by K. J. Dahlen
“All right child, I won’t press the issue but I’m here if you want to share it with me.”
Serenity nodded.
“Dad,” Misha called out. “We should get them to another room so she can get some rest. She has got to be in a lot of pain.”
Sergi got to his feet. “Of course, we have a long night ahead of us and we need to get everyone settled first.”
Bella went to stand by Raven and she had tears in her eyes when she saw Nicky sweep his wife into his arms and carry her down the hall. Raven caught the look in Bella’s eyes and wondered what had upset the other woman so badly.
Bella shook her head and went to grab Malina’s hand. She held it tight as they made their way to their new rooms on the inside of the hotel rather than an outside room.
When Nikoli showed her to her room, she turned to him and closed the door with tears in her eyes.
Nikoli frowned and was about to ask her what was wrong when she the door shut in his face. He looked over at Raven and shrugged. He left a guard at each of their doors. Once the women were taken care of, he, Sergi, Micha and Yuri went to the elevators down to the cells where Zhora waited for them. He hadn’t asked Nicky to be part of this because he felt Serenity needed him more than he needed this.
The four men approached the cell and as they got close, the man looked up from his place on the floor. His eyes were glazed over as he saw them come closer. He winced as he shifted in place. The wounds on his leg and his side was still bleeding freely but had slowed down and there was an uncomfortable bite of the shackles on his wrists again.
“Well, I must say I never thought I’d see your faces again,” Zhora commented coldly.
“And I never thought I’d see you again either,” Nikoli glared at the man.
“Da, I’ll bet you didn’t.” Zhora snarled. “Yet, here we are, face to face again after what? Twenty-four years?”
“And to think I didn’t miss you one day of the last twenty-four years.” Nikoli shook his head.
“But I missed you, each and every day I missed you. You see I had every day of those twenty four years to plan what I was going to do to you when we met face to face after all that time.”
“Da?” Nikoli asked. “And how are those plans working out for you now?”
Zhora shrugged. “They would have worked better if that freak had done her job a little better. I thought I taught her enough of a lesson that day to teach her not to betray me but I guess I fell short of getting what I wanted from her.” He paused and then asked, “I saw her go down, at least tell me she’s dead? Give me that much at least before I die by your miserable hands.”
Nikoli snorted in derision, “Nyet. You couldn’t even do that right, you lousy bastard. She’ll live a good long life while you rot in the ground, nothing more that fodder for the worms.”
Zhora shook his head and swore at the group in their own language. “Gryaznaya suka! Bylad.” Turning his raging gaze to Sergi, he glared at him. “You still live? You should have been dead a long time ago, old man.”
Sergi titled his head to one side. “And why is that?”
“You allowed those scum to cross our land, you stepped in when you should have stepped back and let us teach those gypsies a lesson. They had no right to think they could go wherever they wanted to.”
Sergi shrugged. “They were harmless people looking for a place to call their own. They weren’t stealing anything, they weren’t causing any trouble. They were Nomads looking for nothing more than a home.”
“Nyet! They were gypsies!” He screamed his outrage. “A plague on any society.”
“And you almost beat their leader to death.” Misha growled at him. “You and your men held blades to the young men’s throats and then you beat an old man senseless.”
Zhora snorted. “Then Nikoli and his gang of half grown children stepped in. He set us against each other when he should have stepped in to finish them off at my side. He betrayed the very core of the Bratva and you rewarded him while you sent me into hell on earth.”
“Those people were no threat to you or us,” Sergi scoffed. “You and your crew got exactly what you deserved for your act of inhumanity.”
“Those gypsies killed everyone in my crew. They lined my men up and slit their throats while everyone just stood there and watched, then they left me maimed for the rest of my life.” He lifted his left hand up showing them the place he once had five fingers. Now there were only two. “Then on top of all that you as head of the Bratva sentenced me to prison for the rest of my life, Ublyudok,” Zhora ranted angrily. “You me sent to the one prison in our land that houses the worst of the worst. You dumped me amongst murderers, rapists, and crazy men. Men with nothing to live for. I spent seventeen years in that place just trying to survive. Seventeen years of trying not to get my throat cut every single day.”
Nikoli crossed his arms over his wide chest and simply stared at the other man. “You’d made your own bed, you were the only one who should lie in it.”
“You sanctimonious bastard...ublyudo.” Zhora growled. “I was protecting everything I believed in that day. Those people were the scum of the earth. They steal for a living and would have slit your throat just for kicks.”
Sergi shook his head. “I spoke to them at length. They were just people looking for a place to settle. They weren’t even looking to stay in Russia but were on their way to another place. They were only there to get to where they really wanted to be, which was Poland. They were going to hook up with extended family in Krakow. They were honest travelers.”
Zhora simply stared at the men on the other side of the bars.
“How did you arrive in this country? Why did you even come here instead of staying in Russia?” Misha wanted to know.
