It’s not a bad deal this time, really.
My cell begins to ring, and I pick it up to see it’s Raquel of all people. She must be back on her two weeks and notices I’m not there like I usually would be at this time.
I haven’t seen much of her recently because of how Bianchi has been working me extra, supposedly for losing Davide, a high paying client, but also now because I slept with a guy that didn’t pay.
"Ahoj," I say into the phone, waiting for her bubbly voice to come through the reviewer.
"Ahoj yourself! What’s going on? Where are you?"
I relax, stretching myself across the lounge as I talk with her. "I'm off on another assignment, still making up for Davide being gone. Don’t know if she'll ever let me live it down. How are things there?" I dare ask, not sure if I really want to know.
"Well, that’s why I called you. Your sister and Galina, they seem weird. I caught them sneaking out three times now since I’ve been back and sneaking in once, and I saw who they were with. He is a client because I’ve had him before, but I don’t think he’s paying for them, at least not through Bianchi. And I think they might have drugs in here."
I scoff. "I'm not so surprised about the drugs. I think they’re actually selling them, but no point in telling Bianchi. She doesn’t believe anything I say right now. Plus, being my sister, it might look bad on me. I don’t need any more backlash. But if it gets bad, I don’t blame you for telling. But who’s the guy?" I ask, almost sure I know the answer already.
"Oh, it's this Russian mafia guy, Valentin Volkov."
Mafia guy? I don’t like the sound of that. Davide didn’t exactly hide what it was he did outside of the MMA tournaments, and even though he was a lot of fun, I could tell there were dangerous things going on behind the scenes. He wasn’t kidding. No wonder Valentin reminded me of him.
But I have the feeling Valentin is the real deal, a big boss, especially with his age and violent nature. I don’t know if I'm more afraid for the two girls or for myself. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that my sister is up to her antics again after I spend a little too much time away with a mafia guy and now she has her own mafia guy.
I don’t pretend to know what it all means. I’ve never dealt with the mafia before. There’s plenty of crime in Prague, but it's stealing, raping, and drugs, not mafia.
"It doesn’t sound good. You take care of yourself, and I'll be there soon to see what’s up."
We hang up, and a strange feeling comes over me, that sinking feeling of intuition. My sister is likely so much worse than I ever imagined. All these years of allowing her excuses and a million chances has spurred her on to think this is okay to continue, like life should be like this. One day, it’s going to catch up to her, but I wonder how many other she’s going to take down with her on the way.
I don’t even know if Galina knows the lengths that Regina is going to in order to hurt others, or who this Valentin is they are fucking with. So, my first line of defense is to call her. Galina is a straight up bitch, but she’s a reasonable one.
"Ano?" she answers lazily.
"Galina, it's Belladonna."
"Mmhmm."
"Look, Valentin did a number on me the other night, and he seems like he’s bad news. I just heard from Raquel, who I guess used to have to fuck with him, and he’s some mafia guy and is now hanging out with my sister. Is that who gave her the drugs?"
"It might be," Galina says nonchalantly.
"C’mon, help me out here."
"Yes, they were from him. Here’s the thing. He seems like a bad guy, and I won’t deny that. But we see bad men every day, Belladonna." She emphasizes my street name. "He may be a bastard, but he saved my life when I was running from the Clans."
"The Clans?" I ask. Hopefully it comes off as complete ignorance because I know exactly who she means. She means Davide and his group of mafia men. That’s who the Clans are, and if Volkov saved her from them, then they are enemies.
Maybe there’s more to Davide’s sudden disappearance than what I was originally told, or what he told anyone.
"Count yourself lucky you are so innocent and don’t know who they are. I will watch out for Jezebel. Don’t worry."
She hangs up on me, and it’s ironic that I'm filled with nothing but worry.
I think it’s time I got the stomach flu.
I go into the kitchen and start going through the cabinets, pulling out spices, milk, whatever I can find to make me throw up. Once I start, I know it will be hard to stop. My stomach isn’t that strong, and then when Bernie gets back, he'll have to send me home. I feel I need to be there and see what’s going on. I don’t like this one bit.
Five minutes after I down my concoction, I’m hugging the toilet just like I wanted. I don’t even have to fake the pale skin and sheen of sweat on my face when he comes in and finds me here on the floor.
"Oh my!" He jumps back as if I’m the most disgusting thing. Ha! He needs to look in a mirror. "I'll call Bianchi for a replacement. You need to go home."
He walks away, and I smile to myself as I rest my head against the toilet bowl.
***
My stomach feeling better thanks to meds, I come back into the building with a smirk on my face that night and carrying my suitcase. I would expect Bianchi to greet me since I'm coming home sick, but not at this time of night.
I go into my room as quietly as I can as not to wake Raquel, but as soon as I walk into the room, I know something’s wrong.
There’s blood on the walls, and Raquel's laying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Undressed on her top half and her stomach cut open.
Now, I really am going to be sick.
I scream into the hallway, waking everyone up, and I don’t even care. The closest I have to a friend and a roommate all these years is not just dead, she’s in our room, murdered. Chopped open like a piece of meat for the slaughter.
As the building erupts into chaos, Bianchi herself even running up to see what’s happened and coming out, phone in her hand and her other hand on her mouth to keep from getting sick, Regina comes into my line of vision.
I walk over to her, tears in my eyes, but I stop short, knowing when not a tear is in her eyes, something is off. She slides a finger over her neck like a threat. "Snitches get stitches, mladší sestra."
A chill runs up my spine as she walks away, and I know it's time to tell Bianchi everything. It may be the only way to keep from ending up just like Raquel.
Chapter 25
Blanka/Belladonna
I wait until the investigators are in my room and the body is gone before I go to Bianchi. I hope what has just happened will soften her heart to me because this is do or die for me.
