I heard nothing.
No screaming.
Just silence.
I preferred his screaming and cursing.
“Little slugger just tuckered right out.” Tex laughed while Dante was wiping his knives on his shirt like it was the best day of his life.
Phoenix just rolled his eyes while Sergio crooked his finger to me.
I walked over.
“Security card for the place.” He put a black card in my hands. “I figured you’d want to stay, shower, get some rest. Then you can watch him sleep. But know that if you go in that room without permission you will die.”
Great.
“Okay.” I took the card as all the guys watched me, maybe waiting to see if I was going to burst into tears or start yelling.
With a sigh, I confessed. “I was locked in a room for one year without going outside, my brother was an asshole, and Andrei literally referred to me as a number for three straight days and chopped off my brother’s tongue and gave it to me like you would give a girl flowers. I’m not going to have a breakdown.”
“Well…” Nixon chuckled. “When she puts it that way.”
“A tongue.” Dante nodded. “Huh, no wonder he never got any action.”
I could see a few of the men glance up at him with knowing smirks.
And it was Phoenix’s turn to shrug and say. “Figured you guys probably already knew he wasn’t a manwhore like he made himself out to be.”
“Not a manwhore and also not a virgin anymore,” I snapped and then wanted to crawl underneath a dark surface and put my hands over my eyes.
My face was hot as each of the guys grinned at me like they had some ammo they could use against him.
And then the strangest thing happened.
The Capo, the man I’d been told to fear more than God, lifted his hand for a high five.
I hit it.
Just as he whispered, “Way ta get your man, tiger.”
The moment firmly sealed my place among the monsters.
As bodies of the men were collected, the floor cleaned.
“Come on,” Nikolai jerked his head to the door as we both made our way into one of the private viewing rooms. “I’ll sit with you.”
I sat down in one of the cushy chairs and pressed the button that opened the curtains.
I gasped in horror at what I saw.
Dangling from the ceiling in an array of chains, with blood dripping from his body.
Was Andrei.
And all I could utter was one word. “Why?”
“Some things are worse than death,” Nikolai mumbled. “He does this so you don’t have to, he hangs there with purpose, with pride. As long as I’ve known Andrei and his father, I’ve never seen him willing to die in order to save another human life. I didn’t even think him capable of love. Most days he tolerates people. Today he showed all of us that there’s more, that it’s deeper, that his father didn’t steal everything from him.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “I deserve to be out there.”
“Andrei would of course argue that point.” Nikolai leaned forward in his chair and watched; his cold dark eyes were hard to read. In all actuality, everything about him seemed, dark, just like Andrei, like he had something in him that fed off the light or would if he let it. “He’s losing a lot of blood, but I imagine they’ll put a stop to that soon.”
“What? How?”
Nikolai crossed his arms and leaned right back in his chair. “I’ll tell them to cauterize the wounds.”
My eyes widened. “With what?”
“Fire.”
I started shivering.
He didn’t look at me, just said. “You should go shower, get comfortable clothes on and then grab wine or whiskey, and enough food to last you the night. And if you’re a praying sort, I’d maybe start doing that too.”
“Praying?”
“It’s best he’s blacked out. I would pray he stays that way. Because you won’t be able to handle the screams if he wakes up.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I highly doubt that.” He jerked his head to the door. “Go. He’ll still be here when you get back.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Andrei
“Mama!” I ran in circles around her legs until she finally noticed me and picked me up.
She was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen.
“Pretty.” I touched her cheeks and giggled. “You love me, Mama?”
Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded and whispered so nobody would hear. “I love you so much, Drei, more than my own life.”
A door slammed. “Get away from my son!”
Mama slowly dropped me to my feet.
I clung to her leg as my dad stomped into the room.
He was always angry.
He didn’t hug me.
And he hated it when my mom did.
He said it was weak.
I was weak.
“Andrei,” He jabbed his finger at me. “Go get your brother and sister.”
“Okay.”
I had just had my fifth birthday.
I didn’t realize that in two years my mom would ask me to kill her.
I didn’t realize that my life was about to change.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal. My life.
I would know on my first day of school that I was different.
I would know shame.
I quickly ran into the nursery. They were twins. Three years old and silly, and they cried a lot when Mama couldn’t hold them, so I tried to hold them too.
But it wasn’t the same.
I knew that.
It didn’t feel the same as a hug from her.
“Come on, we gotta go see Dad.”
“Dad?” Katya repeated. “He’s home.” She didn’t sound excited as she slowly rose to her feet and grabbed her doll. I hung onto her hand and squeezed it.
“Pace, come on.”
Pace’s hair was bright blond.
He clutched a truck to his chest.
And slowly we walked back to the kitchen where my mom was sitting at the table, her tears dripping on top of it.
“Katya, Pace,” Dad barked. “Get in the car.”
