Page 5 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

If only I listened to Dimitri when he urged me back to the party.

“Let’s play, boys.”

Play.

My stomach rolls. I can practically feel myself disassociating, letting go of my mind and creating a safer place far away from this moment.

Everything around me is a blur of disbelief. This isn’t reality. This isn’t happening. Four grown men aren’t standing above me, where I’m tied to a mattress, stripped bare. Dignity robbed, peace gone…and soon, if assumptions based on their hungered gazes are correct, so much more.

The bald one undoes his pants, and that’s when I stop looking up, wrenching my gaze to the other side of the room where Dimitri is tied helplessly to a chair.

I love him so much.

I hate how violent he looks at this moment. Like if he could, he would rip all four men apart. Like he’d protect me.

But he can’t. Because they’ve made sure of it.

The mattress dips as the man kneels between my bound legs. Heat brands my thighs as he repositions me for his convenience .

I tried to fight them in the woods, tried to scream for help. They never knocked me out like they did Dimitri, clearly thinking I was too weak to fight all four of them. Sadly, they were right. The punches I managed to land didn’t do much.

I was bound and shoved into the back of the van, sobbing and pleading for Dimitri to wake up. That was when my mind wanted to drift away and not consider what was coming, but with Dimitri unconscious, it was on me to remain present.

We arrived at a nondescript warehouse, where they tied Dimitri to a chair and me to the mattress before cutting away my clothing. No matter how much I tried to fight, I was one against four, and lost easily.

They left us alone for hours as I pleaded for Dimitri to hear me and wake up. Whatever they stabbed him with was too strong, taking him to a place my voice couldn’t pull him back from.

With every passing second, I felt our future slipping away.

The man’s hand moves between my legs, and my eyes slam shut. Don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel.

Seems like such a silly thing to hope for. How can I not feel this? No level of disassociating will save me or make any of this make sense. Why me? Why Dimitri? Why did these men take us? Why didn’t I go back to the party when Dimitri asked me to?

So many whys without answers.

His hand moves away, and then there’s something else touching me. Another part of his body. One I can unfortunately place.

My eyes tighten, my mind surging to a better place than what it’s about to experience.

Thrust .

Blinding, red-hot pain scorches through me, and no matter how hard I try to fight it, tears come. My plea is unheard beyond the disgusting cloth they tied around my mouth.

His body comes down on mine.

I open my eyes and find Dimitri. He looks savage in a way I’ve never seen before. Murderous.

Like a Bratva soldier.

The pain comes in waves. My nails curl into my palms, biting through the skin. I welcome this pain, because it’s something else to focus on.

His body weight lifts slightly. His hands grip my thighs. He cries out the same way I do, but for different reasons. I don’t come, but as warmth shoots from him deep inside me, I cry. Both in relief that I’m on birth control and in pain.

I wish I didn’t make a noise. Wish I didn’t feel cum drip from me as he slides his cock out. Whatever he murmurs to the others, I don’t hear it over the blood rushing through my ears.

My heartbeat thumps so rapidly, I’m surprised no one else can hear it. Or maybe they can but simply don’t care.

Certainly not over Dimitri’s screams. He’s mindless with his threats and attempts to be free of the numerous layers of rope they tied around him.

A tear drips down my cheek for him. So helpless. So unlike everything he stands for.

I love him.

I’ll always love him.

I want him to save me.

But he can’t.

And I can’t save myself.

Another body replaces the first, and his hands come around my hips to reposition me. I tilt my head towards the ceiling this time, eyes shutting when he uses the cum of the previous man as lubricant to slam inside me.

For once, I’m thankful for the cloth in my mouth, because it’s something to bite on. Something to hide my scream and not give them the satisfaction of my verbal pain.

This man is bigger than the last. Heavier. And he’s not gentle—not that the first was either. Without looking, I think he’s Bodybuilder One.

During the car ride, in a moment of conscious attention, I studied the four of them, mentally nicknaming each one.

Bald One.

Skinny One.

