by A. Zavarelli
“You don’t look so hot now,” he says, and I wonder if my ears are damaged because his voice echoes at first, but then the room sways around him too so maybe it’s not my ears but my brain that’s damaged.
He lets go of my hair, and I hear him walk away behind me.
My head bobs down before I can force it back up.
I’m in a huge space. A warehouse. A deserted one. Dust-covered machinery lines the walls, the floor was torn up in places, and most of the windows high up blown out. Graffiti marks many of the walls, and I think that black spot on the floor a little farther is where someone once made a fire. Maybe homeless people trying to stay warm.
There’s a dripping sound in the distance and something else. Something like rushing water.
No, not water. Traffic. Which means people.
We’re not completely isolated. If I can get out—
“You go by Kat or Katie or what?”
He’s not far behind me, but when I try to turn to look at him, an almost electrical pain shoots down my spine, and I can’t.
My thought of escape fades. I can’t even turn my head. To run, even if I could get out of the chair he’s taped me to, would be impossible. Not that I’m getting out of the chair. There’s duct tape layered around my chest and shoulders and again at my legs binding me to it.
“I could smash your head in with this and be finished with it, you know?” he asks me as he comes back into view holding a brick in his hand.
I eye that brick, lick my lips, and try to swallow so I can talk.
“But what would be the fun in that?” he asks, dropping it to the ground. The thunk it makes when it lands makes me wince.
“My mother.” I need information. Anything. And I need to buy time for Lev to find me. Because he must be looking for me by now. He’ll find me. Won’t he? He and Gleb will find me. They have to.
Hot tears sting my eyes.
What if they do, and it’s too late, and he kills Lev too? Or both of them. What will happen to Josh?
“Aww. Poor baby. Are you sad?” He brings his face inches from mine, tilting it to the side, feigning concern.
He’s going to kill me. I know it.
This won’t end well for me.
“Are you scared, Kat?”
“You killed my mother.” My voice has steel in it. I don’t know how. Maybe the hate I feel for this man gives me strength.
“I did. Yes. She was a two-bit whore, though. No great loss.”
His words are so careless, so unfeeling. A lost human life is no great loss? My mother’s life?
I draw my head back and do the only thing I can bound as I am. I spit in his face.
It lands square on his cheek, and I know he didn’t expect that. And I know the moment he straightens up that I’ll pay for it. Using the back of his hand, he wipes my spit away, and when he meets my eyes again, I see pure rage.
He uses the hand he just wiped his face with to slap me. It comes down so hard across my cheek that it sends my chair falling over, and my head bouncing off the concrete floor. Everything goes dark again, and I think this is it. This must be it.
“Although…” he starts. Hauling my chair upright again, he takes my face in both hands to make me look up at him. My vision is fading, though. Coming and going. “It’s not like she worked the streets. She was the kind of whore who only fucked men with money. Stay with me, Kat.” He gives my face two lighter slaps. “Or this won’t be much fun. I’ll tell you what.” He steps away, and I try to look up at him. “I’ll give my nephew a call. Get him on his way. The way things are looking, you aren’t going to be hanging on for much longer.”
He walks away, and my head droops, my eyes closing. I taste blood when I lick my swollen, tender lip, and I can’t open one eye at all anymore.
I hear him talk.
And then I hear Lev.
I make a sound. I want to tell him to take care of Josh. To tell Josh that I love him and that I’m sorry. But all I can manage is a low moan. I can’t even lift my head anymore.
“Where were we?” Vasily asks.
Again, I’m not sure how long I’ve been out because he’s tapping my face to get my attention.
“That’s right, your mother. She was a high-end escort.”
What?
“Did you know that? Somehow, she got connected with Katerina Mikhailov, though. Maybe at a club or something, who knows? And then she met Gleb. How do I know this, you ask? Or you would ask if you could talk.” He chuckles at his own joke. He has his hand in my hair again, tugging my head backward. “I said stay with me, for fuck’s sake. You don’t want me to have to go get your little boy, do you?”
