Three years earlier
Valencia
The clock in the dimly lit room was driving me crazy for the last three hours. It was torture.
I wanted to break the clock down but it was secured in an iron net frame. With every ticking second, I would wait for a minute to pass on. Not knowing that how much time had passed would have been a better choice but passing every minute was difficult.
The iron cast bed with the distraught mattress didn't provide me with anything. There was a bathroom that made me puke every time I visited. Few broken teeth's and blood in the corner scared me out of my wits. I had hold of going to the bathroom as long as I could but it was impossible to hold back after a moment. I had to relive my bladder and puke.
The scent of the room was nothing less of a rotting basement and piss.
It had been almost three days since I had been here as a prisoner. All I had got was a water bottle and a slice of bread followed by some pills once a day. I had been hesitant but after being held a riffle between my eyes I understood it well that I had to take it.
I was scared for my child than more for me. The feeling of being helpless was gnawing at me from the inside.
Every ticking second scared me more and more.
All I wanted was me and my child to live. I wanted nothing else.
I had cried for hours and hours but my cries were never heard of or ignored.
There was no window, nothing and every tick of that clock suffocated me. The door had no handle and in desperation, I had even sat near it rather than on the bed to feel I wasn't alone. Sometimes I would hear footsteps and bang on the door, yelling and screaming to let me out.
It was of no avail. My throat was raw from all the screaming every day, but I still didn't want to lose hope. I was willing to beg, cry and do anything to save me and my child.
The click of the door had me standing up from near the door. I never know what could come next. I was living on the edge like a scared dog. These men didn't waiver away from using guns. The blood-curdling screams that I heard last night shook me up.
I hear a screeching sound. A chair was being dragged to the center of the room by a masked man. I hadn't seen a face ever since I was here.
The room filled with bright light. For the first time I had a looked at my room and a scream left my lips. The walls that were once white were covered with splatters of blood. It was a horror that I had never seen. Every corner had splattered blood. Old blood. I couldn't stop myself the contents of my old food were out on the floor.
"Isn't it beautiful?" My eyes snapped towards the door. It was the first face I had seen in the last three days.
"So many stories to tell," I remembered his voice.
My little bride.
Those were the words from my last memory. It was him, those grey eyes last thing I was his.
"Who are you?" I stuttered. With every step he took into the room I took one back deeper in the room. He was lean build but the way he carried himself in the room, the expression over his face screamed nothing but the devil and dangerous. He scared me with each step he took.
"That's for you to decide, Valencia." He stopped by the chair with a hand hovering over it. His eyes set on mine.
"Let me guide you to your options." Rather than sitting down, he dragged down the chair to where I was slowly, but his eyes had me pinned to the wall. My back hit the wall and I felt like a lamb caught in a corner. His lips tilted upward in a smirk, enjoying this.
"Please," I pleaded for someone to save me from him. If monsters existed, he was one of those. I could feel the way he looked. Placing the chair, he sat down looking at me with a tilted head. His eyes assessed me.
"Valencia, daughter of Ivan Nicolai Petruska, you are a hot entity in the market right now. Everyone is just looking for you, dead or alive, however, they can get." His words made tears brim in my eyes.
"Your boyfriend can cross any limits to know about your whereabouts." He told as he took out his phone.
"Come here, Valencia. You would like to see this." I didn't move from where I was, glued to the floor and the wall.
"Don't make me come there, Valencia because if I came there you will kneel with a bleeding gunshot in your leg." The expression of his face didn't change, and his voice dropped than before making him more lethal. With the threat looming over my head, I forced myself towards him.
"Good girl," he appraised, and pushing the phone out towards me he played a video.
My mother and father were there held by some men. I felt my eyes widen, I took the mobile for him and watched them. He let the mobile go as I watched it play out. They both were begging and pleading to someone. A looming figure entered the picture, I felt my breath hitch. Fresh tears rolled down my cheek. I knew who it was.
My hands shook as I held the phone.
Stepping forward he pulled on my father's head, shouting at him. He turned around to talk to someone and I saw Demyan walk in. I felt as if the earth was pulled from beneath me. My hands shook as I saw the knife slitting my father's throat in a blink of an eye. I saw Demyan move to my mother, pulling her by the hair he asked her something. She just shook her head and cried.
I saw the same knife that had my father's blood slitting my mother's throat. He pushed her away and I saw her drop to the floor. The hatred that was on his face made everything inside of me go still. Never had I seen this Demyan and it was scarier than what I ever saw. He was a monster who killed my parents.
I dropped to my knees the hone dropping side by.
His menacing face is what all I could see. He would have killed me too, I was sure. He wasn't who I knew, all that was a farce.
"He is something isn't it?" The man in front of me picked up the phone.
"That baby you carry is sadly not the reason he is going above and beyond." His voice taunting. "Just wanted to clear the doubts," he paused making me look towards him.
"However, the same can't be said about your father. He wants the kid and even though you won't like to hear this but he wants to kill the baby to avenge his son, your half-brother who is buried six feet under. An eye for an eye." My hand moved to my abdomen to protect the little life that had me going. The one I wanted to protect from everyone.
"Please," I begged. "Please don't kill us," the words slipped out of desperation that I didn't even know had overtaken me. Demyan wasn't the one who would look out for me, there was no one who was there to protect me.
The man in front of me stood staring at me.
"It doesn't depend on me, Valencia. Your fate depends on yourself and what you choose." He pulled onto my chin forcing me to look into those cold eyes. I gulped down my saliva out of fear.
