Refrain

by Lana Sky

  One of them spots me and reaches for his gun. “Name?”

  I don’t bother to give him one. Rather by recognition or sheer confusion, he doesn’t pull the trigger as I brush past. Piotr is waiting for me in his study, but tonight…he isn’t alone.

  My nostrils flare, catching a feminine scent that belongs only in my memories. Not here. Sweet like roses. Soft like the sunshine we used to play in as children. Anna. Her presence floods my body seconds before I register her standing there beside his desk.

  Her slight frame is balancing upon an impossibly high pair of white heels. He dressed her head to toe in the color—a gown that swallows her slender body, formed of swaths of white chiffon and lace. The maid must have arranged her flaming hair into a single braid that drapes her shoulder.

  But no amount of expensive silk or hairdressing could disguise what lurks behind those unique navy eyes. Nothing. Blank. Emptiness.

  “Do you like your present, Ksei?” Piotr gestures from my sister to me. There’s something in his other hand. Round. Metallic. He raises it when I don’t answer and strikes a button on the front with his thumb.

  A buzzing sound hums in my eardrums. Then Anna jerks back, her fingers twitching at her sides. There’s something around her neck that I notice only now. It’s tucked against the neckline of her dress. A thin strip of black leather, secured by a metal buckle. A collar.

  “Say your name,” Piotr commands.

  “Anna,” the girl says woodenly on cue.

  God. It’s exactly how I always imagined her sounding had she lived to be old enough. Soft. Delicate. Little Anna. Everything is the same but the pain.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Tsk tsk,” Piotr remarks, shaking his head. Seven years later and I still recognize the dangerous signs of his disappointment. So does Anna. She inhales sharply as he speaks again. “Your full name.”

  “Annastasia Olenova.” She sounds so young. So terrified.

  “What are you doing?” I don’t know how I speak. Piotr’s last assault was child’s play. This is death. My heart stops beating. My lungs seize. Somehow, I’m still standing. Still able to listen.

  I can’t help but listen.

  “Well.” Piotr flicks the button on his tiny remote, ensuring I see each deliberate motion. “I will ask you again. Do you like your present, Ksei?”

  “Y-yes.” I spit the word out, unable to move. Unwilling to scream.

  Anna stares beyond me. From her posture alone, I sense that the trigger to her pain is virtually in my hands.

  With sickening dread, I realize just what game he’s chosen to play.

  “Say it again,” he says sharply. “Like you mean it, Ksei.”

  “I like my—” A high-pitched wail pierces my words. “Stop!”

  The girl’s whimpers are abruptly cut off and the only noise to flood the room is that of my own erratic breathing. And my sobs. They rip from me, unable to be contained—breaking the one rule I always maintained in Piotr’s presence. Never show weakness. Never let him see your pain.

  I won’t. I am.

  My legs can’t hold me. The stench of cigarette smoke fades, and my fingers flail, searching for something. Anything.

  Cool fingers grab mine, yanking me upright before I can hit the floor. “Ksei…”

  I look up.

  His smile is beautifully restrained, even as his eyes glow with a predatory gleam. “My precious angel.” His hand lands on my shoulder, the tips of his fingers lingering over my skin. It’s like the world’s purest cocaine laced with arsenic—the difference between his touch and Espisido’s is night and death.

  My skin crawls, goosebumps forming. My heartbeat quickens. I want to move. My body refuses; she’ll suffer.

  “Tell me—Are you pleased?” he asks. “Now, we can be together, always. A perfect family.”

  Family? Bile coats the back of my throat at the prospect. “I…”

  Anna flinches, reacting to something beyond her collar. A noise? Then I hear it. Loud. Sporadic. Gunshots. There are too many of them to be just from Piotr’s small group of soldaty. The floor vibrates with a million differing sensations. Footsteps. Thuds.

  There’s no time to think. I lunge, wrestling a smaller body to the floor as nearly a dozen figures burst into the office.

  “Clear it out,” one of the strangers commands. A man. His voice is deep, resonating down my spine. I can’t see his face, but there is something familiar in his tall, imposing build.

