Chapter 135 Anya
The night I went to Pavel's sister, I thought I had won.
I drove back to Alexei's house with evidence in my phone and hope in my heart. The photos, the documents, the recordings. Everything I needed to destroy him. I parked the car in the garage, slipped through the dark kitchen, and tiptoed toward the bedroom. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding. But I was smiling.
Then the lights turned on.
Alexei was sitting in a chair in the hallway. Waiting for me. He was dressed in black from head to toe with a gun on his lap and a cigarette between his fingers. Smoke curled up toward the ceiling.
"Where have you been, Anya?"
My blood stopped moving. I could not speak.
He stood up and walked toward me. "I asked you a question."
"I could not sleep," I whispered. "I went for a drive."
"Do not lie to me." His voice was soft but deadly. "I had a man following you. I know where you went. I know who you spoke to. I know everything."
I turned to run but two of his men blocked the hallway behind me. Big men with dead eyes and guns on their hips. There was no way out.
"Please," I begged. "Please just let me go."
Alexei stopped in front of me and tilted his head like a dog studying a wounded rabbit. "Let you go? After everything I have done for you?"
"You took everything from me," I said. "You took my husband. My memory. My life. You are a monster."
His face changed. The calm mask dropped and something dark and hungry appeared underneath.
"You were never going to leave, Anya. From the first moment I saw you, you were mine."
He grabbed my hair and pulled me into the bedroom. I screamed and clawed at his hands but he was too strong. His men did not follow. They just closed the door and left us alone.
What happened that night I will not describe. I will only say that I screamed until my voice gave out. That I cried until there were no tears left. That I prayed for death and death did not come because death was afraid of Alexei Volkov.
When he finished, he chained me to the bed in the basement.
The basement was a concrete room with no windows and a single light bulb that never turned off. There was a drain in the floor that smelled like rust. The walls were stained with old blood.
Alexei brought me bread and water once a day. Sometimes he brought nothing at all. Sometimes he came to hurt me with his fists and his belt and his words. His words hurt the worst. He told me Nikolai was dead. He told me no one was coming. He told me I would spend the rest of my life in that room.
And I cried.
I lost track of the days. The light bulb never turned off so I could not tell night from day. The bread and water blurred together. The pain blurred together. I started to forget what my own face looked like.
One night the door to the basement opened. I expected Alexei. I closed my eyes and prepared for the pain.
But the voice that spoke was not his.
"Anya."
I opened my eyes.
Nikolai stood in the doorway. Bleeding from a wound on his forehead. Bruised across his face and arms. Barely standing. His clothes were torn and burned. His eyes were hollow with exhaustion. But he was alive.
My heart broke and healed at the same time. Tears flooded my eyes.
"Nikolai," I whispered. "You came."
"I told you I would always find you," he said.
He limped across the room and knelt beside me. His hands were shaking as he pulled a tool from his pocket and started working on the chains around my wrists.
"You have to leave," I said.
"I am not leaving without you."
"You do not understand. This is a trap. Alexei knew you would come. He planned everything. He wanted you to find me so he could kill us both."
"I do not care."
"I care." I grabbed his face with my bound hands. "He has something planned. Something dangerous. I do not know what it is but I heard him talking to his men. He said he has been waiting for this moment. He said he has a surprise for you. If you stay, you will die. We will both die."
"Then we die together."
"No." I shook my head. "You have to go. You have to run. You have to survive. For both of us."
"I am not leaving you here with him. I have lost you once. I will not lose you again."
"You have to." Tears streamed down my face. "If you love me, you will go. You will live. You will come back for me when you are strong enough. But you cannot save me if you are dead."
He looked at me with tears in his own eyes. His jaw clenched. His hands gripped the chains so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Anya..."
"Please," I begged. "Please go. I cannot watch you die. It would kill me even if the bullets did not."
He hesitated. His heart was fighting against his mind. I could see the war happening behind his eyes.
Then we heard the footsteps on the stairs. Heavy boots. Many of them. Coming down fast.
Alexei's voice echoed through the basement like thunder.
"Nikolai Markov. So good of you to finally join us. I have been waiting."
Nikolai stood up and stepped in front of me, placing his broken body between mine and the door. He raised his pistol with a hand that would not stop shaking.
"Run," I whispered. "Please run."
But it was too late.
The door burst open and Alexei stepped inside with ten of his men behind him. They were all holding guns. They were all wearing bulletproof vests. They were all smiling like wolves who had cornered a wounded deer.
Alexei looked at Nikolai and then at me. That cruel smile spread across his face like a wound.
"I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time," he said. "And I have something very special planned for both of you."
Nikolai raised his gun higher. "Get away from her."
Alexei laughed. The sound bounced off the concrete walls. "Or what? You can barely stand, Markov. You have no men. No weapons. No hope. You came here to die and you know it."
"I have her," Nikolai said. "That is all I need."
"How touching." Alexei stepped closer, his men parting to let him through. He stopped face to face with Nikolai. "But you are wrong. You do not have her. You never did."
He turned to look at me and winked.
"Tell him, Anya. Tell him you are not going anywhere."
I looked at Nikolai. At his broken face and his bleeding body and his eyes that still burned with love for me. At the man I had married. The man I had lost. The man I had found again.
And I made the hardest choice of my life.
"Nikolai," I said. "I am not going with you."
His face crumbled like a building collapsing. "What?"
"Go. Please. Just go."
"You heard her," Alexei said. "She chooses me. She always has."
Nikolai looked at me with confusion and heartbreak. He did not understand. He could not understand why I was saying these things.
But I could not explain. Not with Alexei listening. Not with ten guns pointed at the man I loved.
So I just looked at him and prayed he would read the truth in my eyes.
Run. Please run. He has planned something. Something worse than death. I do not know what it is but I know it will destroy you. So run. Run and live. Come back for me when you can. But do not die here. Do not die today.
And Nikolai, being Nikolai, finally understood.
He turned and ran.
Gunfire erupted behind him like thunder. Bullets tore through the air. I screamed and screamed until my throat bled.
But when the smoke cleared and the echoes faded, Nikolai was gone.
And Alexei was laughing.
"Let him go," he said to his men. "He will be back. They always come back."
He walked over to me and knelt down so his face was level with mine. His breath smelled like cigarettes and victory.
"And when he does," he whispered, "I will make sure you watch him die. Slowly. Painfully. Inch by inch. And then I will make you wish you had died with him."
He stood up and left me alone in the dark.