by LP Lovell
“Little dove,” he breathes, his face breaking into a wide smile.
Even though every muscle in my body is tense, readying to fight, I remain stoic. I fully acknowledge the threat in front of me. And it’s strange, because although I’ve been away for several years, I have always viewed Nicholai as a father figure, someone who helped me, who made me strong. I knew he was flawed. I knew it was hard and ugly, but I accepted it. I was loyal to him. Until now. Until he wants my child. Because suddenly, the things he did, his methods and his motivations, are not justified. And it isn’t until now, until it’s my child he wants, that I see that so clearly. I see Nicholai not as my savior, but as my persecutor. I see him as the sick and twisted creature he is.
He steps closer, reaching a hand out towards my stomach. I growl and twist away from him. “Where is Anna?”
“She is safe.”
“You will release her immediately.”
He laughs. “My sweet little dove.” He moves closer and wraps his hand around my jaw, smiling in my face. “You are nothing here.” He squeezes until pain radiates through my face. “You are only what I made you. You. Are. A disappointment.”
“Let her go.” I wrench my face away from him and drop to a crouch, kicking at the legs of the man with the gun. He hits the ground with a thud. I pop up with his gun raised and pointed in Nicholai’s direction.
He smiles. “Ah, you see…” he tucks his hands in his pockets and walks a few paces to the right. “You always were the best, Una. Better than anyone else.” His icy-blue eyes meet mine. “You made me so proud.”
On some silent signal, figures emerge from the shadowy recesses of the garage. At least twenty or so, all armed, and I can tell just from the way they move, they are Elite. They won’t be as good as me, but I can’t take twenty.
Nicholai smiles. “Will you kill me, little dove?”
“Release Anna.”
“I would have. But you continue to insult and dishonor me at every turn. So, I will not give you honor. Your sister will stay here. Perhaps she will motivate you.” I had a feeling he would do this, and it makes my task here infinitely more difficult. Two figures move in on either side, one pointing a gun at my head, the other aims the gun at my stomach. Looks like Nicholai is making them as ruthless as ever. Left without any choices, I drop the gun and hold my hands up.
I’m led through corridors that I could navigate with my eyes shut. I shiver violently as the concrete walls of the underground fortress seem to emit ice cold air like the inside of a refrigerator. I’m locked in a cell on the very same wing I stayed in when I first came here. I remember Nicholai saved me from the clutches of would be rapists only to bring me here and have me locked up. I stayed here for weeks. The guards wouldn’t talk to me. I was deprived of sleep, food, beaten…and after weeks, Nicholai ‘reappeared’, telling me he’d had to leave me. I was thirteen. I had lost both my parents, been torn from my sister, nearly raped…he seemed like a savior to a little girl who had never had one. And what did I have to do in exchange for his kindness, his respect, his adoration? I had to be strong. I had to be the best. I had to kill. And as long as I did those things, I believed I had his love. I think I needed it because despite him beating it out of me, despite him forcing me to shoot Alex...isn’t love the only real motivator in this world? As humans we crave it, need it, and will do almost anything for it. It is our ultimate and unavoidable weakness. I sold my soul for love, for the love of a man who uses the adoration of helpless children to build an army.
22
Nero
The second she hangs up the phone, I’m fighting back blinding rage. I try to call her back but the line has been disconnected. How could she fucking do this? I launch the phone across the room with a roar. Gio is standing silently beside the door, his arms folded over his chest and a frown pinching his features. Jackson is sitting on the couch, his legs spread and his elbows resting on them. I called him in because I don’t want Gio’s sensible fucking advice right now. I want blood. I want fucking war and Jackson will give it to me.
“She’s only twenty miles from the base,” Gio says, placing an iPad on the coffee table. A small red dot blinks in and out on a map. When we first caught Una in Paris, we knocked her out and I had the doctor place a tracker in the back of her neck. She’d never notice it, and I’m hoping the Russians won’t be looking for trackers on her. “Even if we could get to her, Nicholai will have ground forces that close to the base. It would be a suicidal rescue mission.”
