by SR Jones
I would have never brought us to the United Kingdom if I had known the bastard himself would shortly after make it his home. Luckily for us, he lives and is based in the north of the country. Here in London we are safe, I believe; if no one finds out who we are. However, you ought to avoid the Russian community. There are others who worked with Allyov who may mean you harm. One is a mob boss called Kyrylo Voloshin; avoid him at all costs or anyone associated with him. The city is big. I have changed my appearance, and we have new cast-iron identities. No one should ever find out who you are or where you came from.
Remember this advice. Keep your head down, my darling child. Do not attract too much attention. Remember how I showed you to hide your astonishing light and beauty. You must do this in this life; this is your cross to bear. It doesn’t pay for people with our pasts to garner too much attention.
Live a good and simple life, as I did in this country. If you find a way to be happy here, maybe a family one day, a good man to care for you, then it will all have been worth it.
I love you more than life itself. This is my goodbye to you. My darling child.
Love you,
Papa.
He left his diary as a warning to Violet about Allyov. He didn’t tell her of what he’d done, but surely, she must know? She had to have found out the truth of her past, or why else would she have been in Allyov’s workplace? She’d have stayed far away if she were the little innocent she’s been pretending to be.
Does she know what part her father played in my family’s downfall? A metallic taste floods my mouth, and I realize I’ve bitten my cheek in my anger.
Shit. My head is fucked. Do I give her the benefit of the doubt? But this is all too much of a coincidence. Her, here, in my home. Working for Allyov. Worming her way in right under our noses.
Fucking bitch.
Something dark and deadly unwinds in me, a disgusting miasma of foul energy which builds and builds. I stand and march to the door.
I’m going to find her and give her a chance to explain. One chance.
Climbing the stairs, I keep my footfall quiet. I don’t want her to know I’m heading her way; I want the element of surprise. When I open her bedroom door, she isn’t there. Frowning, I go down the hallway and pause when I see my own bedroom door ajar.
Creeping down the carpeted hall, I stop outside and hold my breath as I slip into the room.
Violet, little miss fucking innocent is crouched down by my bed, and she’s putting something in my bedside drawer.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Chapter 16
Violet
Andrius’ harsh tone and angry words startle me, and I stand so fast I get a dizzy rush.
“Oh, my God.” I put my hand on my chest, trying to soothe my racing heart. “You scared me.”
“I expect so. Now, what. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing?”
I frown, his attitude is … awful. Nothing like the man he’s been these last few days. I gesture to his bedside drawer and feel my face heat with the stupidity of my actions. I thought it would be a nice little surprise. I have placed the drawing of him in his bedside drawer with a note. I know he puts his wallet in there at night as I saw him do it the one evening he brought me in here. I know he told me to stay out of his room, but that was when we first arrived. I only wanted him to find the note and the gift from me.
He’s bought me so much, and I don’t have any money to return the favor with, but I can give him this.
A gift from the heart.
“It’s a gift,” I say to him.
His eyes darken. “Oh, why?”
“B-b-b-because you bought me all those things. I wanted to get something for you,” I stammer. Nervous as hell suddenly.
“I don’t need a gift, I already got one. You.” His tone is horrible, cruel almost.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’d like to know the answer to that question too. Why are you snooping in my room?”
“I was giving you a gift. I sketched a picture, of you.” Tears prick my eyes.
“Where else have you been snooping, little Violet, eh?”
A cold trickle of fear makes its way down my spine. I wasn’t snooping now, but I did try to get into his study earlier, while he was out. Only to see what he knows about me, if anything. I’ve picked a door before, one of the things I practiced as part of my get-Allyov-plan. I couldn’t do it though. Does he know I tried?
“There’s a guilty look if ever I’ve seen one.” He smirks, and it is hard and cold.
“I don’t know what’s going on here.”
“Not a nice feeling is it? To be in the dark. Violet … Babiek.”
