Nikolai: The Complete Collection

26. Nikolai

26

NIKOLAI

W ood splinters fly in all directions when two of my men ram open a reinforced door on one of the many compounds Vladimir has amassed separately from the ones owned by the Popov entity.

I prick my ears, praying our quest to gain access goes unnoticed. Failing to hear any noise creep through the quiet space, I lift my gun high and enter the concealed back entrance.

At my request, Rico shadows closely behind me. With this compound being my home base during the ten weeks of my recovery thirteen years ago, I know the floor plan better than anyone.

I should have realized Vladimir would bring Justine here. He always loves adding a mind-fuck element to every punishment he serves. He knows I haven’t stepped foot in this warehouse since I left it with more than just physical scars. But not even incapacitating flashbacks will stop me from entering this property tonight.

Nothing will prevent me from protecting Justine—not even the risk of being tortured as I was here thirteen years ago.

After Rico and I sweep the first floor, I glance back at my crew, anticipating their panic over who we’re about to storm in on. But they aren’t panicked. They are ready to fight with their guns braced and their eyes blazing with grit. The support I’ve been shown today is shocking. My men think I’m either delusional or intelligent. Either way, their respect will be rewarded tenfold once Justine is returned to me.

Spurred on by a mass surge of adrenaline racing through me, I gesture for my men to enter the compound. They quietly move into the property, their steps soundless on the cracked concrete floor.

Hours of painstaking deliberation gave us plenty of time to devise a plan of attack, and for the first time, my crew’s vote was unanimous.

We agreed on a stealthy approach because the closer I am to Justine before Vladimir is aware of my arrival, the better chance I’ll have of saving her.

Vladimir is a coldhearted man who has no trouble putting a bullet through the heart of an innocent, but this isn’t the standard game of cat and mouse we’ve been playing my entire life.

It’s personal.

Vladimir wants revenge.

He wants to maim me like I’ve destroyed his empire the past week, so he won’t go for a standard bullet-through-the-heart kill.

He wants a messy, gruesome death that will warn others of the consequences of double-crossing him.

He wants to make an example out of me as he did to Rico all those years ago.

There’s just one difference.

Instead of taking his anger out on me, he unleashes it on a woman undeserving of his wrath. It is a foolish move on his behalf. My heart has never thumped in the rhythm it’s been pounding for the past seven hours. I’ve also never experienced the massive surge of testosterone racing through my veins like I have today.

I feel like King-fucking-Kong.

I want to bang my chest and shout my invincibility to the world. I want to burn off my excess energy between the sheets with the woman who proved I have a heart in my chest. It may have been a weak and pathetic organ mere days ago, yet it is still a heart, nonetheless. But more than anything, I want to show Vladimir there are some things he can’t take from me.

He can steal my power, my wealth, and even my sanity, but he cannot take Justine from me.

She is mine, and I will stop at nothing to bring her home.

My focus returns to the task at hand when a murmured voice breaks through the padded-cell silence surrounding me. I raise my hand in the air, requesting my men be quiet.

The faint hum of energy dulls to complete silence, revealing what I thought I heard the first time was correct. Justine’s singsong voice is echoing in the silence.

Locking my eyes with Rico’s, I nudge my head to a set of stairs on our left. Justine’s voice is faint, but I’m confident it comes from above us.

Rico nods, reading the command in my eyes before signaling for half my crew to follow us to the stairwell. The remaining twelve will keep watch with Trey on the first floor, ensuring our approach isn’t interrupted by one of our own.

With the wood on the stairwell in desperate need of repair, we take the stairs one at a time, not trusting it to hold the combined weight of me and over a dozen of my men.

The cockiness heating my blood spikes when I hear Justine growl, “When Nikolai discovers what you have done, he will kill you both.”

Blood rushes to the lower extremities of my body from the confidence in her tone. She’s been missing for over twelve hours, but her spirit remains intact, proving what I’ve always known.

She was born to lead.

My Ангел is a queen, and she’s mere minutes from receiving her crown.

My cock’s primed stance doesn’t last long, only long enough for me to recall what Justine said.

When Nikolai discovers what you have done, he will kill you both .

Vladimir better not have touched her. If he has, his death will be the most painful thing he’s ever experienced. His wish for a bloody, torturous death will be granted, as it will be his own.

