Chapter Fifteen: Stephan
What the fuck happened to me?
I struggledto open my eyelids and my eyes were met with the piercing lighting of the chandelier over my head. I looked down at my body, to see that I was sitting in a chair with my hands and feet tied together, bound just like Annika had been when I rescued her the first time. I looked around the room, my vision blurry, and I knew I had to have been hit incredibly hard in the head for it to take this long for me to fully come to.
When I could finally see somewhat clearly again, I noticed that I was sitting directly across from Annika’s parents. They both had their eyes on me, and I could see the fear in them both, but I didn’t see any blame like I expected to.
They ought to have been feeling guilty for not looping Annika into the dangers of this lifestyle sooner, playing pacifists, pretending like they weren’t actually out there hurting anyone when they knew exactly what they were doing on their little business trip.
My father used to give my brothers and I the same excuse when we were too little to understand what was going on, but Annika is far older than I was when I first learned about what the family business was really like. She should’ve been given a heads up a long time ago, and if she had learned earlier, we might not be in this position right now.
I knew that I had no place to judge them because I’d never know what that would feel like until I had children of my own.
I saw Annika’s father look over at me, shaking his head, and that’s when I realized that Annika was nowhere near me. I looked around the room frantically, wondering where the hell they would’ve taken her, but before I could start struggling out of my bindings, I was met with a familiar face who couldn’t have been happier to see me subdued for once.
“It’s about time someone tied you up for a change,” Natalia said. “You’re always in control, aren’t you, Stephan? I’m sorry to say that this isn’t going to end well for you this time. You did a really stupid thing by handing me over that empty casing because now I know that you have no choice but to hand over the real thing, otherwise I’m going to kill Annika and make you watch.” Behind her, I saw that her family was approaching. She wasn’t alone this time, and she had everything she needed to totally dispose of all of us. I couldn’t speak, feeling the tightness around the duct tape over my mouth pull on my skin, while I glared at her angrily.
I knew she wasn’t going to kill me until that painting was safely in her possession, but I didn’t know how much she was going to put Annika through before she got what she wanted. I was bound so tightly that there wasn’t any way that I’d be able to get out of them on my own, and my body was erupting with fear, frustration at the realization that she was going to keep hurting Annika until I handed over the painting.
“You don’t look too happy about that, Stephan. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but I’ve had a watchful eye on you for the last few days. I know everywhere you’ve been, everything you’ve taken that didn’t belong to you, and I have to say that I’m proud of you for teaching Annika all those things about how to be a proper criminal because she was much harder to keep down than the first time I kidnapped her.”
Natalia probably had to pull out all the stops along with her family to keep watch on us, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I have to give up that painting, I have to make sure that Annika is safe. I have to be smart before she takes us all out the minute she learns the location of the painting.
The hiding places were changing all the time, but I remembered safety tucking it away into a lockbox in the brick wall behind Ivan’s pharmacy. I thought it would be safe there, but now I was beginning to think that had been a mistake.
Natalia inched closer to me, ripping the duct tape from my lips so I could finally tell her what she wanted to hear. I glared at her, and she smiled down at me, believing that she’d won. She was a few moments away from doing a victory dance of her own, but she had to keep it together long enough to get what was still hidden.
You better not have betrayed me, Ivan, or I swear, I will kill you myself.
I knew in my gut that he hadn’t, and he didn’t even know where it was hidden. He wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble to save Annika if he was just planning on giving up our location. Natalia may have been keeping watch, but she didn’t know everything, and I had to use that information to my advantage. I was afraid that I was going to have to lead Natalia to Ivan’s pharmacy because I didn’t want to involve him in any of this, but he knew the stakes when he agreed to help me again.
Stay calm, Stephan. You’re not going to let anything happen to Annika. You’re going to get her back, and you both are going to get through this.
If I was going to save her, I had to play this smart, make sure that I was always one step ahead of Natalia and her entire family.
“Well, Stephan? Are you going to tell me where that pretty little painting is?” she asked, taunting me, waving her gun around like she was actually going to use it. I could see right through her, and she was running solely on pride. She just wanted to make a good impression on her family, show them that she was strong enough to handle all of this.
They were the kind of dysfunctional crime family that we were all grateful that we weren’t born into because I could tell simply from the way they were looking at her, that there wasn’t an ounce of love in any of them. They saw their children as opportunities, and nothing more. This was all Natalia had, and if she didn’t live up to their expectations, she would be as good as dead to them.
“Where’s Annika?” I asked, through my teeth.
“That’s none of your concern, Stephan. You won’t be seeing her again until I deem it necessary, or until you need a little push in the right direction,” she said, and I knew that she was trying to get under my skin, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“I have to know that she’s safe before I’m going to tell you anything. You can torture me all you want, Natalia but you’re never going to be able to find the painting unless I point you in the right direction. You’re going to tear the entire country apart looking for it and waste far too much time. I’m sure your family has much more important things to do than engage in any of that.”
“You need to watch your mouth, Stephan. You’re forgetting that I’m the one that gets to decide what happens to Annika, and if you make me angry enough, I’m just going to have to kill her.”
“You do that and you’re never going to find the painting, Natalia.”
She thought about it for a moment, realizing that there was no way she was going to be able to act solely out of anger on this one. She knew that she couldn’t hold Annika over my head for very long, but she was going to flaunt Annika’s pain at me for as long as she could.
She was quickly realizing that her threats weren’t as effective as she wanted them to be, and the more time she wasted, the angrier her family was going to get. She stood there for a moment in silence, wondering just how much I was willing to let Annika endure before I caved in.
“You really are a brazen one, aren’t you, Stephan?” she continued. “I know how much you love her, I saw it from the moment we met the first time back at my house when you were trying to come to her rescue. You managed to escape from me then, but there’s no way I’m going to be letting you out of my sight this time. This is going to be the end of the line for you, and once we get that painting back, you’re not going to be much use to us anymore. Do you really think that you’re going to be able to endure me torturing Annika? I have a feeling that there’s no way you’re going to sit there in silence. That’s the difficult thing about love, you’re never going to be able to part with it. I know you’re going to make the right decision.”
“You’re not going to hurt her, Natalia. You lay a hand on her, and you’ll never find out where that painting is,” I said, but she didn’t budge. She was determined to get the information out of me as fast as possible, and she didn’t have time to be playing games with me anymore.
“We’ll see about that,” she said, motioning for one of her guards to go upstairs and fetch Annika. He carried her down like a small child, her hands and feet bound with rope, and laid her on the floor in front of me unconscious. It broke my heart to see her like that, to know that she was going to suffer, but I could only hope that once I gave Natalia the information she needed, that she would find it in her heart to leave her be. Natalia was operating solely on adrenaline, but her and Annika weren’t once good friends. She may have chosen a completely different path, but that didn’t mean that what they had at some point in their lives wasn’t real.
