Devil's Claim

Chapter One

Svetlana

The cold seeps into my bones like it's always been there, like warmth is something I’ve only ever imagined—in a dream I can barely remember.

I don't know how long I've been in this room. Days blur into nights, blur into days again, marked only by the meals they bring—when they remember to bring them at all. I don’t think they want me dead, so it’s enough to keep me from starving entirely, but it’s not enough to keep me from becoming rail-thin, weak, the way they want me to be. They want me compliant—the one thing I’ve tried so hard not to become.

Usually it’s just bread and water—the bread so stale it cuts the roof of my mouth, the water stagnant. Sometimes there’s protein, some kind of meat that usually smells off, as if a maid cleaned out the refrigerator, and I got the scraps. I force myself to eat it anyway, because I know I need the calories if I’m going to keep fighting. 

Except… I’ve started to wonder what the point is any longer. Why, exactly, I’m fighting, when it’s clear that I’m never going to win. 

My stomach stopped growling days ago. Or was it weeks? Time moves strangely here, thick and slow like honey, except there's nothing sweet about this place.

The compound sits somewhere outside Moscow. I know that much. I heard them talking about it when they first brought me here, back when I still had the energy to listen, to catalog every detail that might help me escape. Back when I still believed escape was possible.

Now I'm not so sure I believe in anything.

The room they’re keeping me in is small, maybe ten feet by ten feet, with concrete walls that weep moisture and a single barred window too high to reach. There's a cot with a thin mattress that reeks of mildew, and I wonder sometimes who else has slept on it. I wonder what happened to them. I wonder if I want to know.

My body aches in ways I didn't know were possible. There are bruises on my ribs, my thighs, my arms, and between my legs. Some are fresh, purple-black, and tender. Others have faded to that sickly yellow-green that means they're healing, though healing feels like the wrong word for it. Nothing about this is healing. My left wrist throbs where one of them twisted it yesterday—or was it the day before? I'm fairly certain at least one of my ribs is cracked. Every breath sends a sharp spike of pain through my chest.

I should be used to the pain by now. I should be numb to it.

I'm not. It still hurts just as badly every time. It still shocks me every time that others can hurt me so casually, so cruelly. That they’re allowed to. 

That there will be no retribution, no consequences for them.

Ever.

The door opens without warning. That's part of the game they play, keeping me off-balance, never knowing when they'll come or what they'll want when they do. How they’ll hurt me… or if they’ll just leave me alone. Sometimes there isn’t pain. It keeps me hoping that this time it won’t be so bad. 

I don't look up. I learned that lesson early. Eye contact is an invitation, a challenge. It's better to make myself small, to disappear into the corner of the cot, where the shadows are deepest.

"Get up."

The voice belongs to Evan, one of the guards. He's younger than the others, maybe mid-twenties, with a face that I would have found handsome in some other life, in some other place. But here, he’s too cruel for me to find him handsome, even though he’s not the worst of the lot. Grigory is the worst. Then Pyotr. Pyotr is the most creative.

I don't move.

"I said get up." His boots cross the floor, heavy and deliberate. "You're being cleaned up. There's a guest coming tonight, someone important. Iosef wants you presentable."

Iosef. The name alone makes my stomach turn. He's the one who bought me, the one who owns this place, who owns me, even if I’m shared with all the men. I've only seen him a handful of times, but each encounter is seared into my memory with a traumatic clarity. He's a big man, broad-shouldered and thick through the middle, with cold eyes and rough hands. 

"I'm not going anywhere." My voice comes out hoarse, barely above a whisper. I haven't used it much lately. There's no point in screaming when no one who cares can hear you. “I’m not going to let you present me to anyone. I’m done.”

The words come out before I can really think them through, but I mean it. I’m done being used. Shown off. Hurt. They can kill me, I think blankly. Maybe that’s better.

Evan unlocks the door and strides into the cell. Before I can move, his hand closes around my upper arm, yanking me to my feet. Pain explodes through my ribs, and I gasp, doubling over. He doesn't let go.

