Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
And if they’d stopped it? If Konstantin and Calahan had somehow saved Carrie? Then it was over for me. But Carrie, Calahan, Konstantin...they’d all be okay.
I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed.
I heard Ralavich get up and walk towards me. And then—
One side of my face exploded into pain. I flew sideways and my head bounced off the jet’s curved wall. I crashed to the floor, my head ringing and my eyes stinging with tears.
One of Ralavich’s men grabbed me from behind and hauled me back to my feet. The fury on Ralavich’s face gave me my answer. They did it. Carrie was safe. Konstantin was free. Thank God.
Then Ralavich grabbed me by the throat and lifted me. My toes skittered on the carpet and then came completely off the ground and my whole weight dangled from my neck. My eyes bulged and teared, my face going crimson as my air was cut off.
But the flabby, clammy hand didn’t crush inwards. He didn’t squeeze hard enough to kill me, or make me pass out, because that would have been sweet mercy. He just held me there, letting my own weight press the front of my throat down into the C of his hand between thumb and forefinger, keeping me in a permanent state of near asphyxia: just enough air to still let me fight and thrash, but not enough to give me the strength to break free.
He’d mastered this, I realized, by doing it to countless other women.
“All you had to do was let him fuck you, and send some emails,” he yelled, little flecks of spit splattering my face. I couldn’t have answered, even if there’d been anything I could say. I could barely move any air into my lungs and my head felt like it was going to explode from the pressure he was applying, each heartbeat thumping and ringing through my skull. Maybe he’ll kill me accidentally. I actually found myself hoping for that.
He brought his face closer to mine. “I’m going to make it slow,” he told me. “When we get back to St. Petersburg, I’ll start you off in the clubs we keep for the military brass and the politicians, the people who have to be so snow white in public but like to do horrible things to women. Then in a year or two, I’ll move you down to the standard clubs, the ones where businessmen slap you, tear off your clothes, bend you over a desk and pretend you’re that hot new secretary they fantasize about. And in another year, when you’re not pretty anymore, I’ll move you to one of the clubs at the port, the ones for sailors and dockworkers, where you’ll be fucked for loose change, for a box of cigarettes, for whatever they have. And when you’ve been there long enough, when you think it can’t get any worse, that’s when I’ll show up, and I’ll break every bone in your body before I kill you.”
“But before I give you to the politicians,” he told me, his voice growing rough with lust, “I’m going to sample you myself.” He hurled me into his leather armchair and then he was on me, his weight crushing me, his hands tugging at the dress, ramming the shoulder straps down over my arms.
I had to make him kill me.
There was only one thing this man hated more than women, and that was law enforcement. My lips moved silently as I struggled to make my bruised throat work. When he saw I was trying to speak, he stopped for a second and smiled, looking forward to hearing me beg.
I managed a rasping whisper. “I’m not Christina.”
Ralavich and his men froze, then looked at each other in shock. They had no idea how to react. Then Ralavich burst out laughing, an ugly, cruel noise. Is that the best you can do?
“I’m FBI,” I rasped.
The laughter stopped.
“My name is Hailey Akers. The accident... they gave me plastic surgery to look like her….”
Ralavich stared at me for a moment. Then he leaned down to speak in my ear. I lay there sobbing and limp. Please believe me. Please get angry and kill me—
His lips moved against my ear, like a pair of cold, wet worms. “I actually hope that’s true,” he told me. And I gave up and just wept, because now there was no hope at all—
There was a thump and the whole plane shook. Something soft but heavy had hit the fuselage from the outside. Ralavich and his men looked up, startled. Then another thump, even harder. His men raced towards the open door to look. I craned my head up. Turning my bruised neck was agony, but I managed to look out of a window and saw two guards slumped on the runway outside. They’d been hurled like toys against the plane.