There was blood the cold stone floor.
There was blood on the walls, on the ceiling. But the blood on the floor was mine. I wondered if it would freeze in the unheated room. I wondered if it would freeze before or after I died.
Time had passed, but weeks, months, years? I wasn't sure. The room never seemed to get any warmer. There were no windows, no light except when they came to torture me.
My vision was blurry. Everything hurt. There were two men in the corner who had taken turns kicking me in the ribs earlier. I ignored them.
Another man entered the room, a bigger man. Without speaking he grabbed my wrist with one meaty hand, my elbow worth the other, and broke my forearm in two. All of the pain I'd taken since my capture crystallized at once, a wave of agony I finally couldn't handle. After what felt like months of torture, I started to scream. I couldn't stop.
My captors cackled. "Think that was bad, Milos? Wait until he gets ahold of your wife."
-Petra-
I was awakened by screaming. It was a horrifying, wrenching noise. I'd nearly gotten used to the shouting and flailing, but this was different.
"Milos, Milos!" I called to him, rubbing his good arm. Nothing. I called his name again, shaking his shoulder. Nothing. "Milos, wake up! You need to wake up."
Finally his eyes opened and the screaming stopped. He clutched at one arm, his chest heaved as he hyperventilated.
"Milos, it's okay. You're here. You're home. You're safe. Just breathe." I said, my voice infinitely more calm than I felt. After a few long minutes, his breathing evened out.
"I think it's time for you to talk to someone." I said quietly.
He immediately shook his head vehemently in disagreement.
I laid a hand on his cheek. "I can't fix you, Milos. I can help you and support you, but I can't save you. You need more than me."
"You and the girls are all I need." He protested gruffly.
"We're not. You went through something horrible. You need to talk to someone who can help you. It will never go away until you talk about it."
Milos rolled onto his back, taking a few deep breaths in and out. His fists were clutching the blanket. "I can't."
"You need to." I insisted. "It's been three months since you got back, Milos. You're not getting better. You're afraid to leave the suite, you only attend your martial arts if they coincide with Anna and Elsa's naps. And God forbid it's one of Rafael's custody days. Something needs to change."
His frown deepened. "You don't know what it was like." He said defensively.
I turned to face him. "Of course I don't! Because you won't tell me. Tomorrow, Milos. Tomorrow I will find a therapist who deals with people who have been in a similar situation. You will talk to them. This isn't optional."
Slowly he nodded his assent. "I want to tell you first. After Rafael has picked up our girls."
I curled up against him, laying my head on his chest. "Good. Thank you."
He nodded stiffly, his entire body tense. When sleep claimed me once more, he was still awake.
When I finally woke up hours later, I felt incredibly, impossibly well rested. The sun was bright behind the blinds. I stretched out, only slightly surprised to find Milos gone. He didn't sleep much, even less than he used to, so it wasn't unusual for him to go watch Anna and Elsa. I turned to look at the clock by the bed, and 10:01 looked back at me accusingly. I never slept this late.
Getting out of bed, I went out to the empty living room and glanced at the baby monitor. It was off. Odd. I went over to the door and pressed my ear against it. I could hear Milos' rumbling voice inside, but couldn't make out what he was saying. I opened the door.
"Look! Mommy's awake!" The twins smiled at me, then turned back to him and the books they were playing with. "I thought you might want to be well rested for..." He trailed off, letting the implication hang between us.
I nodded. "Yes, thank you."
It was uncomfortable. We were both tense, waiting for tonight.
"You can get dressed. I've got the girls." He said quietly.
I took the opportunity to leave. We'd have plenty of time to talk tonight. I went back to our room, went through my morning routine. Makeup, hair, putting on a blush colored sheath dress.
Then with a quick smile and wave goodbye, I headed downstairs to work. The day went surprisingly fast, possibly because I went in at eleven and left at four. I was fortunate no one needed anything of importance, because I couldn't think of anything but Milos and tonight. I was finally going to find out what happened to him. Maybe we could finally take a step forward.
I made it back to the suite just in time to catch the tail end of Milos giving a visibly irritated Rafael a timetable of last diaper changes, feeds, and naps.
