1

England

Ilya swallowed his groan. His empty stomach was full of them.

He was trying to ignore the way he appeared to be freezing from the toes up, along with ignoring the pain in his bladder telling him he needed to pee—and soon—and attempting to ignore the ache in his heart that had taken up long-term residence a month ago when he'd been dragged out of Russia.

"You're broken,"

Bryant snarled.

I'm not.

"Don't you want to be fixed?"

I'm not fucking broken.

Bryant, Ilya's muscular forty-five-year-old life coach, though the monster was anything but, paced in front of him.

He'd been employed by Ilya's father and step-mother to make Ilya see the light, to help him choose the right path in life, to fix him, which meant making Ilya accept he wasn't gay.

In other words, Bryant's sole aim in life was to make Ilya miserable.

"Answer me!"

Bryant demanded.

No. Though Ilya had forgotten the question. Another shiver wracked him.

"Have you forgotten how to smile?"

Bryant flicked his ear.

Ouch!

"I'd better see your lips curling up when you're with Emilia."

Fuck off, arsehole.

Four weeks ago, Ilya had been living happily in St Petersburg. Okay, he hadn't been completely happy because being gay in Russia was an issue.

Being openly gay was more than an issue and showing off about being gay was just asking for trouble. But he'd managed in St Petersburg and he'd had a good life.

Until the day everything went wrong.

He'd already agreed to come back to the UK for his sister's wedding, which was to be held on the family estate in Cheshire, but Ilya's departure date had been accelerated when he'd been snatched off the street in St Petersburg and flown here in a private jet.

Why couldn't his father have waited for him to return of his own accord?

Why was he so desperate to make him straight for the wedding? What did it fucking matter that he was gay?

"Listen to what she says…"

Oh shit. Bryant was still talking.

"… and talk to her. Have a conversation. Treat her nicely. Enough of this idiotic blankness! Fucking smile at her, you scumbag."

Ilya found it hard to believe he'd once been known for both his bright smile and talking too much. People were always telling him he looked happy, but then he had been happy. He'd loved his job, his home, his friends. He'd had plenty to be cheerful about.

Since he'd registered what Bryant's treatment plan entailed, there had been no reason to smile. At this particular moment, Ilya was determined to show nothing on his face, because what was going through his mind would only lead to pain. I hope you die a slow and agonising death, you bastard. Soon. In fact, preferably right now. Unfortunately, his tormentor kept breathing, kept talking. Was there no justice in the world?

He was delusional to think there might be.

Ilya imagined Bryant's hair falling out. Why not his teeth as well? The guy was vain, always running his fingers through his thick blond locks. His teeth were too white, too perfect. He'd regret the work he'd had done when he was old. He'd look ridiculous. Hopefully. Was there a disease that made balls shrivel? Cocks fall off? Then Ilya would smile.

Bryant caught hold of Ilya's throat and squeezed hard enough to make breathing difficult. "Do you understand, you pathetic piece of shit?"

Ilya wasn't the piece of shit in this room.

"Talk about how much you love England. Tell her where you want to go on holiday. Compliment her dress, her hair, her eyes. Tell her she looks like an angel."

Jesus Christ! I know how to have a conversation with a woman and that advice is crap.

"If you're not holding her hand every single time I look at you, you'll be sorry."

Bryant released his hold.

Ilya sucked in a breath, fighting not to rub his throat. He should keep quiet but he couldn't help himself. "What about when I'm in the bathroom? I'm not sure she'd—oomph!"

The fist planted low in his stomach drove the air from his lungs, made him lose control of his bladder and he wet himself. Oh fuck. Ilya dropped to his knees clutching his midsection as pain rolled through him. No point trying to stop peeing, so he didn't. But now his sleep pants were soaked and he knelt in a puddle of urine.

"You disgusting fuck! Get up!"

Bryant snapped.

Ilya pushed to his feet.

His thin sleep pants clung to his legs.

The warmth was fleeting.

Now he was going to be even colder.

Bryant laughed.

Bastard.

Ilya leaned back against the wall trying to breathe in a way that didn't hurt.

The monster's usual MO was to slap his face when he was cheeky, but those strikes often gave him a bloody lip or a swollen mouth, whereas hitting him in the stomach wouldn't.

Ilya had to look unmarked for the wedding on Saturday, though if Bryant slipped up and lost his temper, the story would no doubt be that he'd walked into a door, or tripped on a slab.

Bryant always had an answer for every visible bruise or cut.

His sister Lara had been taken in. His stepmother knew the truth and didn't care. She was Bryant's cheerleader.

Clumsy Ilya. You're always tripping up. Don't you dare have a black eye for the wedding photos.

Same words spoken by both mother and daughter. One cynical, one not. Ilya couldn't tell Lara the truth. It would wreck her wedding.

He was still trying to pull himself together as Bryant moved forward again, invading his space, breathing coffee into his face.

