Page 43 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

The Bolyar doesn’t stay very long after his daughter leaves. “You have two hours. I suggest you eat what they bring you. Take a shower and dress if you’d like, but you won’t be clean for very long.”

He leaves the room, without sparing a glance behind him.

I drag myself into the bathroom and take a look in the mirror.

My bruises are starting to fade, and although the physical pain still stings, it doesn’t hurt as badly as the idea that one of my premolars is actually missing.

I can see it when I smile wide enough, and I don’t have any clue when I’ll be able to get to a dentist.

I have no idea what Liza’s father has in store for me, but contrary to popular belief, I haven’t been coddled and sheltered my entire life.

My father forced me to undergo routine torture from the time I was thirteen years old, with new fun little additions added each year.

Never really enough to mark me for too long, especially after I became infamous on social media, but enough to give me night terrors for years.

I’m in the middle of a hot shower when the water turns frigid. There’s no way a billionaire doesn’t have hot water coming from his tank at all times. This is on purpose.

I hustle out of the shower, barely washing the soap out of my hair, and go to turn on the heat fan to warm up. It doesn’t turn on. I’m freezing.

“Get your underwear on and stand facing away from the door with your hands behind your head, Derrick Stepinov.”

I allow myself to blink once while I think about what is likely happening, and then accept the fact that my torture, whatever it will be, has already begun.

He has started by throwing me off to disorient me.

I don’t know what his plans are, but I’m sure the upcoming hours, or possibly even days, aren’t going to be easy.

I go to the dresser to grab some clothes, but of course the ones that I wore are gone and all that remains in the dresser are plain white boxers.

I look dead into the camera, drop my towel, and smooth the one article of clothing I’m apparently allowed to wear over my body.

Then, I turn to face the opposite wall away from the door and link my fingers behind my head like I’m being fucking arrested.

There’s a flurry of activity as they—whoever they are—come rushing in like a SWAT team, as if I’m a dangerous criminal, which I suppose I am. But not here in this room. Here, my intent is solely to help, with the ultimate goal of obtaining the only woman I’ve ever loved.

Before I have much time to ponder that—before I can even look over my shoulder—a bag is placed over my head and my hands are pulled behind my back.

“This feels really unnecessary,” I say blandly, before the stab to my upper arm.

“You’re fucking kidding me…” I say, feeling whatever drug they just injected flowing into my bloodstream.

It works so quickly, I actually feel a dip of nervousness for what is about to happen to me.

“Definitely not kidding, asshole,” I hear, as the fuzzy light through the bag on my head becomes even fuzzier. “Have a nice trip.”

*****

I’m not asleep. I’m in some weird haze of consciousness, doing all the things I guess I’m supposed to be doing for no reason I know of.

Things feel utterly pleasant, and I want to see Liza again, so I do what I’m told, go where I’m supposed to go.

My whole world is a set of basic instructions for some unknown length of time:

“Get into the car.”

“Get out of the car.”

“Stand here.”

“Hold onto this.”

I can’t see, I keep thinking, before remembering that there’s a bag over my head. That’s fine. They won’t hurt me. But I forget why.

Because of Liza . I answer my own question. I’ll tell them whatever they want. I have nothing to hide. They aren’t my enemy. Everything I’ve done can be justified and verified. And in the end, she’ll make sure they don’t—

A shock of cold rolls over me as I topple into icy water that burns through my skin, my bones, and the haze of numbness in my brain.

I’m disoriented and accidentally gulp a huge breath of it into my lungs.

I’m certain I’m about to drown, but as I thrash around, the sack over my head comes off and I feel my feet under me.

I launch myself up frantically, instinctively pushing toward where I believe the surface to be, and feel cold air hit my face as I cough and splutter the water out of my mouth.

I blink harshly and swipe at my eyes, looking around groggily. I can’t see anything but dirt in the nearly pitch black darkness. I’m in a pit. A well, or something. What the actual fuck?

If it were a well, there wouldn’t be any light at all. I look up and squint above me, watching the automated platform they must have sent me down here on disappear slowly as it makes its way to the top of this shaft I’m in.

I realize I’m shivering relentlessly, but I’m only waist-deep in water.

My arms hug my chest tightly and, even though I’m pretty certain that whatever the hell I was shot up with before they shoved me into the car is still dulling my senses, I feel the sharp knives of the ice cold water I’m standing in stabbing into my legs and feet.

“Where—” My body is wracked with a violent tremor and I gulp down the rest of the words in that sentence.

A voice from my brain reminds me that I should never act vulnerable, use wit and charm to get out of trouble, but I just can’t figure out how to spin this to my favor with the fuzzy numbness coating my consciousness.

I have to admit to myself that I’m scared in a way I haven’t been for years.

It’s the drugs. Get out of your head, Derrick.

Get out of your head. I try to focus and come up with something else to say, but the truth is that I’m not just shivering from the cold.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been in such a state of confusion, and it’s throwing me off severely.

I can’t come up with a cunning lie while I feel like this, and I suddenly doubt my ability to weasel my way out of this one.

Just like that, the possibility of dying pops into my head, and even with all of my training, the prospect of dying never lingered at the end of the tunnel.

