Chapter 4

NATALIA.

I woke up and began to feel rage like I was about to lose all my senses—something I’d felt in the past and several yoga sessions had given me the ability to control. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to re-center and calm myself.

I would put up a front and pretend that he couldn’t harm me. That was the only way to get out of this alive. The door in front of me swung open, and I knew that this was my moment. My time to let him know that whoever it was couldn’t get to me. Maybe then they would let me go. All I had to get out of this was hope. I clung to it with all my might.

“You’ve got no idea about my family,” I said with all the confidence in the world, but I knew it was a lie. I wasn’t brave. I never had been, and being kidnapped and shouting across a room didn’t make it any better.

Tomas stepped into the room and a sigh of relief took over me. I worried for a split second that there was more than one person; if by any chance this was a ransom setup. Everything felt planned and organized, but what did I know about kidnapping? Only what I’d read in books or seen in documentaries. I knew nothing. With the sunlight coming in through the window it was easy to make out his face and frame.

“You don’t think I know who you are? You’re Roman Mikhailov’s daughter!” he snarled. His response to my question took me aback. I didn’t think he knew about my dad, but he did, which only meant one thing.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“Here! Eat!” He tossed a wrapped sandwich at me and a bottle of water.

He growled as he walked away, leaving through the same door he had entered. I didn’t know where I was or even how long I’d been here.

That was it.

He drugged me.

“How do I know you haven’t put more drugs in the food? This is what you want? To use me as some pawn? Like Jeff did to have control over his victims?”

“Please! Don’t fucking act like you’re so innocent. Remember how you treated me and others back in high school like we were beneath you?” he growled as he approached me.

“It was wrong,” I whimpered, shaking my head and clutching the thin duvet which covered my body. I couldn’t act brave because I was too weak and too much of a coward. Especially since I knew he was right. The person I was no longer existed. She died the moment she went to college and realized what a bitch she’d been.

“Oh, so now the great Natalia Mikhailov realizes after years of making people’s lives a living hell, it was wrong. You’ve watched too many documentaries on Jeff and the rest of them and decided you know the difference between right and wrong?”

“No,” I whispered. He was so close. I could feel the energy of his rage radiating from his body to mine. He was so close he could do whatever he wanted. His gaze pierced me. I never noticed his eyes in high school, but seeing him so close to me, the beauty of them was emphasized. They were a mix of yellow and brown; it was like the more rage he had in him, the darker they became. I should have screamed, hoping someone would hear me. Anyone. There was so much light pouring into the room. It should have given me some hope I wasn’t in some dungeon. Maybe I just had to be patient.

“Oh, you’re a really good fucking actress. It’s amazing how you can pretend to be little miss innocent now. But out there…?” He shook his head like he was disgusted with me.

I sobbed, then the sobs turned into cries as he talked about every cruel encounter we’d ever had. But it wasn’t the words that made me cry. The part which made it turn to tears was the fact I didn’t remember all of it. Some of it, but not all like he’d played it. We’d left high school years ago, but he talked like it was only yesterday I’d been in the hall and laughed and called him a weirdo. No doubt because I felt like lashing out my frustration on someone and he just happened to be the person.

“Stop it! Please!” I pleaded as I closed my eyes and held my hands to my ears, not wanting to hear anymore. Every word he said made acid burn the back of my throat and my stomach clenched.

I hated him for remembering it all and hated myself even more for doing it.

He spun away from me. No more was he near and reciting the cruel events of the past. He slammed the door behind him and I jumped. I was hungry, but the things he’d said, the way he’d acted made me lose my appetite. He must have known I wanted to eat. I had no sense of time and my stomach was turning in knots as though I hadn’t eaten for days, rather than hours.

I took in my surroundings since I wasn’t going to be able to eat anything right now anyway. I was in a big room, yet the single bed I had been sleeping on was shoved in the far corner, with a little rug beside it. The room was bare, containing only the necessities. There was a window and I ran to it. It was a big one, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. What made me nearly fall on the floor was water.

I wasn’t in the city.

Nor was I back in the dorm, where I wished I was right now.

No.

Ocean water lapped at the sandy shore. Where the hell was I?

I closed my eyes and opened them a few times, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me.

An island. He’d taken me to an island.

No, no, and no.

What was going on?

I screamed out loud. I yelled at the top of my lungs; so loud I didn’t even think my voice could reach high.

Tomas opened the door once again. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I ran to him, with all the fight and strength I had in me, and punched his chest.

He grabbed my hands as if they were light feathers touching him. “Calm down!”

I shook my head furiously, refusing to calm down, as he eloquently put it.

“You drugged me and kidnapped me. Calm down? You’re fucking joking!”

He held on to my wrists as I continued to shake. When he wouldn’t let go, I got more hysterical. I kicked him, but he didn’t budge. Then I tried to bite him and he let go. I was so shocked and tripped to the floor, then I covered my eyes.