Bodybuilder One.

Greasy One.

“Katya.”

I open my eyes. The voice comes from the only person I care about.

“Eyes on me.”

I stare at him. There’s hopelessness etched in his expression, agony as he endures watching this. I can’t keep my eyes open, because then he’ll see my pain, which hurts him more. If I shut them, then the truth will remain hidden.

So I close them, and he immediately repeats in a demanding tone, “Eyes on me.”

It’s lined with a deepening plea that has me obeying, trying to continue masking the truth of my own feelings while also giving him what he needs to get through this.

Because this isn’t only about me; he’s forced to witness this.

They are raping him mentally and emotionally, while I’m enduring the physical kind.

If he needs my attention for a moment, I can give him that much.

The only way we’re getting through this is together.

“Do you remember last summer when we were at the beach? You found a rock so smooth, it almost seemed fake. But what made it that smooth was its time in the ocean. The water washed away all its rough edges and imperfections.”

The man comes with a grunt and final thrust that my body blocks out in favour of the memory.

The beach was lovely, and I try to recall the heat on my skin and the pleasure I felt being there with him.

Holding his hand as we walked up and down the coastline until the sun dipped lower, casting yellow, orange, and, finally, red streaks over the water.

It was a sight only found in photos until that moment.

Don’t, I silently plead. I say it aloud again, but the cloth muffles my voice. Don’t ruin these memories for me.

The third man enters me in a similar manner to the first. He probably thinks my noises are for him, but they’re a conversation with Dimitri.

Somehow, some-fucking-how, Dimitri comprehends enough that his brows dip lower and he shakes his head. He’s always been so good at reading me, so this shouldn’t be surprising.

“Positive memories that get tarnished can be wiped off. Like the rock, we’ll make them smooth again.

And if we can’t, then we’ll create new ones.

Better ones.” He pauses, his voice cracking.

“But this isn’t a moment I want you to remember, so please think about that beach.

If good memories need to be sacrificed for that to happen, then I’ll easily toss them away, moya dusha . ”

My soul.

It’s his nickname for me. Hearing it now, amongst the agony and terror of the moment, I didn’t realize how much I needed it. But I do, and I cling to it, repeating it over and over in my head, his voice soothing me.

Moya dusha. Moya dusha. Moya dusha.

The third finishes and moves off me. The mattress dips for what I hope is the final time. I only look away from Dimitri because he does first, eyes narrowed on the man kneeling between my thighs.

A cold, sharp object presses into the skin of my neck—Dimitri’s knife, which means this is Greasy One. He stared at me in the van while fiddling with Dimitri’s weapon after taking it from him.

“I want to see your pretty eyes when you take me. Look at me.”

Never.

He presses the blade into my throat, and it’s amusing he thinks it’ll hurt me considering everything else. A cut is meaningless after having my dignity and choices stripped away.

Dimitri shouts a spew of curses in Russian.

Greasy One murmurs, “The choice is simple. You either look at me as I fuck you or you fuck the knife.”

I force myself to look away from Dimitri again and at the man overtop me, who’s practically salivating with his win. He knew it’d get my attention, and I won’t risk calling his bluff because he’ll probably make good on his threat.

The knife skirts my cheek, not cutting but a silent warning as the man’s hips jerk and he slams himself deep inside me.

Deeper than the others, and a grunt is all I allow myself to show.

Focusing my attention on the blade grazing my face, I block out everything else, including the raging emotion from Dimitri.

“It was a pretty story your boyfriend was telling us all,” he coos, and I wish I could deny that. Dimitri was reminding me , not sharing the positivity with them . “But we can’t have you forgetting this, now can we? Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.”

Will it? Do you mean that?

The man’s eyes shut, and his grip on the knife falters until he drops it beside my head. How I fucking wish I had use of my hands… Greasy One grunts, his thrusts quickening and becoming harder. His teeth press together, and he starts panting, his hot breath sour over my face.

“Fuck…fuck. Your cunt feels so damn good. So used, young one. Filled up with all our cum. How do you think your boy will like you now?”