I shake my head and try to say Josh’s name, but it comes out as a gurgle of blood that drips down my chin.
“What’s that? Got your attention? Josh, right? Cute kid. Looks like my side of the family.”
“Stay away…”
“That’s how I got her to do it, you know,” he continues, pulling up a chair to sit across from me. “Told her I’d tell Gleb about her past. He wouldn’t want to be fucking a prostitute, after all.”
My mother was a prostitute?
“I mean, who knows if you’re even his. She’d spread her legs for anyone who looked twice.”
He stands then and cocks his head to the side.
“Your boyfriend sure is taking his time, isn’t he? Let’s keep this interesting,” he says, coming to me, pulling my head back.
“Open your eyes and look at me. I want you to see me when I do this.”
I don’t have control of myself, though. Doesn’t he know that?
“Think about Josh. I know I am.”
That makes my good eye open, and I see his wicked grin.
“Just in case things go south, this one’s for him,” he says. He smashes a fist into my belly so hard, it knocks the breath from my lungs and would send the chair toppling backward if he didn’t have me by my hair.
I can’t catch my breath. The only thing holding me upright is the tape when he lets me go, and I just wheeze as I try to get air, as I try to manage this new pain.
“If my nephew managed to put another bastard in there, Kat, know that it’s dead.”
21
Lev
“Where is she?” Gleb gets out of the SUV idling at the curb and comes to stand beside me. “What’s taking so long?”
I can hardly speak past the tension in my throat. It’s been ten minutes. The elevators can get crowded around this time of day, but it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s happening. It’s the same sick feeling swirling in my gut when I headed home to my mother fifteen years ago.
She always showed up to pick me up after work even though it was only a short subway ride home. She was afraid I’d get mugged or shot if she didn’t come to get me herself. But that day, I stood outside the store where I stocked groceries to help with the bills, and the seconds ticked by, one after another, until I felt like I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I knew when I walked into the door of our apartment before I ever saw her. On my way home, I’d already vomited twice. It was a sickness, creeping into my veins, blackening my vision and igniting a fever I couldn’t shake. The fever has returned, and my limbs are unnaturally stiff as I walk toward the elevator bank with Gleb right behind me. He’s still talking, and I can’t hear a word he’s fucking saying.
“Josh,” I croak. “Someone needs to stay with Josh.”
Maxim appears out of nowhere, and I forgot that he mentioned he was going to drop by today. “I’ll watch the kid, Lev. Go get your woman.”
I nod, but Gleb hesitates, gesturing for his men to watch over Maxim while I punch the button to call the elevator. It feels like it takes forever. Too goddamn long. I’m about to head for the stairs when the light finally blinks, and I shove my way in through the people trying to get off. One of the passengers glares at me, holding me up.
“Excuse you!” he snaps.
“Get the fuck off!” I roar.
“Stay calm,” he says, but even his voice is shaking. He feels it too.
The elevator ascends to our floor, and I push through the doors as soon as they open, my feet slapping against the floor as I count the doors. When I reach ours, I fumble with the key card, trying unsuccessfully to unlock it three times before Gleb snatches it from me.
“Let me do it.”
His hand is steadier than mine, and I don’t know what that says about me. I just know that I need to get to Kat. And the second the door opens, I’m calling out for her, but she doesn’t answer.
Gleb and I enter the suite, our eyes darting around the empty space. He checks Josh’s bedroom while I head for the bathroom. Everything looks the same way we left it; even Josh’s suit is still hanging up to dry. But when my eyes drift over the mirror and the sink, I know that nothing is the same.
It hits me like a spear straight through the heart. I feel my knees colliding with the floor as I grapple with my breath. This can’t be real. It can’t fucking be real. But I thrust my body forward, sliding my fingers through the crimson liquid, and my stomach clenches, threatening to spill the contents of our breakfast.