  Four of the men take off through the rest of the suite. I hear more gunshots. Shouts. Screams. My mind races as I try to picture a fitting scenario. It’s an attack.

  From whom?

  Jose? They aren’t wearing the beaten leather duds of the Cartel or the stained, brutal clothing of Arno’s Gardai. Just black. Like shadows.

  “Clear!” The shout comes from somewhere deeper in the suite, and the man I assume to be the leader heads for the main door.

  The moment he pulls it open, another figure steps inside. Someone smaller than he is. Slender. Unlike the rest, she’s not wearing bulky, nondescript clothing.

  A dark sweater and jeans cling to her slender frame. Paired with black hair cut to her shoulders and wide, hazel eyes, she could be a student who’s wandered into the wrong suite. But, even from the yards of space that separate us, I can sense the darkness in her gaze. It shines like a beacon. A demon knows another demon, after all.

  “Did you find him?” she asks the taller man beside her.

  As if on cue, two of the intruders approach her with none other than a smirking Piotr Petrov marshaled between them. He’s bleeding from his lip but otherwise looks none the worse for wear, even as his captors shove him to his knees. Behind him, at least a dozen trembling women in maid uniforms are ushered through the foyer and out into the hall.

  “Hello, Piotr.” The woman in black smiles, but with her face half bathed in shadow, it resembles a snarl more. “You don’t remember me,” she says. An accent laces her words, though I can’t place it exactly. “Maybe this will refresh your memory?” She takes a step closer and lifts the front of her sweater, heedless of the men, dead and living, who crowd the room.

  She doesn’t reveal anything more than her torso, but I suck in a breath when I see what mars the golden flesh.

  “After all,” she adds before lowering her shirt, “Vinny did get the idea from you.”

  My lower back throbs in sympathy, recognizing the ache of an owner’s possession. That name she said… It rings a bell. Vinny. Vinny. Vincent.

  “Stacatto’s bitch,” Piotr says in English. “I remember you. He used to pick out your toys himself.”

  The woman flinches. One of her hands flexes, and as if following some telepathic command, the man beside her places something in her grasp. Her fingers close over it securely, and seconds later, another feral smile shapes her mouth.

  “I thought I would return the favor,” she says, her soft voice adding an ominous edge to her words. “Vinny said that you always preferred to mark your women on the face to create the best possible effect. I have to admit. I’ve seen your work. It suits you well.”

  My throat feels raw with the memory. Fight it back, Ksei. Swallow it… I can’t as my trembling fingers graze my forehead. A mark on the face was the equivalent of a death sentence in Piotr’s world. It was the stamp of a discarded product. You were nothing.

  “What do you want?” Piotr demands. Even with his men lying dead around him, he doesn’t bat so much as an eyelash. He’s thinking.

  I know that look. It’s as if the entire universe knows it too, taunting me with a low buzzing sound that hums through my skull.

  “Wait,” Anna hisses into my ear the moment I tense. Her tiny hands grasp my arms, drawing me tight to her side. “Wait…”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” the woman declares. She approaches him slowly. Only when she’s just beyond his reach does her hand lash out, catching his cheek with the end of her blade. Digging deep. Blood flie
s, painting those handsome, chiseled features in shades of red. “I just wanted you to know,” she explains as his head jerks to the side with the force of the blow. She left him with a present he will always remember—a jagged edge to his infamous smile. “I just wanted you to see who pulled the trigger.”

  “Is that so?” Piotr laughs, spitting blood as he fights to stay upright. His voice is a snarl, but it’s his unstable chuckle that rouses every flight instinct in my body.

  The buzzing grows louder. Swallowing me. Smothering me.

  “Wait!” Only Anna’s weight is enough to pin me down.

  “Don’t worry,” the woman says. “Your helicopter is still on its way, filled with your skilled guards.” She pauses for a delicate laugh when he doesn’t interject. “Your plan was to have them come in through the roof, yes? I’ve only changed their course of entry by a hair.”

  She smiles. Piotr doesn’t.

  She extends her free hand and the man beside her places something new onto it—a two-way radio like the kind used by a patrol officer on the beat.

