Redemption: (Dark Desires Book 3) (3 page)

“I thought you said that this was
my house
?” said Valerie in answer,
throwing the gift of the home he would leave her back in his face.

“That’s not what I asked
Valerie. I understand the bathroom and even when you get dressed, but this door
in
our
house... Why?” Vlad questioned in return. He knew what she was
doing by referring to the home he had bought for them both as merely hers, and
he refused to take the bait.

How could Valerie explain that
she was trying to keep herself away from him? If she had left the door unlocked
she would have been tempted to go to him. And if he had come to her, she wouldn't
have denied him. Val had to keep things in perspective; he was leaving at the
end of the week. So instead of telling him why she had placed the physical
barrier between them she changed the topic.

"What do you want?"

The intensity in his eyes caused
her to look away. Wrong move. She was now staring at his heaving chest. Why was
he making this so much harder than it already was? Didn’t he understand that
she was preparing herself for the day he would eventually walk out of her life?
He took a hold of her hand and ushered her up the stairs. The tension between
them was palpable, and he refused to sleep without her. No, he couldn't sleep
without her. The three days spent in Istanbul were the best sleep he'd had in a
month, and now he understood why he had spent the last few hours tossing and
turning before going to her.

“If you don’t want me to touch
you I won’t. But I’m not letting you out of my sight Valerie.”

He let go of her hand to open
the sheets on her side of the bed. She immediately felt the loss of the brief
contact they'd shared. The instant his fingers had grazed hers, a shiver went
down her spine. If she slept in the same bed with him, then things could
quickly get out of hand. She wasn't ready to be intimate with him again, but
the comfort he provided by being close to her was a crutch she could get used
to quickly. Too tired to put up a fight, she climbed in, and he did the same
before turning off the lights.

Natasha’s grey VW hatchback
stood parked outside Vlad's beach house. There was a black Merc in the driveway
today which meant that someone was home. The first time she had come here was
with her boyfriend Mandla for lunch to meet the new man in Val’s life. She had
liked him then when she saw how happy he made her best friend. That had changed
drastically. After receiving the short text from Raven that Valerie was safe
and would be home soon, she had driven to Seapoint every day as soon as her
classes were over. 

Why had Valerie not contacted
her? They were best friends who knew each other's secrets. No matter what
happened, they could always depend on each other. If Valerie wasn't talking
now, then something was wrong, terribly wrong. Avoiding her was not an option,
a point Natasha planned to make today. She would get to the bottom of this
whole mess and find out exactly what it is that Vladimir had done, or failed to
do, that put her friend in danger.

Kidnapping only ever happened
in the movies and occasionally, Natasha heard it reported on the news. It was a
different matter entirely digesting the thought of abduction when it happened
to someone you knew and loved. To make matters worse, Valerie's mom had called
a few times, and she had to lie that she was either not with her at that moment
or had just missed her. For weeks, Natasha had feared the day a call would come
through announcing her best friend’s death. Then what? Where would she even
begin to explain to Mrs Thusi that she knew of her daughter’s kidnapping but
had kept it a secret? Thank God that Vladimir had managed to get her back.

Taking a deep breath, she got
out of her car, walked up to the gate and rang the bell. The gate was buzzed
open, and Tash came face to face with Vlad. She couldn't stand the sight of
him. After speaking to Val about what had happened, her next question would be
to find out why she was still living with a man who had put her life in
jeopardy. No amount of money or steamy chemistry was worth dying over.

“Is she here?” Natasha asked
not bothering with any pleasantries.

"Yes, she's upstairs, on
the third floor. The bedroom is at the end of the hallway," he replied.

She followed his directions,
and when she reached the large double doors and entered the all-white, glass
bedroom, she saw her best friend lying on the bed. “Vee?”

Valerie knew the voice of her
best friend. She rolled over and looked into Tash’s face. Her big green eyes
welled with unshed tears of joy and relief. “Hey, I’m alright. Don’t cry,"
she climbed out of bed and wrapped her arms around Natasha. "I'm here; I'm
okay."

"Are you really? What
happened Valerie? We were so worried about you and your mom…”

"I'm fine. I should
probably talk to her. Does she know?"