I feel completely fucking helpless and I can’t stand it. I grip the edge of my desk, leaning over it. I want to tell myself that this isn’t over, that we can still fight, but damn it, she fucking surrendered without even telling me. And she went behind my back, so I have no plan, no way of getting to her. She cut me out and now I’m left standing on the outside while she takes my child into an impregnable base with a guy she’s openly admitted is crazy.
“Find a way of contacting Sasha,” I say to Gio. He’s good with computers and hacking shit. I’m sure he can find a way to get a message to the guy. He may well be our only way of contacting Una now. Gio nods and leaves the room.
Jackson glances at me. “What are you thinking?”
“Get your guys together and contact Devon. I want them ready to go tomorrow morning. We’re going to burn everything Russian to the ground. You want a fucking rat, you smoke him out.” Devon is my other New York capo, loyal and lethal. None of the guys will need asking twice when it comes to fucking up the Russians.
“On it.” Jackson gets up. I pour out a glass of whiskey. He hesitates in the doorway. “We’ll get her back, boss,” he says, and then he leaves.
I hope he’s right, or I’ll bring the bratva to its fucking knees with my wrath. After all, without her, without my child, what do I have to lose?
I stand in front of one of the clubs owned by the Russians. It’s an inconspicuous looking brick building on the Lower East Side, settled between two restaurant chains. A passerby wouldn’t look twice, but I know better. I lean against the hood of my car and lift my cigarette to my lips, inhaling a thick cloud of smoke. My mind constantly drifts to Una, wondering what he’s doing to her. It’s those thoughts that feed my rage, like constantly pumping oxygen onto a blazing inferno.
Jackson comes around the corner of the block and casually strolls over to me. “Might want to step back,” he says with a wicked smile. We round my car and duck down behind it. A couple of his guys use the car parked behind mine to take cover. I toss the cigarette away and Jackson hands me the primitive looking cell phone. I hold down the one button for several seconds, and then, the street behind us erupts. The bang is so loud it makes my ears ring. Windows blow out on the nearby buildings, and I can feel the heat from here.
Jackson throws his head back, laughing manically. “Roasted Russian anyone?”
I push to my feet and watch the inferno of flames engulf the small brick building. The flames spread, reaching for the restaurants on either side. People run down the street screaming while others stagger out of the restaurants. No one leaves the Russian club, and that’s because Jackson rigged it with enough explosives to bring down a building twice its size. Low and behold, the roof suddenly caves, sagging inward before collapsing in a flaming pile. A secondary explosion makes the ground tremble. I round my car, climbing into the driver’s side. The window is smashed from the explosion, but I don’t care. This is just one of twelve different attacks happening all over the city. Nicholai thought he could just take what’s mine, that there would be no consequences, well, this is the consequence. I do not care for repercussions. What more can he do to me? He has taken everything from me, and I will see that Russian fuck bleed out all over the New York concrete, even if it’s not his blood.
I call Cesare as soon as we’re a few streets away from the blast. “Nero,” he says when he picks up, his voice coming over the car speakers. Jackson stares out the window, deliberately trying to look as though he isn’t paying atten
tion.
“Nicholai has Una,” I say, my voice sounding far calmer than the white-hot rage that’s burning me from the inside out. “This is a courtesy call. Perhaps now would be a good time to call your Russian contacts.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks carefully.
I laugh humorlessly. “I’ve already made a start, but I’m going to burn everything the Russians have to the ground. You tell them that for every-fucking-day my woman and my child are not with me, I will kill a Russian woman and child,” I growl through gritted teeth.
“No. You go too far. She is Russian! She is Elite.”
“I never told you about what Nicholai has planned for my child, did I?” Silence. “He’s going to turn it into the ultimate soldier, raised from birth to be a weapon for the bratva.”
