Empires and Kings (A Mafia Series Book 1)

by A. C. Bextor

  “Enough, Vlad,” Abram scolds, dropping the branding iron at his side.

  The metal object lands on the cement floor with a weighted clink, catching Josef’s attention before he drops his head to the side in obvious relief.

  Offering his unsolicited advice, Abram continues, “You’re going to kill the man before he’s told us anything.”

  Heaving with exertion, I wipe the collective sweat from my brow. Abram remains standing near the door, his back against the wall. As usual, he’s holding back his signature smirk.

  “What’s fucking funny, Abram?”

  Giving in with a sigh, he walks toward me.

  “Nothing about this”—he points to Josef, tied to the cross in front of us—“is funny. But you? Yes. Amusing.”

  “Get me the fucking iron,” I beckon, lifting my chin to where he left it.

  “He’ll pass out if you brand him. My friend, I don’t know a man who can talk when he’s unconscious.”

  “He needs to see the pain coming.”

  “You’ve given him enough of that,” Abram remarks. “He’s either going to be loyal to his death or he’s as stubborn as Klara—no doubt making them family.”

  “Abram, give me the fucking iron or leave.”

  Doing as I’ve instructed, Abram starts to move. I leave my attention to where he places it over the burning ember. While he burns the tip, I turn my focus back to Josef.

  The man hasn’t said anything to explain what he intended to do with the items Gleb found him with. His constant pleas of innocence in that those items just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time have grown tiring.

  With each slash to his chest I’ve inflicted with my whip, every punch to the face with my hand wrapped in chain, and now the iron coming for him, he’s proving his loyalty again and again to whoever he’s working for.

  Not that it’s difficult to imagine who that may be. This has the hand of Ciro Palleshi carved in stone around it.

  “Are you ready to give me what I’m asking, or am I branding you before I cut your throat and you bleed out on my floor?” I question.

  I hear Abram exhale in exasperation but don’t offer to look at him.

  Gasping for breath and staring at the torture coming, Josef claims, “I’ve done nothing wrong. Klara is my sister’s daughter.”

  “Your sister’s daughter,” I repeat with sarcasm, grabbing a water at my side and relishing in the hope of his eyes as they look longingly at the bottle. Before drinking, I tilt it in his direction. “If you tell me something I need to know, I’ll let you have a drink.”

  His eyes close, possibly contemplating on whether his thirst or his life weighs more in this moment.

  Setting the water down as his gaze follows, I press, “Klara is twenty-five now. Did you know this?”

  “Yes.” He nods.

  “Then you’re a liar,” I return.

  I don’t share Klara’s age. He doesn’t deserve to know anything more about her than he already thinks he does.

  “Here,” Abram calls, extending his arm with the iron rod in his grasp.

  Taking it from him, I move in two steps toward my target. Josef’s breathing becomes labored as he looks at the glowing-hot stone mark of ‘Z.’ I revel in his desperate attempts to shake himself from his bindings. His efforts are futile.

  “Tell me who you are, who you’re working with, and what you really want with Klara. You have five seconds.”

  “I told you everything,” he reclaims again. “Ciro said he knew her. And that he could help me get her from you,” he exerts.

  As I extend my arm, the brand seers his skin. The rotten stench of burning hair and melting flesh tinges the air around us. His guttural moan breaks through his agonizing pain, echoing off the walls of the room.

  I hear steps behind me, no question that Abram is turning around in place. His disapproval for what I’m doing means nothing.

  Pulling the iron back, I admire the work I’ve made of Josef’s stomach. There isn’t much time he has left to remain breathing, and he knows it.

  “I’m going to kill you anyway, Josef,” I tell him with no urgency. “I’m killing you for no other reason than what Gleb found with you when you were caught. So if there’s any last words, anyone you want to implicate in what you’ve done, you should do that now.”

  And finally the beaten, broken, and lying man starts talking.

  My steps are heavy, my breathing is shallow, and my memory is in scattered pieces as I make my way from the house to the small shed I haven’t set foot inside since I was a child.

