his wife safe. The trouble is, the car that was waiting for us contained the very man himself and as soon as the door opened, I was pulled inside.”
She stops and looks at me through tortured eyes. “When I saw him sitting there, it’s as if everything played out in slow motion. Luckily, Anastasia was spared and the door closed behind me. I was so afraid, Maverick. I saw the madness in his eyes and knew I was in terrible trouble.”
I try to remain composed but inside a fury is building that is hard to control. Then she sighs. “He hit me so hard my head hit the window and I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew, I woke up tied to a wall in a steel building. I wasn’t alone.”
She breaks off and for the first time since she started her tale, I see emotion in her face as she squeezes her eyes tightly shut and a tear escapes that she brushes angrily away. When she looks at me, I can see the torment in her expression as her breath hitches. “There was a woman tied to the wall with her arms above her head. She was almost dead, or so it seemed. She was naked and bruised and there was so much blood. It was a horror story that only got worse when I saw two children cowering on the ground in front of her, their eyes wide and frightened. They were also tied up and can only have been around 7 or 8. One was a boy and one a girl and the look they gave me will live with me to my dying day. They had so much fear in their eyes, I could taste it. I couldn’t speak because there was a filthy rag binding my mouth and the ropes cut into my skin whenever I tried to move. My head hurt so much and yet I tried to stay strong for those children’s sakes.”
She looks at me with more strength and I know the memories are driving it because she hisses, “It turns out they were the family of the man who betrayed us. His wife and kids were held under the promise he would set them free when I was in his custody. The bastard never had any intention of it because he mocked us by telling us in graphic detail what he would do to them. The sick bastard raped the woman in front of us all and if the kids made a sound, he silenced them with a punch to the stomach. They were terrified and that poor woman was trying so hard to be strong and brave for their sakes. It seemed like hours later that he increased his perverted pleasure and turned his attention to the children. He stripped the girl and told us he was going to rape her in front of her mother and brother. She was crying and he held her down and I thought I was going to pass out I wanted to hurl so much. But the bastard just pulled out a needle and injected her with drugs. She was thrown against the wall like a rag doll and then he did the same to the boy, all the time taunting the mother and telling her how she would watch her kids die a slow painful death before he cut her up into pieces.”
I feel sick to my stomach and I wasn’t even there. It’s no wonder Sophia is broken; anyone would be dealing with the horror she witnessed first-hand. I’ve dealt with shit in my life but never have I witnessed anything even close to this and instinctively reach out and pull her to my side.
She begins to shake in my arms and says fearfully, “At least the kids were asleep and the woman appeared to have passed out. I really thought she was dead, but it meant the space was filled with silence for the first time since I arrived and then he turned his attention to me.”
Her voice breaks as she re-lives the horror and says fearfully, “He enjoyed tormenting me. He told me everything he was going to do to me in a hoarse whisper. He ran a knife up my leg and under my skirt and held it there. He told me he was going to rape me first and then do the same with the knife. He was going to let me live because