by A. C. Bextor
If there had been an army of any size, Gleb would’ve fought against his enemy harder. He would’ve allowed the others to beat him further before he surrendered. If there had been more count of Katrina’s men than ours, Gleb would be unconscious.
This is good.
“Klara, I’m here,” I call.
When a small whimper escapes Klara, the man above her looks up at me. This time he pales.
“Shut her up,” Katrina snaps, then turns to smile at me. “And do it slowly.”
The man shakes his head, refusing to do Katrina’s bidding.
“Do it!” she screams.
In the midst of her calming anger, Katrina loses focus, revealing just how insane she truly is. Pulling a gun from a splintered cabinet at her side, she aims it at the man in question.
The gun blasts, just missing Klara. She releases a bloodcurdling cry for help. Her eyes are covered with a black blindfold. As her head thrashes back and forth, her blood adheres to her hair with every turn.
The man doesn’t so much as flinch, but the look on his face is venomous.
Katrina, steadily aiming the gun at her accomplice, states, “Keegan, if you don’t shut her up, it’ll be you crying out next.”
“Fuck you,” he clips, his eyes coming to mine after surveying the damage Katrina did behind him. “This wasn’t the plan, Zalesky. I swear it. This isn’t what we were ordered to do,” he confesses tightly, looking between Abram and me.
Ordered.
Katrina isn’t the one in charge. This I had assumed, but couldn’t prove. Until now.
“What was the order?” Abram calmly questions, gripping his handgun harder. “Were you supposed to what? Hurt her? Rape her? Kill her?”
“Ciro said….” The man stops, looks to Katrina, then down at Klara.
“We’re not on the same team here, Keegan,” Abram admonishes, pulling back the trigger of his gun. “If you want out of here so badly, say the word. I’ll put my bullet in you before that bitch has a chance to use hers. Either way, you’re a dead man. The only question is whether you’re wearing a scar on your stomach before or after you take your last breath.”
Gleb coughs a laugh. Another signal to keep moving forward. The punch to his gut doubles him over, spitting blood from his mouth onto the concrete floor.
All of this means Rueon has had time to get in place.
Understanding Gleb’s signal, Abram turns in my direction, wearing an expression of worry. Neither of us is anywhere near as close to Klara as we should be. My men are in position, ready to storm the warehouse, and we’re still across the fucking room.
“I’ll give you Vlad,” Abram states to my surprise. “If you want him, he’s yours.”
“What the fuck?” I clip, turning to him and balling my fists.
The gun he holds is now aimed directly at my chest. Instinct and anger fire like burning-hot cylinders in my head. I lift my arms up in surrender. Abram knows the gun taped behind my neck is ready and loaded.
Yet, my best friend continues with his negotiation as if he doesn’t care or remember.
Fucking hell, this is Plan B.
“Katrina,” he pushes, keeping his eyes to mine. “I’ve wanted Klara for myself for fucking years,” he spits. “Give her to me and I’ll give you Vlad.”
“You’re lying,” Katrina counters.
“I’m not. I’ve watched Klara as she grew up. She’s young and beautiful in all the right parts.”
Astonished, Katrina seeks clarification. “You want this little one?”
“I want the girl,” Abram sneers as he continues facing me. “I want Klara for myself.”
“I won’t give her to you,” Katrina sneers. “I’ll tell you where Faina is. You can have her. But I get Vlad.”
“Fuck Faina,” Abram snaps, finally turning his attention toward the woman still aiming her gun at Keegan. “That woman is as good as dead.”
“You’re right,” Katrina assuredly bids. “She is as good as dead.”
Anger.
Rage.
Vengeance.
The words and their meaning echo in my mind, and my balled fists begin to shake. Hearing what Katrina’s clearly stated, Abram turns the gun from me and sends a bullet straight into Katrina’s right shoulder. She goes down, clutching it tightly and wailing in pain. Katrina’s head slams against the wall on the way down, but her eyes never once leave mine.