"That's what you shirt lifters do, isn't it, fuck each other in bathrooms? Filthy perverts."

Ilya pressed his bare toes into the floor, twisted his fingers behind his back and tensed his stomach in case another thump was coming.

"You're going to hold her hand, talk to her and make it look as if you're her boyfriend. It's not difficult."

Ilya wanted to ask why she'd want to hold hands with a filthy pervert, but this time he stayed silent. He maintained his blank expression, one that he hoped said I'm strong. You can't get to me. Even if it wasn't true. Because he wasn't strong and Bryant got to him quite regularly.

"Do you understand what I'm telling you to do, you bloody degenerate? Answer me!"

Bryant yelled the words into his face, then kicked his shin.

Fuck! Ilya cried out, then pressed his lips together. Not speaking had turned into his only means of defiance. For a guy who talked as much as he did, keeping quiet was difficult.

"You cock-sucking faggot."

Spit flew from Bryant's mouth. "Is that how you want to be known? In Saudi, you'd be jailed or executed. Thrown off a roof in Iraq, then stoned if the fall didn't kill you. In Chechnya, you'd be burned alive."

Ilya didn't even blink, but mentally, he railed, raged and roared at what his life had become. Going to help a fallen stranger had been his downfall. When he'd seen the woman lying on the pavement, he'd hurried to her side.

As he bent down, an arm had wrapped about his throat from behind, followed by a sharp pain in his thigh.

Although he kept struggling, his body didn't feel right, as if he was heavily drunk, and his movements slowed.

He could see the woman on her feet looking fine. Even though he'd tried hard to keep his eyes open, they closed. Snowflakes melted on his face, then he felt nothing.

Now he was here.

Trapped and afraid.

Ilya might be scared and angry and a whole load of other things, but he needed to stay calm, to think his way out of this, because if he snapped, physically or verbally, he'd be punished and he was tired of being hurt, tired of the constant pressure to be what he wasn't.

Bryant continued berating him.

Apparently, nothing about Ilya was right, not how he walked, spoke, gestured or behaved. The way he ate was wrong. The way he looked at people was wrong. He was a failure, but…guess what? He could reinvent himself.

Difficult, when he didn't see the need. Even so, the constant, aggressive criticism had weighed on him, flattened him, stolen his smile and sometimes his voice, but worst of all, Bryant's actions had gone a long way to destroying Ilya's hope.

Although he might not want to admit it, he had a breaking point and Bryant had, on occasion, come close to reaching it.

Bryant had a whole repertoire of techniques in his evangelical mission to make Ilya straight. Persuasion, manipulation, mental coercion, physical abuse, kindness—not often, unkindness—more often…

He probably had a list he was working through in consultation with Ilya's stepmother, Svetlana. Ilya imagined the pair sitting cackling together, ticking them off. Try this. Try that.

Though not religion. At least there was no shoving God's disgust down his throat, though he'd rather have endured that than the fuck ton of water he'd swallowed two days ago. Ilya had almost hoped he'd drown and that all this would be over. Almost.

But he didn't drown. Bryant couldn't afford to make that mistake. Ilya's father would kill him.

His tormentor paced in front of him as he yelled abuse. "You're a fucked-up loser, a good-for-nothing waste of oxygen."

I'm not. I'm a good person. You're not.

"You're going to hold Emilia's hand and behave like a complete gentleman. And if, before Saturday, I see or hear anything from you that I don't like, you'll go into the box until the wedding."

Ilya couldn't help shuddering as he glanced towards the plywood construction sitting in the middle of the room.

The box had been Ilya's punishment on several occasions, though never for longer than twenty-four hours.

The wooden structure had been especially made for him.

Sensory deprivation was another of Bryant's tools.

Ilya had to lie down in it curled up.

He couldn't stand upright.

Food and water had been delivered through a slot and there was a bucket for him to relieve himself.

His clothes had been taken and no blanket given.

He used to lie with his mouth close to the slot and when he was sure he was alone, push it open for light and air and try to imagine himself anywhere other than where he really was.

"Don't like the sound of that, do you?"

Would you? Ilya was cold and uncomfortable, his sleep pants sticking to his legs.

He stank and needed to shower.

Bryant was smirking.

Ilya couldn't believe his father had agreed to go along with this idiot's methods.

But his father was away from home a lot and Ilya told himself he hadn't known the extent of Bryant was doing.

But when his father did come home and Ilya tried to tell him, Svetlana always supported Bryant and claimed Ilya was exaggerating.

Any attempt to make his father see what was happening only made Bryant more vicious.

Whatever way Ilya behaved with Emilia, he knew Bryant would criticise and punish him. So why should he conform when he'd be hurt anyway?

He'd been standing against the wall in this chilly, concrete basement room for over an hour.

