I stand up slowly. The chair slides slightly back against my movement. The room fills with the quick metallic sound of the chair legs scraping.
“What are you doing?”
“Listen carefully,” I tell Sasha. “Your feet aren’t tied to the chair, are they?”
A pause, then, “No. I don’t think so.”
“Good. Stand up, slowly. Try not to knock your chair over. We don’t want to make too much noise.”
I hear her chair scrape the floor and feel the heat of her arm as it aligns with mine. “Okay. I’m standing.”
“Good. Good.” I hope this works. I haven’t actually tried this since I first learned about it from some social media trend years ago. The video was about protecting women from being kidnapped and, at the time, I only thought that it was good to know ‘just in case’. Never once did I think that I’d actually have to use it.
“Okay, lean forward,” I tell Sasha as I lean forward, “lift your arms as high up as you can…” I feel her movement as I follow my own advice. “Now bring your arms down across your back really hard. As hard as you can do it.”
I do it… and nothing. My heart sinks for a moment. “Try it again. Keep doing it until the ties snap.”
I do it again and I hear the telltale snap of the ties and my wrists loosen. I’m free. I hear Sasha grunting as she does it once more… then another time andsnap.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps. “It worked! We’re free.”
I want to jump for joy, but I know better. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re out of this mess. “We are,” I say to her, reaching out and patting her on the shoulder. My eyes are finally starting to adjust to the shapes in the room and I can make out the soft shine of her face as she smiles up at me.
“What now?” she asks.
“Let’s find the door and try making a run for it.”
I step away and she grabs my wrist. “Hold on a second,” she says. “Those men… they had Russian tattoos. Gang symbols.”
I thought back to Sergei and his heavily tattooed chest that went all the way up to his neck and the backs of his hands. “Right. Sergei, the main one, he’s former Bratva.”
“There are no ‘former’ Bratva,” she says. “It’s kind of a lifelong commitment. You don’t get to just quit.”
My stomach tightens. “What are you saying?”
“He probablyisan enemy of my Dad’s. Like part of another Bratva. He might even be another Pakhan. If any of that’s true, then they operate out of the same playbook. He’s going to have us under guard.”
I raise an eyebrow in the darkness. For a child, she certainly knows a lot about the lifestyle. “You… know that for sure?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s what my Dad would do. I’ve never seen him keeping people hostage or anything, but I know that sometimesI can’t go in the basement because Uncle Ares or somebody else is guarding the door.”
It makes sense. I can’t deny that. Even with us tied up, Sergei probably wants to protect his interests. “Good point,” I say. “We need a plan.” I pace the floor in small steps, thinking. There’s no way the two of us can overpower even one of those men. They’re all built like brick walls.
My foot nudges the chair, nearly knocking it over. The sound of metal scraping stops my thoughts.
I wonder how many hits from a metal chair it would take to topple one of those walls.
“Okay, I think I’ve got something. I’m going to need your help, though.”
“Anything.”
I nod in the darkness.Please, let this work.
The room splitswith the sound of my voice. The way it breaks the utter silence around us almost startles me into being silent and my voice cracks on the first yell. I clear my throat and try it again, yelling louder.
“Somebody! Please! Something’s wrong with her! I need help!”
It took me a few minutes of walking around the perimeter of the room with my hand on the wall’s cool concrete surface, but I was finally able to find the door and then the handle and hinges to figure out which way it was going to swing open. Lucky for us, it’s going to swing toward the outside world. I won’t haveto worry about accidentally hitting the door instead the goon’s head.
