Fatos laughed as if he was joking, but they both knew he was serious.
Strom suddenly sped up then hit the brakes hard, shouting, “Go!”
Fatos shoved the side door open, jumping out, Valon quickly following behind.
Valon only caught sight of the boy’s face for a second, the shock and fear clear for anyone to see, before he was shoving the girl in the opposite direction and yelling, “Run!”
That struck Valon as odd, not that he was trying to protect the girl, but because he lacked the distinct Russian accent that he was supposed to have. He sounded…well…American.
When Fatos rushed him, the Russian cocked his fist back and let it fly, nailing him in the face that had Fatos cursing him as he stumbled backward. The girl was running, screaming down the street, but Strom was rushing after her, his big body slowing him down.
Valon just waited, watching the fighting. Fatos had recovered quick enough, charging at the boy, sending them both to the ground. They were grappling on the snow-slick concrete, trying to dominate each other, but they were evenly matched.
Strom had finally snagged the girl, restraining her as she struggled.
“Niklaus!”
Valon wasn’t sure whom she was calling for—no one there went by that name—but suddenly the boy looked in her direction, all the fight leaving him. Valon could see the moment when he was going to get away from Fatos to get to her, but he stopped it before he could even move.
With one well-calculated hit to his face, Valon knocked him off balance, watching as he hit the ground, his head hitting harder. But he was still conscious, still fighting to go toward the girl.
Valon admired his tenacity, his resilience.
But they were out of time.
Kicking him in the face, this time he made sure he was out.
Fatos was still struggling to his feet as Valon hauled the boy up, practically carrying him over to the van. The girl was still screaming, though the piece of cloth that Strom had stuffed into her mouth muffled the sound.
Reclaiming his feet, Valon stretched out his legs, folding his arms across his chest. Fatos glared at him, and Valon didn’t pretend not to understand why that was. He was jealous of what he was capable of, but Valon wasn’t going to apologize for being better than he was. Not ever again.
With their two prey in the van, Valon looked at Strom. “Let’s go.”
The address Jetmir had given them led to a large industrial warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was located in immediate vicinity of the place, so whatever happened inside was unlikely to be heard.
The perfect place for misery and death.
-
15
______
Standing back away from the others, Valon watched every single person in the room. Sometimes, especially during moments like these, he hated that he saw so much. Just a flicker of emotion in a person’s eyes always gave away their true feelings. And one thing that he had read on every last one of them was just how much they had enjoyed taunting the girl as soon as she woke up.
Valon hadn’t felt moved either way. If she wanted to lie in bed with a mobster, then there were risks that came with that, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy what he was going to have to do to her.
She was pretty, young, and probably had a life outside of all this, and if Valon was in Jetmir’s place, then he might have let her go, just to save himself the headache of a female crying, but the darker side of him knew that the best way to get the Russian to talk was to hurt the girl. Or at least, he hoped that would work. It all depended on what she meant to him.
Turning his attention back to the Volkov boy, he studied him, wondering when he would finally rouse. He hadn’t hit him that hard, but sometimes Valon didn’t know his own strength. Maybe he needed to work on that…
Just as he was about to look away, the boy stirred, a soft sound slipping past his lips as his head moved, jerking fully awake when he realized that he was being tied to the chair. Valon could practically smell the fear on him, but it wasn’t until the boy noticed his lover that he truly began to realize the true horror of his situation. He struggled anew, but he couldn’t break free.
The boy’s eyes went over each of them, lingering on Jetmir for some time. It was an easy enough guess as to who was in charge. Jetmir dressed the part in a charcoal gray suit with a long, black overcoat on top. The rest of them wore variations of jeans and T-shirts.
Jetmir studied him in return, nodding almost imperceptibly. “You did well.”
The compliment was aimed at both Valon and Fatos, for their work in actually finding and bringing him here.
Fatos, ever the eager one, ripped his mask off, smiling down at the boy. “It was nothing.”
The boy visibly paled under the insanity that was Fatos and for good reason. Valon had learned what he was capable of when he was bored. If he were inspired? There was no telling what he would do.
Since the mask no longer seemed necessary, Valon pulled his off, making eye contact with the boy. He wondered what he saw when he looked at him. Did he see the same crazy that he saw in Fatos? Less? More? They were two halves of the same coin, but Valon liked to pretend he was better than his counterpart was.
“Were you seen?” Jetmir went on.
“Nope,” said Fatos. “They were alone. He didn’t even have guards on him.”
Which had seemed strange to Valon. If this was the Bratva Captain, then wouldn’t there be at least one bodyguard with him at all times? Leaving the compound back in Albania, Bastian had felt the need to leave with at least three, not including Valon. But maybe he had left him behind because of the girl he was with.
Then he was stupid…
“How sure are you of this?”
Fatos readied to answer this inquiry as well, but Jetmir turned his back to him and looked at Valon for an answer. For just a second, there was a flash of fury in Fatos’ eyes before he hid it. Valon wished he hadn’t seen it.
