Pay Dearly

by M. S. Brannon

  I despise rapists, and I knew there was something fucked up about Boris, but I didn’t want to witness it. He is the cousin of Ademar, and if I were to prevent Boris from doing what his sick mind wants, then I would appear weak, and ultimately, I would be dead.

  I keep my focus on the man tied to the bed. He is pleading with us to leave his family alone. I hate this guy. I have been trained since my days in juvenile detention to despise the authorities. Growing up in Moscow, the police are cruel and inhumane. It hasn’t been difficult to apply this thought to the man lying in front of us.

  As I study my mentor, my sights are broken away from his when Vlad drags in a young girl from her bedroom. Boris practically salivates as he finishes torturing the woman on the bed.

  I can feel my head spinning. This is not my first kill, but it’s the worst one. I don’t want him to hurt the girl. She can’t be much younger than me, and she can’t possibly understand what is happening to her family.

  Vlad and Boris are speaking in Russian, arguing over who’s going to get the first taste of the girl. They are arguing about who’s going to be the one to rape her, and ultimately, Boris wins. He is ranked higher in our organization, and Vlad has to concede to him. The men switch places, and Vlad resumes where Boris left off with the mother. Boris looks like he’s in heaven as he falls to the floor, fondling the girl.

  I’m going to be sick. The cop on the bed is screaming for his daughter’s life while Ademar only looks him over. I know we are not going to save this family. They will all die because we don’t leave a witness behind, no matter how innocent. It’s our code. We never leave anyone alive.

  “You’ve meddled for the last time, detective,” Ademar says to the cop. “You were warned to back off, to stay out of Little Odessa, yet you continued to pursue us.”

  Ademar snaps his fingers, and Vlad, Boris, and myself stand alongside the bed. The cop is terrified because he knows he will die tonight. However, he won’t know the fate of his family.

  “Me! Take me, not them!” the cop shouts.

  Seconds later, Ademar plunges his knife into the cop’s chest. I move to the side, yank the pillow from under his head, and then cover his face. Ademar continues his assault on the cop as he stabs him over and over. The muffled cries are covered when his wife screams at the top of her lungs.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” Ademar says breathless from his kill.

  “She’s all used up.” Vlad points to the mother as she continues to scream. She is watching Boris round the foot of the bed and fall down between the girl’s legs.

  The mother is silenced as Vlad clocks her on the side of the head with his gun multiple times. The blood is rushing from her head, and I know she is dead or will be soon.

  The sounds of the girl break through my thoughts as Boris destroys her innocence. He is raping her, but she has checked out. The girl is mumbling a tune, disconnecting herself from the situation.

  She is gone, singing, “All alone is all we are … All alone is all we are … All alone is all we are.”

  I can’t help thinking how true those words really are, and I am disgusted. I can feel the hate for this man boil to the surface. I want kill him. He can’t live. He must die.

  I pull my bowie knife from the sheath and stalk my way over to him. Before I can sink my blade into Boris’s neck, however, Ademar yanks him off the girl’s body, clocks her on the head, and knocks her unconscious.

  “We’ve got to go. Nikolai?”

  I look over to him and answer him with my eyes.

  “Take care of her.” He points to the girl before the three of them walk from the apartment.

  I look down at the unconscious girl, and my black heart opens up for the first time in my life, knowing this is not right. I know it’s our code, but she is too innocent. This should have never happened. I am only seventeen, nearly her age, yet she is so much more adolescent than I ever was at that age.

  What about Anna or my brother? Could I take their lives if I was ordered to? Would I be able to kill a child because they are a possible witness? My head tells me I have to, but my gut tells me I can’t.

  I walk to the side chest and find white, fresh flowers inside a vase. I pluck the flower from the stem then bend down to the girl on the floor. Her forehead is warm, and her face appears to be at peace, but when she awakens, that will be the last thing she will feel.

  Leaning over, I put the small flower inside her open hand and kiss her on the forehead. Then I whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  Lifting my pistol in the air, I release the trigger and put a shot in the ceiling. As I walk from the room, I know this girl will be alive, but the quality of her life will never be the same.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Josslyn

  August 8, 2015 2:48 a.m.

  “They should have never died!” he screams again, pushing his gun harder into my head.

  I am scared, more scared than I was the moment before. I know he is on the edge and more than likely will take me with him once he goes.

  His breaths are rapid and deep, the air pushing past his lips. He is so close to me, but I don’t feel suffocated. I feel something else. Behind the fury in his blue eyes is a glint of real, unrelenting agony. I can relate to that pain on so many levels. I felt the torture of losing a person you love.

  Taking a risk, I move my head back and to the side, getting the gun off my head. He doesn’t move. He is vulnerable, so now is my chance to make my move. I can feel the anticipation building in my body, my hands shaking behind my back. As I try to get the strength to follow through with my plan, I take a deep breath. However, he stops me in my tracks.

  “I’m not who you think I am, Josslyn.” The heart break is back in his eyes, appearing to have taken over the fury. “The family who was murdered was my brother’s family. His real name is Roman, and hers was Mary. The young girl who was killed was my daughter.”

