Page 43 of Hateful Vows
THIRTY-TWO
DANTE
I groan and try to blink my eyes open but the lids are heavy and burn with salty tears.
My nostrils flare with the effort of regulating my breathing.
Head pounding and mouth full of cotton, I take stock of what I can feel.
I wiggle my toes, my fingers. I seem to be strapped to a table, the metal cold underneath my back.
I’m not naked, but the freezing temperature in the room is hard to ignore.
I force myself to blink some more and instantly regret it when a harsh overhead lamp assaults my abused eyes. Turning my head to the sides isn’t a much better option. The room I’m in is devoid of anything but dirty walls and a closed metal door, giving the place a foreboding atmosphere.
The silence is eerie.
I don’t know how long I stay like this, staring at that fucking lamp that’s too bright, the electricity crackling inside the bulb.
Minutes, hours? My stomach rumbling tells me it’s been maybe a day but not more.
It doesn’t yet cramp with the need for food.
But my throat is parched, and I feel like I’ve been run down by a freight train.
Alone in the too cold room, strapped to a table for what might be days or weeks, maybe even until my death, the image of Tino slumping to the floor and his unseeing eyes looking at the night sky assaults me.
The tears mount and fall on their own accord.
My father would have whipped me bloody for the sign of weakness but fuck, Tino was my brother in everything but blood.
We grew up together, got into trouble together, and he died without honour, shot through the skull by a coward who couldn’t even face us.
I’ve always been good at feeling my emotions.
My mother taught me not to be scared of them, that’s when they’d control me.
Unlike my father who wanted to crush any sign of them, she said if I could face them, learn to soothe them, I’d be the master of my life.
Grief, rage, denial and a bone-deep exhaustion take me over all at once and I yell into the empty space for the man I lost.
I yell his name, threaten whoever wants to hear with retribution even as I’m prone and bound.
When I’m done, my voice is hoarse and my throat screams at me. I’m delusional with the need for water.
At least Irina is safe. She’s home with Aleksei, with our men. She’ll take care of my mother, of Lucie. A sliver of hope tells me she’ll come for me. I’m hers to kill, no one else. She promised me. My life is hers to take, not this absent bastard who’s trying to play with my mind.
A cruel laugh escapes me. It bubbles up until it becomes an unhinged cackle. I barely recognise myself.
Steps echo beyond the door and the hinges squeak as the door to my prison opens. The figure standing in the doorway is shrouded in darkness. I can’t see their face, but the malicious intent in their posture is unmistakable.
Still, I laugh in their face. I’ve never feared for my life. When the grim reaper will be ready to take me, I pray she spares my loved ones. And they’re safe now, I’m sure of it. Me? She can take me if she wishes, I don’t really care.
“You obviously don’t know who my wife is,” I chuckle. “She’s going to love chasing you to the end of the Earth.”
“Is that so?” the masculine voice says and it sends a shiver down my spine. The words are careless, but the intonation… It’s almost familiar. It pulls at a thread in my brain but no matter how hard I yank on it, it escapes me.
My neck hurts to keep my head angled toward the door.
When the man steps into view, he wears nondescript black clothes and a black balaclava that hides his face.
I barely make up his eyes with how bright the lamp shines in my irises, rendering me almost blind.
When I close them, sparks of blue and white fill my vision, pain lancing at the back of my head.
The migraine starts latent but grows sharper as the light remains.
“You should kill me now,” I tell the man with a chuckle. “Irina will tear you to shreds.”
He hums softly but doesn’t raise to the bait.
His steps are silent as he moves around the table, observing me like I’m a creature in his lab.
The mirth I felt minutes ago vanishes when, from the pocket of his trousers, he takes an ominous syringe full of a clear liquid.
He doesn’t even strap my arm to feel for a vein.
He doesn’t need to. No matter how much I wiggle as the man approaches, my whole body is strapped to the table, elbows, wrists and ankles bound tightly.
He finds a vein at my inner elbow, gloved fingers seizing me with force and making me sick, and injects me with the poison.
But it isn’t poison.
It’s pure fucking heroin.
The drug shoots in my system and my body immediately softens, my muscles releasing tension in one go.
The heaviness makes my lids droop and my heart slows until all I feel is the perfect cloud underneath me, holding me with care.
The lingering headache and shivers disappear, replaced by the rushing feeling of comfort and warmth.
My mind empties and I get the smallest flash of brown hair on top of my captor’s head. It reminds me of Irina though hers is darker. Even the most Earth-shattering orgasm pales in comparison to this. But it’s close and her face appears at the back of my mind.
I float into this state for what feels like days.
When it leaves my body, I barely have time to turn my head to the side before I vomit on the table and myself, choking and sputtering. The liquid sloshes on the metal table to move to the back of my neck and nausea invades me again. But there’s nothing for me to wretch.
I stay like this, in a pool of my own vomit for hours. Other bodily functions start to scream at me to release and I hold it as long as I can.
But I’ve lost track of time.
And eventually, I let go, shame coating me like a second skin. Tears pool on my face and fall to the table.
When the man doesn’t reappear, my body shakes with sobs.
Stripped of dignity, nauseous and permanently coated in my own filth and the cold sweat of self-loathing and dread, I hold onto my beautiful wife’s and infuriating lover’s sneering faces, laughing manically at the visions of them behind my eyelids.
But soon, the need for water and food eclipses them and takes over every other instinct, including hope.