Folding his arms across his chest, he briefly met the gaze of the boy before looking at Jetmir once more. “They were alone. Surprising, considering who he is.”
He hoped to convey that he thought it was strange, but the boy being alone was all that seemed to matter to Jetmir as he snapped his fingers, one of his men wheeling in a tray. Jetmir shrugged out of his coat and jacket, passing them both off to someone else.
“I am Jetmir Besnik, of the Besnik family, but I am sure you already know this.”
There didn’t seem to be any recognition in his eyes, but Valon kept this observation to himself.
“You possess information that I need. If you tell me, then I will release you and your friend here. If you do not, then I will force you to tell me.” His gaze shifted to the girl whose eyes widened in fear. “By any means necessary. Have you anything to say?”
The boy swallowed visibly, his eyes darting around the room as though he might find sympathy in one of them. Once, he might have found it in Valon, but that pity had been ripped from him the day the one closest to him took a knife to his back.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but if this is about money, I’ll give you everything I have. We—”
Jetmir sighed, shaking his head as though he was disappointed in the boy, but the boy was too afraid to do anything more than beg some more, not even when Jetmir reached for a pair of knives sitting on the try, turning them over in his hands as he stepped forward, and closer until he was just inches away.
“Please, make this difficult for me. I want to enjoy this more.”
Valon could see it in the boy’s eyes, the need to beg to get free. He remembered how he’d felt when he begged Bastian for anything, the weakness that consumed him. And though he pitied the boy for what he was about to endure, he didn’t pity his weakness.
In the blink of an eye, Jetmir stabbed the boy, just below his collarbone, a scream ripping free from the boy’s mouth as he tried to lurch away. Jetmir didn’t pull it free, just left it embedded in the boy’s ches
t, and before he could recover from that first assault, he stabbed him again, parallel to the first on the opposite side.
“Bleed for what you believe in,” Jetmir said in a low voice. “By the end of your time here with me, you’ll die for it as well.”
Jetmir stepped away, having said all he needed to say. As he turned his back on the boy, he looked to Valon, telling him everything he needed to know with one look.
It was his turn, and before Jetmir came back, he was meant to break him. By any means necessary.
Valon, for his part, kept his expression neutral.
There was a hook bolted to the wall, one Valon knew could hold the weight of the boy. If he was going to do this, then he might as well get started.
It took seven minutes to get the boy from the chair to the wall, binding his wrists together, and then stretching them out above him. Valon didn’t bother removing the knives Jetmir had left in his chest, merely cut through the back of his shirt until the material split and he had unrestricted access to the length of his flesh.
While Valon headed for the tray of tools, Strom stood next to the girl, the smile he sent her way making renewed fear spark in her eyes. Fatos…he stood back, watching Valon’s every move. He would undoubtedly join in on the fun soon enough, but he seemed content to just observe for the time being.
Picking up a blade that was at least six inches long with a cold, steel handle, Valon turned it over in his hand, getting used to the feel of it. He’d never had much of a predilection for knives until one was used on him. But now? Now, he liked them more than his own hands.
These cold, inanimate things could do more harm than his fists could any day. This knife was an extension, something that was not quite a part of him but made up so much of who he was.
“What are you doing?” Fatos asked in Albanian so that the boy wouldn’t understand.
Valon picked up a bottle of vodka that had been left behind, dousing his hands and the knife in the liquor.
“Wouldn’t want it to get infected,” he muttered, too busy concentrating on his task to pay Fatos much attention.
Spinning the knife around in his hand, he went back over to the boy, leaning back against the wall so that he could see him. His eyes were on Fatos as he spoke, but his words were low enough for only the boy to here.
“Tell them what they want to know,” he ordered, for his sake as much as the boy.
Sometimes his self-control even surprised him, but Valon didn’t know what he was capable of when he used a knife, and after what he had suffered because of one of them…he wasn’t sure he could rein himself in before he did more damage than he meant. Maybe he could end this before it even began.
The boy’s eyes darted frantically, but when he couldn’t offer a response, Valon couldn’t wait any longer.
Pushing off the wall, Valon circled him until he was at his back again, staring at the wide expanse of his skin. Using the very tip of the blade, he ran it across the boy’s skin, following a pattern that was all too familiar to him.
He pictured what he was going to do first, each line he was going to carve…
Before he could check the impulse, he dug the blade in, watching as it sunk in easily, cutting through his skin with ridiculous ease. Pulling back after a second, he watched the blood drip down his skin, the red coloring stark.
A shudder rippled through him as he felt the ghost of a knife going through his own back.
“Do you have an answer?” Valon asked, ignoring the shaking of his own voice.
He desperately wanted the boy to answer now, just so he could avoid what he had to do next. With just one careful line, he felt that familiar draw, the need to hurt someone else the way he had been hurt, but he rationalized it in his own head by thinking he was giving them an out, something he hadn’t been given.
Valon liked to believe he gave him a chance to answer before he started back in, but he didn’t remember because once he made another cut, he was lost.
