Page 53 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

"Please, don’t do this," I whimper, stumbling as he shoves me forward.

"Shut the fuck up," he snarls. "I fucking said don't talk." Then I feel the weapon pressed into my back and panic.

When I pull away, trying to run, he wrestles me back against his body hard enough that it knocks the wind out of me.

"You're barefoot, and the gate's four hundred meters off with two of my men on it," he says angrily. "You'd get ten steps…" Then he tugs the door open and orders, "In," as he uses a large hand on my head to fold me in half before shoving me into the back seat.

This can't be happening. Demin promised me he'd keep Sergei away from me, unless Sergei is one of the men inside Demin's family who are turning on him. If that's the case and Demin doesn't know yet, will he even know to come for me? How long will it be before he realizes I'm gone and tries to find me?

"Please, you can’t do this. Please, my father…"

"Your papa will join us soon, Ms. Cruz. Nothing to worry about there. Just buckle up, this could be a bumpy ride." He keeps his eyes locked on the road while I turn and kneel on the seat, slapping the glass with an open palm, now screaming for help.

But he only chuckles at my fit and keeps driving.

I watch the house fade away through the back window. Then the trees close over the road and swallow the house whole. Sergei turns us away from the city instead of toward it, and one by one, the lights drop away until there's nothing out the windows but darkness.

We drive a long time and eventually, I curl into a ball on the back seat. Sergei is silent the whole time, though his phone vibrates a few times with an incoming call he ignores. I think about trying to swipe it from him and call someone for help, but what good would it do? He'd kill me before they find me anyway.

Eventually, the car finally slows and turns off onto a rutted track. The headlights drag across the face of an abandoned old building, and the panic in my chest worsens. It's a warehouse, or it was one, before the windows were busted out and the roof caved in. The doors appear to have sagged off their tracks and there's no other building anywhere, no light, no one for miles in any direction I can see.

"Where are we?" My palms are sweating now, mind racing a million miles an hour. If he just wanted to rape me, he could've done it anywhere, including inside Demin's home. Which means he's not planning to return me there at all. Whatever he has planned for me, he doesn't want anyone knowing and has no intention of giving me back.

"Nowhere… shut up," Sergei growls at me, but I lean forward, squinting my eyes in the darkness to get any sort of clue where we may be. I'm frantic too, praying someone somewhere knows I'm missing and is coming for me.

When the car rolls to a stop, I tug at the handle, trying to open the door so I can run, but the child safety feature is engaged, preventing me from opening it. It takes me too long to realize this, and by the time I turn to crawl over the seat to the front, Sergei is there, prying the door open.

He pulls me out by the arm and walks me in through a gap in the doors, across a floor littered with rusted metal and broken old wooden skids. There's a chair in the center of this mess, and he shoves me forward toward it. I stumble, falling short of the chair, and start crawling, trying to get away as fast as possible, but Sergei is on me immediately again.

"Hold still," he orders, but I keep squirming and kicking.

"Stop it! Get your hands off me! Let me go!"

He shoves me down into the chair and I come straight back up out of it, or I try to. But his hand on my shoulder slams me back down so hard, the legs scrape across the concrete.

"Don't touch me." I get a nail across the back of his hand and drag it into his flesh, drawing blood. "Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch."

Sergei catches my wrist and pins it to the arm of the chair, and I twist against him and kick out, catching him in the shin, but it doesn't move him an inch. The cord comes out of his jacket and he loops it around my wrist. I yank back against it with everything I have, throwing my weight sideways, trying to take the whole chair over with me, but it's no use. He's so strong.

"Help," I scream. There has to be someone, there has to be! "Somebody help me⁠—"

"Scream all you'd like." He cinches the loop tight and moves to the other wrist while I'm still fighting the first. "There's no one out here. I told you that already."

I bite at his arm and miss. I get a fistful of his sleeve, but he peels my fingers off it one at a time, like he's working a knot loose. Then he ties that hand down too while I buck against the chair.

"Please, no! Please, God, no!"

Sergei crouches and catches my ankle. He isn’t even listening to me. I knew the instant I saw this fucker that he was a monster. Demin should never have hired him. He's nothing but trouble. I kick at his face with the other foot, but he pins that leg and ties it too.

The whole time, I'm spitting every word I have at him in two languages. When it's done, he stands and steps back, looking down at me as I sit shaking and sweating. My face is a mess of tears and snot, and my body is taut, straining against the ropes.

"Whatever you mean to do to me," I tell him, "you should do it knowing he will take you apart for it. You know him… He's going to kill you slowly for this."

Sergei cocks his head as he chuckles. "You think that's why you're here?" He drags a second chair out of the dark corner and sets it a few feet from mine then lowers himself into it. "I have no interest in you, Isabela. He fucked you… You're tainted."

A cold chill creeps up my back and I shudder. If he's not taking me because he wants me to… I can't even imagine it—the horror of even thinking it makes my skin crawl. Why does he have me here?

The confusion must be apparent on my face because Sergei sighs and says, "They’ve had this coming a long time, and you and your father were just in the wrong place at the wrong time…"