Page 94 of His to Bedevil
Without a word, I get up and close myself inside the room in the back. I pour a glass of whiskey and toss it back before I climb into bed and close my eyes.
When I open them next, I will become the monster I was designed to be.
Irma
Iwake up in a dark room with my hands tied behind my back and lying on a lumpy mattress. A tiny cot, I realize. Wincing in pain as my battered face throbs in several different places. I don’t even want to see what my flattened nose looks like. If I ever get out of here, I’ll definitely have to have reconstructive surgery to make it even look like a nose again. I sure as hell can’t breathe out of it. I feel my right eye swollen almost shut, and my jaw is killing me. The taste of blood still fresh on my tongue.
Since the rest of my body was left alone, I manage to sit up and swing my legs off the side of the cot and onto the floor. The ground is freezing beneath my bare feet. Taking a deep breath, I stand up and stretch out my stiff muscles. I need to stay alert and be prepared for anything. I’ve never wanted to fight so hard in all my life. Not even when I was once Alejo’s actual prisoner. I wasn’t this thirsty for blood.
Once my eyes adjust to the dark, I see a sliver of light on the floor. I go to it and see that it’s coming from under a door. Turning my back, I use my tethered hands to search for a handle. Of course, it’s locked, but I still had to try it. Looking around the room, I try to find anything to help me get out of my restraints first. The only thing in the entire room is the rickety cot.It has springs!Springs are made of metal. Even if it’s somehow not sharp enough to cut through the rope, I can at least use it as a weapon.
I rush over to the cot and twist my arms so that I can kind of see what I’m doing with my hands. Suddenly, a bright light comes on. I frantically look around to see what is happening, and my eyes land on the door, knowing someone is about to enter the room. I don’t have time to hide behind it to catch them off guard, so I stand there in a defensive stance and in walks Ivanka.
I could take the bitch with my arms tied behind my back literally, but I don’t know what awaits me beyond the door. So, I need to be smart about this.
Ivanka is dressed in blue fur and her platinum hair braided to one side like she’s fucking Elsa. With her nose turned up, she closes the door behind her, and I instinctively step forward, ready to attack, but abruptly halt when she raises a gun, aiming it at me. “Uh-uh-uh,” she tsks. Her smile turns into a grimace as she takes in my appearance. “Oh, Vlad sure did a number on you. You poor thing,” she mocks.
“What the fuck do you want?” I sneer, my voice sounding nasally and muffled.
She cringes at the sound of it. Then she assesses me again, like she did the day of my wedding. “Who are you, Irma? How come there is no record of you?”
“Why do you fucking care?”
“I want to know why the fuck Alejandro married you. What was in it for him?” she snaps.
“I’m no one other than Alejandro Martinez’s wife. Before him, I was absolutely no one. Happy?” I smile, and it kills my entire face to do so.
“Bullshit. He would only marry you if you had something he wanted.”
“Yeah. Me,” I deadpan. I stagger slightly on my feet as the pain in my whole head drains me.
She looks at me with disgust. “Amepnkoc.” She uses a derogatory name for an American.
I sneer, “Shagay ostorojno,pizda.”Tread carefully, cunt.I let the Russian roll off my tongue fluently, making her eyes narrow.
She takes another step closer and switches to Russian. “Who the fuck are you?”
I switch to Russian as well, just to fuck with her. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
Continuing in Russian, she says, “Let’s make a deal, you and I.” I stay silent just to see what she has to say before I deliver my candor. “Let’s say I let you go. You disappear and go back to whatever pathetic life you were living or start a new one somewhere, with my help, of course. And me? I turn my father into Alejandro for kidnapping and killing his wife, I console him and am there for him through his mourning period, then he and I can pick up where we once left off.” Why on earth would she let me go? Why not just kill me and go on with the rest of the plan? This bitch is so dumb, I can’t believe Sergio is stuck with her as his only and sole heir. No wonder why he wanted her with Alejandro so badly.
I prowl toward her slowly, ignoring the gun still aimed at my head. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” The Russian bleeds off of my tongue as if it’s my first language. “You are going to fuck off. My husband is going to come for me. And together we’re going to slaughter all of you and anyone you hold dear. Then we’ll fuck like animals on top of the pile of your corpses.” To my surprise, she doesn’t even flinch.
Her lips curl up into a sardonic grin. “Sdelay eto svoim metodom.”Have it your way, she sneers, and backs up to the door. “Oh, and Vlad will be by soon to pay you a little visit. I told him the only rule is to keep you alive.”
“Yeb tvoyu mat’!”Go fuck your mother!“Suka!”Slut!I scream, every inch of my face screaming back at me in protest. Fresh blood pooling in my mouth and dripping from my nose.
As soon as the door shuts behind her, I snap my head up to the light and stand right under it. It shuts off, and I make a beeline over to the cot. Lifting up the mattress awkwardly with my arms twisted to the side, I feel around for a loose spring. Fucking idiots. Alejo was smart enough not to trust me with a single thing in my confinement. He wouldn’t even leave a paper cup or plate. God, I miss him, and I want to make him proud.
I finally feel a loose spring and wiggle it free. I feel around for any sharp edges and notice that both sides are a little pointy. Not enough to saw easily through the ropes. With time, yes, but I don’t know how much time I have.
What I have planned next will be impossible with my arms behind me. Squatting down low, I squeeze my thighs together as tightly as possible. Grunting and thrashing, I work my hips slowly through the loop of my arms, pulling my arms slightly out of their sockets, displacing the pain in my head to my shoulders. Once I feel myself making process, it gives me a burst of adrenaline. “Yes,” I hiss under my breath. My shoulders are screaming, but when my arms finally fit over my hips and I shake my damp hair out of my face, I grin. Sitting on the floor, I work my legs the rest of the way through my arms and stand to my feet, feeling good about this small victory. But the war is far from over. I still have no idea who else is out there.
I hear voices coming from outside the door and scramble on top of the mattress. Just as I’m about to jump, the light flicks on, and I grin again. Jumping up off the cot as hard as I can, I reach my arms up with the spring in my hand and swing at the light. Glass bursts as the room falls dark again, and my bare feet land on the broken glass. I don’t have time to feel the pain when I hear a man’s voice just outside of the door, and then it’s opening. Enough light floods the room for me to see Vlad and for him to see me. He stomps inside the room with his eyes ablaze, and then he shuts the door behind him.
“Nice little trick you did there, little pussycat,” he says in Russian.
I stay quiet, hoping that his eyes have yet to adjust to the darkness. His form is so large that it’s hard to miss movement from him even in the dark. He doesn’t stalk or taunt me. He comes right for me. I try to be quick on my feet and dart around him, but the fucker is fast. He yanks me by my hair, making me cry out in pain, and I jab my hand out and stab him somewhere in his midsection with the end of the spring.