Abram’s signal to the others has been heard. The room goes black. Once the electricity is cut, booted feet smash through the open door behind me just as I start to push my way across the room.
Keegan puts up little struggle against the others, as if coming to terms with what Abram already told him. Katrina’s screaming curses are abruptly muted.
“We’re clear, Boss,” Rueon assures, shining the light on the path to Klara. “You head out to the truck in case there’s more coming. I’ll grab Klara,” he insists.
Turning in place, I glare and return, “No one touches her.”
“No one touches her,” Rueon repeats the order to those still in the room. “Be quick, and we’ll wait for you both outside.”
“Focus, Vlad. Klara’s here. She’s alive. She needs rest. You heard what the doctor said. It’ll take time, but they’re both going to be okay,” Abram attempts to reason.
Wake up, Klara, I silently coach myself again and again. You have to talk to him. Keep him calm. If you don’t….
“What happened to them is my fault,” Vlad tersely returns.
Faina. Where is she? Why isn’t she here?
There are other hushed voices in the room. Machines are beeping, items being shuffled around or moved. Everything smells sterile, clean.
Other voices I can’t make out. None of them are Faina. If she was okay, she’d be here. She’d hold my hand like she did when I was younger, tired, or sick.
My head is pounding and I want to open my eyes. I try but soon give up as the pain keeps me still.
Abram said we’re both going to be okay. Does Vlad know about the baby?
“You’ll find Faina first. Katrina Marx isn’t going anywhere for a while,” Vlad directs, his voice a shallow mix of anger, but also fear—an emotion I don’t think he’s ever had reason to truly know.
“Katrina hasn’t told us anything yet,” Rueon replies. At the sound of his young, sweet voice, raspy with concern, I try again to open my eyes, but I’m still so tired.
“Abram’s underground contacts are in play. He’s set out a reward. Anyone who is anyone in this city is looking for her. We’ll find her,” the voice I know as Leonid carefully adds.
The touch to my hand startles me, rousing me with assaulting memories.
She goes to the warehouse.
My left shoulder faintly screams in agonizing pain, recalling the pain of the blade as Katrina pushed it through my tissue and muscle.
Wake up, little one.
The right side of my face throbs. Before I’d been blindfolded, I caught a glimpse of the knife Katrina used to mark me. The long blade was sharp and bloody as she lifted it above my head. She was gloating about what she had done.
That Russian bastard loves you.
My lip aches, angrier and more swollen from the beating the other man gave me just before Vlad entered the warehouse.
Klara, I’m here.
As Vlad’s lips gently rest against my forehead, my eyes finally begin to flutter open.
Once I’m able to focus, I note that he’s exhausted. His face is pale and gaunt; the bags beneath his eyes are heavy. He’s wearing a dirty black tee shirt and a frown. His hair is disheveled and his lips are drawn tight.
I’m in the hospital. The walls are white, cords hanging from the walls. I’ve never been in a hospital bed. Irrationally, I wonder if I’ll ever make it out.
“My beautiful girl,” Vlad brokenly whispers. I turn my eyes to him and find he’s grimacing.
“Faina?” I call, barely able to hear my own whisper. “Where is she?”
&nbs
p; “She’ll be here soon.” He easily commits to the lie.
I know he’s lying because if Faina were able, she’d already be with me.
“The baby?” I question next.
Vlad nods to the others, to whom I don’t give my attention. Booted feet scuff the floor on their way out, but a hand reaches out to my arm and squeezes tightly.
Abram.
He looks as lost and alone as Vlad. He also looks so full of regret.
“Sweetheart, you’re safe. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to get you sooner.”
My lip splits, giving my memories a chance to attack. I blink and a single tear runs down my cheek. Not from the pain, but from all that’s happened.
I wanted time alone with Faina. I wanted to ensure she was happy with my decision to be with Vlad. I wanted a chance to tell her she was going to be an aunt again without any outside distractions.
And now….
