Pay Dearly

by M. S. Brannon

  When he turns his back and looks through his briefcase, I take the opportunity to really move my wrists. I jerk them back and forth. The pain is intense, and I have to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from whelping aloud, but I think it’s working. My arms are sweaty from my freak out moments ago, making it slightly easier to get my wrists free. I don’t want him to know what I am doing, so with his back still turned, I keep jerking my arms in an attempt to slip out of my bonds.

  My stomach swims with terrified excitement because I have a plan. It’s a dangerous one, but I might be able to survive this ordeal after all. If I can slip my restraints, I can attack him, punch him in the face and throat, whatever it takes to get him stunned enough for me to snag his gun.

  Kickboxing was introduced to me in college, and I fell in love with the ability to work off my frustrations with it. Now that skill will be my saving grace. However, whatever I do, it has to be quick because my ankles are still bound. There is no room for error. If I fuck up, I’m dead.

  I jerk my arms back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Blood is oozing from my wrists as the unforgiving plastic slices into my wrists, but the blood is lubricating it, too. The agony is only helping my situation right now. It’s my reminder that this is really happening, and I am in a fight for my life.

  I tug my right arms so hard I can feel the skin rip away from my body, but I am determined to get my hands free. My wrist starts to slide up as my palm eases its way out. I use the fingers of my other hand and claw my way out of the zip tie. I rake my nails under the plastic as I force my palm to slide through the opening. I can feel my nail bend against the plastic, but I don’t care if I rip it clean off. I am getting out of this if it’s the last thing I do.

  With my eyes boring holes into his back, I tug one final time. The pain is immense, but I finally break free. My chest is heaving, and my body feels like it’s going to exploded with the amount of adrenaline ripping through it, but I am free.

  Now I need to coax him over here. I need to start talking, just like before, so I can get my hands on his gun and take this asshole down.

  I decide the best way to get him to react is to pick up where I left off. I only hope I don’t have another freak out if he lies on me again.

  “What time is it?” I ask, wanting to break the ice and get our little conversation started.

  He keeps his back to me as he raises his left wrist up and looks at his watch. Right handed. I will need to remember that. It’s his dominant hand. I’ve got to keep my body away from that hand if possible. I’m sure it’s lethal.

  “Do you have somewhere you need to go, Josslyn?” He says my name with a deep, accented tone, and it only adds to the allure this man projects. It’s frightening how I feel this pull toward him. I don’t know him, and I don’t really want to know him, but I can’t help being drawn in by him.

  I am in this rare situation that I will probably never have again, and all I want to do is study him. I want to speak to him and find out why he is the way he is. Again, serial killers have always fascinated me. I just want to know why he kills. Why does he have all these urges to kill innocent people? Then I will crush him under my foot and watch the poison get shot through his veins when he’s executed. That, I have no doubt.

  “Well, yeah, actually I do have somewhere to go, and it involves you getting in the back of a police cruiser and me arresting you for six murders,” I snap.

  “And what make you think I am responsible for six murders, my dear?” He turns around and looks back at me curiously. His cheeks have a slight stubble on them, but it makes him look more rugged, and dare I think … sexy. I can feel the way my body reacts to not only his looks, but his very presence, the way he moves when he walks closer to me.

  I swallow down the fear as he takes a small step forward and reply, “Because I saw the skin and eyeballs hanging on the wall. It would be fair to say they belong to my John Doe’s who were found by the ports.”

  “But that is only two people, detective, not six.” The man moves out of the room for a moment then comes back in with a small, folding chair. He sets it across from me yet still too far away for me to really do anything to him and takes a seat.

  “That’s true, but all six of my victims have been marked with the letter V, sir.”

  His face visibly falters, though only for a second. “So you came here to feed that policeman’s hunch you cops always talk about, but tell me, what did your gut tell you that would lead you to The Ruins? From my understanding, it’s a place of atrocities, and not too many people are brave enough to come here.”

  I shake my head, silently telling him no. I will not share any more information until he gives a little my way. I need to know who this guy is and why he is really here. I know it’s all tied to the Smiths’ murders, but how? He is the man in the photograph, so who was the man on the floor? The answers need to start piling up before I divulge any of my information.

  “Tell me who you are, and I will why I’m here,” I demand, pissed how shaky my voice sounds in this hollow room.

  He crosses his legs, looking very sophisticated and in charge. I worry he will slice me open with that huge knife or shoot me between the eyes at a moment’s notice, but he only stares at me in bewilderment.

  “You’re an interesting one, Josslyn. Not too many people have the audacity to challenge or refuse me. I admire your courageous act, but it will not save you in the end.”

  “Then what do I have to lose?” I snap.

  “Fair enough. However, I have another question for you. Have you ever wanted someone dead? This certain someone wronged you in the worst way possible, and the only way you will have total peace within yourself is to seek retribution for what they’ve done to you.” He smiles a knowing smile, and my mind immediately goes to the night my father was murdered.

  The men were never found, but the men are a part of what he is a part of. My gut and my heart are telling me that.