His words lash me, and I wrench my face to the side, finding Dimitri amidst his own torment as the man finishes inside me. He slowly slides out, my core pulsing at the reprieve.

He smirks before snatching the knife and getting to his feet, not bothering to rezip his pants. His comrades all come back into view, gazing down at me with varying expressions of pleasure.

Bald One looks from me to Dimitri before shooing the three others away. Once they pass, making their own chortles and disgusting comments, he crouches beside me, humming. “You look deliciously used. We did a good job, no?”

I stare daggers his way, imagining his death. Normally, I’m not a violent person, but tonight… This altered a part of me I’ll never get back.

I feel it deep in my soul. The fact that I’ve changed…and not for the better.

I hear all the time on the news how people experience horrible things but claim to come out on top. That they’re made stronger by it.

Bullshit. There is no strength gained from this. No top to come out onto.

This is simply the end.

Bald One shrugs at my lack of response before dipping his finger inside me.

Old me would have flinched at the invasion, but after everything my body had gone through on this disgusting mattress—the altar on which my soul was reaped—a finger isn’t half as bad.

Given how numb I am, I barely register the feeling.

The fact a stranger’s finger violating me is not the worst says a lot about how I’m doing.

When he removes his finger, it’s coated in a mixture of clear and white fluids, which would make me gag if not for the cloth forcing all the bile to remain in my throat—a poison to match this entire night.

With his damp finger, he traces letters on my stomach. His touch draws attention to my quivers. My body jolts hard enough I can’t focus on what he’s writing on my skin. Whatever it is, it’s probably nothing I want to know.

After a final, pleased grin, he moves away. His steps disappear across the room, but I don’t stop staring at the glistening lines on my stomach to watch him leave. I’ve been branded inside and out. Abused. Violated. Whether he remains to watch me fall further apart doesn’t matter.

The warehouse’s door shuts, and a barrier crashes on top of me at the sound.

With it, everything from today is unleashed.

Every sense of pain, every tear shed, every happy moment from the afterparty.

It feels like that party was days ago, but it was likely only a mere few hours.

How many hours? How many hours did it take those sickos to shatter me?

To make me go from a happily graduated eighteen-year-old to a rape victim?

In the background, Dimitri’s voice sounds distant. My shaking and rapid heartbeat makes it too hard to focus on anything else—him included. It’s as though I have water in my ears, muting noises.

Then the lights flick off, and my tears are concealed.

“Hey!” Dimitri yells.

My brain is running on one circuit, and it’s not even fear. Just a flurry of wondering. Questions roll through my head as I try to remain present and ask the most logical things I can think of.

Why are the lights off?

Why are we still here?

Have they finished with me?

Was that only round one of a very long night?

I can’t handle another round.

Steps come from my right, and I turn my head towards the sound. Dimitri shouts again, demanding to be released. I don’t think he realizes these steps are in the opposite direction from where the four men disappeared.

Someone else is here.

The steps pace closer to my side until scraping by my ear. I try to peer through the darkness and make out a shadow, a shape, an idea of who it is.

Another noise, and the black shape creeps closer. Whoever it is crouches beside me. Hot breath blows over my face as the person whispers in a volume so low, I’d think I imagined it if not for the way my body tenses.

He’s a mere breath. Like a ghost who’s there one second and gone the next, staying just long enough to haunt me into old regrets.

It’s a voice that teaches me an important life lesson: No action is too evil for true evil.

“Next time, take my money.”

And then he’s gone, his steps evaporating farther across the warehouse like he was never here to begin with.

But he was. I didn’t imagine it.

I also don’t imagine Dimitri’s tight grip on me as he’s somehow now free—presumably untied. He drops onto the mattress beside me and works the rope at my wrists and then my ankles, freeing me. He yanks off the cloth tied around my head before pulling me into his arms.

I’m splintered. Utterly and completely. Like a shooting star that’s lost its shine. A chess piece checkmated.

A woman ruined.