"They're my children, I know how to care for them." Rafael responded facetiously.
I rolled my eyes. I did not have the patience to deal with this today. "Rafael, you know that's not what he was saying." I turned to Anna and Elsa, pressing kisses on their sweet cheeks. "Goodbye, babies! Have fun with Daddy! See you soon."
I looked over at Milos. He didn't handle the custody handoffs well. It was like he was afraid they would never come back. He was stiff like usual, forcibly keeping his face neutral. He waved at the girls as they disappeared with Rafael.
I sat on the couch first, patting the cushion next to me. "Let's talk. Then we can get some dinner if you're up to it."
Milos obliged, sitting close beside me. Then he took a deep breath. "Where do you want me to start?"
"The beginning. Where it all started, why it happened to you at all."
He nodded resolutely. "You know the basics of my childhood. Mother died young, I was in the wind. State custody then vagrant. When I was sixteen or so, I started working for a crime family. The Cimrman Family. It started with small things, selling knives mostly. But they saw I had a knack for problem solving, so I ended up smuggling things for them. I met you almost fifteen years into our arrangement." He paused.
"Water?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet. By the time I met you, I was a fairly well respected smuggler. You remember the time I relocated that tiger? And of course, I had my internet scams on the side. After you left, I spent six months in inpatient anger management. I had a lot of anger to manage. When I got out I took on bigger, riskier jobs. I channeled everything into my work. My anger, my fear, my sense of loss. About a year later, I was brought in front of Boss Cimrman himself. He had found out about my scamming on the side. He asked me questions-Did I love the Family, was I loyal, what were my life plans, could I ever see myself retiring? Then he offered me a different position in the family. He thought I should be doing more than smuggling product, he wanted me buying, selling, and transporting. He said he liked my ambition, he had faith in me. After that, things changed."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "Changed, how?"
"I was smuggling cases of diamonds. I was making more money than I could ever hope to want. I learned which officers and politicians could be bribed, who belonged to us, who belonged to our rivals. I started dealing in arms. Guns, grenades, whatever could be bought for little and sold for profit. Every day that passed I told myself you were gone, my life didn't matter. I felt a little less guilt selling weapons to terrorists. Nothing mattered."
"Did you kill people?" I whispered, horrified.
He nodded. "Not personally. But I sent people to the Homestead. I sold munitions to violent fringe groups. People died because of my actions."
I furrowed my eyebrows, not understanding. "What's the Homestead?"
Milos let out a shaking breath. "The Family's personal jail. They dealt with issues in house, so to speak. The location is unknown. Traitors go there. Rivals go there. They don't come back."
"And you sent people there. To die." My knuckles were white. I let this man play with my daughters. Sleep in my bed. "Did it even bother you?"
Slowly he met my eyes with his. "I deal with the guilt every time I look at the news, every time I see my bank statement. Every time I look in the mirror."
"When was the last time it happened?" My voice was so much stronger than I felt.
"Shortly before Lachlan called me with your whereabouts. So about two years ago now. I had three diamond smuggling operations get caught in one month. Ten million dollars gone, fifty men in jail. I found the snitch. I had him sent to the Homestead. I don't know what happened to him, but even then I could guess. They don't take traitors lightly."
"So what happened after you found me?" I asked. His story was like a gruesome train collision. I couldn't look away. I couldn't stop it. There was nothing that could fix it.
"I had a lot of sway at my level, I had the boss' ear. I visited you. I tried to make you love me. I convinced the boss to buy into the hotel from a shell company owned."
"Wait." I interrupted, panicked. "Is one third of this hotel owned by a crime syndicate?"
He shook his head. "No, I bought the shares from Cimrman a few months later. I tried to returning to work, but I couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't just leave you, not after finally finding you. So I came back. We got married, you sent me to jail, I saved you from Magda. You asked me to get out of crime, and I agreed."
"What happened next?" I asked. My heart thudded frantically in my chest. Here it was.