Our chance to confront Vladimir unannounced is thrown out the window when one of his long-serving goons gallops down the stairs. He’s almost halfway down the rickety stairwell before he spots Rico and me crouching in the shadows. He is close enough I can smell the fear leaching from his pores, but not close enough for me to silence him with my knife.

“He’s here!” he screams in Russian, his voice bellowing up the stairwell. “Nikolai is here?—”

Bang, bang. The remainder of his sentence is silenced by a bullet between his eyes and one through his heart.

His death is as hushed as the life in his soulless eyes, but it comes too late. His cowardly cry already alerted Vladimir’s crew to our presence, much less the heavy thump of his body crashing into the rotted wood.

“Move, move, move,” I command when Vladimir’s men swarm the stairwell from all directions. They swell in size with every bullet dislodged, outnumbering my men three to one.

Guns fire around me as I continue scaling the stairs, taking down four of Vladimir’s men in the process. The smell of lead burning through skin is intoxicating, stimulating my veins with massive amounts of endorphins.

This is the one thing I would have struggled to give up if I had been freed from this lifestyle thirteen years ago. The rush that comes with a raid like this is addictive. It turns boys into men and men back into boys.

It’s like competing in one of those video games teenage boys love, but in graphic detail no amount of high definition could produce. It is gory and thrilling at the same time.

This is me.

I am in my element.

Even though our crews aren’t evenly matched, with my men being younger and fitter, we soon have the advantage over Vladimir’s more mature crew. I’d like to say my team’s tactical response has eased the panic raining down on me, but that would be a lie. Until I take down Vladimir, Justine’s life is still at risk.

“Go. I’ll handle things down here,” Rico assures me when I peer back at him, knowing I’ve only got seconds to get to Justine before Vladimir kills her.

He directs his Smith and Wesson over my left shoulder and guns down an old crew member with precise accuracy before returning his eyes to me. “The longer she’s alone with him, the less chance of survival. She’s counting on you, Eli. Don’t let her down.”

That’s all it takes for my protectiveness to reach fever pitch. I climb the stairs two at a time, dropping men like flies every four to five steps.

By the time I get to the top landing, I’m covered with sweat, and my heart is pounding against my ribs, but my grit hasn’t lessened.

Real men thrive on danger.

Only cowards weaken.

With my gun braced in front of my chest, I scan the long corridor of doors, praying one will give me an indication of which room Justine is in. There are over a dozen of them, all closed and all reinforced with industrial-sized padlocks.

Realizing nothing but determination will alter my predicament, I move toward the first door. My boot makes quick work of its locked status. I check each corner of the room. They are all empty.

Suddenly, I jerk to my right, startled by a shadow lurking in a doorway halfway down. I don’t need to see the face of the man sheltering himself in the darkness to know who he is. His icy-blue eyes tell me everything I need to know.

“Where is she?” I ask, knowing we’ve only reached this stage because Dimitri texted me Justine’s location a little under an hour ago.

Although protecting Justine was never part of the agreement we negotiated earlier this week, I’m glad my threat to skin him alive if anything happened to her was enough incentive to secure his loyalty today.

With the Petrettis’ focus centering around sex trafficking, requesting Dimitri’s assistance was the smart thing to do. It killed me asking for his help, but when I’m backed into a corner, I use anything I can to get out. I was backed so far into a corner I didn’t think I’d ever get out. I used what I could. I sided with an enemy.

Dimitri could have exploited my desperation to advance his crew to a level his father never achieved, but my agreement last week to grant his crew unlimited prostitution operations on the West Coast for the next three years without paying distribution rights to the Popov entity helped his focus remain firm.

He will still garner the same level of power and respect. He will merely achieve it by his actions instead of having it handed to him. In different times, his valor would have gained my respect. But since I can’t get over him not protecting Justine, he remains on my shit list. I will continue negotiating trades with him, but I will never respect him.

When Dimitri nudges his head to a door three spots up from him, I ask, “Do you have a gun?”

I cuss when he shakes his head. The manic tic in my jaw grows when he murmurs, “Vladimir’s men disarmed me half a mile out. Besides, this isn’t my fight. I got you this far. Now I’m walking away.”

My teeth grit as anger lines my face. This is the exact reason I will never respect him. He is a coward.