Blood. Kat’s blood.
“Lev?” Gleb’s footsteps pause when he sees me, and when I look up at him, the color drains from his face. “What the fuck?”
“She’s gone,” I choke out. “She’s gone.”
“How could you let this happen?” Gleb howls, shoving me back until I collapse in a heap. He bends down, clutching my collar, screaming in my face. “You let him get to her!”
I can’t speak. I can’t even argue. Because I shouldn’t have let her go alone. I should have followed her. I should have done so many things differently. But I didn’t. And now she’s gone.
“You told me you would protect her!” Gleb comes at me again, and this time, he throws a punch. It hits me square in the jaw, jarring me from my grief for a split second, and before I know it, I’m punching him back.
We’re in a heap on the bathroom floor, wrestling as we scream at each other when Maxim’s voice interrupts us.
“Lev, snap the fuck out of it.” He yanks me away from Gleb, and the old man wipes the blood from his lip while I drag a hand through my hair. And when our gazes collide again, I recognize the raw pain in his, and I know he can see it in mine.
“This isn’t the way,” Gleb murmurs. “We need to work together. Let’s get it together. He couldn’t have gotten far.”
“Where’s Josh?” I ask Maxim as I glance around the room, looking for any other clues.
“He’s safe. Gleb’s guys bought him a milkshake downstairs. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“We need to get him out of here.” I exit the room with Gleb and Maxim not far behind.
“My guys can take him back to the compound. Nobody can get to him there.”
I hesitate, and Maxim squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll go with him, Lev. If that’s what you want.”
“Please,” I croak.
He nods, and we pile into the elevator, the silence swallowing us up as we stew in our own thoughts. I can’t accept that Kat’s gone. Not yet. Whatever happened to her, there’s still time. That’s what I keep telling myself as we step into the lobby and Gleb starts shouting orders at his men.
I find Josh sitting by the door, drinking a milkshake just like they said.
“Can we go swimming now?” he asks, eyes shining up at me with an innocence that shatters my fucking soul.
“Soon, buddy.” I force myself to smile for him. “There’s something I have to take care of. But Maxim is going to go with you to Gleb’s house, okay? Then I’ll be there just as soon as I can.”
“What about Mommy?” he asks.
I choke on the lies I don’t want to tell him, but Gleb saves me, kneeling beside me. “She’ll be there just as soon as she can, little soldier. Don’t you worry, okay? Now you go to my house. You tell the housekeeper anything you want, and she will make it for you. It’s better than Disneyland, I promise.”
Josh smiles and nods. “Okay.”
I pick him up and squeeze him tight before handing him off to Maxim, our eyes locking with unspoken understanding.
“Take care of my boy.”
“Pause it there.” Gleb squints at the screen, examining the man on the hotel’s security footage. The guy operating it looks scared shitless, but Gleb threw a few hundred bucks his way, and we’ve been staring at this goddamn thing for far too long trying to find Vasily. So far, nothing has panned out, and this could take all fucking day at this rate.
“I’m going to do another walk around,” I tell him. I need to dispel some of this nervous energy building up in me like a bomb, and I can’t just stand here twiddling my fucking thumbs. I know it’s unlikely that Kat is still in the hotel, but right now, it’s all I can do.
Gleb waves me off, and I head into the parking garage again, ransacking my mind for any ideas of where Vasily would take her. I know all of his haunts, but he’s a wanted man now. His friends, his soldiers, they’ve all cut ties with him after Gleb ordered a bounty on his head. He’s backed into a fucking corner, and he’s grieving, and he could be anywhere right now.
I scan the cars again, looking for something Vasily would drive. I check for tire marks, or some other sign that Kat was here. Anything that could help. Desperation claws at me, scorching every nerve in my body. I want to slam my fist into the brick wall. I want to cut Vasily’s dick off and shove it down his throat until he chokes, and then I want to bring him back to life and do it all over again.
