Dmitri takes his cut off, setting it on the dresser across from the bed. He doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t sound irritated either. I guess that is a small blessing that I could be grateful for. “You have a room here?”
“Yeah. Darius insisted on it when he found me,” I tell Dmitri. I look over to him, and he’s staring at me, maybe as if I’m a stranger, or maybe as if I’m everything to him. It’s so confusing, and I just can’t tell. “I was barely eighteen when I decided to run here, to Nashville. I was a prostitute in his territory. Purgatory ran the streets, and I didn’t listen. One night, I’m grabbed from behind, thinking I’m going to be raped, and he shuffles me into a diner and gives me a life lesson. I was…struggling back then, and Darius was the only person to take a chance on me, to make me feel like I had somewhat of a home.”
“You’re not telling me everything. I can tell that you’re keeping secrets, kotenok, and I want to know them all.”
“You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine,” I joke, a small sob escaping past my lips.
“My mother sold me when I was a child, the last of the Petrov line. I was to be killed. Obviously, that didn’t happen.” He blurts it out, and I look at him with shock. I knew the gist of it, but not all of that. “Your turn.”
“I was raped when I was a child by a man that I called an uncle, my father’s best friend, and while everything was happening, there was someone who stood by and watched, who smiled.” Dmitri doesn’t say a word to me, he looks at me with compassion, with love, and possibly understanding. “Do you really want to know everything, Dmitri, because I will tell you. We’re both fucked up, and I fucking trust you. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”
“Tell me everything.”
“My real name is Tegan. I was the daughter of the enforcer of the Skulls Renegade MC. My father was fucking amazing, the best dad a girl could have ever wished for in the entire world.” I smile, remembering him, at the memories that I was fortunate enough to have.
“When I was a kid, my father and I were taken out into the state forest. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that it wasn’t good. I knew that my father had been talking with another Prez, I believe it was Zeus from the Sons of Gods. He knew that Will was running the Skulls into the ground, he was making risky decisions. My father, he just…wanted the best for the club and for the people in it. There was nothing malicious, not at all. Somehow, Will found out about this and, well, he dragged us into the forest. My father was nailed to a tree and tortured in front of me for hours, and….”
I go silent at the memories, the memories that I try so often to forget. “I was raped. I was a child, and I was raped. I was raped by Will Michaels, and Bones watched it all, he fucking smiled.” A shake overtakes my body as I try not to lose it, but who am I kidding? I’m losing it. “H-he made m-me…”
“Kotenok,” Dmitri murmurs, taking me in his arms.
“He made me s-shoot my f-father. I-it was m-me or h-him,” I sob uncontrollably, and Dmitri presses a soft kiss to the top of my forehead.
“Ssshhh.” He holds me in his arm for minutes, rubbing my back, making me feel secure within his arms. “I’m going to text everyone that you and I decided to stay away for a night, so they don’t worry.”
“Okay.” He yanks out his phone, and I hear the sound of a text message being shot off. Dmitri tugs me along to the bed with him, the last thing I remember is falling asleep wrapped in his arms.
***
Dmitri
I don’t make a sound as I slip from Jenna’s bed. Her bed. It sounds so weird to me. That she has a bed here, that this is another place she views as her home. After everything that happened yesterday, I wish I could say that I don’t have reservations, but it did make me realize that Jenna and I don’t know each other fully.
I don’t even know why I’m still calling her Jenna when she told me that it wasn’t her name. Maybe it’s out of habit.
I put my shoes on and creep out of the bedroom door, trekking down the hallway until I go down a stairwell. I try to remember every step that I made last night and follow that. I’m lead to a room that looks like a living area, almost like how it is at the clubhouse. There are leather couches thrown around, a couple pool tables on each end of the vast space, and even a large flat screen TV. There isn’t a bar, but I have a feeling these folks keep the stock in their bedrooms.
I walk into the room, making eye contact with every man that meets my gaze. It’s then when I see the man I’ve been looking for – Darius, as kotenok calls him.