He clears his throat. “Let me call Dimitri. I can reason with him.” Dimitri Svelta, high up in the bratva with links in the Russian government. He’s as corrupt as they come, but corrupt I can deal with. Nicholai’s outright insanity cannot be reasoned with.
“The bratva have allowed Nicholai to do this for years. He has built them an army.”
“I can speak to them about the child, but she is Russian, Nero,” he says, as though she belongs to Nicholai, a piece of property to be bought and sold.
I slow smile pulls at my lips. “She is mine. That baby is mine. And I wasn’t asking permission. This is what I will do. Stand against me and I will unleash your secrets, old man. Try to stop me and you will make yourself the enemy. Pass the message along to Dimitri, will you?” I hang up and lean back in my seat, slamming my foot over the accelerator.
“So we’re at war?” Jackson asks.
I nod. “A war the likes of which the Russians have never witnessed.” I glance at him. “I ask you to walk into a bloodbath. Are you with me?”
“As if you even have to ask. I’m the only fucker who might almost be as sick as you.” He snorts. “We’ll get Una back. You’re a damn site more manageable when she’s around,” he says. “I mean, I’m down with the blood and bodies, but Cesare is probably shitting on himself right now.” He laughs and I shake my head.
Cesare had better pull through, because right now, I’d take his fucking head without blinking.
23
Nero
Gio sits in the passenger seat, and I can practically feel the tension coming from him. I usually acknowledge his advice, after all, he is a mafia man born and bred. He knows what it takes to hold power in the mafia, but right now, I don’t give a fuck about the mafia. I’m going to use every inch of power that I have to get Una back.
We pull up at the shipping dock. I get out of the car and the briny smell of the harbor hits me. I immediately light a cigarette, inhaling a lungful of smoke and watching it drift away on the wind as I blow it out. Gio comes to stand beside me. I walk towards the small maze of shipping containers in the center of the shipping yard. That constant rage is beating away at me, consuming everything in its attempt to fill the gaping void left by having Una torn from my side. I walk to the container with dark blue paint peeling off the iron beneath. I pull the door open. The hinges creek loudly. The single light bulb rigged from the ceiling casts a harsh yellow glow over the inside of the container. Jackson and Devon are here, both their faces set in a stony mask. Jackson nods to me when I enter. Devon is young for a capo, and unlike Jackson’s hulking bulk, he could be a businessman, a young banker or something of the nature except for the fact that he’s a bloodthirsty little shit. Gio is my second because I’ve known him my whole life. He’s the only person that can possibly rein me in when I go too far, which is often. He’s my second because he has morals. Jackson and Devon are my capos because they have none. Jackson moves to the side, revealing two figures huddled against the back wall, one clutched in the arms of the other.
“Bring them,” I say, taking my gun from my holster. Jackson grabs the woman by the arm and drags her to her feet. She immediately starts crying, heaving, desperate sobs as she reaches for the child. Devon grabs the kid. The woman and child are both shoved to their knees in front of me. The kid must be about twelve or thirteen.
“Take the bags off.” Jackson yanks the bags from their heads and they both blink. The woman is probably in her late thirties. Her face is tear-stained and her dark hair is matted to her cheeks. The kid has blond hair, and despite having pissed on himself, he’s not crying. His face is washed white, his eyes wide. His bottom lip trembles. As I look at them, I know I should feel something, because even for me this is bad. These people are complete strangers to me. They didn’t take Una. They don’t want to take my child. And perhaps, as I look at this kid I should be thinking: what if this were my child? But I don’t. I feel nothing but cold fury. I think of nothing but sending Nicholai a message loud and fucking clear: I will keep coming for you, and I will spill innocent blood until the streets of New York run red.
I lift my gun and Gio shifts beside me. “Nero, please…”
I glare at him. “Do not fucking question me.”
