“Luca sent you, didn’t he?” I demand, raising my voice slightly. Struggling, I push up farther, breathing through the burning sensation spreading across my chest.
“Lay the fuck back down,” the guy barks at me as he towers over me.
“Tell me where the fuck she is!” I yell at him. “Tell me what the hell you did to her!”
“Jesus fuck,” he mumbles as he shakes his head at me. “She’s not here.”
“WHERE DID YOU TAKE HER?!” I scream at him as I ignore the pain and lurch forward at him. My body barely moves and I’m left in an awkward position, half hanging off the bed.
The door opens in a rush and another guy steps in, looking almost identical to the first one, only younger and dressed in an Armani sweatsuit.
“What the fuck, Alek?” he barks as he pushes past him. “You’re not supposed to fucking provoke him!”
Groaning, I try to move back onto the bed and the guy appears beside me, wrapping his arm around mine. Lifting me up, he helps position me on my back in the center of the bed.
He plops down on the mattress and turns slightly toward me. “I’m sorry, my brother has very shitty bedside manners.” He gives me a small smile as he holds out his hand. “I’m Dr. Volkov, but you can call me Nik.”
Russian. That explains the accent.
What did Luca do to piss off the Russians now?
Glancing down at his hand, I look back up at him with a hard stare. “I don’t give a fuck what your name is or what I can call you.” Clenching my fists, I take a deep breath. “Where. The. Fuck. Is. She?”
Nik runs a frustrated hand through his hair as he turns to face his brother. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” Alek replies indifferently as he crosses his arms over his chest. His expression is void of any emotion as he stares back at his brother.
Nik turns back to me and smiles. “She’s perfectly fine. Not a pretty little curl on her head is out of place.” His smile should be warm or comforting, but there’s something off about him.
Doctors take an oath to do no harm, but he gives off a vibe that he does more harm than good.
Rising to his feet, I ignore the wound on my chest and move with him, grabbing his arm tightly as he stands next to the bed. Using any strength that I have, I pull him toward me, but he doesn’t miss a step.
“I want to see her,” I demand as he leans down. “Now.”
Staring at me with the same fucking smile, he shakes his head lightly. “No can do, bro. She’s not here right now, but I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
My grip on his arm tightens and his eyes light up as his smile widens. “I’m not your fucking bro,” I seethe. “Where is she?”
Nik glances back at Alek who gives him a blank stare and stands as still as a statue.
“Look,” Nik starts as he crouches down beside the bed. “It’s not my place to spill her secrets.”
“The fuck—” I interject, but he cuts me off.
“If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you when she’s back.”
The gauze across my chest becomes more saturated with blood as I breathe heavily and my heart pounds against my ribcage.
All I see is red.
Blood red.
His blood.
He can’t be trusted. Someone with eyes like his never have good intentions.
Everything he says is a lie.
They have Dahlia here somewhere.
The adrenaline kicks in and my free hand is clenched in a fist as I drive it into the side of his head. Nik’s body jerks to the side, but he’s still caught in the grip of my other hand.
He glances up at me, slightly disoriented. “What the fuck?”
Holding onto him, I hit him again, using enough force to knock him down onto the ground. In a matter of seconds, he’s pulled away from the bed and Alek is towering over me as I try to climb out of bed.
“Fuck you,” I growl as I try to get up. Alek roughly pushes me back onto the bed and puts his weight on me as he holds me down.
“Nik,” he barks as he glares down at me as I fight against him. “Get the fuck up.”
I see blood.
Both of their blood.
“I’ll fucking kill you if you touched her,” I seethe as I struggle to break free from his grip.
Alek throws his leg over me as he straddles me on the bed. He squeezes my thighs together with his, pinning me down.
“Got it.” Nik smiles as he strides over like he was never hit. Holding up a needle, he flicks it, dissolving the air bubbles trapped in the liquid. “I need you to constrict his forearm as much as possible. His hand’s our best bet right now.”
Gripping my arm tighter, Alek huffs as he cuts off the blood flow and Nik grabs my hand.
“What the fuck is this?” I demand loudly.
Tapping on my hand, Nik finds a vein and positions the needle perfectly. He slides it into my skin and a warmth spreads through my body as he injects the substance into my bloodstream.
Pulling the needle out, Nik smiles down at me as my eyelids grow heavy. “You’re going to take a little nap and when you wake up, we’ll try this again.”
Sinking into the bed, I feel my muscles loosen and relax as my breathing slows. Everything around me slowly fades away as my vision becomes hazy.
“We could just kill him instead.” Alek’s detached voice comes from somewhere in the distance.
Nik laughs lightly as it barely reaches my ears. “You’ll get your hands bloody, brother, but not right now. I’m too fond of my dick and balls to lose them to his girl.”
My girl.
Her face floats in my mind as my eyes refuse to open again. I’m drifting and losing control of everything as I drift off into the darkness.
Where are you, bambolina?