“Bet that isn’t the first time you’ve said that line, is it? Is that what you told Justine before your dog mauled her? ‘I got you this far, now I’m walking away’?” I mock his Italian accent, the scorn in my tone my only readable defense. Since Justine must remain my priority, I will deal with him and his bad choices later.

Not waiting for Dimitri to respond to my taunt, I head for the door he nudged his head at. My steps are soundless, the thumping of my heart the only noise I hear.

Bracing my gun in one hand, I check if the door is locked with my other.

It is.

Pop. Pop. Pop . I destroy the deadlock with bullets before kicking open the door with force.

The room is shrouded in blackness, adding to the scent of death lingering in the air. I run my hand down the wall, seeking the light switch.

When I find it, fire rages through me, and my anger surges to a record-breaking high. Justine is dangling in the middle of the space, suspended from the ceiling by a noose wrapped around her neck.

Her face is red and stained with angry, salty tears, and her body is stretched to its limit. She’s only breathing from the faintest touch of her tippy toes gliding above a frail wooden chair.

“Do you remember the fun we had in this room, Niki?”

My eyes shift sideways when a monster emerges from the shadows shrouding Justine.

“How many times did you pass out in this room? Four? Or was it five times?” Vladimir ridicules me.

I aim the barrel of my gun at the crinkle between his lifeless eyes, my anger so violent I feel my hands shaking all the way up my arms. I’d take him out right now if I hadn’t seen his gun jabbed into Justine’s ribs.

If I was assured my bullet would be dislodged and wedged between his eyes before he shot her, I’d be issuing him his last rites. But the way he has his gun angled at Justine’s heart, she’d bleed out in under thirty seconds. Since we’re miles from the nearest medic, I can’t risk her being shot.

I won’t risk it.

“Watch out,” Justine gasps through the pain clutching her throat.

I don’t need to turn around to know who’s approaching me. The sheer panic in her eyes reveals who it is. She looks more fearful now than she was when Sergei attacked her last week.

“Look at me, Ангел ,” I instruct, my tone comforting even though my mood is volatile.

In any other situation, I’d crave a bloodbath, but this is Justine—my Ангел. My desire to protect her is stronger than any craving, and I’ll stop at nothing to keep her safe.

“It’s okay. Dimitri won’t hurt you,” I assure her when the fear in her eyes grows.

Justine shakes her head as violent shuddering hampers her tiny frame. Panic shreds through me when her sudden movements nearly make her lose her weak grip on the chair. New tears spring down her face as she struggles to regain her balance.

“Look at me!”

The fury in my roar demands her utmost devotion. Although I hate adding pain to her terror, her frozen stature stops her fidgety movements, which in turn decreases the chance of her being asphyxiated.

“He won’t hurt you. I promise you, Dimitri will not hurt you.”

Justine’s eyes remain wide with panic, but she faintly nods, accepting my guarantee with the strength of a tigress, demonstrating what I saw in her the first day we met.

She is a fighter through and through.

“Oh, isn’t this sweet? Two brothers fighting side by side,” Vladimir sneers.

I keep my eyes on him, but my devotion is on Justine. With her concentration focused on keeping her grip on the wooden chair, she seems to have missed Vladimir’s admission that I am a Petretti.

Although I’m planning to tell her my DNA matches the man she hates, I’d rather do it when her life isn’t hanging by a thread.

Justine’s eyes snap to mine when Vladimir digs the barrel of his gun further into her ribs, stopping my slow advance mid-stride.

“No woman has the right to fracture the rightful order,” he growls, his fury uncontained.

“That’s not true. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. You raised me to kill my father, all to seek revenge on an injustice he committed against a woman who has ‘no right to fracture the rightful order,’” I interrupt, my words so sneered, my Russian accent is thick. “You’re a hypocrite who changes the rules to suit yourself.”

“And you are a disgrace to my name! After everything I have done for you, you disrespect me on my turf, using my weapons and standing next to my enemy!” Vladimir shouts, the anger in his eyes tripling. “I should have drowned you the instant you left that whore’s womb.”

I want to smash his face in. I want to ram his callous words down his throat with my fists, but since Justine’s safety means more to me than any amount of revenge, I keep my feet planted on the ground and my gun pointed between his brows.

“This is between me and you, Vladimir. It always has been. It always will be. Let Justine and Dimitri leave. Then we’ll fight this battle like the men we are.”

He has the respect of thousands and the fear of millions, but he loses the ability to lead our crew when he shakes his head at my request.