“Come on, Kat,” I whisper. “Give me a sign. Anything, baby. Please.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and when I check the screen, it’s a New York number. The organ in my chest that’s merely keeping me alive right now works overtime pumping blood into my veins at a frantic pace when I slide my finger across the screen to answer.
“How does it feel?” Vasily’s voice slithers across the line. “How does it fucking feel, Lev?”
“Where is she?” I growl. “Where the fuck is she?”
“Right now?” He sneers. “She’s bleeding out on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Can you guess which one? There are a lot in this city. Maybe you can still make it here in time.”
“I’ll fucking destroy you.” My fingers grip the phone so hard it almost snaps in half. “I’ll cut every appendage from your body and make you beg for death. It won’t be quick. It won’t be easy—”
“Neither will hers,” Vasily answers. “I want you to think about what happened to Andrei. That was a fucking picnic compared to what I’m going to do to your precious fucking whore.”
Emotion chokes my voice, and it takes everything inside me to try to keep a rational head. “What do you want, Vasily? Quit playing games and tell me.”
“Is Gleb with you?” he asks.
“He’s in the hotel.”
“Show me,” Vasily orders. “Put yourself on video.”
I take the phone from my ear and pull up the video screen so he can see me, and within seconds, I’m met by his ugly, sneering face.
“Satisfied?” I show him the empty garage behind me.
“Get in your car and come to the address I text you. Come alone, and don’t fuck with me. I have eyes on you, Lev. If you tell Gleb, I’ll fucking kill her without a second thought. If you do what I say, then I’ll make you a deal. Your life for hers. So long as you get here in time.”
“I’ll come,” I tell him. “But you’ll leave her alone until I get there.”
“No deal.” Vasily shakes his head. “Do you think I don’t know you and Gleb murdered my son? Your little bitch gets the same. Every second you waste getting here is another second I’ll be torturing her. So quit fucking around and prepare to make peace with your maker. Because when I’m through with you today, there will be nothing left but scraps for the pigs.”
“Text me the
goddamn address,” I snarl, yanking my keys from my pocket. “And think twice before you touch her, old man. Because this ends today. Me and you. Man to fucking man. Are we clear?”
The phone shifts a little, and Vasily’s face disappears from the screen before an image of Kat pops up. She’s bound to a chair, duct-taped across the mouth, blood coating her hair.
“Run, run,” Vasily taunts. “Time’s a-wasting.”
The call ends before I can say anything else, and I run to the SUV, firing it up just as the text with the address comes through. I plug it into my GPS on my way out of the garage, screeching out into New York City traffic.
My nerves are shot, and the time estimate on the phone isn’t doing me any favors. Vasily is ten miles away, but that could take me an hour in this clusterfuck.
“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the steering wheel as traffic comes to a crawl.
My phone rings again, and this time it’s Gleb. I stare at the screen for a few long seconds before I dismiss it. Traffic lurches forward again. The streets are a goddamn nightmare. Between traffic stops, I check alternate routes, subway timetables, and walking distance. Driving is still my best bet. I try to stay calm. Two more miles. My phone keeps ringing. Gleb sends me a text.
Where the fuck are you?
I concentrate on the road, my knuckles turning white beneath my grip on the steering wheel.
Kat’s alive.
The words play over and over in my mind like a mantra. I repeat them the entire way there. When I’m a block away, I find the first parking spot available and slip into it, jamming the SUV into gear and yanking the keys from the ignition.
Kat’s alive.
My feet slap against the pavement as I run to the warehouse, looking for a way in.
Kat’s alive.
The exit door in the back is cracked, and I slip inside. My phone rings again. The barrel of Vasily’s gun taps the back of my skull as he steps out from the shadows.
“Turn it off. Now.”
I turn off the phone and meet his gaze. “Where is she?”
A smile curls across his face as he points toward the shadows. A faint moan bleeds into my ears, and I lunge forward before Vasily yanks me back.