Dahlia
Staring at the front door of their house, I stall as my mind and body are overcome with a rush of different emotions. An overwhelming sense of doom envelops me and the anxiety of being here begins to override any positive emotions I had been feeling.
When it came down to it, there were no positive feelings attached to the relationship that I had with my parents. The bond between us was broken after I was taken and held captive at the farm.
They tried after I was home, but that maternal and paternal love was never the same. They looked at me differently and treated me differently. I was treated like a fragile piece of glass, but when I asked for an inch, they gave me a mile.
They had no sense of control over me and they let me live my life like that.
It all makes sense now, now that the truth has been revealed and their secrets were exposed. How could they treat me the same after what happened to me and after what they did?
They knew that their little girl was gone and even though they tried, they knew that they would never get her back.
◆◆◆
Taking a deep breath, I muster any courage that I can find within and finally ring the doorbell. Wringing my hands together, I wait awkwardly and fight against the memories of when my life was good with them.
Those memories aren’t my reality and they haven’t been for a very long time.
I’m here for answers, not a goddamn reunion.
The door is slowly pulled open and my mother peeks her head through the crack. I hear the sharp intake of her breath as she pulls the door open farther.
“Dahlia?” Her voice shakes. “Is that you?”
“In the flesh,” I proclaim as I step closer to the door. “I don’t have much time, so let’s do this.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” She nods as she steps out of the way, giving me room to enter the house.
It is just as I remember it, with the lavish décor and expensive furniture and fixtures. However, none of it feels familiar. Nothing about this place feels like home.
“Please sit.” She motions to the couch in the front room.
Crossing my arms defensively, I shake my head and decline. “I’ll stand.”
“Okay,” she says hesitantly as she folds her hands in her lap. “How are you? Look at you, you’re so grown up.”
“Cut the shit, Mother.” I roll my eyes. “You don’t care about me or my life.”
“That’s not true!” she interrupts, but I quickly dismiss her words.
“If that were true, you would have visited or called at the very least.” Tilting my head to the side, I stare at her shocked face, feeling slightly amused. “This isn’t a goddamn reunion, Mother. This is your confessional.”
Her eyes widen as her body stills. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know your secret.” I smile. “Don’t waste either of our time with your lies.”
My mother stares at me like a deer caught in headlights, but it doesn’t take long before her shoulders slump and she submits. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me where my daughter is and why you did what you did.”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closes her eyes as she takes a deep breath. “It happened after the police found you. They had already taken you to the hospital when they called us. You were heavily sedated and being prepped for surgery when we arrived. They told us that you were delusional and became aggressive and combative, looking for Kai. They didn’t know you were pregnant until your water broke. The doctors believed that the stress is what caused you to go into preterm labor. An ultrasound was done to confirm that you were pregnant and to determine how far along you were. That was when they found that the umbilical cord was wrapped two times around the baby’s neck and was slowly strangling her. You were already thirty-three weeks, so they made the decision to perform an emergency C-section.”
“The C-section that you covered up with an appendectomy?”
“Yes.” My mother hangs her head in regret. “I’m not proud of what we did, but your father and I felt as though it was the best option. You were still a kid, who experienced trauma that I could never imagine. We didn’t know how you would handle it and we knew of a great family that would take her in, no questions asked.”
“You didn’t know how I would handle it?” I bark. “You never gave me a fucking chance to!”
“Dahlia,” my mother starts calmly. “I know now that we should have told you, but you have to understand… we didn’t know if the baby was a product of rape or what types of memories she might represent for you.”
I shake my head and scoff as I begin to pace the floor. “You didn’t know because you never fucking asked!” I’m standing in front of her, yelling. “She wasn’t a product of rape, she was a product of love. The kind of love that was bred in the midst of sheer chaos with an unbreakable bond. We have the kind of love that the rest of the world yearns for. She would have been a reminder of the good that came from that hell.”
My mother’s eyes are wide and filled with tears as my voice dies down. “I had no idea,” she whispers.
I purse my lips and cut my eyes at her. “Maybe you would have if you would have asked.”
“You’re right.” Her voice cracks around her words.
“I know that you chose the family that has her and that you know them personally. Who are they?”
“May and Sal’s daughter and her husband.”
May was my mother’s best friend when I was growing up, but after I was returned home, she stopped coming around.
“You gave my kid away to your friend’s kid?”
“They had been trying for years to have a child of their own and they couldn’t,” my mother explains as if that makes this whole situation right. “They’re good people, she’s well taken care of and they love her as if she’s their own.”
“But she isn’t,” I remind her harshly. “I want to meet her,” I demand. I have to see it for myself to believe it. There’s no other way.
She nods understandingly. “I’m sure that we can arrange that.”
I give her a curt nod just as her phone begins to ring and interrupts our conversation. I welcome the interruption because our time here is done; I have nothing left to say to this woman.
“Hello?” My mother asks hesitantly as she answers the phone. She listens intently as she stares at me.
A few moments pass as I sit in silence before she slowly hands the phone to me. “It’s for you.”
