Page 56 of Daddy's Reluctant Queen

He walks past us, and I catch him eyeing Sofia cautiously as his jaw clenches. Once he’s gone, Sofia looks up at me for reassurance.

“I’m giving you twenty minutes,” I say to her. “That’s all. Don’t make me come in after you.”

She nods. Then, “Thank you, Titus.”

I almost smile. “Go on.”

She turns away from me and approaches the door.

19

SOFIA

I’m not sure what I expected to see when I walked in. I know the punishment for being a rat is severe. I certainly know enough to understand that if you manage to still be alive after you’ve been found out, you’ll more than likely be begging for death soon.

I’m standing in the open door looking at him sitting chained to the floor in the middle of the room, the light from a single lamp hanging from the ceiling casting a sickly cone of yellow on his body.

This room is just barely like the room I had been kept in. The smell of dirt with the faintest hint of mildew comes through, but only just barely. Right now, all I can smell is blood, piss, and shit. And it’s all coming from the chained heap in the corner of the room.

He looks like a monstrous representation of the figure I’ve known my whole life. His hair, dyed chestnut brown, is soaked with blood from being hit or kicked in the head who knows how many times. It comes down in staggered lines at his hairline,dripping down his face. One of his eyes is swollen shut and oozing yellow pus from infection. His bottom lip is swollen and bloodstained.

If I didn’t know better, I would never have believed it was Adam. He lies on the bare floor in a fetal position, shackles on his wrists and feet. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of underwear that used to be white but now is stained with variations of bodily secretions.

“Please,” he weeps into the floor. “I’ve had enough. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Please, no more.”

My vision starts to blur from the tears forming in my eyes. I never wanted this for him. I never wanted to see him like this. I swallow hard and say, “Adam?”

His head lifts and his one good eye opens wider to reveal red blotches in the whites of his eyes clashing with the soft baby blue of his iris. He stares for a moment, then lifts himself up to a sitting position. “Sofia…? Are you really here?”

I nod. My hands are balled up at my sides and I dig my nails in my palms to keep myself together. “What did you do?” I ask, and my voice cracks. “Jesus, Adam. What did you do?”

“I told you,” he says. “It was the only way?—”

“No, it wasn’t. God, why didn’t you just run?”

His good eye blinks at me. “Where would I go? And besides, I couldn’t leave without you, Sof. No matter what they offered you for your life. I couldn’t do it.”

My knees feel like they might buckle. I look around the room and spot a chair just outside of his reach. I walk over and sit down.“What did you tell them?” I ask him. “The Feds, I mean. What did you tell them?”

He pauses, looking down at his hands. The skin on his palms is gray from the mix of dirt and blood baked into them. His nails are black from tons of caked dirt. I wish I could free him, take him back with us and bathe him and dress his wounds.

“I told them the truth,” he says. “I told them that I was the son of Marius Aristov and that Titus Malkin killed my father and all my relatives… and kidnapped my sister.”

Hot tears roll down my cheeks. He told them everything. Damn. “Is that all?” I ask.

“They want more information from me,” he says. “I didn’t get the chance to tell them anything else before your boyfriend’s goons grabbed me.” He sniffles, a trickle of blood escaping his twisted and broken nose. “That is what you’ve done to secure your survival, isn’t it? You’re fucking him, right?”

I don’t answer him. I can’t. The words are caught in my throat with my sobs. He laughs at my non answer and says, “Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you. Not really. If I could have sucked the man’s cock to get out of here, I would have done it, too. He’s won it all, hasn’t he?” He takes another second and tilts his head slightly. “Wonder what he did to deserve all this?”

“What?” I ask, wiping my face.

“Papa, I mean,” he says. “The whole time I’ve been in this hell, all I can think about is what our father did to deserve this. Having us all wiped out like this.”

I shrug. “Does it matter at this point? We’re just casualties in a Bratva war. This kind of thing… it happens.”

He chuckles. “It happens. I can’t believe that our lives are over and we’ll never really know why. It’s a shame. A disgusting, crying shame.” He starts to sob and lower his head, his shoulders shaking.

God, I would do anything to help him. My mind starts spinning tales of undoing his chains and running with him. Grabbing him by the arm and sprinting away before Titus or the others could react.