  Stunned, I don’t move. What the hell is he saying to me? I am so confused yet intrigued to hear more. I keep my body as still as possible as he kneels in front of me then lowers the gun. His soul is crushed and the wounds of his loss are bleeding out in front of me. This isn’t the actions of a demented killer or a trained assassin. It’s the actions of a human being who’s lost his family. Then I think back to the nights following my attack and the plots of killing the men responsible were so deeply vivid and consumed my every thought. I wanted to kill the men who destroyed my family.

  His eyes connect with a blank spot on the floor. “My brother was a part of this, but he wanted out.” I know he is referring to the Vory V Zakone, so I nod my head, and he continues, “You have to understand, the moment he left is the very moment a target was placed on his back. I loved my brother very much, and I’ve always protected him. I helped him get out. I helped both of them get out.” Reading my confused expression, he enlightens me. “She was pregnant with my daughter. I wanted to take care of her, but I would be in violation of the Thieves code because creating a family of your own is forbidden. So, I chose this life over a life that might get them both killed, and I sent her with my brother. I could never give them more than the killer that I am. I knew my brother could, and that’s how they ended up together. I guess they fell in love.”

  I am dumbfounded as I look at him for a moment, but then I see the pain he is showing me in my eyes. I know I need to break free, but there’s this underlying current keeping me connected to him. As he tells me his story, I don’t feel the disgust for this man and the crimes he committed. I feel his pain and my heart aches for him, and for myself. Yet, I keep going back to him and learning more about the person sitting in front of me.

  “Then who are you?” I ask in the quietest tone.

  He breaks the gaze with the floor and looks back to me. His sad eyes morph once again, his vulnerability gone. He gets his face close to mine. The monster he spoke about moments ago is now face to face with me.

  In a seething tone, he replies, “I’m Nikolai Petrov, my darling
. I am the man who is going to kill you.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Nikolai

  August 8, 2015 2:40 a.m.

  I am sitting across from the detective, bantering back and forth with this woman. She keeps asking me who I am, trying to encourage me to speak more, and I play along, telling her a little more about me and that I am here to seek revenge. She is accusing me of killing my brother’s family, and the words are hard to hear because it couldn’t be further from the truth. I swallow down the hate of the words she’s saying and try to turn her attention to something else. It works for the most part as I vaguely enlighten her about my plot for revenge. However, this is getting tiresome, and I want to get the hell out of this town.

  I finish telling her about my tormented eight years in prison and then say, “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.”

  I stand up and pull my gun from the inside of my jacket. The weight is familiar in my hand as I wrap my finger around the trigger. I extend my arm, ready to fire.

  Once again, as I debate with my body to follow through with my plan, the unyielding detective stalls me.

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

  Everything escapes me. I lose all composure as she finally gets under my skin. She doesn’t let up, and the accusatory comments only awaken the monster inside of me. It’s alive, the man I’ve been molded into by Ademar Stravinsky and an unforgiving upbringing.

  My legs stumble back slightly as I rock back on my heels and fall into the chair. I only look at this woman and wonder, What the fuck is she doing to me? Is this fate playing with me because I know her? Is it irony that I was supposed to kill her, and against anything I’ve ever expected, she is back to slowly kill me? Her imposing questions and insistent nature has circled back to haunt me, making me wonder if I fucked up by saving her life all those years ago.

  Then her voice cuts through my thoughts again. It takes a moment for her words to register with my consciousness, but when it does it shocks me out of my head. I freeze once again. She is calling me by my brother’s name, or the name she knows him by. The thought of my brother is enough to make me shatter inside again. I allow the pain to slowly seep in. I need to feel this pain because it will be easier for me to deal with what will happen next.

  I look over to her and reply, “Don’t call me that.”

  “Who are you, then?”

  All I can do is smile wickedly. The answer to that question is easy to answer while simultaneously impossible to comprehend.

  August 8, 2015 2:45 a.m.

  “Why do you want to know so much about me?” I inquire.

  “Because that’s my job. It’s my responsibility to find out why someone could kill an entire family, mutilate two men, and that all starts with getting to know their name. I’m an investigator.” Again, she throws my brother’s family into her conversation, and I can feel the sting from her accusation.

  I tell her my story from the beginning. I enlighten the detective on the horrors of growing up without a family, suffering in an orphanage, and surviving on the streets as a young boy. I wasn’t like the spoiled children in America. I wasn’t adored or loved. I was a nuisance. A complete burden, a delinquent of our society, and I was treated accordingly every single day. I never had the opportunity to be anything other than a monster. However, the moment the word privilege falls out of my mouth, I want to take it back. I want to take it all back because Josslyn has suffered, and in some ways more than me. She’s had to live with that night every single day of her life. Yet, when I look at her face and can feel a change happening on the inside. The horrors of her attack have haunted me for the past twenty years. And every second I look at her face I can feel the thick layer of hate that encases me slowly dissolve.