Pace began crying. “Where?” He wanted to know where they were going.
My dad grabbed his toy truck and threw it against the wall. “Listen to me for once and go wait at the door!”
Pace nodded, his expression hurt as he went to the door.
Katya slowly lifted her gaze to Dad’s. “We go on trip?”
Dad didn’t answer.
He grabbed her doll.
She couldn’t sleep without it.
“Dad, Katya needs her doll if she’s going—”
His slap cracked my cheek so hard that I fell to the ground. My mom didn’t come get me.
I could hear her cry harder.
“Say goodbye to your children,” he hissed.
Mama rose to her feet and reached for Katya first just as Pace came running.
They hugged for maybe three seconds.
I didn’t count.
And then Mama said. “What about Andrei?”
“He’s the oldest. He stays.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to beg him to let me leave.
But my cheek still hurt.
He gathered my brother and sister with another man, and they left the house.
The doll was at my feet.
The truck was in pieces near the wall.
“Mama?” I felt sick to my stomach. “They’re coming back right?”
She didn’t answer, but she went to the pantry and opened a bottle of something that smelled sweet and strong. She chugged and then set it down on the counter. “No, Drei.”
“Where are they going?”
Her eyes flashed and then she fell into fitful sobs. “To heaven, baby, they’re going to heaven.”
And I knew, she’d lied.
She’d lied.
I grabbed Katya’s dol
l and cried with my mama while my other older siblings turned on the TV as loud as they could.
“Prosti!” I screamed as I came back from the nightmare. “PROSTI!” Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
My lungs burned as blood wet my face slipping down my chin onto my battered body.
“Prosti!” Tears mixed with blood.
He’d sold them.
Sold his own kids to the highest bidder.
Used them as collateral.
And kept me as his protégé.
Katya.
Pace.
I never said their names.
Never.
It hurt.
I let out another scream of pain.
The sound of a door opening didn’t bring me from the darkness, from the pressure in my lungs as more memories surfaced.
“Kill her.” Dad shrugged. “She’s of no use anymore.” He gave me his gun.
“She’s twelve,” I snapped at him, ready to point the gun in an entirely different direction now that I was sixteen.
“She’s costing us money,” he spat. “Kill her or I may just let her kill you.”
He was bluffing.
I picked up the gun and pointed it at her.
I didn’t look in her eyes.
I made it quick.
And I could have sworn her soul said thank you when she crashed against the cold hard ground.
Later that night, with shaking hands, I took a nail and etched another mark in my bed post understanding that most guys my age did that for an entirely different reason.
To remember the women they’d slept with.
I did it, to remember the ones I had killed.
Thirty-two.
“Prosti.” I clenched my teeth tasting blood as I threw my head back and roared until my voice was hoarse.
Something touched me.
The fires of hell were coming.
Licking at my heels.
Burning themselves against my flesh.
I deserved it.
I deserved it all.
And then I was moving, maybe my body was leaving this plane, going into a darker one, if that even existed.
Hell couldn’t be any worse than living life as a Petrov.
Something wet touched me next. It was warm.
And then it smelled like rose water.
Lips pressed against my temple.
The same temple I always held the gun against.
“Sleep… Andrei… Sleep.”
“Mom?” I rasped. “Mom?”
Arms hugged me.
Held me close.
“I’m sorry.” My body shook so violently it was hard to get the words out. “So fucking sorry.”
“Don’t ever be sorry for sacrificing yourself, don’t ever be sorry for living.” The familiar voice said. “Now rest.”
“The things I did…” My body pulsed with pain so intense that I felt like I was convulsing. My eyes couldn’t focus on anything other than the ceiling.
It was dark.
Nighttime?
I couldn’t tell.
The lips pressed against my face again.
And then my hand somehow found another hand.
I almost pulled away.
Gloves, I needed gloves.
Her hand was too hot.
My skin wasn’t worthy.
And yet, I couldn’t find it within myself to let go.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Alice
I stayed up all night.
Nikolai had put him under once he was back in the apartment, the bullet in his shoulder had lodged itself really close to the bone, but Nik was able to pull it out.
The knife wounds were all stitched up by both Nikolai and Sergio who informed me that he had studied to become a doctor but never finished school.
And one by one, the guys visited.
With their wives.
It was a strange thing, seeing all of them pull together after everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours.
The girls brought food and hung out in the living room like we hadn’t just been involved in a bloodbath, and the men stayed to make sure Andrei was alive.
Even Louis Sinacore, who I learned early in the night, loved to play checkers, stayed to check up on his grandson.
Their new boss.
It was a lot to take in.
More than a lot.
My mind was reeling by breakfast.
A beautiful girl with cropped brown hair and pretty eyes showed up right when everyone was starting to eat. One of the guys I recognized from Nixon’s house was with her.