“Dmitri. We meet again,” he mutters, looking me up and down as he approaches, extending a hand.
“That we do.” I shake firmly, hoping that he will understand I am a man of business.
“I take it you didn’t sneak out of Tegan’s room for no reason.” I will admit that I didn’t like the man, but I will say that he has good intuition. As someone who analyzes and sits on the sidelines to observe, I can respect him, and how he cuts through the bullshit. He isn’t wrong. There is a reason I left her back in her bed, a reason that she probably won’t like.
“I’m assuming you brought Bones close to home. She explained quite a bit to me last night. I will be frank with you. I want to see him and don’t plan on him being alive when I leave that room.”
Darius smirks at me, glancing over his shoulder he shouts to a man who’s maybe twenty feet behind him. “Vance let’s take Dmitri to the Dungeon.”
I follow Darius and Vance through their massive warehouse. If you didn’t live here, you’d have no idea what doorway led to what area. It’s a maze, but it’s smart. Thinking from an outside perspective, it would be hard for anyone to ever take hold of their compound. I can tell that it was planned this way, I don’t know the specifics on what Darius does, but from what Jenna tells me, he is a good man, he did take her off the streets after all. I plan on asking her more about that later, when we have more time and can go more in depth about her past. Last night was a shock to me, and I’m sure it was even harder on her. The only reason I’m not livid with her is because I know what it is like to hold secrets. She is right. I have mine, and she certainly has her own.
Darius leads the way, he takes us down another stairwell until we’re in a main area that looks like a massive garage. He continues walking and stops when he reaches a door. He flips open the cap to an electronic pin pad and begins entering numbers. A moment later, the door unlocks, and he pulls the door towards him, opening it for Vance and me.
I think that he’s going to make us walk another mile, when in reality, it’s just a few more steps until we reach our destination. I don’t mistake it, because as soon as we walk through this door, everything changes. I have seen torture rooms; being part of the Vipers MC meant that I was privy to see a lot of things that no others had seen. Being the VP meant I got to see a lot more than anyone else did, especially when it came to torturing information out of rats.
Before we reach where they are leading me, I can hear the groans coming from Bones. I knew that tone like a record playing on repeat inside my mind.
Darius opens one more doorway, and when we walk through, I see him strung up, his hands are chained to a metal bar hanging above him, his legs are chained down to the floor, making him look like he’s in some sort of X position. Beads of sweat slowly roll over his cheeks.
“Dmitri. What in the fuck?! About damn time someone came to get me out of this fucking place!” Bones looks to Darius, laughing manically “I told you my club would get me out of this fucking mess. You didn’t want to believe it. Bet the whole fucking club is outside in your lot.”
Little does he know that no one from the club is here, besides me and kotenok that is.
“I have a question for you,” I tell Bones, wondering if he will be honest with me, or if he will do whatever it takes to save him from what I have planned.
“I do too, when are you getting me the fuck down? I’ve been here for fucking hours while you and Reed have been twiddling your damn t
humbs! Say, why isn’t Reed here?” Bones looks around the room for a moment, I wonder if he’s catching on that something isn’t quite adding up.
“When was the last time you saw Tegan?” I don’t allow my eyes to waver from Bones’ expression as I ask him the question. I can see him shocked at the name I just uttered, and how it quickly fades to a false state of confusion.
“Tegan? Tegan who?” He sputters,
“I think we both know exactly who I’m speaking of.” Bones doesn’t say a word. I thought the room was silent before. I know exactly what he is doing, he’s looking for an angle. Men like him always are. “Are you really going to pretend that you didn’t watch a girl being raped in front of your very own eyes and you did nothing?”
He blinks, licking his lips. “How do you know about that?”
“I always find out everything. You of all people should know that.” Bones had always joked how no secrets could be kept around me, and he wasn’t wrong. I’m the man who finds out everything there is to know about everyone. It’s funny how I can see a man lying straight to my face, but I can’t even tell that my own girlfriend has been doing it.