“I am a wanted man in my home land.” Zhora snarled. “I couldn’t go anywhere without risking my life. Even after all those years, people remembered my face, my name and what I did. I asked around about Nikoli and found out he was here, so I came here to plan my revenge.” He glared at Nikoli and smiled. “You’ll never know how often you were in my gunsights. It would have been so easy to just pull the trigger and end your life but I wanted you to be stripped of everything you built up over the years. You took everything I ever had or thought to have and left me with nothing but dust. I waited, watched and planned my ultimate revenge and I thought I found it when I found the freak. She could strip everything you had away from you and you would never know it until it was too late. But she betrayed me even after I thought I had her under control. I thought I broke her but I didn’t. I see that now.” He nodded. “I should have just slit her throat.”
“How did you think you broke her?” Sergi asked, as he looked angry now.
Zhora smiled. “When I found the little bitch she was with two other small children. She claimed she had no ties to them and I took her at her word. She watched as I slit both their throats. Then I used something I learned in prison and put her in the dark, alone for days. When you’re left alone in the dark, you have to fight for your own sanity. No human voice, no human contact, it tends to drive a person crazy after a while. I left her alone for two weeks, it should have left her broken. But now, when I look back and think about it I don’t think it did.”
Sergi shook his head. “I don’t think it did either. She’s stronger than you ever were.”
Zhora nodded. “I figured that out eventually. She has a mouth on her that one does. She doesn’t know enough to show a man like me respect either but I taught her a good lesson.”
“What did you do to her?” Yuri asked as he stepped closer.
Zhora got a look in his eyes that everyone standing there knew well. It didn’t read well for Serenity but spoke well to the man’s character of being an evil bastard. “Let’s just say she’ll never forget her time with me.”
No one said a word for a few minutes then Zhora continued with his story, “But I gained her respect. She did what I asked and she got into Nikoli’s accounts. She beg
an the process of stripping everything he owned.” Then his lips tightened. “Then the little bitch slipped my net and I had to drag her back. You see I wasn’t finished with her services yet. I wanted more from her. That’s when I found out about Nikoli’s children. I was making plans to take them out before I took Nikoli out. I wanted Nikoli to feel the helplessness I felt every day I spent behind those prison walls.”
“Why are you so free with your confession now?” Sergi wanted to know.
Zhora shrugged. “I played my hand. I tried and failed and I accept that.”
Nikoli swore. He turned to his security team and began issuing orders.
Sergi frowned and asked, “What are you doing?”
Nikoli turned to the other man. “The only time a man like this pig gives up is when he’s got one more card up his sleeve. If he knows he’s going down, then he’ll make sure we go down with him.”
Zhora leaned back against the wall and smiled wickedly.
Yuri was watching the different looks that crossed Zhora’s face. He wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t trust the other man any further than he could throw him. He leaned closer to Sergi and whispered something in the older man’s ear.
Sergi listened and nodded. Then he motioned for his own bodyguards to open the cell. He then walked inside the cell and took an even closer look at Zhora. The other man was dirty and bloody, his clothes were torn and raggedy. Then he turned to his guards. “Pick him up and take him to another cell. One with no windows and a heavier door with a solid bases and locks on the outside.”
Zhora struggled to sit up as he began protesting the move. Yes, he had planned for in case he got caught but he’d also planned for his escape as well. He knew Nikoli would be so busy trying to figure out what his plans were that his security would get sloppy and leave him unattended and he would simply walk out of here on his own two feet.
The flimsy lock on the cell door wouldn’t stop him from walking out. He’d gotten out of sturdier locks.
“What the hell are you doing?” Now, he shouted his displeasure at the move. “I’m wounded and you want to put me into a room alone? I need medical attention, you assholes, not solitary!”
“You’ll get medical attention as soon as the threat is over and we neutralize the threat if we even find it,” Sergi informed him. “But for now, we’re securing you. You have much to answer for and this time, you will answer for it.”
Zhora struggled the whole way as he was moved, screaming and yelling but Sergi’s men did get him secured in another room. The room had steel walls and a solid steel door that he could not break. When he heard the lock turned from the other side Zhora was left alone. He was thrown back in time to when he was thrown into solitary. This cell he’d been thrown in was cleaner than the prison cell he’d been in all those yers ago.
He didn’t waste any time getting his hands free from the cuffs. He’d learned that little trick a long time ago. His missing fingers gave him an edge and he didn’t wait to utilize it.
He struggled to his feet and began to pace from one wall to the other. It didn’t take him more than a few steps.
Then he was frozen in place as the cell was plunged into darkness. Zhora was trying not to panic and sweat beaded on his temples. He couldn’t speak, he could barely breath as he was flipping back in time to the worst memory in his brain. He was a young, brash man, going through a time in his life he never expected to be going through. He had survived a week in this stinking prison. In that week, he’d been beaten and shoved into walls and tables while his cell mate was threatening his life.
He was in the room for seven days and eight nights. On the night he was released, instead of taking him back to his cell, the guard led him to another room. There were four other men in that room and they all had a look in their eyes that caused Zhora to back up and demand to be taken back to his own cell.
