.

This is the auction ring. Just like cattle at a livestock sale, I’m being lead around and studied by the potential buyers.

My eyes are finally conditioned to the light to fully see where I am. At first glance, it’s horrifying.

The space is octagon-shaped with eight windows all around. Behind the glass are the sectioned off spaces with partitions separating the buyers from each other, but they are easy to access if needed with the backs missing from each section. Two or three men are in each section, and they are in deep discussions. They are bidding.

My gut stirs with a sickening feeling. I want to throw up, and when I look in the corner, I see a small pile of vomit.

Then I begin to speak under my breath. It’s quiet enough for only me to hear, giving me the strength to stay alive. I recite, “Get it together. Look. Look at the men and find one you can sell yourself to. Find the weak ones. You have experience reading people; now read them and get yourself out of this hell hole.”

I finally muster up the courage to look at the buyers in the windows. They all have the same look: evil and cold. Their eyes are just like all of those killers I pursued: crazed and malicious. Most of them appear Middle Eastern and Asian. There are a couple of white men, as well. I can’t hear voices; I can only see them, and they all look exactly the same.

However, when we circle the final window, there is only one man sitting in the last section. He is wearing a fine suit, threads similar to what Nikolai would wear. His grayish-blond hair is combed nicely to the side, and of all the men, he doesn’t have coldness in his eyes. He looks scary as hell, but not crazy. Then I look at his hands.

Tattoos.

What did Nikolai say about the tattoos on his fingers? He had one in particular that was a symbol of the Vory V Zakone, but which one was it?

I hold my breath and start looking to the past. We were riding to San Francisco. He had just told me about Vlad and his involvement the night my family was killed. I remember the invasion of sorrow. It burned every inch of me from the inside out. Soon after, I fell asleep from my emotional overload and awoke several hours later. That was when I asked him about the tattoos and if he is religious.

I can picture it in my head, the cross … his middle finger. It doesn’t signify religion at all, but his loyalty to the Vory V Zakone.

The man sitting across from me has the same markings on his middle finger. The aura surrounding him screams Vory V Zakone, and if he’s here, then maybe he works for Stravinsky. I don’t know if Stravinsky is the only leader of the
thieves
, but that is the impression I got from Nikolai.

I don’t know if Nikolai is alive or dead, but if there is a slim chance he is alive, then getting sold to a member of Vory V Zakone is the best way he can find me. He’s reminded me on many occasions that I need to trust him, and before I split from him in Russia. He said, no matter what, he will always find me.

As his name passes through my thoughts, the wolfish, icy blue orbs shine through the blackness behind the buyer.
Nikolai
.

It’s him. I knew he would come. He wasn’t lying when he told me he would always find me, and this proves how much I need to trust him. Days later, in this hell hole, Nikolai found me and is here to rescue me. I have to get to him. I have to fight myself free and go to him.

Making a bold move, I jerk back on my leash. The man tugging me along stumbles back, getting rocked off his axis. I fall to the floor, crawling over to the window. The buyer’s eyes widen with happy surprise, but it’s not his eyes I want to see.

The man on the other end of the leash is livid. His eyes transform, becoming hooded in darkness while I keep scooting backward on my butt and hands, trying to get my way over to the Russian.

The leash is jerked, causing my neck to surge forward and for me to land on my hands and knees. The man comes over to me and then raises a bullwhip in the air. Before my mind can register what is happening, the whip comes down on my naked back. My flesh ignites with a burning pain I have never felt before. I yelp out in pain, but something else lights within me—my sheer and utter will to survive.

I swing around, spinning in a one-hundred-eighty-degree half-circle and sweep the legs out from under the crazed man. He falls with a booming thud, and I scramble over to his stunned body and slam my fist in his groin. He cries out in agony, rolling to his side, exposing his pistol. Then I punch him again for good measure before jerking the gun from his waistband.

I unclick the safety and squeeze the trigger. Blood stains the floor, draining from the back of his skull.

I pull the chain from his grasp and feel around the collar. I won’t be able to escape this place if I have this damn thing around my neck. I see the keys dangling from his belt loop and quickly locate the lock on my collar, unhooking myself. I know the buyers are seeing me. However, all I can think about is getting to Nikolai.

Desperation is fueling me now. It has taken over every action and emotion as I attempt to break free.

I back up toward the window where the man with the Vory V Zakone sits; only, he’s not sitting now. He’s standing, watching me intently as I fight for every breath in my body. And peering over his shoulder is the man who is here for me and me alone.

Nikolai stands his ground, watching me fight for my life.

I run to the glass and slam my palms against it. Then I scream, “Nikolai!” My throat protests from the bloodcurdling sound. “Help me!”

Can he even hear me? The glass is so thick, soundproof maybe.

The door unclicks behind me, and I turn on my heels. My eyes snap to the frame as five men flood in, their guns are drawn while mine points back at their heads. I will shoot every fucking one of them if they come any closer to me. I’m sure they are thinking the same thing.

If I take another shot, they won’t hesitate to kill me. The odds are against me, but the will to fight for my life still surges through my veins. He won’t let them kill me. He can’t. He needs me.

As they slowly stalk their way inside the ring, two flank me. Their circle tightens as one man shouts, “Down!”

I back up until my spine is flush with the window behind me. I glance down, hopelessness flooding in. The buyer on the other side is no longer there, and neither is Nikolai. He left.

I lower my hand just as the shock of electricity jolts me. The pain overtakes every feeling in my body as the prick of a needle pushes through my skin. Then it all goes black again.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

Nikolai

August 22, 2015 9:41 p.m.

C
ubby and I finally make the decision to crawl out of hiding in the cargo hold of the plane. The trip was excruciating, lasting more than a day. We are tired, cramped, and hungry. What fuels me now is getting to Josslyn. I need to see if she’s alive.

Josslyn is Josslyn, and when she’s face-to-face with danger, she doesn’t back down. She fights back, and she will do it at the cost of her own life. This is the exact opposite of what I want her to do. I want her to fight, but not at the expense of herself. No one deserves to live or die in the conditions she is surely experiencing now.

At this point, however, once we see Stravinsky’s buyer, Josslyn will have fulfilled her purpose.