“Abram, go,” Vlad insists. “I’ll deal with all that needs to be done here and take Klara home.”
“Okay,” Abram mutters, his eyes moving from Vlad’s to mine. In them, I find fear for Faina.
When I move to interrupt, Vlad stands. As he adjusts the pillows and blankets from the bed, Abram turns to leave. More than likely he’s silently praying for Vlad, his sister, the woman he loves, and their unborn baby.
Where are you, Faina?
Abram stands alone, hovering helplessly over the lifeless body of a once vibrant, carefree, and beautiful woman he can’t yet bring himself to touch.
We’re too late.
Terribly saddened by the loss this world has suffered with her no longer in it, he’s also seething at the violent way in which she was taken.
From here, there’s no way to tell which torturous act against her finally ended her life. The blow to the head, the knife wound not visible due to all the damage she accrued, or simply her broken spirit.
Faina’s hair is matted with dried blood, her face almost unrecognizable. Her fingers, mostly broken or ripped from their sockets, are covered with dirt. She fought her killer hard, if the skin and grime beneath the fingernails she has left tell the story for her.
Faina may have suffered before her death, but just like in life, she didn’t go down without a fight.
Her tattered clothes hang from her body. Her once soft white shirt is torn at every button. Her black skirt, now soaking in her own blood, has been ripped at the seam, exposing her for all the world to see. Her inner thighs are heavily bruised, likely caused by the punishing blows of a man or several men taking her over and over, again and again.
Faina Zalesky wasn’t only beaten. Before surrendering to her fate, she’d been brutally raped, as well.
Abram swallows the bile in his throat as he breathes in the stench of sewage and death that plague the back alley where his informant told him she’d be. By the time he got the call, three days after Klara had been saved, the man who contacted Abram explained without a doubt that Faina was gone.
Seventy-two hours of nothing from anyone has led them to this.
Abram and his men didn’t have to look for her long. When a man as powerful as Vlad issues an order regarding the whereabouts of one of his own, especially a woman and one of relation, the lowly members of the city’s society don’t scurry to get away. They panic, offering their help and hoping for the best.
As they rescued Klara, who wasn’t unharmed but was physically safe, Abram felt false hope. He foolishly believed that Faina’s fate would be the same, that he’d be bringing her home to her family as soon as she was found. Back to Vlad and Veni. Back to a broken but still alive Klara and the baby.
He foolishly wanted to believe that Ciro Palleshi hadn’t stepped over the moral line in the most malicious and cruelest of ways.
Women in this family are considered sacred. They carry their children. They offer their men a safe escape from all this life expects of them.
Bending to his knees, Abram reaches down toward Faina’s blank, open, and very dead eyes. He touches her cold lids, closing them for the last time and saying a prayer in her favor. He wonders how long she endured this cold, wet ground, praying for God to take her to his heaven where she rightfully belongs.
“I won’t ever understand this,” he pleads to the God he’s always believed in. The same God he well knows Vlad doesn’t.
“Fuck!” Rueon slips, losing his composure and bending to vomit just as Abram wished he could do.
“Not Faina,” Gleb utters at Abram’s side, tears already marking his dark eyes. “This will kill Vlad.”
“Klara is safe,” Abram states. “She’s been hurt, but she’s alive. That’s something.”
Rueon stands, wiping his mouth, and holding his stomach. Gleb pats his back, ever the supportive and caring model to the family’s youngest soldier.
Abram releases himself of the gruesome details in front of him, remembering not this broken-bodied woman lying at his feet, but the once beautiful woman he always admired for her character, strength, devotion, and love.
“He’ll need us. The revenge he’ll want for this will be more than any of us can fathom,” Gleb comments, now standing between Abram and Rueon.
As Abram lifts his head toward the sky, Rueon suggests, “We should break Vlad’s orders and contact Killian Dawson.”
Beyond his character, Gleb adds, “Killian understands loss at the hands of Ciro. Maybe now, after all this, the old man will agree to bring our families together.”