The guard just shoved him in the room and slammed the door behind him. When the dawn rose the next morning, Zhora laid on the floor broken and bleeding. There were some things in a person’s life they cannot bear to remember and that night was one he chose not to remember. The fear, the pain the screams he issued that night haunted his dreams every night but he chose not to recall the act visited upon his body.
That night changed him forever and before he left that prison, he got his own back on the four men that used him. The night of the riots, he found all four men and he murdered them all before he slipped over the walls and made his escape.
Now he found himself again, back in a locked room with no lights and no possible escape. Sure, there might not be four men waiting for him when he got out but he knew there was only death waiting on the other side of the door.
Zhora slid down the wall and sat there alone with only his thoughts.
Sergi and the others watched on the infrared cameras set up to keep track of the cells occupants. Each of them could see the fear and the terrors he went through. Sergi had received the records from the prison and as sketchy as they reports were, they gave him an idea of what Zhora was remembering.
“How do you know there is no threat out there?” Nikoli repeated as he ran his hands over the back of his head.
Yuri nodded as he answered, “I saw the reports from the riots he started. He needed a diversion to get the opening he wanted. He didn’t care about who got hurt in the melee that followed. I also found a footnote in the reports that four men were killed in their cells far apart from the riots. I’m not sure why these men died but I know Zhora had a hand in the deaths.” Yuri nodded his head at the cameras. “I think the man was hoping we would be so busy running around, we would overlook the fact he was sitting in a flimsy cell. You saw how easily he got out of those cuffs. I’m sure a street kid like him would have no problem picking a lock and then when our backs were turned, he would simply walk out the door, no one any wiser until it was too late to stop him.”
“My men will still search for anything amiss,” Nikoli told them.
Sergi nodded. “That is a step you want to pursue. But have them do it quickly and quietly. There is no reason to panic the guests.”
Nikoli nodded. “It’s already underway. Although most of the guests left after the shooting anyway.”
Sergi walked over to the outside cameras and noted the police still securing the perimeter, blocking both guests coming and leaving for questioning. “And do you trust these police?”
“Da, they are just doing their jobs. They’re searching the hotel as well. They can’t get to this floor or the floor our families are on, so we are safe. My men got to Zhora before the police were even notified of the shooting, and there were no witnesses to him being brought down here.”
“Then I think we should all get some sleep,” Sergi advised. “Our friend needs to stew a bit before he’s ready for what we have in mind. Put your best men in charge of watching over him because I want him alive when dawn comes.”
Nikoli nodded and called in two of his men.
One sat down at the desk in front of the cameras while the other one went to stand in front of the door.
Chapter Eleven
Nicky laid in the dark holding his wife but he knew she wasn’t sleeping yet. She didn’t seem to be in any pain at the moment but something was on her mind. He needed her to talk to him, to share her thoughts and fears with him. “Baby girl, talk to me...” he whispered. “I need you to tell me what has you so upset.”
Serenity stared at the ceiling in the dark. Tears filled her eyes but she refused to let them fall. She turned her face into his chest and just relished in his heat. She was so cold inside and her soul needed his warmth. The movement stretched her muscles and she felt it but she didn’t care, she needed him.
When his arms came around her to hold her closer to him, she began telling him about the night she met the man she called Z. “I made a mistake and overlooked one vital safety feature on my laptop. I know there was someone out there stalking me but one night I forgot to close out of a progr
am I knew could be traced. I’d been here almost two years by then but I got distracted by some kids that night. They found me and we were talking when Z and his men showed up. He took all three of us back to his house and began questioning us. Those poor kids were so scared. I begged him to let them go, even promised I’d do whatever he wanted me to do if he let them go unharmed. God forgive me... he let them go all right. He slit their throats in front of me and told me I would do what he wanted in any case.” She swallowed hard and for a moment she couldn’t go on.
Nicky held her and just let her cry. After a moment he asked, “What happened to you after that?”
“He threw me in a locked room in the dark. He thought I would be afraid of being alone but I wasn’t. I spent most of my life alone in the dark. He kept me there for two weeks. But I walked out of that room with my head held high. That was another mistake on my part. I should have known he wanted me broken at that point. When he couldn’t get it through being alone, he thought pain would break me.”
Unconsciously, his fingers found the ridges on her back. He hadn’t asked about them up to this point. He figured when she was ready, she would tell him about how she got them and from who. He’d seen them in the motel room when they showered together and had been shocked by the savagery it had taken to leave them. His eyes traced each and every one of them and he thought about the pain she must have endured when she’d received them. Now he wasn’t ready for her to say the words he didn’t want to hear.
He tipped her head up to his and laid his fingers over her lips. “You don’t have to say the words. I don’t need to know the why or the how of them.”
Serenity shook her head. “But I think I need to say them. I don’t want to say them but you need to hear them.” Looking him in the eyes she told him. “I don’t want any secrets between us. No secrets and no lies. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to have to hide in the dark, not from you.”