  I swallow the impending feelings down, though. I can’t show her anything less than the killer I really am. I have to remain in control of this situation. I shake off the feelings and go back ranting about my connection to the organization. I say way too much, yet nothing really at all. I haven’t answered her questions and by the glare shooting from her eyes she will not let this go. But, really needs to let it go. Or there will be nothing left of her.

  As predicted, she doesn’t stop. Therefore, neither do I.

  .*.*.*.

  August 8, 2015 2:46 a.m.

  Red is the color my homeland is known for. It’s the color of Christmas. It’s a color of a popular flower and the color of love. It’s the color of a rash on your skin or the color of blood pouring out of it. Red has man faces. Currently, it’s the only color in my sight. It’s the color of my furious state of mind.

  I yank my body from the chair. My knees collide with the floor. Instinctively, my gun rises in the air as I press it to her forehead. She is petrified from my loss of control. I can feel my calm, calculated state getting ripped away from me as I allow all the hurt and pain for my brother and his family to flood in. I am stripped raw. The vulnerability is bubbling to the surface and I want to smash it down. I want to put a bullet between her eyes and watch her as she dies. I want anything, but the damn feeling to take over my body.

  “I didn’t kill that family! They were my family, and they are dead!” I scream in her face.

  I can feel my body shaking from the rage and the years of bottling my true emotions over leaving my brother and Mary. I should have never allowed them to leave without me. What happened to all of them was wrong, and only I am to blame.

  “They were innocent! She was my daughter! He was my brother!” I divulge angrily. My words don’t stop. It all pours out. “It was my job to protect them! They should have never died!”

  August 8, 2015 2:48 a.m.

  I am seething, unable to control my rage as I push the gun harder into her head. She is frozen. Josslyn is scared for her life, but it doesn’t faze me. I keep my frame close to hers. My chest is heaving. It is all unfamiliar to me.

  For the past eight years, I have lived with only hate inside of me. I’ve reveled in the rage and become fueled by it. However, when I am close to her, something else starts to swirl in my body. It’s something unwanted and unknown, and I know it’s something that could be my undoing—weakness.

  I can feel it surfacing as it rips through the hate and fights its way to the surface. Like a tidal wave, the unwanted feeling rears its head, and I succumb. I let it take over as I confide in the first person since my brother left. Of all the emotions swimming around through my body, weakness surfaces, and there is no stopping it.

  I don’t know why, but I want her to know all about me and why I am here. I look into her scared, blue eyes and am thrust back to the night she was attacked by Boris. I deteriorate my will to keep her in the dark about my past when I finally see her and embrace the connection I felt that very night. I finally spill the truth.

  It’s like I’m someone else. The voice is mine, the body is mine, but the words and emotion are someone else, someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak since he was a child.

  I tell her about my brother and Mary. I tell her his real name and watch her eyes soften with every word. My body relaxes as I kneel with my head bowed, looking at the grungy floor under her small, delicate feet. I simply let out the true pain of losing my brother as I talk to her about their escape and about how you should never break the Thieves code.

  I keep my eyes trained to the floor, but my other senses are fully alert. I can hear the noise the cars make from miles away. I can sense the presence of cops even when they are not around. Ultimately, it’s my sixth sense. They are still at a distance, but I can hear them. It’s the faintest sound, violently plunging me back to the place I need to be—the state of mind that I need to have. Then it hits me. This woman is no use to me dead. S
he is my biggest pawn in this calculated game of revenge. She will be my wild card. They won’t know hit them until it’s too late.

  “Then who are you?” she asks just as the idea comes to me.

  I look up at her with the eyes of a killer. Gone is the glimpse of the vulnerable man I allowed her to see moments ago. I respond proudly as I grip my gun more tightly, slowly lifting it higher.

  “I am Nikolai Petrov, my darling. I am the man who is going to kill you.” The show is about to start and I need her to play the part of helpless victim.

  The sirens get louder, and Josslyn finally hears what I have for the last several seconds. The look of panic masks her beautiful face. However, all I can do is smile, knowing the next several minutes in my life are going to be interesting, because they are coming for me.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Josslyn

  August 8, 2015 2:52 a.m.

  It’s a miracle. It has to be. The faint sound in the distance is my salvation, yet it could reach me too late.

  The police have been searching for me, and they’ve finally succeeded. For a split second, I wonder how they found me, how Gabe found me, but the moment I see the barrel of his gun slowly start to rise, the only concept my mind can focus on is surviving this night.

  Nikolai raises his gun and moves it closer to my temple. This is it. It’s my last ditch effort to fight for my life. I have to react now or I will die.

  With a balled fist, I jerk my arm from behind my back, swinging it around and landing it on his cheek. Nikolai is stunned as he teeters back on his feet, landing on his ass. I lunge off my butt and force my body weight forward, falling on top of him, and begin plowing my fist into his face.

  The random, sleepless nights I spent kickboxing at the twenty-four hour gym and the years of physical training I’ve completed in the police force have now come to this—a life or death moment hinging on my skill level with this killer.