“The door’s not fucking locked. When you decide to calm down, then you can walk around and see you’re not a prisoner.”

“So, I can leave any time I want?” I asked with some hope, because I thought I was locked in and I couldn’t leave, but the way he was talking, I’d misjudged the situation.

“No.”

“Then I’m a prisoner since I can’t leave of my own free will.”

That was obvious as he rolled his eyes and walked away. He’d drugged me and brought me here, wherever here was, so of course I was a prisoner. I just wasn’t in a dungeon or anything.

I opened my mouth to say something, but then I thought he may know about me already. He may know everything about me. I imagined this picturesque scene appealing to someone who wanted to get away and escape, but for me, it was just a beautiful prison. As I slowly left my room, I looked at what was on either side of me.

One side looked like an open-plan living room; every window was a door. Tiled flooring and a couple of straw sofas with comfy cushions. A wooden dining table, which had only two stools to accompany it. There was nothing modern about this place. It had a ceiling fan with lighting, but no television or modern gadgets. It was bare, but the view made up for the lack of furnishings and sparse décor.

To the other side was a kitchen, with a few hints of modern convenience, but otherwise as dated and sparse as the rest of the house. Once again it was white, like the walls and the ceiling, but not the beige tiled flooring.

I moved to the stairs, which were adjacent to the living room and within easy reach. As I started to climb down, I noticed he wasn’t around. Part of me should have been happy he wasn’t here and I could figure out a way to escape, but as I ran down the stairs, I realized why the room wasn’t locked. There really was nothing but sea, sand, and palm trees. Someone’s perfect paradise. Anyone else’s, but it for sure wasn’t mine.

I opened the front door and went outside. The sun shone in a bright, blue sky. I walked across the beach a few feet and sank into the sand, wishing that this was just a dream. He hadn’t kidnapped me and locked me in a dungeon. No, he’d kidnapped me and I felt like a prisoner on death row. At least those criminals were given their favorite meal to mark their last day on Earth. That was what was happening to me. I’d been brought to paradise to enjoy my final days on Earth.

He was going to kill me, for sure.

I knew it; I’d seen it in his eyes earlier.

A loud scream came from the trees and jerked me out of my thoughts. It sounded like Tomas like he was in pain. I stood and paused.

I shouldn’t care. He’d taken me against my will, but curiosity got the better of me, and I followed the noise.

There he was, punching into a tree with all his might. He wanted to hurt himself. He ignored the blood as it trickled from his fist, and with every punch, he cried even louder.

I backed away because I wondered as he punched if every single time, he was thinking I was the tree.

I watched him for a while until he hurt himself too much that he couldn’t continue. I finally turned away. It was as with every blow, I didn’t get the satisfaction I should have. I didn’t feel like, great, he kidnapped me, so he deserved to hurt himself.

If anything, it was the complete opposite, because it was self-inflicted. Seeing him weak and vulnerable like that, took away the fear I once had of him. If he did think of me as the tree, then something made him want to hurt himself and not me.

I backed away as he growled and sank to the ground, burying his head in his hands. I wondered if my father had ever felt the way when he’d taken a life. If he was remorseful, then maybe he had a soul. But knowing he’d never been this way just made me think of him as the monster. The monster he’d shown himself to be once I left to go to college.

I’d never seen my dad do anything else but drink on occasion. Maybe that was his way of dealing with his pain; his pain of being a monster.

Who knows?

I knew one thing for sure: if I had the opportunity, I would never ask him. I would fear he would confirm what I’d already suspected. He was a monster.

I headed back to the house and up the stairs, no more thinking, as I moved robotically until I reached the bedroom. And it was then that it hit me.

No phones.

No television either, which was the first thing that came to my mind when I went to the living room. Even when we went on holiday to the Seychelles there was a television, but then I was being stupid. I was kidnapped, and even if the surroundings didn’t feel like it, I had to put my perspectives in place.

Not that anyone really used home phones anymore, but there was no trace of one, nor a router, nor anything else to connect me to the outside world.

No clock.

No calendar.

Things that I’d always taken for granted were missing from this place in this IT world, as Uncle Maxim used to tell me all the time.

Tomas walked in, dripping with blood and holding his hands. He looked like a lost boy, unclear about what to do next as his eyes met mine.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” I asked him, thinking that seeing as I had nothing better to do, I would make myself useful. Even if it did mean looking after my kidnapper.

He motioned for the kitchen and I pointed to the sofa. “Sit.”

Then I rushed through the kitchen cupboards, thinking that it must be near the sink. I didn’t know this place, but no matter how many kitchens I’d been in, they all had the same organizational structure. Kitchen cleaning materials, a first aid kit, and drugs were always near the sink. I found it in no time, then I sat next to him on the sofa.