“I don’t know,” Abram whispers to himself.
The notion is risky. Bringing Killian, a rightful mob adversary, into the home of a man whose life is sure to be pulled out from under him could end in more bloodshed.
“Right now, we can help by dealing with this. I’ve already called the cops. It’ll be a while before he can bring her home,” Gleb states, slapping Abram on the arm.
Abram looks around the area, scanning for anyone who’d be stupid enough to linger.
Before turning to walk with the others, he takes one last look at Faina’s dead body. “Our angel is already home.”
“Boss,” Rueon cautiously addresses, his voice coming from the door of my study. I don’t look up to acknowledge him. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who is it?” I question, concentrating on the picture Klara had insisted I have on my desk as I take another drink of scotch.
The photo is another one taken by the man Josef had sent before all this began. In its center, Klara and Faina are standing in an open parking lot, talking as they load their bags into Faina’s black Range Rover. Klara’s smiling. Faina’s laughing. The two are always happy when they’re together. The only person missing between them is Veni. With or without me, all of those I love are a family in their own right.
With no word from my sister or anyone who could tell me where she is, I’ve relied on the crutch of alcohol to hold my temper in check. The stench of death surrounds me, though, no matter how much I try to drown it away.
“Rueon,” I charge as he says nothing.
When I meet his gaze, he swallows hard. I falter from saying more and take a better look at him.
My youngest soldier’s eyes are thick with burden. His posture weak with sadness. Rueon’s hands are fisted at his sides. As if he doesn’t know what to do with himself, he stands alone, wordlessly urging me to answer what I think I already knew.
Faina has been found.
Placing the picture on my desk, I stand. Coming up from behind a stoic Rueon is Abram.
The expression not on his face but in his eyes gives me all the confirmation I need. My beautiful, sweet, adoring little sister is never coming home again.
“Say it,” I urge.
If I hear the words, maybe the ache in my chest will stop.
“Tell me.”
If it’s confirmed, maybe my ability to breathe will come back.
“Where is she?”
If Abram, my closest friend, utters the deplorable truth I don’t want but need
to hear, maybe my doubt that she’s still alive will turn to unbridled fury and I can press forward and plan my revenge against those responsible.
“She’s gone,” Abram finally murmurs, looking down and sliding his hands in his front pockets. Clearing his throat, he repeats, “Vlad, my friend, Faina is dead.”
Unadulterated sadness.
The glass in my hand shatters against the wall before landing in scuttled fragments on the floor. My sister is gone, taken from our lives. Because of me, she’ll never experience the true happiness in life that she always deserved.
I know where Veniamin is. I usually do, Faina’s voice whispers from a distance.
My son, a boy who loved his aunt as if she were his mother, will never understand why this happened.
Absolute rage soon follows sadness.
The items on my desk become airborne as I bend to sweep them from my view. My life has been spent chained to this room. Every calculated move I’ve made, each step with caution taken, has been only to assure my family’s safety.
Klara is incredibly bright, and even more beautiful.
My beautiful girl, the last person to see Faina alive, will be haunted by what’s happened for the rest of her life. No amount of reassurance will ever make her feel as safe as she once did.
…if you’d take the time to get to know anyone outside your gang of monstrous men.
My men, those who dedicated their lives to protect her, will no longer know the taste of true friendship my sister gave them.
Vengeance seeps into every pore of my body.
I thought you handled him? How’s it possible he’s back for more? Faina asked me that months ago, and at the time, I was so certain no harm could come to those I loved.
Because of this, my enemies will pay. Those responsible for her death will pay ten times over with their own.
God, brother, will either of us ever be free?
Yes, Faina. You’re finally free.
“Vlad, you need….” Abram starts to speak but stops, turning his head to Rueon still standing at his side.
“How did she die?” I question, my tone remarkably both calm and even.
“Now isn’t the time,” Abram returns. “You don’t want to know. Not yet.”