<b>Chapter </b><b>155 </b>


    Elena’s POV:


    The first thing I registered was the cold.


    My eyes fluttered open, a sense of disoriented confusion clouding my mind. Where was 1? The roof above my head wasn’t of a hospital ceiling or of the condo. It was a stark, unpainted surface, riddled with dark brown spots that looked like growing mold. I frowned, trying to ce myself, but my mind felt sluggish, disconnected.


    A sense of foreboding settled in my gut as I looked down at myself. My body was trembling uncontrobly. But what startled me wasn’t the fact that my nket was missing. It was theplete state of my body. My limbs were small, my legs bony, and my hands were thin, almost emaciated. I looked like a child. A sharp, hollow pang of hunger gnawed at my stomach. I instinctively curled into myself, pushing my knees against my chest in a desperate, futile attempt to push in my stomach and lessen the gnawing feeling.


    It didn’t work. But I didn’t have time to wonder what was happening to me. A loud, violent m echoed through the space, and I jolted upright, my small body rigid with fear. An older–looking woman walked in, her imposing figure filling the doorway. She was dressed in a simple, roughspun dress that looked very simr to a nun’s, but her expression was far from kind. Her face was andscape of harsh lines and pinched fury, and her eyes, dark and unforgiving, were fixed on me. She looked angry.


    I didn’t need to wait for confirmation. The next moment, a hard, stinging pnded on my face, the force of it snapping my head to the side. A hot, angry flush bloomed across my cheek. Then, she grabbed my chin with her bony fingers, and tugged my face forward. She looked at me with an expression of pure disgust, as if I were a rat that had just crawled out of a sewer.


    “Shameless bitch. You did it, didn’t you? You stole Connor’s bread? No wonder your mother abandoned you… such greed in a child so small…” She kept going, her voice venomous, but almost like my head was zoning out, I couldn’t think or register anything.


    The usations, the venom, the pure cruelty of her words were just a low hum in my mind, a background noise that didn’t prate the thick wall of my confusion. Stolen bread? I did? If that was the case, then why did I feel so unbearably hungry? I didn’t shout back or fight. My body felt too weak. I didn’t do anything, only looked down at the rough wooden floor as I was pulled and hit like a ragdoll.


    The next minute, I was being dragged out of the room. A bone–deep chill resonated in my chest. It wasn’t the cold, but the terror that coursed through my veins, a certainty that the ce she was taking me was a ce more terrifying than hell itself.


    I started fighting against her restraints, kicking my bony legs and twisting my arms in a desperate attempt to break free as she pushed me towards tworge, wooden, chipped–at–the–edges gates. But of course, how could I, in such a small, emaciated form, possibly go against a


    woman that strong? I couldn’t. And so, the gates groaned open, and we entered a massive hall.


    My gut churned as my eyesnded on a stone statue, a grim, impassive deity that looked like something out of a forgotten Hindu temple,


    “Kowtow!” she yelled, her voice a whip cracking through the silence of the hall. She pushed me down, and my head hit the wooden flooring


    with a sharp, painful thud that made me gasp.


    “Pray <i>to </i>your god and ask forgiveness for your sins,” shemanded, her voice devoid of any humanpassion. That’s when my voice finally came out, a small, raspy, and childish whisper that sounded alien even to my own ears. “I didn’t… I didn’t… I didn’t ste–steal… please.” I kept repeating the same desperate words, my head shaking from side to side in a frantic denial.


    Finally, the woman, having had enough of my futile pleas, pulled me up by my hair, the sharp tug of pain bringing tears to my eyes. She snapped amand to a bony man standing to the side, his face indifferent.


    “Since this greedy little thing won’t listen, she will be punished twofold.” She said, and with a final shove, she pushed me over to the man. My heart felt like it was going to be crushed./


    The man, his hands likerge blocks of wood, pushed me towards a huge, wooden tub filled with dark, churning water. He shoved me inside, the freezing water soaking my rough, coarse white dresspletely. A gasp of icy shock escaped my lips. Then, before I could even take a


    breath, he grabbed the back of my head and shoved it inside.


