Chapter 44—Olivia

Jude placed me in a room with no windows and one lone door.

I’ve been sitting in here by myself for what could be hours.

It’s the stage before the cage.

I’m sitting on the floor by the bed, avoiding that bed.

I don’t want to go anywhere near it because I don’t want him getting ideas.

His touch would kill me, and I’d rather draw his gun and shoot myself than have him inside me ever again.

I’ve given up.

I’ve decided it’s over, and I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to have to fight to just be alive, and I don’t want to fight for the myth of happiness.

I was never supposed to be born, and I guess neither was Eric.

Maybe that’s why we never had anything close to good luck. We were never meant to be, and the universe was just righting itself by trying to eradicate us. Like one of those weird films with alternate possibilities because of anomalies.

We are those anomalies, the children of an affair between our parents who knew they were doomed before they even began. It seems fitting that we’d be doomed too.

So this could be the end, and I have to accept it.

At least Mom is safe.

At least I would die knowing that something good came of my actions and she’s out of danger.

At least for now.

But nothing will matter if I’m dead and I’ve crossed over to the other side.

That makes me think of Ilya.

I think he was dead. There was too much blood and so many bullet holes in his body.

Even if he wasn’t dead when I saw him, he must be now.

Aiden told me Ilya was like a father to him.

For a man like Aiden to say that, it must be true.

I can imagine how his heart must have broken when he discovered Ilya left to die and me gone.

It’s my fault. All of it.

And this is my fault too because I should have gone to Mom.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t know how Aiden felt about me. I saw it in his eyes. Hearing him say what he said this morning and the way he said it just spoke to me in a different way because he was ending us.

When I asked him to take me with him, I knew the right words to say so he wouldn’t let me go. And, now that I’m here, I’ll confess I didn’t want to leave him just yet.

That was the most pressing reason for coming here.

I knew I wouldn’t have been able to help, and if anything, I lured the enemy straight to them.

Jude would never have gone to the house if I wasn’t there.

The lock on the door turns, and everything inside me stills. I’m so scared I can’t breathe.

I haven’t seen this side of Jude in years, and what I’ve seen so far has been awful.

My face still feels like it’s on fire, and my body is broken from the way he threw me on the ground earlier.

The dark wooden door swings open, and he comes in with that arrogant as fuck smile on his ugly face.

“Sitting on the floor,” he sneers. “You’re so fucking predictable. I can fuck you on the floor if I want to, you know? It doesn’t have to be on the bed.”

“Leave me alone,” I whimper.

“That’s going to be difficult. I’m still going to marry you, then I’ll enjoy fucking you over and over again. Until I have no use left for you. Then I’ll either turn you into a fuck toy for my friends and make a pretty penny off you or kill you. You shouldn’t get the privilege of living anymore.”

“Just kill me now.” Tears spill over my eyes.

“No, I’m not going to do that and give you the pleasure of exiting from this world. You will get your punishment for what you did. You thought you could trick me. The thing is, I almost believed you. I know the truth. I know what you did, how you staged everything to get to your brother.”

“How? How did you find out?” I need to know because I hope to God he doesn’t know about Amy.

He laughs and inclines his head. “Of course, I implored everything I had to find my dear wife to be when I thought she’d been kidnapped. Days ago, I got my answer when I ran a sweep of the cameras at Markov Tech, and I saw you by my office listening in on a conversation you shouldn’t have heard. One where I, unfortunately, let it slip that Eric was still alive. I knew then what you must have done.”

“Why did you take him, Jude? Why such drama by faking his death? Why did you do that?”

“Two reasons. The first is your brother is a very valuable man to the Order, and he wanted to leave. He went on a mission that went wrong, and people died, so he wanted out. We couldn’t allow that because of the skill he has and the knowledge of weapons that sell , in particular, was a design your grandfather had been working on but stopped. We wanted Eric to finish it. I wanted Eric to finish it. Ownership of such a thing would make me a god and move me up in ranks. He’s worked on it these long years and is close to finishing. Once he does, we’ll be invincible.”

“Why would he do that for you!” I cry.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what the threat of a man’s family will make him do. The threat of death to his mother and sister made him do anything.”

Oh my God. He did the same thing to Eric as he did to me. Threaten all of us with each other. We were all pawns in his game.

“And that leads me to the second reason. Which is, I wanted you. Marriage to you to get the company, marriage to the girl I’d watched for fourteen years. It’s true ownership, more than fucking. I give you my name and brand you mine.”

“I will never be yours.”

“We will see about that. I’m sure you will beg to be mine when I start to dole out your punishment. I know you had help, Olivia. I know Amy must have helped you get Aiden Romanov’s name. I don’t know how she hacked my files, but that’s the only way she would have gotten it, and everyone else at Markov Tech is loyal to me, so I know it’s her.”

“It wasn’t her,” I blurt, panic-stricken. This was the very thing I feared when I spoke to her.

“Liar. Fucking Liar. I know it was. There’s footage of her at the house twice before you left for L. A. There’s no point lying, Olivia. I’m not stupid, and rest assured, I’ll make sure you pay dearly for everything you’ve done.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Why couldn’t you leave me alone?”