He was massive.
And looked like he was going to eat humans for breakfast instead of bacon.
She clung to his hand and then burst into tears when she saw Louis. He pulled her in for a hug and whispered something in Italian against her hair.
“He’s apologizing.” Chase took a bite of bacon and then another while Luc, his wife came around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
Odd to imagine that twenty-four hours ago he’d punched me in the jaw.
“What’s he apologizing for?”
“I’ll introduce you,” Luc said with a wide smile. “Long story short, she’s a Sinacore as well. She was promised to one of his gross arrogant grandsons, and Andrei basically screwed them all over by making them believe that she was killed in the club when really Vic just wanted to marry her.”
“Vic.” I tried the name on my tongue. “Is Vic the scary one?”
She let out a snort. “Imagine him guarding Chase.”
“Guarding,” I repeated. “You?” I had a hard time believing that. “How does that work?”
Chase smirked. “Not well.”
“I imagine not.”
“So, one big happy family,” Chase muttered. “At least now the Sinacores can’t be pissed at Andrei. Wonder if Phoenix knew that all along.”
“Heard that,” Phoenix said from behind us. “And I only tell you what you need to know, so what do you think?”
“I think you’re Satan in sheep’s clothing,” Chase said cheerfully.
“It’s sheep, or a sheep.” I corrected.
Luciana burst out laughing. “She’s not scared of you; this is my favorite day.”
Chase glared daggers at his wife then pulled her across his chest and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Don’t make me punish you later.”
“I’d welcome it.”
“And that’s our exit…” Phoenix grabbed my arm and led me away from them. “Andrei’s awake.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Can I see him?”
Phoenix’s blue eyes narrowed briefly before he nodded. “He was asking for you, said he had to apologize.”
“For what?”
“He threw something at me after that, so I didn’t get the last part.” He grinned. He was less menacing when he smiled. “But he’s very… raw.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I wondered out loud.
“He has to ask.”
“Ask?”
“You,” Phoenix said, not at all clarifying things. “Marriage means your blood becomes his, and vice versa, he needs to ask you. If he doesn’t ask you, if you guys don’t get married, then I’m going to have to send you away. At least then you won’t be looking over your shoulder waiting for someone to get you. You’ll have the seal of the families protecting you. You can do whatever you want, be whatever you want, we will obviously make sure you have money and—”
I gawked. He wasn’t serious… couldn’t be. But his expression said he was.
“No,” I whispered. “I won’t, I can’t… I’m not leaving him.”
Phoenix bit out a curse and leaned in. “Then make sure he asks.”
“You can’t make him?”
Phoenix burst out laughing. “Yeah you’ll need a sense of humor if you stick around. That’s funny, forcing Andrei, both Petrov and Sinacore to do anything, right…”
I swallowed the lump of misery in m
y throat.
Misery that he would send me away to protect me.
Only this time his conscience would be clean because he’d saved the day.
Because sometimes, the monster won.
I knocked on his bedroom door and then quietly pushed it open, clicking it shut behind me.
He was sitting up in bed. Gauze was wrapped around his right shoulder, his skin was tight across his abs, muscle after muscle peeked through. I inhaled sharply because it was a natural reaction to his masculine beauty.
It kind of left a person in awe.
His beauty was so distracting that I couldn’t seem to take in all at once, like the way his messy hair looked like he’d been tugging it, or the nose ring that oozed sexiness.
His full mouth pulled back into a small smile.
I barely kept myself from running toward him, my own body was sore from getting whipped. Was I insane for not being angry that he was the one that dealt those blows to my skin?
“Are you just going to stare at me or are you going to come over here and kiss me?” His voice was hoarse like he’d been screaming all night.
I wondered if anyone told him that he did.
That he screamed over and over again until I finally covered my ears and rocked in the corner of the viewing room, weeping on his behalf, wishing I could take his pain.
“I’m going to kiss you, just tell me if I hurt you.” I crawled up on the bed and rested my head against his chest first. I needed to hear it, needed to make sure.
“What are you doing, dorogaya?”
“Listening.” My voice cracked.
His fingertips dug into my hair. “For what?”
“Your heartbeat.” Hot tears stung my eyes. “I just wanted to make sure this was real and you’re alive.”
He tilted my chin up toward him. “What did I tell you about wasting tears?”
They slid down my cheeks.
He rubbed them away with his thumbs. “Don’t cry.”
“I’ll cry if I want to cry.” I grit my teeth at his amused smile. “You could have died; you pointed a gun at your own head in order to save me. I have a lot to cry about. And I’ve been hydrating.” I don’t know why I was upset. Maybe because I knew what was coming and I was so tired of fighting him, so tired of him telling me what was best for me.
When what was best would snap my heart in half like a pretzel.
Debase (Elite Bratva Brotherhood Book 1) Page 29