Turning down a direct challenge equates to instant dismissal. You can’t be entrusted with the lives of thousands of men if you fear one. That is the number one rule Anatoly Popov laid down when the Popov entity was founded in the 1700s.

“If a direct descendant of your throne challenges you, and you deny it, you must stand down,” I quote, reciting the rules Vladimir has quoted to me time and time again over my past twenty-eight years. “I am challenging you, Vladimir. Man versus man. Popov versus Popov. Father versus son.”

Vladimir’s thin lips crimp in the corner as he spits in disgust, “You are not my son.” He shrugs, his nonchalant response not matching the tension bristling in the air. “Besides, I much prefer this predicament.”

“Don’t,” I beg when he leans on the chair Justine is balancing on, leaving only the slightest sliver of wood under her big toes.

Vladimir laughs, finding my plea amusing. “Don’t what?” he taunts, slanting into the chair even more.

The rise and fall of Justine’s chest barely registers as she struggles to maintain her balance on the portion of wood just out of her reach.

“You’re going to be okay,” I promise her when our fearful gazes collide for the briefest second. “I’ll get you out of here. You just need to trust me, okay?”

Although she can’t answer me for fear of being strangled, I don’t need her to nod her head to know she trusts me. I can see it in her eyes, smell it on her skin. She knows I’ll never stop fighting to keep her safe. I will protect her until the day I take my last breath.

After issuing Justine a final guarantee solely using my eyes, I swing my wide gaze to Dimitri. His stance mimics mine to a T. His gun is facing Vladimir, but his eyes are on Justine. From the width of his pupils and the low hang of his jaw, you’d swear this is the first time he’s seen her in distress.

Suddenly, the truth smacks into me. He didn’t stay to witness Justine’s punishment. Whether that was by choice or not, I don’t know, and right now, I don’t fucking care. I just need him to give me the same amount of faith Justine has. To trust me with his life.

“We need to lower our weapons.”

Dimitri glares at me like I am insane, his trust not as easy to secure as Justine’s. “He will kill her the instant we surrender,” he whispers, expressing my exact concern. “This isn’t about us. He can’t touch us, but the rules he lives by don’t apply to Justine. He will kill her, Nikolai.” His last sentence is delivered without hesitation because every word he speaks is true.

“I know,” I reply, the shaking of my heart echoing in my tone. “That’s the idea.”

Dimitri’s dark brows cinch together when I empty the chamber of my gun and place it on the bloodstained ground. “Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath before he follows my lead.

Victory gleams in Vladimir’s eyes when we kick our guns out of our reach. “Why am I not surprised?” His tongue clicks against his teeth when he mocks us with laughter. “When you’re born a coward, you die a coward.”

His eyes drift between Dimitri and me as he devises his next move. I can only pray I am one step ahead of him. I know how he thinks. I know what makes him tick. I just hope he reacts as I am predicting. Otherwise, I risked Justine’s life for nothing.

As suspected, Vladimir plays right into my hand.A condescending grin etches onto his face as he kicks the chair out from under Justine’s feet.

My worst nightmare comes true when Justine’s body stills for two terrifying seconds before it convulses through the pain shredding her lungs of oxygen.

Although the image of her shuddering will horrify me for years to come, I’d rather her shake than be completely still.

Disappointed Justine’s initial plunge didn’t snap her neck, Vladimir releases a deep sigh before pivoting on his heels, planning to leave.

Just as Dimitri had predicted, he has no intention of killing us. He knows Justine’s death will be punishment enough for us both.

The scene plays out like a perfectly rehearsed skit in terrifyingly haunting detail. Justine’s fight to live diminishes at the exact moment Vladimir’s quick exit falters. The only difference is that Vladimir’s eyes bulge when they lock on to a shadow blocking the doorway, whereas Justine’s slowly taper closed.

Like the Grim Reaper exiting hell, Rico steps out of the darkness, revealing a set of eyes even someone as corrupt as Vladimir couldn’t deny.

Rico’s eyes are identical to his father’s in every way—scorched from the ashes of the hell they were born in.

“Hello, Father,” Rico greets him, his voice a vicious snarl when he reaches Vladimir’s title.

Vladimir only balks for the quickest second, but it is long enough to set my wheels in motion. I push off my feet with a roar, my strides so long I’m halfway to Justine before my knife is yanked from my back pocket and snapped open.

