93 - Darkness

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

― Mary Oliver

. . .

tw - Abuse. Panic attack.

Zavier

I knew it. I knew something wasn't right with this. It was too fucking easy.

The picture Alexi had sent us screamed in my mind as I rode my bike, the cold wind ruffling my leather jacket and hair. Ashton and Xerxes were on either side of me.

Come alone. Kneel and get her back.

He'd be a fucking idiot to think that we'd come alone. I was not going to take his word for anything.

I followed the coordinates of the trackers in Olivia's rings.

I stopped the motorcycle meters away from the run-down mansion. My brothers paused beside me and we looked up at the mansion.

This could not be.

It was the same mansion. The place we had come to after we ran away from home after our father killed our mother. The mansion once belonged to a rich businessman who had three daughters, three daughters who were loved by us and they loved us back.

Three daughters who were killed by Igor. He captured us from here, along with the girls, and took us to Russia where we died a little every day.

I could almost feel the coldness of the cold room. She had been laying beside me, her face pale and clothes were torn after the abuse she went through every day with her sisters. The abuse he made us watch.

This is the fate of the people loved by monsters, his voice came into my head and I was taken back. The tattoos on me disappeared and the scarred skin which lay underneath came back. I was thrown in a cell, a normal cell he threw us in when we were too close to dying. I looked at him as he killed her - Sabrina, I used to call her Sebby. She loved the nickname. He had tied her to a chair, her body immobile and she was screaming at him to let her go.

There were two more girls with her. Claire and Hannah, tied to the chairs the same way. Igor's disgusting hands were all over them.

He turned to us. "Which one should I kill? Ashton or Hannah?"

He had tortured us till we answered. I was the one who had answered. "Hannah," I had said and then she was dead.

"Xerxes or Claire?"

"Claire," Ashton had answered and then she was dead.

"Zavier or Sabrina?"

And then she was dead. Just like that, we lost the three people who we thought we'd always have. Then, we had no one but us in the cold cell, tied to the wall with bleeding wounds and soul tired.

Then they came. The Valentinos. Given to Igor by their mother. We survived together for three years, we had already spent two years there before they came. We hated each other at first - for no reason at all. Then we became brothers.

We planned and we broke out of there, setting the whole damn place on fire.

We had won against him.

How the fuck would Alexi know of this place? My phone buzzed.

She's waiting for you, boys

And then I knew. Even though the possibility felt ridiculously low, I knew. "It's him," Ashton whispered, looking down at his phone.

It could not be. He was dead.

But no one found his body.

. . .

Olivia

Adrik dumped me on an uncomfortable chair and tied me down to it.

I looked around with wide eyes as he stepped back. We were in a dark room with just one light in it. There was a table there. Table which had various dangerous looking stuff on it.

Too dangerous.

I looked up at Adrik with tear-filled eyes. He smirked. "A little pain, hm?"

He walked to the table. I struggled in the ropes but they were too rough.

"Igor instructed me to carve an 'I' on your ribs." He picked a knife up, twirling it in hand while I froze in fear. He did what?

He walked closer and I struggled, my blood turning cold as he stopped in front of me.

He smiled. "I won't let you die, don't worry." He grabbed the strap of my dress and ripped it, doing the same to the other one. My bra covered breasts into view and he stared hungrily at me. He ripped the dress more till it fell to my waist.

"Pretty," he murmured. "I see why they want to keep you."

He grabbed my neck and pinned it to the chair. I looked at the knife, wide eyed and a scream bubbling up my lips as it came closer. Please. Please. Please.

The knife dug into my skin and the scream left my lips as it moved. I could hear him laughing and then the sound of a door being slammed open.

"Get the fuck off her!" Georgia. Alisa. I was sobbing, gasping for breath. He had curved the whole letter on me. Marked me. I could not breathe. I heard pain filled grunts and then someone appeared in front of me. I looked up at Georgia with blurry eyes. She had grabbed my shoulders. She was saying something about staying awake.

"They will be here...don't fucking close your eyes..." I couldn't concentrate. "...you." She was sobbing, her hands shaking on my shoulders. I was fainting, maybe because of the panic, maybe because of the pain. Maybe both.

She cupped my face. "I..." I couldn't see her after that. I was dropped into darkness where there were no monsters who could hurt me.

Where there were just me and them. No one could hurt us. And they loved me with no lies between us. And I loved them, as I always did.

. . .