“I fell in love with you right from the moment I first saw you.”

“You don’t know what love is.”

“Oh yes, I do.”

He pulls something that looks like a remote from his pocket and turns it on. A section of the wall moves out, revealing a flat-screen.

Jude clicks another button, and a picture of me comes up when I was ten. That was when I first met him.

He starts flicking through the images. All of me. They start when I was a little girl and get to when I was older, and then they turn naked.

There are naked pictures of me in the bathroom at home.

“Turn it off,” I scream, but he continues to flick through one naked picture after another, focusing on different parts of my body.

It makes me feel sick, so sick and violated I jump up and punch the remote out of his hand.

When he turns, I slap him so hard my fingers rake over his cheek and draw blood.

He growls and lunches for me, but I dodge him and try to make a run for it through the door.

But I don’t make it.

I was never going to make it.

Just like always, Jude is too fast, too strong, too wicked for me.

He grabs my shoulders and yanks me back to him, then he grabs my hair so hard it rips, and my scalp feels like it’s dislodging from my head.

The scream that tears from my throat echoes around the room and feels like it’s coming from my soul.

When he slaps my face, I scream again and break down.

“Fucking little bitch. You won’t do that again. I’m going to enjoy punishing you. I’ll take you back home and execute Amy and her family in front of you. Then I’ll find your mother and do the same. That will get us started off on the right foot.”

“No, please. Don’t hurt them. Please, Jude, don’t.”

“My dear, Olivia, I’m afraid their deaths are inevitable, or I wouldn’t be Jude Kuzmin. Come, I have a special room ready for you. One with chains and whips to beat your ass into submission. It’s time to fuck you and remind you who owns you. It’s not Aiden Romanov.”

Oh God, I can’t bear it. I can’t.

He pulls me through the door, with his hand gripping my hair.

I stumble on the stone floor, nearly tripping, and because of that, pulling my hair even more. We walk onto a raised platform, walking past several offices with computers set up on banks of desks. From the outside of the building, I assumed the whole place was a house. A house that was heavily guarded with men carrying serious artillery. That gave a prison effect. Now it’s clear from the rooms we pass that other people work here. There are people inside now, men and women working like it’s an everyday job.

These people work for the Order. As normal as they look, they work for them. I wonder in what capacity. Some look at us and turn a blind eye.

I suppose they must be used to seeing a man practically shoving a woman around and carrying her by her hair.

We continue down a corridor that looks more like a person’s home. It’s carpeted, unlike the stone floor, and there are flowers in exotic-looking vases and paintings on the wall.

When we get to the end of the corridor, an elderly man rushes up to us with a little boy.

I fix my gaze on the boy because he looks familiar. He must be about eight or nine years old, and his face …

His face, although so young, looks just like Aidan’s.

He’s the spitting image of his father. There’s no way that this isn’t Aiden’s son. And it would fit that he is because we’re in Brazil and a place that belongs to the Order.

Everything fits.

“Aleksei,” I mutter, and the boy looks at me.

“How do you know my name?” he asks, and Jude snarls.

“Get him out of here,” Jude barks.

“I can’t. He’s back. Aiden’s back.”

Aiden is here?

Please, God, let him save us.

“What do you mean he’s back?” Jude sneers.

“He’s back with more men, and the gates just opened for him. The camera picked him up, going down to the facility. The doors down there just opened automatically for them without a security pass.”

“Fuck, fucking hell,” Jude roars. “It’s Eric. Only he could have let them in and done that. Fuck!”

For the first time ever, Jude looks scared.

“I need to get Aleksei out of here,” the man says. “He’s going to want him. I need to get him away from here.”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s time we make good use of this little boy.”

“No, please,” the man cries as Jude lets go of me and grabs Aleksei. “Jeshero, your services are no longer required.”

Before I can take my next breath, Jude pulls out a gun and shoots Jeshero in his head. Blood splatters everywhere, and Aleksei and I both scream.

“Grandpa!” Aleksei shouts, and Jude holds the gun to his head.

“Let him go,” I shout, astounded by the horrific sight.

Jude hits me again, and I stumble backward into the wall.

“Shut up, you little bitch. Both of you fucking shut up and come with me, or you will both die here.”

He grabs my arm and nudges me forward with the gun.

“Walk,” he barks, so I move, feeling helpless.

I couldn’t even attempt to do anything to a man carrying a gun. This devil wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

We continue down the path, me wincing and Aleksei crying. Jude is seething, and I can see his mind working out his plot, anything to benefit him as if he didn’t just shoot a man. Aleksei’s grandfather.

What the hell is the story with him?

He had Aleksei this whole time? So he kidnapped him, and he was working with Jude.

What a mess and so cruel to do such a thing to a father who would move heaven and hell to protect his child.

We get to a bedroom with the door open, and Jude shoves me inside.

“Get the fuck in and stay there until I’m ready to deal with you.”

“Don’t hurt Aleksei,” I beg, looking at Aleksei’s pitiful, tearstained face.

Jude answers by slamming the door shut. The next thing I hear is the key turning in the lock, and that doom I hate settles in the pit of my stomach.

Aiden is here, but Jude has his son, and I’m locked in this room.

What will happen next?