-
16
______
In the last few years where he had learned how best to make a person hurt and the various ways he could achieve this, Valon didn’t think he had seen anything like this. Over the course of two days, Valon had done unmentionable things to the boy, had lost himself a time or two throughout the torture, but through it all, the boy held out.
That wasn’t even to mention what Strom had done to his lover.
Valon might not have shied away from what he and Fatos did to the boy, but he refused to take part in the gang rape. His morals might have been questionable at best…but he did have some.
After only a couple of hours of sleep on the first floor of the house they were in, Valon headed back upstairs, ready to begin it all again.
Ignoring the others, he looked at the boy as he always did; feeling that familiar stab of guilt at what he’d endured. He was sitting in a puddle of his own urine, his face a mass of bruises, and Valon didn’t have to see what his back looked like…he’d done that himself.
The girl was passed out, unlike the boy, and Valon was glad for this. It was enough that the boy was suffering. She didn’t have to, too.
He was nodding off, his dark, sweaty hair hanging around his face like a dark halo. Valon was not in any mood for carving his back up any further, so he kept to the back of the room, giving him a reprieve for as long as he could, but that idea was short-lived as Jetmir came charging up the stairs, a bucket of water in his hands.
His every step was clipped as he moved across the room, a desperate gleam now present in his eyes.
If Valon had to guess, then he was frustrated as to how long the boy was holding out. Not many people would have been able to keep quiet with the sheer level of pain Valon had put him through, not to mention what the girl had suffered. So, either the boy was a masochist…or there was something else, something that Valon was beginning to consider…
There was a timeline. Valon remembered that much from the day they’d visited the Besnik mansion to get the details of their assignment. Since he had held out for this long, they were running out of time.
Without a word to anyone, Jetmir tossed the water on the boy, stepping back when he lurched awake, his gaze shooting around the room. When he realized not much had changed, his entire body slumped with defeat.
“Your time is up,” Jetmir announced as he tossed the bucket to a corner.
Valon became all too aware that something big was about to happen as Fatos and Strom finally entered the room. Fatos was carrying a can of gasoline. The boy noticed this next as his eyes widened in fear.
Jetmir gripped the boy’s hair, forcing his head up so that he had a clear, unobstructed view of the girl, and then motioned for Fatos to come and take his place.
Valon knew what he saw once he had a good look at his lover, especially since during a good amount of what she had suffered, he’d been passed out. How, if he showed such weakness as he gazed at her, could he not tell them what they wanted to know, if only to spare her?
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry.”
She sniffled, shaking her head as a tear fell down her swollen and bruised face.
“I have given you ample opportunity—more than, if we are being honest—but you have continued to defy me. To what end, only you know.” With Fatos now holding the boy secure, Jetmir crossed the room. “What more must be done before you break?”
Jetmir pulled a black lighter from his pocket, the pad of his thumb drifting over the onyx casing and the engraving that Valon was too far away to see what it actually was. Each time Jetmir flipped the top back, the flame igniting, flickering in the darkness of the room, a sliver of anxiety slid down Valon’s spine.
This…this was not going to end well.
“Tell me what I want to know,” Jetmir said, all traces of anger gone from his voice as he made the same request from the first day.
The boy, who seemed to detect the very thing that Valon did, sat up straighter, shaking his he
ad once more. “I’m not who you’re looking for. I don’t even know what it is you even want!”
Sighing, as though the boy had once again disappointed him, Jetmir grabbed the red, plastic container from the floor, walking the short distance to her. Whistling as he unscrewed the cap, he dumped the contents onto her head, laughing as the liquid soaked her hair and washed away the traces of red on her thighs in seconds.
Whatever spell had kept her quiet up until this point wore off as she struggled, coughing behind the gag that was stuffed in her mouth.
When the acrid scent of gasoline hit him, the boy began begging in earnest. “Please…I’m not who you think I am. I live in Florida. I work construction! Whatever you want! Money? I can get it for you! Anything. Just please, let her go.”
Jetmir ripped the gag free from the girl’s mouth, her sobs now loud enough for them all to hear. Valon, not even realizing it, took several steps back, until his hands curled around the banister, the wood unrelenting under his grip.
Again, he held up that lighter, the flame dancing and sparking, as if it too was anticipating the moment of contact.
“One last chance.”
The couple met each other’s eyes, their helplessness clear. And for just a moment, Valon could see it in her eyes, the moment when she knew she was about to die, and instead of fear, there was acceptance. Valon flinched, feeling like he had intruded on a moment he was not meant to witness. He wanted to turn away, to not scar himself further by witnessing this, but it was as if he was glued to the present.
He had to know and accept what he had caused.
Her lips were moving like she was trying to say something, but she never got the opportunity.
“Please…”
The word had barely passed the boy’s lips when Jetmir stepped away and tossed the lighter. As it clattered to the floor, it was barely a second later before the gas ignited and the girl was consumed.
She screamed as the flames licked at her skin…
He screamed as he watched the girl he loved burn to death…
Valon: What Once Was (Volkov Bratva Book 0) Page 10