My abruptness took him by surprise as he moved away from me. Seeing him injured and knowing he could have done the same to me, put my mind at ease about him. It should have made me keep away, but it didn’t. I just wanted to help him.

I took out a bandage, then took his hands in mine. I got to work cleaning them up and then I headed to the bathroom to get a couple of towels. The space in the house was so open, it didn’t take long to figure out the rooms. When I came back to him, he was looking at me, indifferent without even a smile or thanks. I wiped the blood away before applying the antiseptic and he grimaced. When I looked up at him through my lashes, his eyes softened as he stared at me and butterflies fluttered in my chest.

“Why do you look at me that way?” I asked him.

“I’m wondering if what you said is true. If college did change you.”

I cleared my throat, thinking that he knew my dad after I’d applied an antiseptic to his hand. He didn’t hiss like he’d done when I first applied it, and I figured he was used to it by now. The injury wasn’t as bad as I had thought, but I bandaged up his knuckles anyway.

“When I first learned about my dad’s role in the mafia, I realized he’d killed people, he’d harmed others physically and mentally. I knew serial killers existed and I began to wonder if my dad could be classified as one. A monster. I wanted to know what it was like. If he wasn’t a monster…”

“Then there was something mentally wrong with him?”

I nodded but continued to explain to him.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid. I knew he wasn’t a business manager like Noah Hart’s dad from when I was about twelve. Noah was a boy I was friends with back in middle school. His dad had taken us to lunch once at his advertising company. This was when it hit me, my dad never introduced me to his colleagues, let alone had I ever visited him in the office. All of Dad’s associates looked like thugs, and at times he came home really late at night, drunk. It was only later, as I got older, I realized why he’d get drunk.”

“Why?”

I’d never told a soul about any of this because no one asked. When it was clear the only friends I was allowed to have were other mafia kids that was when I started to be a loner, hanging on my visits from Uncle Maxim until they stopped. By then the only thing I could think about was going to college and having a new start.

“He’d killed someone.”

“How did you know?”

A tear streamed down my cheek as I remembered.

“My uncle Maxim. He was my favorite of them all because he treated me with respect and talked to me like I was a human being and not an idiot.”

His hand was bandaged up, so I rested it on his leg and carried on talking.

“Dad killed him.”

“How do you know?” His voice was soft and warm, making me want to keep talking.

“Because Uncle Maxim told me that he was going to do it. Uncle Maxim and I went to the mall and he bought me something. He said it was something special to remember him by when he was gone. I thought he was being dramatic at the time. Maybe I did that so I wouldn’t have to think of it as the truth. Not only the idea of never seeing him again but the thought of my dad murdering him. As I said, he was the only one who told me the truth. There was no messing around.”

I waited for a reaction from him, but there was none, so I got up and looked out the window as the sun started to set, as what was once day, started to become night.

“One minute he was around every single day, and the next he was missing. I knew from the moment he never came around why I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. I was just happy I had to go to college the next day. I made up some excuse and told Mom I got my dates mixed up and I had to go to the dorm a day earlier. I packed my things and ended up in a hotel for the night. Anything was better than spending another night in this house.”

“So, you didn’t confront your dad?” he asked from behind me. I could feel the warmth of his body, he was so close. I shook my head, nearly choking on my words.

“I asked him what happened to Uncle Maxim. He told me I wouldn’t see Uncle Maxim ever again. He’d said it so calmly, and as the words left his mouth, I went to vomit. I couldn’t believe he’d killed his own brother.”

“Do you know why?” he asked as the tears started streaming down my cheeks.

I didn’t wipe them away. A person I loved dearly was murdered at the hands of my father and the person deserved my sadness at his loss. “No. I don’t care. It didn’t matter then and certainly doesn’t matter now.”

He spun me around and I looked up at him. He rested his hands on my shoulders, pulling me closer to him.

I felt empty.

I needed something, even if it was the kiss or touch of the man who had kidnapped me, to take away the pain of the memory I’d kept so tight to myself and didn’t want to think about, let alone relive.

Dad had killed his brother, and I worried back then about him doing the same to any boy I liked. Tomas was capable of anything and everything, but being here with him, I felt safe.

His lips pressed against mine as if he were asking for permission to take it further. I opened my mouth slightly, trying to deny my inexperience.

He grabbed me closer, as lust took over, and the invitation I’d given him to kiss me deeper was received. There was no holding back as I reached up and touched his face.

Then a buzz sounded from behind him.

I pulled away, trying to figure out what the sound was without Tomas realizing what I was doing. The clip of a buzz like static sounded again. It wasn’t a phone, but maybe it was a radio or even a walkie-talkie. Which meant that someone was near. Very near. And if I played my cards right, I could get off this island alive rather than dead.