  She brings it to her mouth. Inhales. “Now.”

  Two things happen simultaneously. One, the distant buzzing grows into a deafening roar and streaks of colored light flood the room. Greens. Reds…

  The massive bay window provides an impressive view of a helicopter headed straight for the building. Piotr’s private escape route, the one he only used in the direst of circumstances. I can make out every nuance of the ebony shape before it suddenly rears up and…

  CRASH! The entire building shakes. The lights flicker. A lion roars. A monster. The sound claws through my entire being as glass flies in every direction, and in the midst of the chaos, the strange men start to leave. They move quickly, unconcerned by the cacophony of sirens going off. Door alarms. Fire alarms. Fire?

  The dark-haired woman stands tall amid the chaos, her eyes seeming to glow as the lights flicker and dim. “When you see Vinny in hell, tell him…” She draws her own weapon this time from the back pocket of her jeans. A gun. She aims it surely over Piotr’s forehead. “Tell him that I understand now. I understand just what kept him going. What fueled him. What terrified him. It was never me.”

  She raises the gun…and, suddenly, Anna weighs nothing. I’m scrambling out from under her, crawling over bloodied bodies in my haste.

  “No! W-wait.”

  She and Piotr both turn to look at me. Her face is emotionless, but my tormentor is smiling. Beaming. Even through the blood. Through the humiliation of being outsmarted. He’s still won the only prize he seems to want. I can’t bear to watch him be killed.

  Not when I’m the one who should do it.

  “P-please.”

  The woman just eyes me, her gaze a twisted reflection of everything I see in myself when I look in the mirror. That rage. That hate. The pain. God, the pain. It swirls through her irises. It consumes her. This Vinny may be dead, but he lives inside her, haunting her every waking moment.

  She’s still not free.

  Without a word, she hands the gun to me, and I take it, my fingers shaking over the metallic surface.

  “We need to go.” The tall man returns to place his hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  She glances back at him and her face changes. It’s that bitter salve I’ve learned to crave—hate. Light. Some of that darkness clears for a second. Maybe it’s long enough.

  “Okay.” She turns back to me. “You have ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes. It’s longer than any ounce of freedom Piotr has ever allowed me.

  My thumb caresses the trigger of the gun. Bound as he is, Piotr doesn’t have a chance in hell of overpowering me. Not with his kingdom turning to ashes around us. I can already feel the heat. Smell the smoke. Fire. Brimstone.

  There are only a handful of unoccupied floors that separate this suite from the roof. At least, now, this dwelling will resemble what it has always been for me—hell.

  “Put the gun down, Ksei,” he tells me. “You don’t want to hurt me…and even if you did…I will own you, my love, even from hell.” He sounds tired as he says it. So sure. I can’t hurt him. I can’t even kill him.

  I don’t have to.

  “Ksei…” His dangerous tone is back, my old lullaby.

  “You won’t own me ever again.” I drop the pistol at my feet and meet his gaze fully for the first time in so long. I stare deep and see myself reflected back as the lights flicker on and off, off and on.

  By the third flash, I almost see her again. Ksenia, before the brutality of his reign over my body. The girl I used to be. Maybe I will one day find the rest of her again. To give myself a head start, I draw the syringe from my pocket, freeing the needle.

  “You won’t own me or Anna,” I tell Piotr Petrov as I plunge the tip into his neck before he can stand, flooding his veins with the narcotic. It won’t slow him down for long. I know that, even as I turn on my heel and leave him there while the building pitches and sways around us. “Never again.”

  Howls echo around me, those of an angry wolf denied his prey.

  He’ll never stop.

  I’ll always have to run.

  But he won’t haunt me anymore. I won’t carry him within my skin. I won’t be like her…

  A monstrous roar shatters my eardrums, and I flinch in recognition. Gunshot. Whirling around, I find Anna, clothed in white, holding a gun between both hands. Piotr’s in front of her, still kneeling despite the hole blown clear through his head.

  “Holy shit—”

  “He didn’t deserve it,” she says, her voice high-pitched and broken. “He didn’t deserve it.”