I freeze. I can’t breathe. Oh, shit. If my father impressed upon me one damn thing, it was never to let these men know my true name. How does he know?
“Is it true?” he asks.
There’s something off here. The emotion in his voice. Why does he care so much? Is he that attached to Allyov? I thought if he ever found out my plan, he’d be angry, livid, but why the hurt? I can hear it as plain as day.
“It… I … look…”
Something snaps in him. I see it, a shutter comes down, and he turns off the hurt and his eyes are a cold, furious steel.
He crosses the room and grabs me, hauling me behind him by my wrists.
“Andrius, you’re hurting me,” I cry.
“Shut the fuck up; you don’t know the meaning of pain.”
Oh shit, what’s happening here? How did he find out my real name? Does Allyov know?
I thought Andrius felt something for me, that it might protect me if the truth came out. I’d contemplated talking to him, telling him. Thank God I hadn’t because I clearly underestimated his loyalty to Sergei Allyov and the crime organization he works for.
“Where are we going? Are you taking me to Allyov?”
He barks out a harsh laugh. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You probably think you can twist him around your little finger. Unlike me. Now I know who, what, you really are.”
“What I am, what the hell are you talking about? What am I?”
“You’re a Babiek,” he spits at me.
Okay, so I’m the daughter of a man who Allyov did wrong, but it’s not as if it makes us evil. Allyov, his crew, those who work for him, they are the bad guys in all this.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask again as we reach the bottom of the stairs. Where the hell is Justina when you need her?
“To show you the rest of the house, you haven’t seen it all yet.”
I haven’t?
He reaches the kitchen and opens a door. It’s a cellar head, and he pushes me down in front of him, down the stairs. I have to grab the rail to ensure I don’t fall head first and plummet to my death.
We reach the bottom, and he opens a door, pulling a light chord. I gasp as a barren room opens in front of me, nothing but a few pieces of wood and broken furniture inside the cavernous space. “Why are we down here?”
There’s nothing here to see. I’m panting now with fear, my lungs working as if I’ve run a marathon.
“Because, my darling little liar, you’re going to talk, and I don’t want Justina to hear you scream when I get it out of you.”
“What?” I back away from him. “No, you wouldn’t. You have a code, rules.”
“Relied on that did you, you little witch? I have news for you, Babieks are off limits. All of you—men, women, or children. Now tell me, why are you in my house?”
“You know why? I was given to you. Allyov gave me to you.”
He grabs a handful of my hair and yanks to one side, the pain making me cry out.
“Don’t fucking lie to me; you expect me to think it’s a mere coincidence?”
“I don’t understand.” I try to move my head to lessen the pain on my scalp.
He pushes me backwards until I am against the wall, his hand in my hair remains, and he wraps his other around my throat, holding me immobile,
trapped. We’ve been here before, but now there’s real threat. He squeezes until I can’t get enough air in. I can still breathe, but it’s like sucking air through a straw. I panic and kick my legs, but he uses his bulk to press against me, stop me from fighting back.
“I think you do understand. I was still thinking about giving you the benefit of the doubt, but then I find you snooping in my bedroom, and I know for a fact elsewhere, because your fucking face gave it away. Tell me, Violet. Don’t make me get it out of you.” For a moment something cracks in him. I see it flash across his face. “For both our sakes.”
Oh, he wants me to save his soul, does he? Well, too late. I had started to fall for him, but now I see the monster revealed. How could I have humanized this man? He’s got me, a woman less than half his size, trapped while he half throttles me. Fuck him.
I’d begun to fall in love with him. My fear is replaced by pain so sharp if he wasn’t holding me up, I’d buckle. And by rage too, at myself, at him. I don’t think. I pull back as much as I can with the hard wall behind me and spit in his face.
He lifts his hand, and I brace myself for the impact. I squeeze my eyes closed and my body tenses. The pain doesn’t come.