"How far you can go to save your child and yourself?" He asked and I could see the glimmer in those eyes for the first time.
"Whatever it takes," I replied instantly to see his lips turn upwards. A fire burned so fierce inside of me to keep my child safe.
"I know you would say that but how is what you have to decide because I'm never going to give you up Valencia." I felt a shiver ran down my spine as his hand traveled down my neck.
"What do ....you mean by that?" I stuttered.
"I see, the last part has you scared. Let me elaborate that, you and I are going to be tied till death do us apart. Your biological father had chosen me, but I could have anyone." There was a gleam in his eyes as he said this.
"No one knows you are here, Valencia, not even your biological father. I could kill you and it would be over. Demyan wants to kill you, he had his fun, right?" The fingers of his moved gently around my neck.
"He fucked you hard, rough, and used you. He took everything away from you and still demands your blood. Doesn't it make you angry how pathetic he made you? Running away like a rat, hiding in places you would never visit? I mean right now you are nothing a pathetic little creature he made to kill." His fingers rested on the back of my neck pulling me closer to him.
"Doesn't it hurt, makes you crazy to burn down everything? I know how a burning desire pumped into your veins for the family that wronged you. Does it still run for those who pulled you in this mess because it wasn't me?" He came closer with his face mere inches away from him.
"Tell me the desire I see in your eyes to save your child runs deep because if it does I want to exploit it." He breathed out the words to me.
"You have so much potential to be a perfect weapon and a queen." My eyes snapped at him when I heard the word queen. A distant memory of Demyan calling me that flashed in front of my eyes. Then I saw his eyes slitting the throat of my parents. I remembered how he wanted nothing from me and this child, how all he wanted was my blood. It was always going to stay with me, this blood he wanted to drain me off. All those times I felt I have someone, the objective was to just to have me rob of my life in the end.
Everyone wanted to be the queen, but I didn't want that.
"I don't want to be a queen," his eyes narrowed looking at me.
"Then what do you desire to be, Valencia?" He asked curiosity in those eyes.
"I want to be your equal," my words surprised him as much as they did mine. He smiled and it was the first time I saw the real devil behind those eyes. I didn't recoil from him. His words burned a fire inside of me.
"What makes you think you could be that?" I could hear the taunt in his voice as his fingers closed around my throat.
"Because you want to use me too." Everyone just wanted to use me for their sick reasons. Nothing came for free and all I was nothing according to him. In the end, his sole purpose was to use me too and it didn't matter.
"Why do you think that?" His grip around my throat tightened.
"Or else you wouldn't be talking to me but moving my dead body out of here. Everyone is after my blood or to use me. There is nowhere for me to go and you know that well. I'm going to do everything to save me and my child, but you already know that." His words made me understand that he was my last choice. Out, people were out for my blood, there was a very low chance that I would be able to survive.
I couldn't live the rest of my life with a hit on my back and my child. I needed protection, safety, and able to be breathe knowing I wouldn't be killed another second.
His fingers tightened around my throat to the point of cutting my airway, but my eyes didn't waiver away from his. Deep down he was my last hope to survive for now or else I would be dead.
I didn't want to die, neither I didn't want my child to. My hand grabbed his wrist as I felt myself panicking from the cutting off oxygen. I dug my brittle nails in his hand to have him lose his hold.
"You are a smart woman, Valencia." There wasn't a flicker of pain over his face as I scratched his skin. It felt like he was getting high on it.
"Hope you never think of crossing me because it's going to be till death do us apart," he pulled me closer by my throat. His lips touching my ear as he whispered those words while his hand squeezed my throat tighter.
"And I keep my promises forever, even after death, till eternity, that." His grip loosened on my neck as he let go of me. I coughed up with my arm reaching for my neck to soothe it. Taking deep breathes I looked at him. He sat there with a smirk on his lips.
He was the devil that everyone should have been scared of and without knowledge, I had sold myself to him.
"We will get married tomorrow." He stood up taking out his phone and clicking a picture of me. Turning the phone towards me he made me look at my photo. I was the horror of being a captive.
"Forget the woman you see in this picture. You are no longer going to be that. This child will be born but hidden until it's safe." I listened to him to see if he was bluffing or lying.
"Until this child is born, I won't touch you but once it is born you are going to be mine in every sense, Valencia." He bent down to be face to face with me. One of his fingers traveled to my hair.
"You won't look pretty but we can have a ceremony later on. The documents will be signed tomorrow bounding us into a forever." Letting go of my hair his finger traveled to my lip. He rubbed my lower lip gently.
"What do you plan to do with me?" I asked as his finger left my skin.
"I plan to turn you into something that's your right. Ruthless, manipulative, and a devil just like me. You want to be equal I would just turn you into another half of me because that has always been the right place for you, Valencia." His breath fans my face and the way he spoke had goosebumps all over my body. For a minute we stared at each other before he stood up and walked towards the door.
"What's the name of my husband to be?" I asked to his back.
"Viktor Sokolov," the name rolled of his lips with a smirk. "Remember it, ingrain it because you are mine." Turning around he walked away.
"Give her a mop and a bucket. She needs to clean the room to let it be liveable for her for another six months." He told the masked man at the door.
Turning around he looked at me.
"Welcome to my world, Valencia. Your training will begin in the next three days until that you remind yourself why you are doing this because there is no escaping now. " Those were his last words as he left.
There was no escaping for me now other than death and it wasn't the option I wanted even if I was shattered into pieces.
So what do you think about Viktor?
Is he someone to believe in?
What is going to happen?
Did she made the smart choice? Or she gave herself in her doom?