He lost consciousness several times, only to wake again. Time felt like it was rushing past and standing still all at once. He couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or awake. Each time his vision cleared, Zhenya was there, straddling him and holding him down. Waves of unbearable pain surged through him, and he screamed until he passed out, again and again.
It wasn’t Taekjoo’s will that moved his body, but Zhenya’s. He completely controlled Taekjoo, strung him up, and jerked him around at his whim. Taekjoo’s throat felt so raw that even gulping hurt. He couldn’t feel his groin or buttocks, and he didn’t even dare try to move his legs. Sticky fluids clung messily around the cleft of his ass and the rim of the hole. His whole groin was slick, and if he moved the wrong way, it felt like the mess would start running down his thighs.
Soon enough, the bed shifted beneath him as Zhenya climbed back on top. He held a thick, hand-rolled cigar between his fingers. After taking a slow drag from the lit cigar, he sat sideways next to Taekjoo.
“Why don’t we start clearing up your questions, one by one? It’d be a shame to die without knowing the full story, right? I’m not completely heartless, you know.”
How thoughtful of him. Rage prickled at the corners of Taekjoo’s eyes, making them twitch. His limp hands curled into tight fists. Zhenya watched him with amusement, then suddenly reached out. Taekjoo flinched reflexively. Zhenya ignored it and kept reaching, casually playing with his disheveled hair.
“Let’s start with Anastasia—the one you and your team are so desperate to find.”
Taekjoo’s dull eyes sharpened with sudden clarity. Zhenya sneered, as if mocking Taekjoo for being unable to let go of his sense of duty, even now.
“There is no Anastasia. There never was.”
Taekjoo furrowed his brows. That can’t be true. Zhenya was obviously toying with him again.
“Cut the bullshit. Then what the hell is SS-29 supposed to be?”
“SS-29, huh... I don’t know how you ended up mistaking that for Anastasia, but comparing her to a simple ballistic missile such as SS-29 is just plain insulting.”
Taekjoo’s face fell blank at the nonchalant reply. Was SS-29 really just a missile? He knew Russia coded its ICBMs with the letters SS followed by numerical digits. Still, the information Taekjoo had gathered at the Bogdanov estate had resembled Anastasia so much that he had been convinced they were the same thing. It had been hailed as having unprecedented firepower, although Taekjoo assumed that at the end of the day, it was just another nuclear weapon.
But now he was being told that the two were completely unrelated? That Anastasia never existed, and he’d simply been fooled by Zhenya into believing otherwise? Questions piled up in his head, consuming his thoughts.
“The Anastasia project failed a long time ago. The design was riddled with flaws. They wasted an unthinkable amount of money, time, and manpower trying to make it work. Still, I wouldn’t call it a total failure. Just getting the rumor out there that it existed—or was close to completion—was enough to shake the entire world. The fact that both the U.S. and South Korea are sending agents like you proves how powerful that illusion was.”
Zhenya chuckled and rolled Taekjoo’s body over. Taekjoo was so drained that his body was flipped without any resistance. Zhenya’s hand moved up from Taekjoo’s calf, slowly gliding upward before suddenly slipping between the thighs. Taekjoo’s limp penis was in Zhenya’s grip. Playing idly with the soft flesh, Zhenya spoke.
“Still, no need to be too disappointed. Have you heard about Russia’s last princess, Anastasia? There’s still debate about how she died. The royal family’s end was cloaked in mystery, and their bodies were never properly recovered. The widely accepted story is that they were executed in a basement, and their bodies were dumped into a mine shaft afterward. That’s the version most people believe—a tragic end for the princess, and for the rest of the Romanovs. But you know, just because something’s widely believed doesn’t mean it’s true. When facts are uncertain, they are bound to give birth to fakes. After Anastasia was presumed dead, many women claimed to be her. Anna Anderson was one of them. At first, people dismissed her as a fraud who was after the royal family’s fortune. But eventually, evidence and testimonies started to suggest she might actually have been the princess. So, what do you think happened in the end?”
Zhenya paused in the middle of his sentence and turned the question on Taekjoo. When Taekjoo didn’t answer, he suddenly squeezed Taekjoo’s penis hard.
“Hmm?”
Zhenya growled, forcing a response out of Taekjoo.
“Argh! What do I care!” Taekjoo yelled.
Zhenya laughed, clearly amused by the strong reaction. Then he gently began stroking Taekjoo’s balls, swollen from the recent pressure. The round pouches were crushed and kneaded carelessly in his pale hand. Though the touch was tender at the moment, there was no telling when it might turn rough again. Taekjoo’s thighs curled inward instinctively, and Zhenya slid his hand deeper between them as he continued his explanation.
“Tedious court battles ensued and continued for decades. People took sides, split between those who believed Anastasia had returned and those who didn’t. Time passed, and Anna Anderson died. It might have been a meaningless life, but it did leave its mark, keeping people wondering for years if Princess Anastasia might really be alive.”
What on earth is he trying to say? Taekjoo couldn’t understand where Zhenya was going with this.
“In every Russian folk tale, there is one figure who always appears. It’s Koschey the Immortal. True to his name, he’s powerful, and nothing can kill him. He’s the obstacle the hero must overcome, the very symbol of hardship. In every story, Koschey kidnaps a beautiful woman, and the hero storms into his castle to rescue her, but fails every time. Of course, even Koschey has his Achilles heel, and only he knows what it is. Every story ends with Koschey being slain by the hero because he falls for a beautiful woman and foolishly reveals his own weakness.”[10]