Page 77 of Bratva Sacrifice

I close my eyes when he bends, and there’s the cool press of lips to my forehead.

“Ya tebya lyublyu, koshechka,” he says. “Remember.” The pressure at the edge of the bed lessens. I hear the faint sounds of footsteps heading toward the door. “You won’t see me for dinner,” he says tersely, and then the door opens. Closes. And there is silence once again.

I don’t open my eyes until I’m sure he’s gone.

I suppose it must be an hour later when there’s a knock at the door, and Anatoli comes striding in, tapping out a message on his phone. “Get dressed,” he says laconically. I guess he’s still upset about me propositioning him. I don’t know what he said to me in response, because he said it in Russian, but it was most definitely a strong and swift refusal.

“I don’t want to go out,” I say. It’s not true; not really. I just don’t want to be expected to be grateful for it. I don’t want to be forced to be thankful for the minute loosening of my chains.

“Not negotiable.” His footsteps thud across the carpet, and there’s the sharp slide of drawers along their tracks in the dresser. Fabric piles up around me as he casts items of clothing in my direction. “You have five minutes, or you go as you are.”

He slams out of the room, clearly annoyed to have been assigned to be my keeper. It’s probably not fair to put him in an even more difficult position. Reluctantly, I slip out of bed and dress. Warmly. Since I’m going out.

∞∞∞

Anatoli barely acknowledges me in the car. It’s a massive black limousine; the kind with bulletproof windows and miles of seats. He might as well be in Europe for the distance between us. He’s not a talker, and I don’t try to engage him in conversation. He’s got a large, overstuffed manila envelope tucked beneath his arm, but his attention is on the phone in his hand. So I curl up against the window and watch the outside world pass by.

My first sense something is off comes about twenty minutes into the drive. We’ve turned off the highway we should be taking to the mall and we keep driving. At last we come to a tiny airfield, and the limousine pulls up right alongside a private jet.

For a while, I nurtured the hope of escape—even in a city largely controlled by Alexei. At least in Chicago, there was hope of finding safety in a city I know well, with a largely English-speaking populace. If I’m being moved somewhere, somewhere international, my chances dwindle into near-nothingness.

For human cargo, at least I’m being moved in style. Like a cherished possession instead of an afterthought. I don’t want to be a possession at all, but that choice was never in my hands.

Anatoli gets out to speak to the pilot, and for a long moment I don’t even move. I’m not stupid enough to believe that the doors have been left unlocked. I only sit, strangling on the last, fading bits of hope in my body.

Long minutes later, the door nearest to me opens. Anatoli makes a gesture I know I’m meant to interpret as, Get out, and don’t waste my time.

Panic claws at my throat. “I don’t have my ID,” I say. “I don’t even have a passport. I can’t get on a plane!”

I didn’t really expect this to have any effect, and it doesn’t. Anatoli grunts, “You don’t need this. Get on the plane.”

Like Alexei, he doesn’t take kindly to disobedience. There’s a severity on his face, a determination, and I know—I am getting on that plane. One way or another. The only choice is whether I walk on my own two feet, or whether I’m forcibly shoved onto it.

I climb out of the limousine, collecting the shreds of my dignity around me. “If you’re taking me to some other country, they’ll deport me without my passport,” I tell him as I walk slowly up the stairs. “Alexei will be angry. Without identification—” My heel catches on the step leading into the cabin. “Without identification, they might arrest me.”

“Your identification doesn’t matter,” Anatoli grunts. He tosses the manila envelope inside the cabin over my shoulder, and it sails through the air, landing upon a table between two seats where it slides to the very edge and teeters. “Catalina Russo is dead.”

What? My knees tremble, and before I can form a question, the door of the plane slams behind me. I watch through the window as Anatoli descends the stairs without me and climbs back into the waiting car.

The whirr of the engine drowns out my racing thoughts. Catalina is dead isn’t literal, of course. I know I’m not dead; I’m not delusional. But the implication is legally, not literally.

It means no one will be looking for me. It means a body with my name buried in a plot in the ground. It means that effectively, I no longer exist. It means that I am a nameless, stateless entity—and any claims I might make to the contrary will be immediately regarded as suspicious, suspect. Possibly even criminal.

I topple into a seat as the plane begins to taxi down the runway, picking up speed. I feel like I’ve died in this moment. Like I’m on my way to my own funeral. Like the plane that has lifted its nose into the air is pulling me away from the earth and onto my next life—whatever that happens to be.

The clouds zip by outside the window. There’s a chilled bottle of champagne collecting condensation in an ice bucket just beside my seat. I don’t know how long I sit, staring through the window. But eventually I come back into myself. The brain protects itself the best way it knows how. And that way is to press on, through the worst of it all.

The manila envelope slides a bit more as the plane turns, tilting in the sky. On reflex I catch it, surprised by the weight of it. It’s bulky, and I turn it over in my hands.

Koshechka is scrawled across the front, in Alexei’s masculine handwriting.

My fingers peel up the edge of the flap, and I pour the contents upon the table. Stacks of papers emerge, amongst other things. A phone. A set of keys. A wallet. A folded slip of paper drifts into my lap, and I open it.

This is my last promise to you.

You will never see me again.

-A