He was cold, thirsty and tired, and he just wanted Bryant to shut the fuck up, but there was nothing he could do to make this end, not promising to hold Emilia's hand, not swearing to be kind to her, not even telling Bryant that he wanted to be straight, because he wouldn't be believed. The irony didn't escape him. He was trapped in purgatory.

"You're sick, Ilya. You have an illness in here!"

Bryant tapped Ilya's head over and over with his finger, hard enough to hurt. Rabid fucking woodpecker! I want to bite your fucking finger off!

"But the good news is you can be cured."

Well, hallelujah! I can hear the angels singing. Or is that my happy sister, excited about her wedding?

Bryant thumped Ilya's stomach again. His diaphragm spasmed violently and Ilya retched. He folded his arms across his belly. There was nothing to bring up. He'd not eaten since yesterday afternoon.

When the pain had receded, he straightened up and let the wall support him.

"I can read your pathetic little mind."

"Ya ne veryu, chto tvoy chlen dlinneye dvukh santimetrov."

Ilya was forbidden from speaking Russian, but he'd had enough. He'd just told Bryant he doubted his dick was any longer than two centimetres, though he'd said it with such gentleness that there was no way Bryant could imagine it an insult.

"No more Russian,"

Bryant snarled.

Ilya didn't stop. He called Bryant every bad thing he could think of, every disgusting slur in his vocabulary, and there were plenty, but he kept his voice low and his tone even. At least he was still fighting.

But was he? He was getting colder and colder, while Bryant was probably warm as toast from the frenzy he'd worked himself into.

The wet patches under his arms were spreading so fast, the guy was probably going to end up dissolving into a puddle of rancid sweat mixed with that revolting aftershave he liberally applied.

"Don't you want to be cured?"

How could he be cured when he wasn't ill?

"Don't you want to make your father happy, you selfish little prick?"

Why should that be his responsibility? Ilya wasn't the one with the problem. His father was.

"Why are you so ungrateful?"

Bryant raged. "You could have everything."

For a price he wasn't prepared to pay.

Bryant was red-faced with fury. Why can't you drop dead! Heart attack or stroke. Either will do. Ilya didn't even care whether it hurt the guy now. He just wanted Bryant gone.

"Open your mind. Look at the truth. It's staring you in the face. Accept it. You are not on the right path."

I don't give a damn. He'd said worse than that over the past few weeks and paid for it. And because he apparently never learned, he'd repeated it and paid for it again. Keeping his mouth shut was the best thing to do. Except his Russian mouth had a mind of its own.

"Potselui mou zhopy."

Kiss my arse. Not that he wanted this guy to do that.

"Stop being such a little shit!"

Ilya had attempted to make Bryant think he was coming round gradually. He'd thought slowly showing acceptance that being straight was the way forward should have been the solution to his predicament, but he was always so tired, which led to him becoming careless, which in turn allowed his belligerence to escape, which always ended in pain.

Not this time. No more smartarse comments. He had to hold it together because the wedding offered a chance he couldn't afford to miss.

They'd ostensibly dragged him over for his sister's wedding, so surely he'd be allowed to attend. He glanced at the box. He really didn't want to get put in that. He'd endured enough today. Time to cooperate and make Bryant think he'd made progress.

"I'll hold Emilia's hand,"

he blurted. "I'll be nice. I promise."

Bryant laughed. "You think I believe you?"

What do you fucking want? How could he ever satisfy this bastard? For the past week, Ilya hadn't been allowed to sleep for longer than a couple of hours at a stretch.

Every time he woke, it had been to Bryant yelling in his face about disgusting dreams and his sick mind.

You're the one who has the sick mind.

Ilya had sensibly not said that. Even so, he'd been yanked out of bed, pushed into a cold shower, then shoved back into bed still wet, time after time.

"You're a liar,"

Bryant yelled. "Liar, liar, liar."

Yes, you got me. I am.

Most showers Ilya took were cold.

Lukewarm water was a reward for cooperation, those occasions when he'd allowed words to pour from his mouth that he didn't believe but hoped would encourage Bryant to feel he was winning.

Expressing his shame and guilt though not meaning a word of it was a ploy, but every time Ilya did it, he worried he might forget the truth, forget what he was, that the lies he told would become the truth because he'd said them.

At sensible moments, he didn't believe that, but he was scared Bryant was driving him to a nervous breakdown.

Maybe he'd fall so deep into quicksand he wouldn't be able to pull himself out again.

He didn't want to believe that was possible.

But…it was his worry and one that he fed.

Those occasions of self-doubt seemed to be coming more often in the last week, frightening descents into a sort of madness where he heard persuasive voices in his head telling him it would be so easy to give up.

If only it was easy to escape.

Bryant planted his arms either side of Ilya's head and leaned in to put his mouth against his ear.

"Do you want your father to resort to medical intervention? Does chemical castration appeal? Because that is the last resort. Your cock will never be hard again. You won't even want to wank."