  My footsteps falter as I reach for the gun. Inches from touching her, I change my mind and grab her arm instead, pulling her into me. She drops the weapon on her own, and it falls without going off. I know at the back of my mind that there isn’t time for this now. Still, I can’t resist breathing her in, sensing her familiarity despite the stench of death and smoke.

  “We need to go.”

  Together, we move, following an unseen path through smoke and flames. The intruders must have set new fires as they left, because there are too many. Everywhere. Screams fill the corridors. Shouts. There are more people in this building than just the scum the Petrovs command. Innocents. Bystanders.

  All dying nonetheless.

  “Move!”

  I can’t see. I can’t breathe…

  “This way! Move!”

  My feet flex on command, one in front of the other as my hand flails for any surface it can use for leverage. Glass. The wall. Cold concrete.

  It feels like an eternity before I blink and find myself exiting through a doorway. Sirens pierce the air amid a deafening array of shouts and screams. One single emotion overrides my shock, however.

  Piotr is dead. I wait for the pain. The memories. Yet I feel nothing. Just the ache as my lungs fight to clear themselves of smoke and a painfully tight grip marshals me away from the building.

  Anna must have made a habit out of escaping from danger in her time living with the Petrovs, because she moves assuredly through the chaos. Like a fallen angel almost, at home in this inferno of death and fear, faltering however as more first responders arrive on the scene.

  “I know where we can go. Somewhere safe,” I add as her eyes widen fearfully. I can’t resist the impulse that makes me finger a red curl escaped from her braid. It’s real. She’s real. “I’m going to keep you safe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Espi

  Jose’s warehouse is on the south side, near the river. Arno doesn’t take any chances, placing at least a dozen men around the perimeter while we wait in the shadows.

  Three hours pass before he realizes it’s a setup, when none of the Cartel show.

  “Fucking Jose,” he snarls before forming a fist and slamming it against the wall of the alley. The thud resonates like a gunshot, but if any men are lying in wait for an ambush, they seem to be deaf as well as invisible. “Where is that mothe
rfucker?”

  He doesn’t have to wonder long. Sirens wail in the distance. Fire trucks. I cock my head, pinpointing the sound as coming from the west end of the city. Apparently, the party got started without us.

  “Shit.” Arno reaches into his pocket for a cell phone and snarls into the receiver the moment someone answers the other end. “You fucking son of a bitch—”

  “Relax, amigo,” Jose says, his voice drifting from the speaker. “Our deal is still good. Your piece-of-shit bar will stand another day. I just needed you out of the way…”

  Arno glances at me, his jaw clenched. “For what?”

  “The fireworks,” Jose replies. “Thanks for babysitting, but I’ll let you in on the secret.”

  Arno hisses between clenched teeth. “Son of a bitch. You gave me the wrong spot.”

  “For insurance,” Jose says. “I know you run with the Russians, but something tells me that you won’t be too sad to learn that one of their strongholds was hit instead of mine.”

  “By who?” Arno demands. “You fucking owe me that much.”

  “Do I?” Jose chuckles. “Relax, Papi. I think you’re well aware of who’s behind this little bonfire. I’ll give you a hint. He looks a bit like little Espisido. Adiós.”

  “The fuck?” Arno tosses the phone against the pavement when Jose hangs up. “That goddamn son of a bitch—”

  “The Russians,” I echo. Namely the Petrovs. “I need to go.”

  “Espi? What the hell?”

  I’m already halfway down an alley before Arno catches up.

  “Slow the fuck down!” He tugs on my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks. “The first fucking thing we need to do is make sure that Dante…”

  It’s like flipping a switch. Dante. If Jose gave Arno the wrong location, then his “ambush” might be lying in wait somewhere else. If Dante really is behind all of this shit, then he’ll be caught in the crossfire.

  “I know where the Russians had their main headquarters,” Arno says, jerking his chin toward that very direction, I assume. “A hotel downtown. We need to go.”

  I follow him without asking questions. We take one of his trucks while the others head back to the club in case Jose decides not to keep his promise.