    No. No. No. Please. Please. Please stop. Was all I could repeat at the back of my mind as they constantly pushed me under, the world bing a dark, suffocating abyss, before pulling me out again, a half–second of agonizing gasping before the torture continued. They made- me leel like I was on the brink of unconsciousness, just a speck of oxygen away from the end, only for that torture to continue on forever.


    Please Please. Please stop. Just kill me already.


    Then, a sharp, sudden burst of oxygen filled my lungs, a precious, life–giving gift I hadn’t dared hope for. My body, acting on pure, instinctual reflexes, turned over, and I retched violently on the floor, the bitter taste of salty water filling my mouth. I took in deep, sharp, shuddering breaths, the air burning my lungs as I let out a final, sputtering cough of water.


    Then, as the fog of the nightmare began to recede, I realized. Floor?


    “Elena!”


    Someone grabbed my face, big, warm, and familiar hands that made me startle and recoil. I looked up, blinking away thest vestiges of the nightmare, my eyes meeting a pair of familiar, onyx eyes.


    “Niko?” I croaked out, my voice hoarse from all the retching.


    His eyes were red–rimmed, as he looked at me and nodded, his strong hands still holding my face. “How are you feeling, Malishka?” he asked, his voice almost trembling in a way I had never heard before. My eyes widened then, a new kind of panic rising in my chest, as I snapped my head down to see his shirt. It was ripped and stained a deep, angry crimson.


    “You’re bleeding.” I let out a gasp, my heart jumping into my throat. Right he’d been shot hadn’t he?


    He let out a soft, strainedugh. “It’s only a scratch. I’m fine, Malishka.” He tried to reassure me, but the look in his eyes was anything but.


    I clenched my fists then turned around, my eyes scanning the yacht’s deck, taking in the full situation. My eyesnded on Dmitri, who was kneeling on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. The dagger I had plunged into his kneecap was gone, but there was a pool of blood right below his knees. His head was being pushed down by the soles of someone’s shoes. I looked up to find a man in a vibrant, Hawaiian


    shirt, his hair fluttering in the salty wind, his face surprisingly indifferent…to Dmitri’s situation at least. Then he looked over at me with a


    worried frown.


    Mkai?


    “Is he dead?” I asked, a strange, detached curiosity in my tone.


    Mkai bent down, his foot still on Dmitri’s head, and hit him lightly on the back of his skull. Dmitri let out a soft groan of protest, and Niki spoke, his voice low and dangerous. “Not yet.”


    “Don’t worry, though… we’ll get rid of him,” Niki said as he got up and then bent down to pull me up. But I stopped him with a firm push. to his chest, the motion surprising even me with its strength. My mind was made up. There was no hesitation, <i>no </i>doubt. “Do it now.” He froze, his expression a mixture of confusion and shock.


    Mkai whistled softly from behind us. Niki frowned, his eyes searching mine. “I’m not saying I can’t… but do you really want me to do it


    in front of you?” he asked, his voice now a low questioning rumble.


    I didn’t pause for even a second before I nodded, my eyes meeting his with a fierce, unyielding certainty. “Kill him.”


    My heart was still pounding, and my emotions were all over the ce, a chaotic storm of fear and rage. But this decision… this decision felt right. He’d dared to hurt not just me, but countless other women. I had already tried taking the legal route, but even that couldn’t stop him. And because of his actions, because of his insanity, Niki was shot. What benefit would a man like that bring to this world? Nothing. He’d only bring harm and torment. If that was the case, then it’s better to just get rid of him… better to erase him from a world where my child


    would live.


    14:16 HT 15 Aug VID


    My eyes widened then, and my hand snaked down, trembling, to my abdomen. I had drowned hadn’t I? Wouldn’t that have affected the baby? I held my breath, the water–soaked dress clinging to my body, making the bulge in my abdomen prominent looked at Niki, who was frowning, his eyes following the movement of my hand, a question forming in his eyes even before he spoke it.


    Then, as though a realization just dawned on him, he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, “You’re… pregnant?”