Yury’s voice echoed in the recording. “Who is Franky?”
Even captivity couldn’t keep Crash from sighing at the thought of me. “Whitney.”
“Oh,” said Yury.
Crash shook his head, his hair sticking to the block behind him. “‘Oh’ is right, Yury. More like Oh boy. I stayed back, watching her silently debate whether or not to take advantage of the old employee’s absence. I had to muffle my laugh, which was a shame because it was my first in more years than I can remember. I kept watching as Franky decided the prize was worth the risk and clumsily dove over the concession counter.” Crash started laughing, appearing lost in the memory. “Yeah, it was that night she woke me, but the night you want to know of, that was the night she stole me.”
I looked to Yury in the chair, silently asking him what night Crash was referring to. Yury pointed to the tablet, so I continued to watch.
Crash spoke as if back in the moment he was talking about. His eyes closed. “Her breath exhaled across my chest as we laid together, naked in her bed, her innocence now gone. It was wrong of me to be the one who took it. I know who deserved that first more than me. I know who loves her, even though he claimed Constance was his girlfriend. Link would give his life for the girl who was clinging to me in her sleep.”
I pushed the pause button to have a moment to breathe. I leaned my head back against the concrete wall caging me and cried. “Why? Why is he telling you this?”
Yury’s head tilted. “You are in pain?”
I grabbed my chest as I gasped for air. “So much pain.”
“Why?”
“Because you fucking killed him!”
Yury lifted a brow in warning. “Do you wish to finish the video, Fire?”
I pulled the iPad to my chest and was careful of my tone. “Yes.”
“What does the pain feel like?’ He rubbed his chest. “In here?”
My captor literally was clueless of mourning. Trying not to pass out from the overdose of fear that was consuming me whole, I attempted an explanation. “It, uh, feels very tight.” I swallowed, knowing this man would someday kill me and feel no remorse because he was incapable of it. “The tightness grows into a sharp, stabbing feeling.”
“Like with a knife?”
My breath shook as I stiffly shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been stabbed.” I tried to recoil into the wall as Yury unbuttoned his shirt, but I stopped when he opened it to show me a nasty scar above his left pec. I could feel blood drain from my face. “You were stabbed?”
He nodded, clearly studying me and very intrigued by what he was seeing.
“By who?”
His posture stiffened before buttoning up his shirt. “Finish the video.”
Understanding I was probably better off not knowing, I pressed play. Yury’s voice, in the recording, sounded irritated. “You speak of your brother giving his life, yet you are the one going to die for her.”
My finger lifted to stop the video but Yury growled, “Finish it.”
So many tears were falling from my eyes I could barely see.
Crash exhaled what sounded like sadness. “Yeah. Good point. But I saw the look in Link’s eyes. He was going to turn himself in to you, for her—for us.”
What? When?
Yury asked Crash, “Why did you stop him?”
Crash’s eyes welled. “Because I love her. And… she loves him.”
“She does not love you?”
Crash wiped a tear then exposed his tough exterior. “She thinks she does. But it’s Link who has her heart. Ya gotta see them together to understand. It’s like they are an extension of each other.” Crash chuckled. “They blended long before I arrived. Franky is just stubborn.” He laughed in thought. “And my brother is just a dumbass.”
Sounding unaffected by the sentiment, Yury said, “Crash, we have a problem. You stole from me. Her virginity was already sold for another to take.”
I hissed at the vulgarity of the discussion about something so private and so not for sale to the highest bidder, and the fact that Crash had made me believe making love was as special to him as it had been to me.
Crash bit his lip, nodding to Yury. “I’ve been to your home. I couldn’t let you take her to that godawful torture chamber you call a training facility.”
Training facility? My eyes scanned the predicament I was in. Had Crash been here? I stared at Yury sitting in the chair, effortlessly having control over me. My virginity would’ve been available for purchase, by force. Crash had tried to save me from this place.
Hauntingly and maliciously, Yury replied to Crash, “A debt is a debt.”
My mind raced to the night Yury gave a signal to his corrupted minions. They overdosed Crash on my dock. Yury was collecting a debt. It was Crash’s.
Crash choked out words, “Paying my debt with my life keeps her alive though, right?”
My shoulders shook through my hysterics. Crash knew, all along, he was going to die that night. I had felt his death was my fault, now even more so.
Yury’s voice sounded menacing through the iPad’s little speaker. “It will keep her alive.”
Awareness crossed Crash’s expression. “Wait. We had a deal.”
“And I am keeping it.”
“Is that why you’re recording me?”
I don’t know what Yury did behind the lens of the camera, but it sent Crash into a furious rage. “You sonofabitch!” He attempted to get up. “No! She is not going to be one of your fucking pets—” But he was silenced as Yury unleashed on him.
The recording shook as Yury kicked and screamed, “You stole what was mine…”
I pushed the iPad away, slamming my eyes shut. “No more. Please.” Instantly realizing I sounded like the man I heard earlier, I understood something was being held over his head, too.
Yury accepted the iPad. “Please, what?”
Crash’s grunts from the kicks he’d endured had me righteously angered. “Turn it off!”
Yury grinned, shaking his head no.
“Please!”
“Please, what?”
“I don’t know!”
“Please… Master.”
Loathing what Yury was asking of me, I started to scream. No words. No threats. Just screamed as if truly losing my mind. What I had experienced in the past weeks suddenly compounded and threatened to break me. One simple word was the final bridge to cross. Once I spoke it, I instinctively knew a part of me would be lost forever. I feared I would never return to that same bridge and find my way home.
Merciless, Yury turned up the volume to drown out my hysterics. Crash’s beating pounding over the speakers was vicious. Crash’s involuntary noises—
I leaned to the side of the bed and vomited…
Resting on my weak elbow, I heard Crash pleading through every hit. “Please…” Grunt. “Her heart is limitless…” Grunt. “Don’t take that from her…” Grunt…
I wiped my mouth, not able to hear Crash’s desperation for one more moment. “Please… Master.”
Crash’s suffering ended.
Yury examined the now silent video. “I did lose my temper momentarily.” He put the mini iPad back in his jacket’s inside pocket. “Fire, I need to understand his meaning and the why of his willing sacrifice. I figured the best way is to see it first-hand.” He gestured for me to proceed as if I had the ability to teach love to the heartless. “You will show me.”