I always knew I’d live. Right now, with my system in overdrive, in a place I’ve never been, enduring torture I’ve never endured, I’m not so sure.

“Where am I?” I say through clenched teeth. “Do you plan on killing me?”

Stop fucking talking! I tell myself, but I just can’t.

“Never… definitely never been this cold before…” I chatter loudly, as if it matters to whoever is listening that my balls are turning to ice.

“Derrick Stepinov,” comes a voice from the walls of this cavernous pit, like out of some kind of horror movie. I jump, and then pray they believe it’s from the shivering and not from my frayed nerves.

“What’s up?” I’m shaking like a leaf, but I at least attempt to be the snarky asshole I usually am.

“Why did you come to the Bolyar’s house? Do you truly think we won’t kill you?”

“Didn’t before—before today, to be honest,” the last word comes out more like a grunt as my chest caves in with a violent breath.

“Ah, so you truly believed we would help you. I thought so, with all your prancing around on social media. Ya znála, chto ty savsém pustogolóvyy.”

He’s just indicated that he knew I was entirely vapid from the role I play on social media.

Maybe he’s right. “That’s not…very nice,” I say through clenched teeth, and I’m irritated that it really does sound like I’m sad about it.

In fact, this violent shivering makes it sound like I’m crying every time I speak.

“No, it’s not. An eye for an eye though, right? You realize what you have done to the Bolyar as well as his daughter? The shame? The rumors? Did you think you would find sympathy here?”

I find the small head of the camera peeking out of the dirt like a black stone, and stare directly into it. “No. That’s not why I came here.”

“Then why, Derrick Stepinov? Why did you come here?”

“For Eliza. I want her more than anything.” My eyes go wide at my own words.

I didn’t mean to say them. Am I lying to get out of this?

Trying to get them to take pity on me? But just the fact that I have to guess at my own reasoning makes me realize—it’s what they shot me up with.

It’s making me loose with my words. I’m more apt to tell them how I really feel.

And truly, pretending to love someone isn’t my style at all, anyway.

I’m charming and witty. I barter with whatever I may have, and some things that I don’t.

I promise the moon, knowing I can deliver something that passes for it.

My style is not to lie for sympathy, and it never has been.

There’s silence for a long moment. Finally, they speak. “You expect us to believe you care about the girl? Even after everything you’ve done?”

My brain is starting to get so foggy it’s hard to think. “No. But I think… you should trust whatever shit you—you stuck into me. I’m not exactly the type to—to admit to having a friend, much less… caring about someone so much.”

Another long silence, and I can’t seem to shut my mouth.

“Have you actually been on my social media? B—Because I can’t imagine one of you…

sitting around watching that all day.” I wish I could sound snarkier, but the shivering is really taking a toll on me now as my body violently pitches forward after every few words.

The pain in my legs and feet is only intensifying.

I wish I’d just go numb already . But directly after I think it, I realize that I’d be hypothermic pretty quickly after that, and I really don’t want to lose a toe or a foot for this shit.

“I was given the highlights only. Such as you, a 29-year-old man who makes at least five TikToks from the gym each week.”

“Tha’s ‘cause they’re my—my highest rated.”

“Mmm. Exactly the type of man who should marry the Bolyar’s daughter, right?”

Despite myself, I’m starting to get annoyed. I’m sitting here shivering out of my skin so we can talk about what I do for likes and views. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve never done a thing to sell yourself as something you’re not. Especially with this fucking job.”

Another long silence. Finally, he speaks, but there seems to be less oomph behind his words. “This is about you. It’s about your fitness for the Bolyar’s daughter, or even for the very post you hold now and will hold in the near future. Underboss, soon to be boss of Rhode Island. Do you think—”

“No, I don’t think I’m a perfect choice, I don’t think I’m ready to take on the world, and I don’t think I care!

I think I had no choice—that I’ve never had a fucking choice.

Do any of us who inherit this have one? No.

We’re told to do something and we just do it.

And…and…” I blink rapidly and realize I’ve completely lost my train of thought, along with all feeling in my lower body.

I’m no longer shivering. Not good , I think, even though I can’t help but feel relief that the pain is gone.

“You are so weak, Derrick Stepinov. Already succumbing to the cold. You have been pampered and coddled your whole life. Forget about Eliza Andreeva—I’m not even sure if you meet the minimum requirements to do business with the New York City Russian Bratva.”

Something feels physically unsettling, but I don’t realize I’m moving upward until my knees are free of the water and gravity takes its toll.

I collapse like a pile of bricks to the wooden plank lifting me from the icy cold pool that is now beneath me.

I’m blasted with hot air and brace myself for the pain I know is coming from being thawed out so quickly.

And it comes quicker than I would have liked.

If being submerged in the water was like a thousand tiny knives slowly being stuck into my skin, now they are all being shifted torturously, gauging through my muscles and tendons, then removed at the same time, agonizingly slowly.

I grit my teeth so hard against the pain I’m sure I’ll break another tooth. Still, I speak through them. “Go ahead. Try to break off business with me. That’s one thing I’m sure you’d regret.”