“No,” the smile that was on
Tash’s face fell when she thought of the first and last time all the girls had
been at the house in search of their friend. One of Vladimir's cronies had
sworn them to secrecy. He looked like a decent guy until he snapped. The
harshness in his tone had scared her, all of them actually, except Macy, who
looked like she wanted to kick his ass. “One of Vladimir’s
friends
didn't
think it was a good idea. We couldn't notify the local authorities either. We
were so scared."

"I'm sorry I worried you
guys," Valerie replied breaking away from the hold Natasha had on her.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not
your fault that this happened. It’s his fault. How did you get caught up in all
of this… whatever this is?”

“I really don’t want to talk
about it.”

“Valerie you– ”

“I said I don’t want to talk
about it!” Valerie snapped back. Seeing the shock and hurt on her best friend’s
face made her feel guilty about her outburst. If she were on the other end,
then she would probably have had the same questions too. "I'm sorry. A lot
has happened, and I'm not ready to talk about it."

"Okay," Natasha
replied. She decided to drop it for now, but this was not over. Whatever had
happened in the month she went missing had affected Val in a bad way. They went
down to the kitchen where Valerie busied herself prepping toasted cheese
sandwiches. She tried to act as if she were fine, prattling on about the work
she'd have to catch up for her courses and seeing the girls soon.

To Natasha, this was not normal
Valerie behaviour. She hated cooking. Even a task as simple as making a
sandwich was a chore she managed to get anyone in the vicinity to do. And the
small talk? No, Valerie preferred comfortable silence over idle chatter.
Despite the warning signs, she kept her observations to herself and decided to
wait until her friend was ready. Maybe she just needed more time to settle in.

Valerie wanted to return to her
regular routine. It was bad enough that Vlad was overly paranoid about her
safety. The house was now a fortress, and she wasn't sure whether she was being
locked in or if he was trying to keep the world out. An alarm had gone off when
she opened the sliding door to the pool deck to get fresh air after having a
glass of water from the kitchen one evening. He had rushed down in a panic and
asked her not to leave the house yet. Another alarm had gone off when she went
down to the basement to grab a bottle of wine. Who on earth wired their
basement? That was when she'd learnt about his secret office. Nothing much was
said about what he did in there because the subject of his business was never a
topic of discussion in their relationship. She had learned the details of his
operations from Mehmet, but there was no point in asking him about it now.

She had been back in Cape Town
for a few days and was slowly starting to lose her mind cooped up in the house.
It reminded her of being trapped in Keyaan’s palace. On Monday, she would go to
her faculty's administration office and find out what she needed to do to catch
up. Vlad was hesitant about her leaving his side for even an hour at first, but
she stood her ground, and he conceded after they agreed he would be the one to
drop her off and pick her up.

At the admin office, she was
asked to supply official documentation as to why she’d been absent for five
weeks. Without it, she would not be allowed to rewrite the tests she'd missed.
That wasn't going to happen. How was she supposed to explain that she was
kidnapped by a king because her boyfriend, sorry ex-boyfriend, had refused to
supply him military arms and now said king was dead. It looked like she either
had to make do with not getting a grade in those tests or deregister for the
semester and start the following term from scratch.

Stuck in a house she didn’t
want with the man whose departure date drew near, Val had too much time to
think, and those thoughts led her to dark places that made it hard to talk to
anyone. She had run into Natasha on campus who invited her to lunch with the
girls, she had made up a sorry excuse and left. 

When Natasha tried to reach her
over the following days, her calls and messages went unanswered. Eventually,
Tash had to go back to Vladimir’s house to see her. When she walked into the
bedroom, Valerie was unresponsive.

Natasha was at the end of her
rope with Val. She'd barely kept her head on straight after finding out about
the kidnapping, and now she was incapable of focusing on anything else other
than Val's strange behaviour.

She climbed into bed on the
other side and faced the person she looked at as her sister. "Just tell me
what to do to make it better."

“You want to know the fucked up
part?”

“What?” Natasha was lost but
took the bait. It didn't matter what she said, she just wanted Valerie to start
talking.

“I enjoyed it.”

Now she was lost. Had she
enjoyed the kidnapping? Did she have Stockholm Syndrome? That was more of
Macy's field of expertise, not hers. "What did you enjoy?"

"He raped me, and I liked
it."

Natasha sat up alarmed.
"What are you saying, Valerie?"

“He forced himself on me even
though I said no… and I climaxed. I must have enjoyed it if I had an orgasm
right? That can't be classified as rape."

"But you said no, and he
still forced himself on you so it is rape!”