  My father was chained up and tortured, ready to be killed there. His life was finally ended at Abram’s hand. Vlad gave the order, but it was Abram and Gleb who were directed to see it through.

  As I grew in age, I also matured with each life experience.

  Growing up with these men, understanding what they were capable of, none of this comes as a surprise. However, now there’s a chance I have a piece of my past I never knew about. A blood relative who’s come looking for me after all this time.

  Before today, I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed the connection to a past I’ve all but forgotten about. I have a family. This changes how I see the world I’ve come to accept as my own.

  The sudden and sharp snap of a whip reaching out and hitting its target is heard through the door before my hand so much as touches its knob. The man named Josef, who I know is the one detained, wails out in violent and agonizing pain.

  As I enter the darkened room, the metallic stench of blood takes me back to another time. My body lurches forward, and I gag as the memory assaults my senses.

  Vlad is standing roughly ten feet in front of Josef, levitating the whip as its frayed end brushes the floor behind his booted feet. As soon as he hears the squeak of the door opening, Vlad’s head whips around to face me.

  For as long as I live, with or without him, I’ll never forget the malevolent expression on his face. As if a mental snapshot of the monster in motion is taken, it’s also forever being committed to memory.

  His malicious disposition makes up all that nightmares are made of.

  The hard features of his face, the sweat threatening to fall from his brow, are what little girls envision in the dark after suffering alone in their beds.

  His eyes, now black pits of terrorizing vengeance, are what bring these same daughters into their mother’s bed at night, seeking protection and begging for refuge.

  His chest rises and falls as he renews each breath with added rage, finishing his transformation from human to beast.

  And it’s not Josef who Vlad’s so balefully casting this shadow toward. In this moment, Vlad’s anger is aimed solely at me.

  His shirt is off, his chest glistening in sweat. His hair is damp, and his face is red. Vlad’s shoulders are rigid and tense.

  I have no appreciation for this man. I don’t recognize him. I’ve never seen him, or anyone, like this before.

  “Fuck!” I hear Gleb hiss as he rushes to my side.

  As Gleb pushes against my back, wrapping an arm around my waist, Vlad and I remain locked in challenge—eye to eye, heart to heart, soul to soul.

  I haven’t chanced a look across the room toward the cross I know now binds its latest victim. I fear if I do, I’ll not only never forgive Vlad for what he’s so far done, but I’ll never forget seeing Josef’s near-lifeless and battered body.

  Once I’ve gathered my courage, my eyes move from Vlad. Taking a breath, I brave a glance in Josef’s direction. Blinking slowly, taking it all in, I gasp.

  The punishment for whatever this man, my uncle, has done is already well in progress. For reasons I can’t fully understand, the scene is not only haunting, but cruel.

  Josef’s left eye is swollen shut. The other is blinded by drying blood casually dripping from his forehead. His arms are stretched out at his sides, tied tightly with brown, tattered ropes. One arm is broken at the wrist. The bone beneath the skin threatens to break
through. His toes drag against the concrete floor; the blood from his still thankfully beating heart is pooling at his feet.

  And in the center of his stomach, blood drips from burned flesh where the letter ‘Z’ will mark it for as long as he lives. However long that may be.

  My legs come out from beneath me. Gleb acts quickly to catch me as I start to fall.

  With Gleb bracing my back to his front, I mentally recollect the time it took for me to get here.

  Twenty minutes.

  This was all the contemplation I needed to weigh what little options I thought I had. To decide if my wanting a piece of my past was more important than my love for Vlad. The love I’ve grown to recognize having for the man he now is to me.

  But my concern was not only for Josef, but for Vlad himself. I didn’t want him risking whatever punishment God would rain down for doing what I knew he was about to do.

  But I’m too late.

  “What have you done?” I heavily breathe, already knowing the answer. The evidence is clear.

  “Get her the fuck out of here,” Vlad seethes, dropping the whip at his side and reaching for a bottle of water. His large hand crushes the small plastic container as he drinks.