"You don't have a choice, printsessa." The endearment is mocking, cruel. "You're going to get cleaned up, you're going to put on something pretty, and you're going to smile for whoever Iosef wants to show you off to. Understand?" He smirks. “You should be glad to go upstairs again. If you’re a good girl, maybe you’ll get the scraps from dinner. ‘Fresh’ food, for you, at least.” 

Something inside me snaps.

Maybe it's the pain and the hunger. Maybe it's the way he called me princess, like I'm still that girl who used to dance on a New York stage, who posed for clicking cameras, who had a life and a future, and an identity beyond being a man’s property. 

Maybe I’m just tired of all of it.

I drive my knee up into his groin with every ounce of strength I have left.

Evan's grip loosens as he staggers back, a strangled sound escaping his throat. For one beautiful, perfect moment, I'm free. I'm not a victim. I'm not broken.

Then his fist connects with my face.

The world explodes into stars and pain. I taste blood, hot and coppery on my tongue. My knees buckle, and I hit the concrete floor hard, the impact jarring through my already-injured ribs. I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but curl into myself and wait for the next blow.

It comes. And the next one. And the one after that.

When Evan finally stops, I'm barely conscious. Blood drips from my nose and my lip, down my chin. Everything hurts. Everything is pain and darkness and the certain knowledge that I've made a terrible mistake.

"Stupid bitch." Evan's breathing hard, his voice ragged with rage and pain. "You think you can fight back? You think you have any power here?"

He grabs me by the hair, dragging me up to my knees. I try to resist, but my body won't cooperate. My limbs feel distant, disconnected, like they belong to someone else.

His hand fumbles for his belt. “Kiss it and make it better, suka.”

When I do nothing, he slaps me again. He’s hard now, the violence working for him despite the fact that I kneed him in the balls. When I can barely open my mouth despite the pain, he works himself instead, holding my face against his groin until a different warm fluid joins the blood smeared across my cheek and chin.

Breathing heavily, he drags me out of the room by my hair. I can’t fight back any longer. I’ve gone limp, and I let him pull me along. There’s no point in anything else. 

The hallway outside my room is dimly lit, lined with more doors just like mine. I wonder if there are other women behind them. I wonder if they can hear me. I wonder if they're glad it's me and not them.

Evan hauls me down a flight of stairs, then another. We're going deeper into the compound, into parts I've never seen before. The air grows colder, damper. The walls here are older and rougher, like this section was carved out of the earth itself.

He stops in front of a heavy metal door and shoves it open. The room beyond is small, smaller even than the one I've been kept in. I’ll be able to lie down, but barely. There's no cot here, no window. Just concrete walls and a drain in the center of the floor, and a darkness that I know will be utterly blacked out once he closes the door. 

"Maybe a few days down here will teach you some manners." Evan throws me inside. I land hard, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. "Iosef's guest will have to enjoy someone else. You're in no condition to be seen now."

The door slams shut. A lock clicks into place.

Then there's nothing but darkness.

I lie on the cold concrete, trying to breathe through the pain, trying to think. But thinking requires energy I don't have. So instead, I just exist, suspended in the black, waiting for whatever comes next.

Time passes. I don't know how much. Without light, without sound, there's no way to measure it. My body grows colder. The pain in my ribs sharpens with every breath. I'm so thirsty my tongue feels swollen, my throat raw.

I think about my old life. It feels like remembering a movie I watched once, a story about someone else. That girl who danced, who modeled, who dreamed of being a photographer—she's gone. She died the moment I failed, the moment I became worthless to the only person in my life who was supposed to love me. The moment I became goods to be sold at a loss, a thing to be punished, because I didn’t do the one thing I was supposed to do.

I was supposed to make a powerful man marry me, and I didn’t. Now different powerful men are using me instead. It’s enough to make me wish for a marriage that I hadn’t even really wanted.

But more than anything, I wish I could be free again. I wish I could breathe fresh air. See the sky. Step outside, alone. Make a choice for myself.