  “Yes. Yes, I have. I am looking at one right now,” I spit venomously. “But why all the show? Why mutilate them and display their corpses when you only want them dead?”

  “You see, Josslyn, murder is brash. It’s derived out of careless impulses, leading to a trail of mistakes and ultimately capture. It’s elementary and messy. But revenge … Revenge is entirely different, my dear. It’s methodical and gratifying. Revenge stews and festers as your mind has nothing to do except ingest the hate, to transform and become the hate. Revenge only seeks one outcome. It wants them to pay and pay dearly.”

  “So you are here, seeking revenge on someone?”

  “Correct, but the game has only just begun, which is why you are here. I have been locked away for eight years. Eight years, I’ve been living in the deepest, darkest hole no American can comprehend, and the only thing that kept me from becoming insane was this.” He waves his hand, gesturing around the room. “I can’t fulfill my plan if you’re on the case, now can I? I have to eliminate any and all threats, and I see you as a big obstacle.” He stands up and pulls his gun from the inside of his jacket.

  Here it comes. He is going to shoot me in the head.

  I can see the end of the barrel. It’s pointed directly at my forehead. He’s still too far away for me to lunge at him, but I have to do something. I can’t sit here and let him kill me. I’ve always said I will go down fighting.

  “So what horrible thing did a young girl do to you that she deserved not only to be murdered but raped while her family dead in the other room? Why did you have to seek revenge on a little boy who was so young he could barely brush his own teeth?”

  The man freezes where he stands and completely loses his egotistical mask. It’s replaced by the look of a man who wants to maim and destroy me. He stumbles slightly on his feet then falls back into his chair. My questions will never be answered, though, because I will be left like the others—mutilated and scarred with the letter V. My life is done. At least I tried to make it a good one.

  I hope m
y father is proud. Maybe he will tell me when I see him again, when I see him soon …

  Chapter Twenty

  Nikolai

  August 7, 2015 9:45 a.m.

  My emotions have been raging inside my chest as I clench the wadded newspaper in my hand. I sat in the booth, reading the details of the Smith murders, the pit of my stomach boiling out of rage. The murders were brutal, and it enrages me further that I should have realized this was the plan all along. I was cocky enough to think they were untouchable, that I had covered their tracks well enough to make their whereabouts unknown, but I didn’t. I failed them. Now, they are dead.

  I abandoned the diner an hour later after barely eating my food and headed over to the Smith house. Before I arrived, I stopped by a local flower shop and purchased a bundle of white roses. I park a few houses down, watching the cops walk in, out, and around the house. The big one I saw the night they were murdered is accessing the scene, and I’m impressed with his dedication to the case, but he should be with her, looking for me.

  He steps from the house and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. Nodding his head, he makes a call and walks to his car. He’s gone. I know I shouldn’t, but I want to go inside and see the life they created. I want to see it all.

  I step from my car and walk along the sidewalk. I do my best to make my way without being noticed. At the corner of the house, I walk to the back, allowing the tall hedges between the houses to cover my movements from the street. Then I round the south corner of the house and stall for a moment.

  There are flower beds planted, just as they are out front. She did love her flowers, and he probably did, as well. The thought makes me smile for a second, thinking about the two of them together. Perfect. I was never perfect with anyone, certainly not her, but I knew he would be. And until the night they were killed, it appears he was.

  I walk up the two steps to the back door and hold my hand on the door handle. I want to go in, but I freeze. I know what will face me when I open the door. The horrors of the scene won’t bother me. It’s the horrors they all faced that will send me into a furious state.

  I let go of the handle and allow my body to collapse on the concrete step, thinking about Smith. Back then, he was known as Roman. He was the other half of me, my twin brother. We both suffered a life no child should have to face.

  I can feel the hurt resurface as my mind reluctantly walks down memory lane. I’ve trained myself to forget about him, to forget about being abandoned by our mother, the nights we survived as kids on the streets, and the few moments we had as young men before I had to erase him from my life. When we were living in the orphanage, it was the three of us—Anna, Roman, and me. It seemed like it was the three of us against the world since we knew we were stronger in numbers in that place.

  I was the protector of the group, always making sure their backs were covered, and he was the smart one. Roman was always coming up with schemes for us to get an extra biscuit at lunch time or how to escape the hell of that place. He was the one who told me how to break out, and it was Roman who followed behind me when we shimmied out under the fence. We were two ten-year-old boys, surviving on the streets until I got picked up and sent to juvenile hall. Then we were apart for the first time. I fell in with the Vory V Zakone, and he fell in to the ordinary life.

  It wasn’t until I was out for the first time that I introduced Roman to the organization. I was sure it was the answer for all his problems, and for a time, it was. He fell in line with the orders and was on his way to earning his stars. Stravinsky felt like he was our father as he molded and trained us to be the assassins he desired. We were able to work as one man. We would go in undetected, finish the hit, and get out.

  We were identical, but looks were the only part of us that were the same. It didn’t take long for Roman to need something more than endless bodies piled at our feet and the respect of Stravinsky. Roman was not like me. He wanted what we never had—normalcy.

