Except mine aren't simple or harmless. They're the memories of everything bad, and they claw at me.
Like this château, and being here before. Eighteen months ago, in fact.
I woke up on a cold stone floor in the basement. It smelled like dirt and mildew. My wrists were bound, and my mouth was gagged. A man stood over me, speaking Romanian. I was too out of it to understand him at first, but as I came to, I heard:
"De acum, îi apar?ii lui Maxim Volkov."
I didn't understand. How does someone wake up and be told they belong to someone?
I screamed into whatever was in my mouth and started twisting and trying to move.
They drugged me again.
When I woke up the second time, I was in a different room, and a man stood over me. It was Maxim, and he said, "Welcome home, Elena."
I tried to run, but I didn't make it to the door.
The punishment was severe.
I shake my head, trying to push those thoughts out.
I wrap my arms tighter around my legs and wait.
There's one thing my pill hasn't been able to do, and that's stop the dread from creeping up inside me whenever I'm in these situations.
God, I hope he trips and breaks his neck coming back up the stairs tonight. I'm not ready for what he'll do.
The worst part of all this, and there's been a lot, is that I have to sit here with this dread.
And wait for Maxim's eventual return.
7
ADRIAN
Our private jet shakes a little as we pass over the jagged terrain. Below, the mountains stretch endlessly, pristine and untouched, blanketed in snow that probably won't see a single footprint.
The Alps are beautiful, but now I know, also a lie.
Because underneath all that purity, somewhere in those valleys, there's an old mansion where men in tuxedos sip champagne and trade human lives like stocks. Where women are displayed like art. Where Elena was taken and locked away, and God knows what else.
I flex my fingers. My knuckles are raw from the last few days. While Victor did what he needed to do, me and Lucian tracked down a few more smugglers and I beat the shit out of all of them. He let me kill one. The others were left alive to send a message about what happens when you take Romanian women.
Now, I'm just sitting uncomfortably in this plane, holding myself back when all I want to do is burn the entire world down untilI find her. I want to hurt anyone remotely connected to this the way I've been hurting. The way she's been hurting.
I sigh as I rub my forehead.
I look down at the folder on my lap. It's been open to the same page for the last hour.
To a man named Maxim Volkov.
He's standing in front of the Kremlin, shaking hands with another Russian politician, both of them smiling for the cameras.
He may look the part, but if he's a Volkov, he's fucking evil.
I stare at his face, committing every detail, every angle, to memory. When I see him in person, I'm going to have to try really hard not to instantly put a bullet through his skull because, as Victor reminds me, we need information.
"Are you sure he's going to be there?" I ask.