"I called a former boss in St Petersburg to sell off my contacts- the names and information of people who buy and sell certain things. He warned me not to. When you join a Family, you can't leave. Especially if you make it to the top, like I had. But I insisted. I said I needed to liquidate some assets, and I had more work than I wanted. I bartered off my subordinates mostly to the other Cimrman higher ups, traded my weapons for diamonds. I sold my contacts to whoever would pay the most for them. Not direct rivals, of course. Someone was following me, but that was fairly standard practice. I sold the last of my black market interests in Tunisia. As I was leaving, I was attacked and knocked out. I woke up at The Homestead."
Despite his steady voice, his hands were trembling slightly. I took them in mine as he looked straight ahead at a sight only he could see.
"Boss Cimrman was there. Said he was very disappointed. He didn't like being disappointed. He wanted to know why I was selling. He said I could tell him immediately for a quick death, or later for a slow and painful one. I refused to say anything. They dragged me into the stone rooms beneath the compound. It was so cold, and totally dark. Except."
After a pause I got up and filled a glass with water, then wordlessly handed it to him. He drank it quietly.
"Except to get food, I would have to ring a bell. They would come with food and a light. But they would also make me pay for it. It started out with beatings. But it escalated. They would kick me unconscious, cut me with knives just to watch the blood. These men, this was their whole lives. They loved it. When it wasn't me being tortured, I had to listen to the others screaming. In the cold, in the dark. Then one day, I'm not sure how long I was there. A long time. They got frustrated with their lack of progress. They sent in this mountain of a man. He walked in and broke my arm like it was a twig."
I rubbed his arm. The story was pouring out of him. His eyes were unfocused, he wasn't here any more. He was there, reliving every second of torment.
"He came every day after that. Even if I went four or five days without food, he would still show up. He broke my fingers, one a day. When he got bored of that he would shove my head into a bucket of water until I was about to pass out, then do it again and again. The worst part was that they had found my wedding band. I was careful, it was sewn into the lining of my suit, but they found it. So he would sit there and tell me all the horrible things he was going to do to you. Then he would leave, and it would start again the next day."
He took a rattling breath, then continued. "After weeks of this, he came into the room and kicked me. By then I couldn't get up from the floor. I just laid on the stones. Then he said he would come back and kill me the next day. He left. I tried to make peace with never seeing you again, but I couldn't. I hadn't even seen our girls. The next day he arrived with a body bag. He wrapped his hands around my neck and whispered an offer in my ear. For ten million dollars, he would let me live. I agreed. He strangled me unconscious, then carried me to the property's lake in my body bag and dumped me there. That night someone picked me up and transferred the money. They must have drugged me at some point. I woke up later in a French airport with a fake passport in my pocket. I bought four tickets to different places and immediately came back here. I didn't even know the date until I was on the plane. I'd been gone almost six months."
Finally he turned to look at me. Really look at me. "I got Isabel to let me into your office. Seeing you was the only thing that kept me moving, that kept me alive. And when you came in, I wondered if it was real or if I died in The Homestead. I'm still not sure this is real."
"It is real." I murmured desperately. "I'm real."
He slowly shook his head. "Every moment of every day I'm afraid I'm going to wake up in that dark, cold room. I can't leave you and the girls again. I can't waste this beautiful dream leaving the apartment or you for even a moment. I need you. Petra, I love you. You're the only person who has ever loved me. You're my soulmate. I can't lose you. I love you."
It was almost surreal. The thin, frail, damaged man in front of me had once been my greatest fear. I had paid exorbitant sums of money to hide from him. I couldn't sleep or relax, wondering if or when he would find me. And after everything he had been through, after everything we had both been through, all he wanted was to be loved. To see his family.
In that moment, it was clear to me. He would never hurt me again. He would never hurt our girls. He would love us, cherish us, protect us. Our blackmail marriage vows had become real at some point. Perhaps they had always been real for him. But somewhere along the line, they had become real for me as well. And this hurt creature before me, I would love him forever.
"You're never going to lose me, Milos." I said with complete surety. "We're going to get through this. Together. As a family."
Slowly, as if he were afraid I would disappear, he gathered me into his arms for the second time since his arrival back home.
We would make it through this.