  “What have you done?” I ask again, this time my voice rising, chasing my anger with it. Fighting the hold Gleb has around my waist, my hands grasp his arms to no avail. “Vlad, stop this!”

  My cries go unheard. From the corner of my eye, Abram steps in from behind the cross holding Josef.

  Suddenly I’m breathless, taken back to years ago. Abram’s hair is now grayer, and Vlad’s face has grown harder with time. Even Gleb, who silently stood in a dark corner witnessing the torture exacted against my father, is present for this, as well.

  “No!” I shriek.

  Vlad’s hand drops from his mouth and he tosses the now-empty water bottle to the floor.

  Like Vory, my brother isn’t capable of loving a woman before all else.

  All I’ve come to believe in the person Vlad’s become, the man I thought I knew he was capable of being, is gone. The dragon-like beast standing here now, puffing his chest, announcing his presence, has broken through from wherever he’d been buried.

  He’ll ruin you, Klara. You’re nowhere near experienced enough to handle a man like Vlad.

  “Get her out of here!” Vlad bellows, pointing to the door behind me.

  Gleb’s body jerks with me still held securely in his arms. Abram rushes to my side to aid him in getting me to the door. I don’t go willingly; rather, I continue fighting tooth and nail.

  Twisting and turning in place, thrashing against the men I’ve come to love, I finally break free. Then I run.

  As soon as I’m able to reach Josef, I pull on the rope at one side. He gasps first, his breathing shallow. He winces in pain as shudders of agony break from his lips when I untie the rope embedded into the skin to free him.

  Stop this.

  Stop this.

  Stop this.

  I have to do something.

  When I’m yanked up into the air from behind, Abram’s voice quietly whispers in my ear. “Sweetheart, you promised me you’d stay away.”

  He’s right. I did. But I can’t let it continue as long as I can do something about it, either. All I’ve ever known to be good in the world has come crashing down unexpectedly and without mercy.

  Veni, son of Vlad.

  Faina, his sister.

  Maag, sweet Maag, the woman who’s cared for him like a mother all his life.

  Do they know of the monster who sleeps under their roof?

  Was I so blinded by my vulnerability as a child, my lust-filled haze as a teenager, and then my curious wonder of him as an adult?

  More importantly, was I so lost as a woman, longing for shelter in a world I’ve lived in fear inside, that I fell in love with the same monster who provided it?

  No more death. This has to stop.

  As I continue to push and pull against Abram, my head turns.

  Vlad, standing boldly proud but still so angry, whispers so quietly I nearly miss it. “Abram, let her go.”

  Abram, not understanding, stops moving us away from the cross but doesn’t do as he’s told.

  “What?” He gapes. “Vlad, Klara can’t be in here.”

  “Let her go to him. If she wants his freedom so badly, let her give it to him.”

  Once I’m steady on my feet, I run back to where I was. There are no visible beats of life left in Josef.

  I’m too late.

  While I’m tearing through the last of Josef’s bindings, Gleb comes to stand in front of us both. Once I have him free of the ties, and before Josef falls to the floor, Gleb’s large body bends. My uncle’s breath hitches as he’s lifted carelessly over Gleb’s shoulder.

  “Take him outside. Lay him out and stay with him until I get there,” Vlad instructs. “Leave him breathing.”

  “Thank you.” I sigh in sudden relief. Breathing is good. Breathing means Josef isn’t dead. “I don’t—”

  My own relief is short-lived. With Vlad’s hands balled to fists, he turns his focus to Abram now standing at his side.

  “String her up,” I hear him callously demand.

  As both Abram and I direct our attention to Vlad looking down at the whip in his hand, we gasp in unison, our question the same.

  “What?”

  “Tie Klara up to the cross,” Vlad clarifies, this time pinning his eyes to mine.

  Instinctively, I begin to back away. One step, then another, while positioning my hands in front of me to warn off anyone who comes close. The door across the room is open, and there’s no sight or sound of Gleb or Josef outside of it. If I screamed for help, no one would hear. If someone did, they wouldn’t dare interfere.

  Just as I have.