Reluctantly, I take the phone from her and glance down at the blocked number on the screen. “Hello?” I ask hesitantly.
“Alek’s on his way to pick you up now,” Nikolai informs me, with the agitation evident in his tone. His agitation and the abruptness has me unsettled and anxious.
“Something happened,” I concur. “What happened, Nik?”
“Your boy woke up.”
A rush of relief floods my system as I let out the breath that I didn’t know I was holding. “How is he? Is he okay?”
Nik chuckles harshly through the phone. “Oh, he’s okay,” he scoffs. “He has one hell of a right hook, I’ll give him that.”
Kai hit Nik?
My eyebrows pinch together as I’m mildly confused. “Huh?” He was shot and is laid up in bed, but somehow he hit Nik?
“He woke up and you weren’t here so he flipped his shit when he didn’t know where you went. I may or may not have had to sedate him to get him to calm down.”
He surprises me. “You mean that you didn’t tell him?” I whisper, slightly in shock.
“I may not be a good guy, but I’m a man of my word,” he assures me. “Well, for the most part.”
I shake my head. “You’re a good guy, Nikolai. Even when you aren’t.”
Nik laughs lightly. “Babe, trust me, you won’t be saying that after you get to know me.”
“I have a feeling that I’ll never know the real you,” I mutter as I remember my mother is sitting in the room, watching me.
“Don’t take it personally,” Nikolai replies indifferently. “No one ever will.”
I don’t have the brainpower to decipher his cryptic shit, especially with my mother’s judgy eyes on me.
“When will Alek be here?”
Tires screech out front and my mother jumps to her feet and runs to the front window.
“He’s not there already?” Nik’s voice is filled with concern as he questions me.
The murdered out Rolls Royce is still running as it sits in the driveway and its driver leans on the horn twice.
“He’s here,” I sigh into the phone.
“See ya soon, babe.” You can hear the smile in Nik’s voice as he ends the call.
Handing my mother her phone, I head over to the front door, leaving her by the window.
“I’ll be in touch,” I tell her curtly as I pull the door open.
“Please be careful.” She tells me with a troubled look on her face.
I laugh lightly and shake my head. “Like you ever cared before,” I mutter as I slip outside into the night and run down the steps to Alek’s car.
He’ll take me where I belong… I never belonged here.
Kai
A peaceful silence fills my ears and my eyelids slowly part as I open my eyes. They’re met by a blinding light and I wince as it blurs my vision and I quickly shut them.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself in frustration. Trying again, I reopen my eyes and squint immediately as I let them adjust to the light. My vision becomes clearer and I’m able to take in my surroundings again.
Nik slowly comes into my field of vision. “Jesus Christ,” I scoff. “You again?”
He chuckles as he walks closer to the bed. “Yep. Me again.” But he isn’t alone.
The sweet sound of her voice touches me before she does. “Oh please,” she snarls at him as she steps in front of me, but her demeanor changes when her eyes reach mine. “I’m here, Kai. I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice is tender with her promise as she sits down on the bed beside me. Leaning closer, she cups the side of my face and gently strokes my cheeks with the pads of her thumbs.
Resting my head against her hand, I lean into her
and close my eyes as she comforts me. I look back up at her with a cold stare and she freezes as she assesses my expression. “So, where did you go, bambolina? You had no problem leaving me then.”
Dahlia’s face pales and her eyes quickly flash to Nik’s as she drops her hands from my face. He gives her a small smile and shrugs. “I’ll give you guys a minute,” he says as he quickly slips out of the room.
What the fuck is it about this guy? What does he know that I don’t?
“After Nikolai removed the bullet and made sure you were good, you were resting and healing, so I went to my parents’ house and met with my mother,” she admits quietly.
She catches me off guard and I wince slightly from the pain that hits me deep in my chest, but it isn’t from where the bullet hit me.
“I know that I was reluctant to go see them and we didn’t fully discuss it, but I felt like it was something that I needed to do.” She pauses and her eyes are a mix of indistinguishable emotion. “Alone.”
Her words don’t soften the blow, knowing that she left me out on purpose.
“Why would you go to them without me?” My tone is harsher than I intend as I question her. “This affects both of us, Dahlia. We’re supposed to be in this shit together.”
Dahlia laces her fingers together and casts her gaze down to her hands on her lap. “I know that, Kai…”
“So, why the fuck am I just hearing about this now?” I scoff with a scowl on my face. “You didn’t think that I would maybe want to go too?”
Her eyes flash to mine and they burn with an intimidating intensity that would shake any man to his core. She’s pissed, I’m pissed, and my cock still reacts to the fire that burns inside of her.
“You think that it was easy for me to go there alone?” she demands. “You almost died, literally jumping in front of a bullet for me. I didn’t know what the fuck to do, Kai. Call me selfish, but I needed answers and it couldn’t wait. You needed to rest and heal and going to get the answers that we were looking for was the only thing that I could do.”
Severance (Entangled Series Book 2) Page 11