Chapter 3 The Creditor Comes Calling

~Cecile's POV~

My head hurt like I had been involved in an accident, sustained a head injury and still got dragged down the tarmac floor until I passed out just to be woken up again with someone bashing my head in with a baseball bat. Very descriptive imagery but that was how I felt. I didn't even want to open my eyes because I could already feel the pounding behind my eyes from the light that was coming into the room without a care in the world.

"Ughhhhhhhh"

I groaned out loud as I threw my hands over my head to shield my eyes from the onslaught of light. It felt like someone was shining a very bright light behind my eyes without caring how sensitive I was to it. One of the maids must have opened the blinds and forgot to close it. As if that was not enough, my mouth felt like cotton balls were in it. I didn't understand why I was feeling the way I was so early in the morning but I knew that it was nothing a glass of water and a hot shower couldn't fix. I was going to have to tell Ava that I was never going to a club again because the morning after wasn't worth it.

"My head hurts so much"

I made the decision to open my eyes so that I could trudge downstairs and look for a way to stop the march past that was happening in my head. Slowly, I opened my eyes and blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the brightness of the room. The first thing I noticed was that the walls were painted a dull grey which was quite unlike my room where the walls were a soft pink.

"Where am I?"

I looked down at myself and noticed that while I was still in the same clothes from the day before, the bed I was laying in wasn't mine. My bed was a king sized, 4 poster bed with so many bed covers that I could burrow under them and feel like I was in heaven. The bed I was laying in however, was just a foam on the floor with some flimsy, thread bare sheet used to cover it. I sat up sharply. Way too sharply that I felt a fierce pounding at the back of my skull which made me hold my head in my hands.

"Easy there, Cecile"

The voice of a man in the room with me made me forget about the pain in my head as I looked up at him. He was seated on the only chair in the room.

"Who are you and what do you want from me?"

I asked as I sat up more and pulled my legs closer to my body. How did he even know my name? He crossed his one legs, one over the other as he reclined better into the chair.

"I'm hurt that you don't remember me. We had a great time last night"My heart fell to my stomach. I looked down at myself immediately. My clothes were still in their place but it was very possible that he had his way with me and put my clothes back on. If he did indeed touch me though, wasn't I supposed to feel some type of way since it was going to be my first time?

"Oh, I don't mean that. Wait, do you really not remember anything from our time together?"

He inclined his head as he looked at me before running his eyes up and down my body.

"He wasn't lying when he said that one pill was enough. Perhaps I should have believed him"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth before looking back at me.

"I can't tell if it's a good or bad thing that you can't remember last night"In all that he was saying, there was only one thing that was standing out to me and that was the first thing he said about a pill.

"You drugged me?"

My eyes were wide in astonishment.

"Of course I did, Princess. How else was I to get you here?"

He was smiling and shrugging like we were talking about something as mundane as the weather and not him practically drugging me and then kidnapping me. The way he called me Princess irked me because it was not said in an endearing tone but a mocking one.

"I want to go home. Take me home right now"

My voice was resolute. I didn't know what game he was playing or what he wanted from me but all I wanted was to get away from him and go back to my fathers house.

"Sorry, Princess but you won't be going home anytime soon"He got to his feet and adjusted the suit that he was wearing.

"My father would never let you get away with this. He will comb through the city for me"I really didn't know how things like that worked. I didn't know how my father who was a mere money lender was going to comb through the city for me as i bluffed but that was the only thing I could put my hope in.

"Good thing you brought up your father because he owes me a great debt that he hasn't been able to give back"

My father owed him? No, my father didn't owe anyone. Instead, people owed my father lots and lots of money.

"You're holding me here because of some money that my father gave to you? Why would you borrow some money when you can't pay back?"

He chuckled before putting one hand into his trouser pocket.

"I see that you have no idea who your father really is"What was he on about? Of course I knew my father and I knew him very well.

"My father is a money lender, the biggest one in Moscow and the whole of Russia"He shook his head at me and chuckled again like there was some joke I was not aware of.

"Maybe if we met under different circumstances, we would have made things work and had more drinks. Not spiked ones of course"

There, I knew that there was something familiar about him. He was the one who came up to myself and Ava while we were at the bar of the club and offered to buy us a drink.

"What did you do to my friend, Ava?"

"I had no use for her so I disposed of her somewhere else"My heart stopped for a moment at his words. Did he mean that he killed Ava? No, I wasn't going to let him feed me with those lies of his. I had to believe that Ava wasn't dead.

"Just wait till my father finds you. He'll turn you over to the police without a second thought"

Again, he shook his head at me before walking to the door. Resting one hand on the doorknob, he turned to me.

"You've really led the life of a Princess. Too bad all that's about to change"

He opened the door and two burly men that were outside walked in. I scurried off the bed when I saw that they were headed towards me. However, despite how small I was, I was no match for them no matter how much I tried to get past them. They caught up with me and seized me by the arms.

"See you later, Princess"I saw the ghost of a smile on his lips just before my vision went black and I fell limp in the arms of one of the men.