“Why did you do it?” I ask him.
“Her father was a traitor. Traitors have to pay, it’s plain and simple,” Bones lashes out in anger.
“Her father may have been a traitor, but you never take out the sins of a parent on a child. And what you did, it’s despicable. You let a little girl be raped,” I hiss it out, blood boiling through my veins, I can feel my rage starting to peak out. I had something special planned for him, but now I got an even better idea. Something a bit more poetic. Bones is going to feel exactly what my kotenok did. I won’t spare him the pain, nor show him mercy. He will get treated no differently than she did in those moments. She didn’t go into specifics with me on what happened, but I knew enough to know she would’ve begged and screamed, even pleading with them. Bones will beg and scream, and he will be treated worse than she ever was, that I guarantee.
She hasn’t confessed to me why she’s been hiding under an alias for all these years. I have an idea of why she’d be doing this, it’s something I might have done myself. If I take a guess, I think that she truly wants to get back at the people that harmed her. My darkness will give her what she wants. I only hope she will still love me after it’s all said and done.
I tell Darius exactly what I want him to do. He doesn’t even argue with me, which is shocking. I’ve only known the man for a little over a day, and I think that he will want me to stop, but he does nothing to stop my actions. I instruct them to lower Bones down onto the wooden table in the corner of the room and to secure him down, tightly.
I’ve thought long and hard about what I will do to him. I planned on slicing his dick up into little pieces and letting him bleed out over the course of hours, but a new idea has popped into my dark mind. He thought that it was funny to watch my kotenok be raped? I wonder if he will think the same after he’s been through it.
Darius alerts his men. I somehow think that he wants to be part of this, that he wants revenge for Jenna, or Tegan, or whatever the fuck I should be calling her now. She may have been lying to me the entire time I’ve known her, but I know she wasn’t lying to me about everything she’s been through. She was breaking down in front of me, peeling back all of her layers that protect her. I can’t deny it, I care about this woman more than I’d admit. I may even love her. I haven’t felt love in a long time. Love makes you do crazy things, so is this love? Is this act of violence because of my love for her?
Darius’ men tied Bones down onto the table, stomach pressed against the wood. I walk over slowly, thinking about the right words to say to him. Only, I know that there are no words that will do what is about to happen justice.
“You liked watching a little girl being raped so much, I thought that maybe you’d like to experience everything she did.” Bones’ face is turned in my direction, so he can do nothing but stare at me. I want to know what he is thinking, if he is now regretting previous events, if he is fearful for what he thinks is coming. He may believe he knows how horrible this experience will be, but I can promise you – it will be much worse.
I raise my hand up slightly, and one of Darius’ men comes over with a hunting knife and cuts off Bones’ pants and shirt, leaving him naked on the wood. He starts to grumble, thinking that this will save him from his fate. Nothing will save him. “What the fuck, Dmitri! Get me the fuck out of here before Reed kills you himself. You really think he’s gonna let this happen? You think that you’re not gonna get repercussions from this?! And you’re doing this for a little girl, a girl you’ve never even fucking met!”
“You’re wrong.” I stare him blankly in the eyes. “This won’t matter because you’re going to die anyway. You and I both know Tegan, only, she goes by a different name now…. Jenna.” His eyes practically bulge out of his head hearing what I’ve just said to him.
I turn to face the group of men behind me, I still don’t know who Darius is exactly to Jenna besides a guardian angel of sorts. I can tell that the man loves her, and from the looks of it, so do his men. “What do you have?” I ask them, I see one man hold up a piece of metal pipe, another holds up a bat with barbed wire, another has a broom. “Make him suffer, and don’t let him pass out.”
There was a time when I was the man who enjoyed torturing others. I won’t lie, that part of me is still there. I know myself, and I know that I have to sit out on this one, for I would find it too gratifying.
Chapter 12
Loving me will not be easy, it will be war. You will hold the gun and I will hold the bullets. So, breathe, embrace the beauty of the massacre that lies ahead.