"I understand that part,
but my body doesn't agree," said  Val before shutting her eyes and
sobbing into the pillow.

“Don’t say that,” Natasha felt
the tears running down her own face. She hated seeing Valerie in so much pain.
“We’ll make him pay. We can open up a case and– “

“He’s dead. He took what he
wanted and by the time we left he was dead.”

Natasha was shocked into
silence. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was Vladimir who had
taken care of it. Finding out that the one person she thought of as a sister
had been so brutally violated was worse than anything she could have ever
imagined and the words that were coming out of her mouth… this was not
Valerie’s fault and trying to mitigate the fact that she had been molested was
a cry for help, professional help.

Even after Tash's morbid visit,
Valerie still refused to see a therapist who would give her the paperwork she
needed for the university to grant her a concession. Valerie didn’t want to
relive that day over and over again with a stranger. She had run out of options
and refused to stay at home. Val decided to soldier through and try her best to
finish the rest of the semester. She would have to do exceptionally well in her
final exams if she was going to pass.

Class after class followed the
same downward spiral. She wasn't able to make sense of everything, in part
because she had missed out on the foundation of certain concepts and also due
to the number of people she was surrounded by. The halls were overcrowded, and
whenever a guy sat next to her, she felt uncomfortable. Yet another thing that
distracted her from focusing on what was being said. Unless she was going to
put in the extra hours needed over and above the already hectic day and hire a
tutor to reteach what she'd missed, she wasn't going to make it. She didn't
have anything left in her after the first day, and the thought of adding even
more onto her plate physically made her sick. After three days of failing
miserably at playing the role of the old Val, she quit and decided to stay at
home.

Depression quickly set in as
she took stock of her life as it currently stood. No one understood what she
was going through. A month ago she had a close group of friends, a crazy mother
she loved even though she didn’t see or speak to that often, and an amazing man
who was fiercely protective and caring of her. After the disaster or telling
Vlad and Natasha the truth about what had broken her, and their opposing
reactions, she felt more alone than ever before. Her best friend had looked at
her as if she was crazy and Vlad… well, he was supposed to have left already. Valerie
had given him a week to leave, but that deadline had already expired. He gave
her her space and didn't say much. She didn't know whether to be grateful or
disappointed. In any case, she wasn't sure how to feel about anything anymore.

Vladimir was losing his mind
when it came to Valerie. She was sinking further and further into herself, and
he couldn't do anything about it. They were sharing the same bed but, it didn't
feel that way. They might as well have been on two different planets. He was
asleep for a few hours before he woke with a start in a cold sweat. Every night
since he had learnt of her rape, he relived the same nightmare, and it managed
to shake him to the core. He was bound to a chair while Keyaan taunted him.
He'd rip open her clothes and push himself into her. Valerie would beg him to
stop and then cry out for Vlad, yet he was helpless to move. He was bound and
gagged; unable to do anything but watch.

Tonight had been a different
nightmare. They were at the beach house where he'd woken up and left Valerie in
bed, as had become the norm. He went down to his office to make a call. Upon
his return, he heard the sound of running water. She was in the bathroom. As he
walked closer to the door, he noticed that the carpet was soaked with water
leaking from the bathroom.

He
called out to her, but she didn't reply. He broke down the door only to find
her lifeless body floating in the deep claw foot tub; the blood from the cuts
on her wrist spilling along the white porcelain.

Valerie was often restless in
her sleep. She would mumble and sometimes whimper. In these moments, he held
her until she quietened down. They were bittersweet moments. He knew that she
wouldn't allow him to touch her if she were awake.

It was wrong for him to violate
the barrier she put up between them while she was unconscious, but he couldn't
help it. He kissed her cheek, thankful that she was still alive. He hated that
this is how things were between them now. However, he couldn’t imagine being
anywhere else or with anyone else. He was bound to her.

*****

Natasha could no longer keep
what Valerie had said in confidence. She couldn't force her to see a
psychologist, but the next best thing was Macy. She already had her undergrad
and was currently in her honour’s year.

On Friday, all three showed up
to the beach house. Toni knew something was up. She had tried to give Valerie
her space and that was going nowhere seeing that they hadn't spoken since her
return. When Tash and Macy became secretive around her, she decided to confront
them, and that is how she found out the truth. Vlad let them in, and Natasha
led the way to her bedroom. She knocked on the door and entered to find Valerie
curled up in a foetal position.