Before I launch into the air, I fling my knife in Vladimir’s direction, taking advantage of his frozen state gawking at his resurrected son.

As gunfire rings around me, I leap into the air, praying the old rusty mechanism on the hoist pulley has frayed the rope enough that my sudden collision with her body won’t impact Justine’s neck. Although I don’t want to cause her any more harm, I have seconds to get to her before she is asphyxiated.

Any air left in Justine’s lungs vacates in a fierce grunt when I crash into her midair. Our brutal impact tethers the brittle rope more, snapping it in half. As we hurtle toward the floor, I roll with only a second to spare, ensuring my body subdues the impact of our fall onto the floor.

Pain rockets up my spine when we hit the ground so hard I’m confident we’ve added more cracks to the already fractured floor, but I ignore it, my desire to save Justine too extreme to let something as weak as pain slow me down.

Although I can see the faintest flutter of Justine’s pulse thrumming in her neck, my panic hasn’t weakened in the slightest.

The beautiful skin on her nape is contorted by the rope strangling her, and her left cheek is covered with a nasty bruise the poor lighting concealed from a distance. Her eyes also remain closed, adding to the manic feeling tearing me in half.

If my knife hasn’t already ended Vladimir’s life, I’m seconds away from shredding him to pieces with my bare hands. I should have run faster. I should have protected her neck better during our collision. I should have never coerced her into this lifestyle to begin with.

“Here,” Rico mutters, sliding a switchblade across the floor to me.

He’s standing next to Vladimir’s lifeless body with his gun hanging at his side. His eyes are teeming with a unique mix of relief and alarm, and his jaw is twitching.

I don’t know if it was my knife or Rico’s gun that ended Vladimir’s reign, but right now, I don’t fucking care. As long as he is dead, and Justine isn’t, that’s all I care about.

After flicking open the knife, I dig two fingers under the rope still strangling Justine to protect her skin before dragging the blade upward. The knife’s edge is blunt, but the rope gives way without too much effort.

“You’re okay. You’re okay,” I assure Justine on repeat when she suddenly arches her back.

She gulps in air at a rate faster than her heaving lungs can handle as her pupils expand even wider.

“Slow, deep breaths, Ангел. One breath at a time.”

Utter relief echoes in my tone, killing my itch to go on a murderous rampage. Just hearing Justine’s wheezy breaths weakens my urge to kill, let alone witnessing her beautiful eyes slowly fluttering open.

When her gaze meets mine, the panic on her face immediately washes away. “I knew you’d come,” she murmurs, her voice husky from her near-death experience. “I warned them you wouldn’t stop hunting until you found me.” .

I run my thumbs across her cheeks to remove her tears while saying, “No one could keep me away from you, Ангел . Not a hundred men or even a thousand. No matter how far you go, I will always find you.”

It is the fight of my life not to seal my lips over hers when the most stunning smile stretches across her face.

Fuck—no wonder I’m so lost to this woman.

She’s been put through the absolute wringer the past twelve hours, yet she can still smile like she has the world at her feet.

“You are so strong, Ангел . So fucking strong,” I say before tackling her tethered hands.

The shaking wreaking havoc on my body impedes my ability to untie the rope encircling Justine’s hands. Rope has been one of my torture instruments of choice for many years, so something as simple as an anchor knot shouldn’t faze me in the slightest.

It is not the knot daunting you, Nikolai. It is how close you came to losing her.

Seeing my struggle, Dimitri drops to his knees to untie the knot. Although Justine acts unresponsive to his closeness, I hear her take in a sharp breath when his fingers briefly touch the indented skin on her wrists. It isn’t the same needy, husky response her body produces when I touch her. It is more like wariness.

“You’re okay, Ангел. No one will ever hurt you.”

Once Dimitri has her hands free, I scan every inch of her body to ensure she doesn’t have any life-threatening injuries.

Confident most of the marks on her skin are from the dirty conditions, I drag my shirt over my head and drape it over her shuddering frame.

My blood chills from how much she’s shaking. I don’t know if she is bombarded with adrenaline or shock.

I just hope it isn’t fear.

“He is dead, Ангел. He will never hurt you again.”

The urge to protect Justine as if she is my own has been with me from the first moment I saw her. I’ll never let anyone hurt her—not even me.

“I know,” she replies, accepting my admission without any remorse crossing her face.

