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The men stuffed me into a room, the secure clicking of the lock telling me I had no chance even if I could get untied.

I was exhausted and filling up fast with despair as I was left alone in the darkness.

The room was cold, almost too cold for comfort, but I was grateful because it made it easier to breathe through the bag that remained over my head.

Still, it was stuffy, and my best option not to hyperventilate or straight-up suffocate was to remain still.

Hours must have passed as I fell into a fitful sleep for a while, waking up with a start when the door banged open so hard it hit the wall, scuffing against my feet. I scrambled to sit up, a nearly impossible task being tied up the way I was.

Someone untied the rope around my neck and snatched the bag away at the same time, someone else snapped on a harsh overhead light.

Its glare blinded me, and for a few seconds after squeezing my eyes shut against it, all I could make out were blurry images.

A deep voice grunted something at me in Russian.

The only thing I understood was that I needed to cooperate.

Yeah, that wouldn’t be happening. Not if they took the cuffs off and untied my feet.

I tried to ask him to repeat what he said in English, but my mouth was dry, and my voice was a mere croak.

Instead, I shook my head to signify I didn’t understand everything he said.

He must have taken that as defiance because the next thing I knew, a hand was whizzing toward my face, delivering a hard smack.

“Don’t mar her face,” the other warned. Or at least that’s what I thought he said since they were still speaking in Russian. He stood by the door, and as my vision improved, I saw that he was about the size of two linebackers. So much for my plan to defy them once I was untied.

“I was just trying to ask you to speak English. If you can,” I said.

Both of them looked disgusted with me, and it would have been laughable if I weren’t so scared. It reminded me of my father, who was always a bit disappointed when I let my language skills lapse. Oh God, Papa. Would I ever see him again?

There was no telling where I was. The room they’d locked me in was windowless and completely empty except for a ratty old bookshelf with a few cardboard boxes stacked on top.

An office building, a warehouse, hell, I could have been in someone’s basement for all I knew.

As soon as I turned my head to get a better look at the place, I got another smack, this time in the shoulder.

“Stay still,” he barked. So I was right when I translated that he wasn’t supposed to mess up my face. “We’re taking you someplace else now. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

I highly doubted that was the truth. Maybe for them, but it wouldn’t be for me, of that much I was certain. I scooted back, pressed against a wall with nowhere to go.

“It would be better if you don’t make a fuss,” he said, reaching for my shoulder to drag me up. I twisted my head and bit him, sadly not hard enough to draw blood.

He yelped anyway and drew his hand back, ready to let me have it in a way that would make it easier to carry me out of there. I braced myself for the blow, but the other guy stepped forward, pushing his hand out of the way.

His own hand wrapped around my throat and squeezed. Just enough to make me go still. His giant meat paw could have snapped my neck like a second grader snapped a pencil in two. He leaned close, his hot breath leaving a clammy trail on my cheek.

“There are ways to hurt you without leaving a trace,” he said.

Oh, I knew it all too well. My brothers tried to shelter me, but I was always aware of what went on in hidden places like this one.

None of it was ever good for the person in my position.

I should have gone limp, but his threat had stubbornness bubbling up past my fear to remind me who I was, and that I was pissed.

I headbutted him so hard it made his beady eyes water. And mine. Still, it felt great, at least for a split second. It angered him enough to make him forget his orders, and he raised his hand. More like a shovel. This was going to freaking hurt.

My forehead throbbed and was sure to have a huge welt. Good. I stared at him defiantly. “You don’t want my face messed up for some reason,” I said.

Whatever that reason was, I wasn’t going to like it, so I’d keep messing it up myself. Scooting backward, I turned and slammed myself against the wall, scraping my cheek. Ignoring the pain, I reared back to do it again.

“She’s fucking crazy,” the big one muttered in Russian. Yes, I could understand that much.

He dragged me away from the wall and pinned me flat on the floor, his hand once again around my neck.

This time, it wasn’t a warning. He squeezed until I was on the verge of passing out, with lights dancing on the edges of my vision, which was coming to a pinpoint.

At the last second, he relented, and as I lay there gasping for breath, they hauled me out of the place and outside.

Now, it was dark, but with a faint rim of blue light around the edges of the trees, telling me it wasn’t that late.

Maybe I hadn’t been stuck in that room for that long, after all.

I tried to take note of where I was, but it was just a nondescript concrete building in the middle of nowhere.

A hideout or a safe place to torture people, nothing that would be on any maps.

Now I went limp, my last ditch effort to make myself difficult to carry, but if they noticed at all, the two huge brutes didn’t show it.

One of them clicked a keyfob, and the trunk of the nearby car popped open.

“I’ll be good,” I swore, repeating it in Russian. “I promise.”

The bigger one snorted, the nice welt on his forehead I’d given him, but not much comfort to me at the moment. With an evil grin, he dumped me in the trunk of a car. Again. And to make matters worse, he pulled the bag back over my head. Wow, I really hated him.

Okay, I was an expert at this mode of travel by now, so there was no reason to panic.

Except, I was pretty close to panicking, and hard.

I had to stay calm to prepare myself for whatever came next, determined not to go out without a fight.

It would have been preferable not to go out at all, but I didn’t have much hope left at that point.

For all I knew, Arkadi might already be dead. If not, why hadn’t he found me yet?

Why did I have so much faith in him at all?

Maybe he was glad to be rid of me. That thought hurt, almost blotting out the fact that I was thumping along a rutted road to my possible death.

Tears stung my eyes, but I wouldn’t cry.

Couldn’t cry, not with the bag over my head, or I might suffocate before I arrived at the next location.

Although that kind of death might have been better than whatever waited for me.

The car rolled to a stop and stayed stopped, shaking me out of my despondent thoughts.

The sounds of feet crunching over gravel in my direction made me tense, waiting for the trunk to swing open and rough hands to grab me again.

Only one of them did, slinging me over his shoulder so that the air gusted out of my chest.

There was a brief moment of cold wind whipping my bare skin. Having arrived from Milan wearing appropriate summer clothes, I also had coats and sweaters waiting for me in my suitcases. Who the hell knew where they were now, and my shivers weren’t caused by the cold anyway.

Once we were inside, he dumped me on the ground, keeping a firm hand on my arm so I didn’t go down in a heap. As soon as my feet hit a hard tile floor, I felt someone tugging at the ropes around my ankles, freeing my legs with a few slashes of a knife.

“Walk,” the man who held my arm in a vice grip commanded.

I paused, only because I didn’t have a clue which direction to go, still blinded under the cloth sack.

That earned me a smack across the back of the head as he dragged me forward.

About thirty steps later, I heard him fiddling with a door lock and then a door swinging open on creaky hinges.

My heart started hammering in my chest. This was the final destination, and most likely my own end.

What lay within the time I still had on this earth was unknown, and I didn’t want to know.

He shoved me through the doorway, bumping my shoulder, though I would have taken twenty punches before letting him know it hurt.

“Get changed,” he said in a dead voice. “Or don’t. It makes no difference.”

He hurriedly unlocked my cuffs, freeing my wrists and letting blood flow to my numb fingers. Whipping the bag off my head, he slid out of the room like a snake, shutting the door behind him with a heartrending finality. Locked up again, to wait. But for what?

It was futile to pound on it or jiggle the handle. Turning around, I soon got the answer to my fate. And immediately started screaming. If I thought I was terrified before, I was mistaken. This was true terror.

There was a rack of clothes waiting for me against the dingy gray wall. Loud, thumping music started pulsing from the other side of it, and the sounds of eager shouting rose up over to join it.

Another auction.