- R.M. Drake
Jenna
I wake up to an empty bed. I stretch my arms out on both sides of me and feel nothing, when all I want to do is feel the man I’ve poured my heart out to. I know that my secret could destroy whatever it is that he and I have, and it most likely will, but I can’t help that my soul calls out to him. It begs for attention, pleading for his demons to dance with my own.
It’s funny, you think I’d fear that he would tell everyone about who I really am. Granted, he doesn’t know much, but he knows enough to where it could do some serious damage. I trust Dmitri, I don’t know why, and I sure as hell don’t understand it, but I just do. I think that sometimes, when you meet people who remind you of yourself in some way, shape, or form, you trust them easily. Dmitri reminds me of myself in a way, and I think that’s only because I can feel the darkness that comes from him. It feels like home.
I throw my legs over the corner of the bed and stand, stretching to prepare myself for this day. I’ve still got a bone to pick, no pun intended.
I turn to walk around the bed and go out of the doorway when the door comes open, and I’m met with Dmitri. He glances at his watch and looks to me, “It’s nearly one in the afternoon. I’m glad you got some sleep.”
I cringe, knowing that I stayed up late crying against his chest, sob after heartfelt sob escaping my lips. It was years upon years of built up emotion finally coming out. I can only be thankful that he was the one I was crying to. He didn’t shush me, or order me to tell him things that I wasn’t ready to. He simply tangled his hand in my hair, softly rubbing the back of my head and pressed reassuring kisses against my forehead. We didn’t speak, but neither of us had to. I knew he was going to be there for me as much as I did or didn’t want him to be.
“Yeah, me too,” I confess, offering him a soft smile.
“You and I have a lot to talk about.” His words come out of his mouth quickly, laced with irritation. “I feel like I don’t know you. You’re mine, my kotenok, and I know nothing about who you truly are. That will change.”
“I know.” And I do. I plan on telling Dmitri everything. It’s just hard for me to tell him everything today. I need time, time to explain things about me, about my son, about being adopted and going more into depth about my affiliation with Pur
gatory and then hiding myself within the Skulls Renegade as I waited for Will to finally show up. “I just can’t tell you everything today, Dmitri.”
He looks at me with understanding, he doesn’t judge, or even speak up and argue with me. He simply nods in agreement. This is how I know that I’m falling for this man, he’s seen the darkest parts of me – for the fraudster and liar that I am, and yet he doesn’t pressure me for the answers that he so desperately seeks. He’ll let me tell him on my own time.
“I’ve dealt with Bones, and he confirmed what you told me last night.”
“What do you mean, you’ve dealt with him?” I ask, curious to see what exactly he’s not telling me.
“It means that Bones isn’t a problem anymore. I have dealt with him, and the men here have helped me with that.”
“You mean you’ve taken what was mine?” I hiss, anger flooding through my entire body. If anything was to be done to Bones, it was my right. I think I’ve earned that after everything that he and Will put me through all those years ago.
“I saved you from having to bear the weight of his death on your shoulders.” I laugh at Dmitri, and I mean I laugh, I laugh as if it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m pissed.
“Do you think I’ve never killed before Dmitri? Do you even know where we are right now, which gang owns this club?” I watch his emotionless expression, he nods slightly which tells me that him and Darius must have done some talking while I was asleep. “Then, you must know what Purgatory is. We go after sinners, after disgusting scum, and end them. Do you know how many men I’ve killed, and how many women? Hundreds. Don’t think that you’re saving me from a guilty conscious when I already have one.”
“Kotenok.” Dmitri shakes his head as he walks towards me, both of his hands go to my shoulders and he rubs them softly. “You think that killing those in the name of Darius’ gang is the same as killing a man who watched you being raped as a child? No. Those kills mean nothing to you, maybe they mean an end to a horrible life and you are somehow grateful for that. Bones is different, it is personal. Will is different, it is very personal. I have no doubt that you have the ability to do what needs to be done, but I have seen those who have been in your footsteps. You want revenge, yes?”
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