  “You’re not fucking doing this,” Abram demands in a voice I’ve never heard him use. “Vlad, no. I won’t let you.”

  Taking his angry gaze from my terrified one, Vlad turns. “If you don’t put her up on that cross, Abram, you’ll be next.”

  “Then I’ll be next,” Abram quickly argues, stepping over to stand in my view of Vlad. “Fuck, I’ll go first. My God, you can’t do this.”

  “No,” I barely get out, terror stealing my voice.

  Vlad shakes his head once, a menacing growl follows. “She’s asking for a lesson,” he quietly conveys. “She needs to understand.”

  “Vlad,” I call next, but no one hears.

  The two men are left at a standoff, head-to-head, not eight feet in front of me. My back is to the cross, fear keeping me from turning toward it.

  “String her up, Abram. You’re wasting time.”

  “I won’t do it.” Abram takes two steps backward, aiming for the door. “Even for you, this….” He points across the room without finishing.

  Vlad’s hands continue to fist, his knuckles turning white. Leaning toward Abram, he calmly, collectively, and deliberately instructs again, “String. Her. Up.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Vlad, straightening his pose and glaring with fire, states ever-so-calmly, “Abram, you’re finished here.”

  Abram turns his gaze to mine, catching my eyes and holding them with understated fear. In the depths of his I find a terrifying realization I’ve never seen from him before.

  “Abram,” I whisper. “Please, don’t let him do this.”

  “Shut up!” Vlad bellows.

  The crack of the whip flies through the distance between us, missing my cheek by only inches. The terrified shriek from my throat echoes off the walls. I close my eyes.

  “Abram,” Vlad addresses again, as quietly as the last. “You have exactly five seconds to start moving in one direction or the other.”

  Abram, surrendering to Vlad’s order, looks down. The quiet prayer said aloud on his closest friend’s behalf is heard just barely. The next one is for me.

  “There will be no redemption for this, Vlad.”

  “Abram, no,” I plead.<
br />
  Abram continues, turning his gaze to Vlad’s. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

  “Please, no,” I beg again as Abram walks to me, then wraps his arm around my waist.

  My bare feet run over the chilled blood left on the floor, finding it’s already begun to dry.

  “Please, Abram.” I push at his hands. “Not this. I’ll go. I’ll leave right now, and I’ll never come back,” I swear.

  Abram refuses to offer any mercy, no longer giving me any of the gentle attention he had before. His tense body remains unyielding, and for him, I don’t fight what’s about to happen. If Vlad’s going to do what I expect he will, I’d rather Abram do as he’s told and then walk away, not having to stand in witness.

  “I’m scared,” I confess, tears streaking my cheeks as he ties the other binding at my wrist. “Vlad is going to kill me.”

  “He’s not,” Abram assures, running the back of his fingertips across my cheek. “Do as he wants, Klara.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t know what Vlad wants because I don’t know this Vlad.

  “You said you trusted me,” Abram pushes, stepping back. “Trust me now.”

  With my body strung up in tethering knots, I give my weight into the binds. The already bloodied rope burns each wrist, and my back aches with the stretch it’s forcing me to endure. My feet hardly reach the floor.

  As Abram makes his way to Vlad, he says nothing as he turns back to me with eyes so sad I carry the weight of his struggle as my own.

  “I’m okay,” I give him through a broken sob. “I’m okay,” I say again, stronger, and this time for myself.

  I silently watch the two men, eyes to each other but bodies facing me.

  Abram speaks first. “If I had to choose a life made for you, happiness or sorrow, I’d choose sorrow first. A thousand times over.” Vlad’s body, as well as mine, winces with the way Abram’s expressing his last words so gently and forgivingly. “Because once a man truly tastes loneliness and bitterness, he’s able to appreciate all the blessings he’s been given in redemption for enduring them.”

  “Abram,” Vlad sternly warns.

  “But what you’re about to do….” Abram pauses to take in an unsteady breath. “You’re reaching out to a God you tell me you don’t believe in. You’re summoning His vengeance. If you do this, Vlad, He’ll never allow happiness to touch your life again.”