  Just before the biggest hit of his criminal career, the one hit that would set him apart from the rest, Roman bailed. He couldn’t handle the stress the life carries. He wasn’t meant to be an assassin or a thief. He was a guy who simply wanted something ordinary. He wanted something he’d never had, and that was a future. He knew the consequences of escape, and like I had done my entire life, I needed to protect him. If he was dead set on running, then I needed to make sure it was done right.

  Monica was another person who needed to escape. To me, she was known as Mary, a gorgeous woman who had an even prettier soul. She was a woman I met between the prison life and my criminal one. We were in New York City, she was a citizen of America, born in Portland, but had spent the past five years living in Russia. She happened to be visiting with a friend before going back to Moscow the next week. I found it vey convenient I could have access to her in both countries if I wanted to. This only added to her appeal. And soon, I found her bed was warm, and her body was just right. She and I had a fling for a month or two, and then she ended up pregnant.

  Marrying and starting a family are forbidden under the Thieves code because we were supposed to be each other’s family. We are only supposed to protect our brethren, our fellow men with stars, and that is it. If the leaders within Vory V Zakone found out I fathered a child and supported it, I would be killed. My child would have been killed. And the mother of the child would have been killed. It was code, and I was too deeply engrained to unlearn everything I had been taught.

  I wasn’t my brother. I have one talent, and that talent is welcome in the Vory V Zakone. Besides, I am incapable of love. I really don’t know what that is, not for a woman, anyway.

  She wanted out and so did Roman; therefore, I aided in their escape. I shook my brother’s hand while he vowed to me he would raise my baby like his own, and I watched them board a plane.

  As I watched the plane take off, I vowed to myself that they never even existed. As painful as it was, I erased them from my memory and continued on with my life. Anna was the only one who knew what really happened to Roman, and until the day I killed her, she never spoke of him or Mary.

  I break my eyes from the flowers and swallow down the pain. I can feel my eyes glisten for the first time in my adult life as my heart shatters inside my chest. I’ve failed him. I’ve failed all of them.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Josslyn

  August 8, 2015 2:40 a.m.

  He just looks at me. His eyes are ignited by fire as the words slip from my mouth. The gun is still pointed at my skull, but he’s done nothing. He merely stands there and stares at me. It looks like I killed the love of his life or something instead of the look of an egotistical serial killer. I will say I am baffled. Then I toy with the idea in my head that he wasn’t the man who killed the Smith family. However, I shake the thought the second it comes into my head. He killed them. He simply doesn’t want to answer for the atrocities of their deaths. He doesn’t want their blood on his hands.

  I keep my back pressed against the brick and my hands clutched together. I’ve barely moved since I slipped my restraints, and I can’t afford to. This is my only shot at survival.

  I just keep my body tight and pressed into the wall and wait for the time to be right. However, this man only looks at me. Minutes have probably gone by, and he is completely detached from the moment.

  What I said about being a rapist and a child murderer apparently isn’t sitting well with him. Maybe he’s like Victor and has serious mental issues. Maybe he’s a paranoid schizophrenic, and the voices told him to do it. Who knows? Whatever it is, I will make sure he’s held accountable for it.

  My head is spinning circles when I look at this guy. He’s gone from heinous to broken in a matter of seconds, and all at the mention of the deceased children.

  Breaking the silence, I say, “Ryan, lower the gun.” I use the softest, kindest tone I can muster. I need to speak to him like he’s a wounded child.

  Several seconds go by before he moves. He lowers his ha
nd, his hard face transforming back into the controlled killer he once was. The light in his eyes turns cold.

  “Don’t call me that,” he says when he sits back in his chair with the gun lying in his lap.

  “Who are you, then?”

  A sly smile stretches across his face. This man cannot be reasoned with.

  My gut stirs because I know he is not done with me, but I relax slightly, hoping I bought myself a little more time.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Nikolai

  August 7, 2015 11:00 a.m.

  I sit on the stoop of Roman’s back porch, tossing aside my thoughts once again. I told myself, once they were out of Russia, that was it. I would not allow myself to think of them and wonder if they were okay. I made my choice. I was one hundred percent dedicated to the Vory V Zakone.

  I stand from the stoop and look up at the door. I want to go in there, but I can’t. With the merciless feelings coursing through my veins, I know it would be too hard to see the life they created for themselves, a life I failed to keep safe.

  I press my palm to the back door and whisper, “I’m sorry, brother.”

  I drop the white roses on the concrete outside the door and swallow back the feeling in my chest. Walking from the stoop, I round the corner of the house and go back the way I came. The six-foot-tall hedges provide some cover from the street, and the moment I walk to the front corner, I am so glad they are there.

  As the flash of the detective’s face comes into my mind, fate plays on my side because she comes driving down the street. My heartbroken state is soon replaced with revenge. Killing Boris and the other man did nothing to suppress the hate I have inside of me.

  When her blonde hair comes into view, I immediately want to rip her to pieces. She’s done nothing to me, but she will be the wrench in my plan if I don’t stop her now.