A crash sounds in front of me. I open my eyes, and he’s tearing the room up. The old bits of furniture in here are flying across the room as he throws them.
He curses and hits the wall, blood blooming on his knuckles.
Christ, he must have broken his hand!
My fear and anger recede for a moment as he pulls back the same fist again and hits the wall with a snarl.
“Andrius.” I run to him, not thinking. “Stop it. You’re going to hurt yourself. Stop it. I don’t understand!” I cry, hysterical almost. “I’m sorry I lied to you.” I hold on to him, clinging to his arms as if I have the strength to stop him from harming himself. “I never meant to get you involved. I only wanted to get revenge for my family, and to do so I knew I had to get to Allyov. I had no idea he’d give me to you. I wanted to tell you, but I know you are loyal to him, and I thought you’d give me back to him, and then I’d be dead. And I’d never have the chance to get revenge for my family, for my mother and sister and my poor father.”
At those words he pushes me off him so violently I go flying backwards, landing on my ass. He stalks me as I crawl back, terrified by the light in his eyes.
“Your poor father? Petro Babiek a poor innocent man?” He gives a hollow laugh. “Petro Babiek, your daddy dearest, was a thug. He wasn’t an innocent targeted by the mob, but my family was.” He pounds his chest so hard on the word my, I worry for his sternum. “My family was fucking innocent, and they refused to pay the scum extorting them, so the scum sent their soldiers to sort them out. Your father, dearest Petro, was the worst of the lot. He raped my sister when she was a child.”
“No,” I scream at him. “No. You’re a fucking liar. My father was a nobody. My mum, my sister, they were burned. My dad was a good man. He brought me here to England, led a simple life, a good life. He was a gentleman. He couldn’t have done that. You’re wrong.”
“I heard him.” Some of the fight has gone out of his voice, and he sounds … broken. “I heard him, Violet. I hid in the closet with my baby sister, and I heard your father rape my sister. Then I heard Kyrylo Voloshin tell him to hurry up so he could finish the job. Your father came, and then Kyrylo put a bullet in her.
Oh God, it’s a lie. It has to be a lie. But why? To what end. What good would such a lie do Andrius, and he isn’t faking the emotion he’s feeling. I shake my head in denial, and my teeth chatter from the unrelenting cold that has been frozen in place in my heart.
“The police know, or at least they know he worked for the mob, for Kyrylo. That’s why you and your father got a new identity here, because he offered information on Kyrylo. I’m amazed that once Kyrylo moved into the London area with his enterprise, your father didn’t leave the city, but I suppose he thought it was safer there, amongst many immigrants to hide. Right under the noses of the people he ratted out. It’s a city of millions; who would find him, right? A lowly baker, a nice, old English gentleman with his pretty little daughter. But not too pretty, eh? Hide your light, my child. And you did, didn’t you? When you first worked for Allyov, you did exactly what your father told you to do. And you expect me to believe the daughter of the man who raped my fucking sister is in my home by coincidence?”
I turn my head to the side just in time to avoid vomiting all over myself. As my stomach contents hit the floor, the door to the cellar bursts open and Justina runs in.
“What the hell?”
She looks at me and then to Andrius. “What the hell is going on? Did you hurt her?” She stares at Andrius as if she doesn’t know him.
He points to me and says bitterly, “She’s Petro Babiek’s daughter.”
“What?” Justina’s face pales. “No, she can’t be. Isn’t he dead? You thought he must be dead.”
“He is … now, but she’s his fucking daughter, and she was after Allyov.”
Justina runs to me and screams out, “You fucking bitch,” before she kicks me in the stomach.
I grunt and bend double, unable to breathe. Fuck, they are going to kill me. These two are going to kill me, and they are wrong. They have to be. Not about who my father is, but about what he did. He couldn’t have done those things.
Andrius grabs Justina and hauls her back, her legs kicking nothing but air as she continues to scream at me about how my father was scum who worked for Kyrylo.