He drags a hand through his hair and then swipes his palm over his face. “There will be consequences for this. You are crossing a line you can’t come back from,” he pleads, his eyes flicking between me and the woman in front of me. She turns, pulling her child into her arms as she cries.
“In war, there are casualties, Gio. Until I get Una back, this is fucking war.” I lift the gun and pull the trigger, shooting the kid in the head. The woman screams until I pull it again, silencing her. They both hit the ground and blood spreads out across the floor of the shipping container. I put my gun back in my holster and turn around, walking out. I wait to feel some form of guilt. Nothing. Maybe I’m every bit as bad as Nicholai. I don’t fucking care.
24
Nero
Ten days. It’s been ten days since Una left and seven days of mercilessly killing Russian women and children. I’d say that the blood weighs heavy on me, but it doesn’t. Cesare has begged me to stop. He doesn’t have the stomach to make the hard decisions. He believes that this can be solved with words and tact. The simple fact is, battle lines must be drawn in blood.
With Rafael’s help, I’ve managed to fuck up the bratva’s drug and gun supplies. This will be a war of attrition. I will starve them out if I must. Without their drugs and guns, the bratva will soon be scrambling around, desperate for money. It stands to reason that the life of one woman and one child is not worth complete anarchy. What’s left of the bratva here in New York are reaping my wrath and they’re running, retreating to Russia because the Italian underboss has declared war.
Nicholai has no weaknesses, and Una is his obsession, so he’d never give her up. The only ones who can force Nicholai’s hand are the rest of the bratva, so it’s them that I now press.
I lift the glass of whiskey to my lips, downing the burning liquid before I refill the glass. It’s two in the morning and I can’t sleep. Instead, I sit at my desk staring at my laptop screen. At the tiny red dot on a blueprint. Una’s tracker. It hasn’t moved from the same room in Nicholai’s base for the last nine days. Is he holding her prisoner? Or did they find it? What if she’s dead? I clench my fist on the desk in front of me. No, she can’t be.
I lift the glass to my lips again when my phone beeps. Frowning, I glance at the screen and see it flashing with a security warning. The fire exit door has been breached. A slow smile pulls at my lips because I know exactly what that means. Nicholai finally got my message. There’s no one in the apartment other than me. Gio was staying here, but I sent him back to the Hamptons because I couldn’t take his bitching anymore. I have two guys on the lobby and two on the parking garage, but that’s it. Una isn’t here to protect anymore, and I want them to come.
Opening my desk, I take out the .45 Cal that I keep there, checking the clip before sliding it back with a resounding click. My .40 Cal is strapped to my chest. If that isn’t enough, then I’m fucked anyway.
I switch off the desk lamp, plunging the off
ice into darkness. My eyes slowly adjust. The glow from the city allows me enough light to make my way to the door. I press my shoulder blades flush against the wall, just beside the door and I wait. I hear nothing, but of course, if they’re Elite, I wouldn’t. Eventually the door handle to the office slowly lowers. My pulse drums rapidly as adrenaline floods my system. The second someone opens the door I aim through the gap and pull the trigger. A body hits the floor, and if there are more, I’ve lost the element of surprise.
Moving through the doorway, my eyes dart everywhere, searching for a trace of movement. Something brushes my leg and I swing my gun downward, only to find Zeus, his sleek black coat camouflaging him with the shadows. I spot a shadow at the top of the stairs and I shoot, barely able to see if the shot hit home before I hear footsteps in the lobby. Without hesitating, I tell Zeus to stay, and then I’m striding towards the lobby, allowing the anger bubbling beneath the surface to manifest and boil over. They take Una and now these fuckers are in my house. A bullet cracks past me. I feel a small sting as it just grazes my ear. I stand in the entrance to the kitchen with a clear line of sight right through to the lobby. My reflexes act without my consent, and I fire off two shots, downing two bodies. My muscles ache from the strain of being so tightly bunched. My breaths come in sharp pants.