Although we’re in the middle of a war zone, I hold her close to my body for several long minutes. My mind is in overdrive, calculating how to exact revenge on the men who bid on her. But since her well-being is my utmost priority, I remain seated on the floor, snatching a rare moment of peace.

The immediate danger is over, so I can take a moment to gather my thoughts. To breathe without fear. To hold my woman in my arms.

Like it does every second I spend with Justine, the negativity engulfing me soon disappears. The hold this woman has over me is miraculous. Not revenge, not power, not a single fucking thing matters when she is in my arms. Living a peaceful life isn’t a prospect for a man like me, but when I am with Justine, I am as close to peace as I will ever be.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Justine asks a short time later, her voice still raw.

When I glance down at her, her eyes lift to mine. She’s still shaking uncontrollably, but the fear in her eyes has diminished.

Slanting my head to the side, I arch a brow, wordlessly requesting further information about her question.

After her eyes bounce between mine for two heart-clutching seconds, she swings them to the side of the room.

Following her gaze, I spot Dimitri standing on my left, speaking into his cell phone.

“He’s your brother, isn’t he?” she questions, her tone low.

My eyes fall back to hers, panicked and on edge. I can see in her eyes that she knows my secret. She knows whose blood is running through my veins. But instead of issuing me a look I’ve seen many times over the past twenty-eight years, she looks at me the same way she did only minutes ago. She peers at me without an ounce of hate or disdain crossing her face.

“Yes, he is my brother.” Shock echoes in my tone. I’m stunned at how calm she is.

I was anticipating a more agitated response to her discovering my true identity. That is why I cowardly issued the task to Roman when I dropped them off at the airport this morning. The envelope I handed him told Justine everything she needed to know. It revealed my true identity in sickening detail, leaving nothing off the table.

Although it was a spineless way of exposing myself, I didn’t want to witness her response after discovering firsthand I have the blood of the man responsible for ruining her family running through my veins. I crave the sneaky glances Justine gives me. My ego feeds off them, so I did everything possible to ensure nothing tainted them.

I had nothing to fear. The look of adoration in her eyes hasn’t faded in the slightest. If anything, it’s grown more rampant.

“You have the heart of a warrior, Ангел ,” I whisper in Russian. My words are only for me, but they trickle from my mouth before I can stop them.

I’m glad I couldn’t hold them back when Justine replies, “Only when I’m with you. You give me strength I didn’t even know I had.”

While running her thumb over the crinkle in my brow, a commotion in the corridor gains our attention.

“We need to go,” Trey advises, his words breathless, as if he has been sprinting. “Spotters have detected movement at the station. We’ve got approximately ten, maybe fifteen minutes before this place is swarming with police.”

Nodding, I stand, taking Justine with me. I head for the door on the heels of Dimitri and Rico, leaving Vladimir to rot in the hell where he belongs. I don’t even look in his direction as I stride past his still body. He doesn’t deserve an ounce of sorrow, much less one final glance.

My heart’s weak, pitiful beat strengthens when Justine nuzzles her nose into the groove of my chest and inhales deeply. The metallic scent of blood in the corridor is as pungent as the room we’re exiting, but that isn’t why she is smelling me. She’s as addicted to me as I am to her. Not even something as vulnerable as fear can harness her desires.

“Soon, Ангел . Very soon,” I promise, the change in the air so swift it is almost palpable. It has gone from being shrouded with devastation to sparked with yearning in under two point five seconds.

Justine locks her eyes with mine, the promise in them thickening my cock. She stares at me as if I am her savior, when in reality she is the one who saved me.

My body wears the medals of my triumphs, but the thump of my heart is proof of my biggest victory: my Ангел —my slice of heaven in a hot and temperamental place.

My strides halt halfway down the corridor when Justine unexpectedly shouts, “Wait!”

She glances over my shoulder before wriggling in my arms, requesting to be placed down. Although confused by the sudden change in her demeanor, I do as asked. I will never shelter her strength. I will only ever encourage it to be released.

Her steps into the room that held her captive are frail but remarkably determined for what she has endured. At first, I assume she’s heading for a stack of towels in the bottom left-hand corner of the room so she can maintain her modesty. I realize what she is doing when she stops halfway across the bloodstained floor.

She’s protecting me as fiercely as I defended her.

She is saving my life for the second time.