I lift my tear-stained face to Andrius and try to speak through my chattering teeth. “My father, k-k-kept a d-d-iary. I can get it, show it to you. He d-d-didn’t talk in there about hurting anyone. He’s not who you think he is.”
“I know all about his diary.” He sneers. “The man who helped kill my family, who raped my sister, being all poor me. Makes me sick.”
“No,” I say.
“Petro Babiek raped Andrius’ sister, but he was also known for liking young girls, and he was the one out of all the foot soldiers who was feared the most.” Justina fixes me with a cold, hateful glare, calming enough now to stop fighting Andrius.
“How do you know?” I ask not, believing her.
“Because I grew up near where Andrius did. I wasn’t involved in any of that shit, until the day a group of men came for me, but they weren’t linked to Kyrylo or Sergei, who at the time were carving up half of Crimea between them. However, when I was in the brothel, I met a lot of women put there by Kyrylo or his henchmen, and some of those women were a lot older than me. They talked of a man they’d hated called Petro Babiek. Said it was a good day when his family were killed, and he disappeared. To the women in that brothel who knew of your father, Allyov was a hero for what he did. Doubly so because his organization had never trafficked women.”
I retch again, but my stomach is empty.
Justina looks to Andrius. “You’ve got to kill her.”
“What?” Andrius’ shock is clear. “I thought you’d be the one talking me down here.”
“She’s after Allyov, and she’s Babiek’s daughter, so fuck your code in this instance. But, most of all, she knows. She knows all about me, and she knows now all about you because in your fucking despair, you’ve just told her. If she goes to Allyov and tells him your family was murdered by Russian gangsters, don’t you think he’s going to have serious questions to ask of you? Yes, he’s not directly involved in your plans, but you’ve used your position with him to get where you are, to get to those who need to be taken out. You let her live, and she’ll cause no end of trouble.”
Justina starts to cry, and that’s when I know I’m in a whole world of shit. “I hate saying this, don’t know if I’ll ever live with myself for it, but make it quick and painless and tell Allyov she got away. It’s the only way to keep us safe.” She wipes at her nose, studiously avoiding looking at me.
“Fuck.” Andrius kicks another piece of furniture.
He turns to Ju
stina. “You need to go.”
“What?” A look of confusion passes over her striking features.
“Whatever I’m going to do here, you don’t need to be a part of it, plus you need plausible deniability. Go. Go to the shops or something; make sure a lot of people see you.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
He takes out his wallet and passes her a card. “Spend big and leave a trail.”
She nods, and without looking at me again, leaves the room.
Andrius runs a hand through his hair, and it makes it messy and rumpled. “Fuck, Violet.”
He looks at me, and there’s despair in his gaze. I’m frozen with the shock and bursting for the loo, probably due to the whole terrifying experience, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.
“Come on.” He pulls me up and toward him and begins to march me out of the room.
“No, where are you taking me?” I ask. I struggle against him, and he sighs, letting me go.
He reaches around behind his back and pulls a gun out from his waistband holster. Wet warmth trickles down my legs, and I realize in horror that I’ve wet myself.
Andrius glances down and his face twists.
Screw him. He’s made me into nothing more than a sick and piss-covered animal. I think at this moment, I hate him more than anyone, including Allyov. I told myself he’d let me down somehow, betray me, and I was right. His was the biggest betrayal of all.
I vow to face this bullet with some dignity despite the fact I’ve let my bladder go. A final fuck you to him. And I hope it haunts him forever. I calmly walk to him and place my forehead to the barrel of his gun.
He jerks it away.
“God, Violet, I’m not … this isn’t to shoot you.”
It’s not?
“But you think my father—”
He takes my upper arm. “The gun is to keep us safe. Your father did, by the way, but I believe you didn’t know. Come on.”
“Oh, what changed your mind. You didn’t before?” I’m still struggling to speak, my teeth chattering still.