Chapter Thirteen

Min-Seo

 

They came at night. Three of them. Min-Seo was already sleeping. She was a heavy sleeper, especially in the comfort of the deep, soft, warm bed that graced her private bedroom. The door hadn't been locked. It never was. Sometimes Silva liked to come in, and she didn't want him to feel unwelcome. Was afraid to make him feel unwelcome. So the three men, dressed in dark clothes, big and strong and smelling of sweat and testosterone, could walk right in.

She was woken by a smack across the face. A hand reached down, grabbed her hair, and pulled it hard, yanking her out of bed. Her feet were caught in the sheets, leaving her torso on the ground with her legs still propped up, and she grunted as a foot descended on her stomach.

It was a bad dream. Only a bad dream. A nightmare. She told herself this, told herself she was about to wake up for real. In her quiet bedroom. In the dark. But her eyes were already open, and she could see shadows and figures. She could smell them and she knew it wasn't a dream. Summoning all her power, she yelled out, screamed something incomprehensible. The Secret Service was right outside her door. But there was no rushing of feet, no rescue.

The hand in her hair pulled her up, half dragging her across the floor and then pulling her up, up, until she was standing against the wall. She screamed again—long, high, cutting, desperate. A sound she didn't know she could make.

Another slap, then a blow to the belly.

“Non-lethal,” said a voice.

She didn't know it yet, but they were the only words that would be spoken. She registered that the voice was low, rumbling, had the hint of an accent, but couldn't place it.

Someone else came, clamped a hand over her mouth. No more sound, no more noises. Where the hell was the Secret Service? Weren't they supposed to protect her?

More blows. Her stomach, legs. Pain flowed through her, the violence of each hit vibrating in her spine. She opened her mouth to scream, forgetting she couldn't, then bit down on the hand that was covering her lips. Without a word the hand removed itself, then punched her in the face. She heard the whistling as the fist moved through the air, heard the crunch as it hit her skin and bone and cartilage.

More hits to the stomach. More pain. It was becoming overwhelming now. So overwhelming that she couldn't feel each individual blow, only the sum of their violence. The pain took over, and she couldn't think properly. She began to act on instinct, kicking out, wriggling her body to get free of the hands that restrained her.

The fist came back, and she heard the whistling again as it moved toward her. This time she didn't hear the crunch as it hit her.

 

***

 

She woke up in a room unfamiliar to her, decorated in pale blues and ivory. The pain was still there but dulled somehow. A drip hung by her side. Someone else was in the room, but she couldn't move enough to see who it was. What she could see, from the very corner of her eye, was the door. The door with big black locks fitted. Obviously new, not matching the ornate, older keyholes she'd seen throughout the house. She was still in the White House; she could guess that much. There was the same smell, the same quiet reverence. But she was in a locked room.

Her thoughts still weren't working properly. She could barely string together a coherent idea. But she knew one thing: She knew that trusting Rebecca Howles had been the wrong decision. She knew she had been betrayed. That was all she could think, the only clear thought she had as she slipped into a drugged sleep.