Everything I once took for granted.

My mind drifts back to the man I was supposed to marry. He chose the woman he loved over me when I needed him the most. I don't blame him for loving her—how could I, when I saw the way he looked at her, like she was his entire world?—but I can't forgive him for leaving me to this fate either. He knew what my father was. He knew I could be in danger when our marriage was called off. And he walked away.

And Kazimir walked away with him.

Kazimir Orlov. Ilya's enforcer, his right hand, his most trusted man. I remember the first time I saw him, at some party Ilya brought me to. He stood in the corner like a shadow, all hard edges and dangerous energy, watching everything with those cold blue eyes. He barely spoke to me that night, barely acknowledged my existence. 

But I felt his gaze on me. I felt the weight of it, the heat of it, even as I stood beside Ilya and played the role of the perfect girlfriend. I remember thinking that he was the most beautiful man in the room, and how dangerous that thought could be if I allowed it to take root.

I told myself I imagined it. That I was projecting, looking for something—anything—to make me feel less like a transaction and more like a person someone might actually want. I focused on my job. On the marriage I was supposed to secure. On Ilya. 

But sometimes, in the months that followed, I'd catch Kazimir watching me. His expression never changed, never gave anything away. But his eyes did. They burned.

It didn't matter. When everything fell apart, when Ilya chose the other woman, and my father sold me to monsters, Kazimir didn't step in. Didn't try to help. He just followed his boss and left me behind.

So no. I don't think about Kazimir Orlov. I don't think about the way his hands looked, scarred and strong. I don't think about the rough sound of his voice or the way he moved, all controlled violence and barely leashed power. Like a predator—deadly and beautiful and monstrous. 

I don't think about him at all.

Except now. Because in the darkness, with nothing else to occupy my mind, the memories come whether I want them or not.

I must drift off at some point, because I wake to the sound of footsteps.

My body goes rigid. Every muscle tenses despite the pain wracking every inch of me. The footsteps are heavy, deliberate, coming closer. They stop outside my door.

This is it, I think. This is when they come to finish what they started. This is when I finally get my wish, and this nightmare ends.

Or, worse. It could be Iosef and his guest, come to ‘enjoy’ me when I’m completely incapable of fighting back. Grigory might be with them, too. He likes me best like this, so beaten that I might as well be a broken doll. 

The lock clicks. The door swings open.

Light spills into the cell, blinding after so long in the dark. I squeeze my eyes shut, turning my face away. My heart hammers against my cracked ribs. I taste blood and fear, bitter in the back of my throat. 

Let it be quick, I pray to a God I'm not sure I believe in anymore. Please, just let it be quick.

"Blyad."

The curse is low and rough, spoken in Russian but with an accent that's been softened by years away from the motherland. I know that voice. I’ve heard it before, in a ballroom, in a penthouse, in a car, but hardly ever to me. I can count the number of times he’s spoken directly to me on one hand.

I force my eyes open, squinting against the light, sure that this is a figment of my imagination. That my mind has finally snapped.

A man fills the doorway. He's tall—over six feet easily—with broad shoulders and a presence that seems to take up more space than his body actually occupies. He's dressed in jeans and a thick sweater, a parka coat over it, even though we’re inside. His face is all hard angles and sharp edges, stubble darkening his jaw. He has short, dark hair. Blue eyes that I remember, that I've tried so hard to forget.

Kazimir Orlov stares down at me, and his expression is frozen on his face—shock, and horror, and something that might be rage.

Then it's gone, locked behind that impenetrable mask he wears so well.

He's here. After all this time, after everything, he's here.

I can’t trust him. The voice whispers in my head, reminding me, and I know it’s right. He abandoned me once before, left me to this fate when he could have stopped it. Why would now be any different? Why would he help me now when he didn't help me then?

Our eyes meet in the dim light. I see the moment he recognizes me.

And I know, with a certainty that cuts deeper than any blade, that nothing good can come from Kazimir Orlov standing in my cell.

Nothing good at all.