"What do you want?" she asks me coldly, and I blink at her, trying to keep it together as I tell her everything.
I tell her about how I helped Galina but never wanted my sister around. About the roofie, the drugs, Valentin, and even about the fact I'm sure she had something to do with Raquel. I am on my knees, begging my employer to put my sister on the streets, or better, hand her to the authorities so she is out of our lives for good.
Bianchi just purses her lips at me, dismissing me with her hand. "I can’t handle all this right now. I'll deal with it later. Find somewhere to sleep."
My heart hurts, partly because even though she’s not a great woman, I felt like Bianchi would want to protect me and all us girls. And now I’m just being sent back up to the rooms to find an empty bed to crash in?
Davide is also on my mind. I can’t help but think he’s linked, but I need to let him go. Get him out of my head. He'll have to handle himself.
I have to think about me now.
I drag my feet along, wondering whose door to knock on for help when I'm yanked into a room by my arm and hair.
I don’t like what I see as I spin around to an almost blinding slap to the face.
Regina and Valentin stand in her room, and the door is shut behind me. "What was that for?"
"You don’t think I fucking heard that! You’re just as bad as that fucking snitch we killed." She flashes a knife in my face, blood on it, as she licks her tongue across it. I hope she’s joking and that’s not Raquel’s blood, but deep down I know she’s not.
This is real.
A nightmare I won’t wake up from.
I’ll either live by the skin of my teeth and always fear her or I'll wake up in whatever the underworld has to offer. Because no matter my heart I’m a paid whore going straight below.
I notice her bags are packed, and she grabs them, turning to Valentin as he smiles at me in a way that makes my skin crawl.
"Before we leave, babe, can you do something about my snitch of a sister? Don’t just kill her. Make the goody two shoes that’s always been a thorn in my side wish she were dead."
Valentin is already unzipping his pants, and I whimper as I know what comes next. It is moments like these that make you know your place. You can think all day long you're strong. You can fight, you can live through it and forget about it.
But you don’t know until it happens to you.
And I pray you never know.
He comes at me, my clothes ripping to shreds in his grasp. He piles on top of me, putting me down on the bed, a knife in his hand as well. He holds it to my throat. "Regina please, stop this. We’re sisters,” I beg her.
She sneers, the last I may ever see of her. "You are nothing like me, Blanka. Weak. I always knew it, from the moment I saw that baby face. We were never family."
She leaves me to face the body on top of me as he forces his way inside, the knife cutting little divots in my skin with every one of his rough movements. I cry out, but his arm goes over my wind pipe so I can barely breathe.
For all I know this awful moment is hours or seconds until the door opens, and a shot rings out. And he stops moving, his whole weight limp on me.
I look over his shoulder to see Galina in the door with a gun in her hand.
"I don’t believe in taking a woman’s choice," she says before coming over and kicking him, so he falls on the floor. He’s still breathing but barely. "The spine. He’s still alive. I’m sorry, it’s all I can do."
She takes off running as I hear Bianchi cussing in a yell down the hallway, and I know I'm in for more of a lecture, but I'm just so grateful to be saved.
"Co to kurva?" she gasps as she takes in the scene. I don’t know how I look right now, but it must be bad.
I snatch a robe from Galina’s left belongings to cover myself as Bianchi goes off on me, hitting me over and over.
The tears don’t come. I am in too much shock.
"You will pay for all of this, you stupid bitch! I have lost three girls, two clients, and all this damage to my building and reputation because of you! Get downstairs, scum. You will talk to the cops."
She pulls me by my hair, a chunk even ripping out on the way back down to the lobby. "You will take double clients now, no days off, to pay for this!"
More investigators, cops, a parade of people in and out. I have water, no food, not that I would want it. I talk to them in the lobby in my chair, not allowed to be out of Bianchi’s sight.
Just as sleep finally comes in the first quiet of the last 24 hours, a knock comes at the front of the building. I assume it's more detectives, but it’s a face I never thought I’d see again.
Davide.
"What the hell is she still doing here, Bianchi!" he bellows as he looks from me to Bianchi.
What the hell?
Chapter 26
Davide
I came here to find out why the fuck Valentin was here and was shot. I heard through the Clans on the way to Venice. Ion himself had the info as soon as Valentin hit the hospital, and I had to pretend I knew nothing even though Sergio also told me much the same a few minutes before. I had already been on the way.
I could tell Ion was fucking pissed because of the last time we talked when I hang up again. I told him there’d been an emergency and a false alarm and then told him there had been a separate sighting of Galina in Venice.
I had to be honest with him in some aspect, and I figured with Blanka at least gone from the brothel, if Ion sent his men there, she should be safe. But lo and behold, she’s right in front of me.
I meant to come here first, find out what the fuck was happening, and then go find Blanka. I thought that Bianchi might even know where she went. And I guess she does, because she hadn’t gone anywhere. And she looks worse for the wear, fresh cuts along her neck and bruises on her. She looks like she hasn’t slept.
And suddenly I feel incredibly murderous, betting that whatever happened with Valentin had something to do with her and that damn sister of hers.
"She is worth too much. Besides, she has wrecked this place and my reputation. She owes me for the loss of three girls and two clients."
"What is all this about?" Blanka comes up to us, and I try not to react to her right now. I want to get the full story first before I confess any feelings or show weakness. And it certainly won’t be in front of this motherfucker that runs this sham business. She can’t even stick to her own fucking contracts.
My jaw is tight as I answer without looking at her. "I paid your contract off. You’re supposed to be out of here by now."
Blanka falls to her knees in front of me, causing Bianchi to step back. For a moment forgotten, though she hasn’t seen the last of my wrath.
"Please," Blanka begs, "I have information about a Russian mafia man, Valentin Volkov. Take me with you and I will tell you everything."
I am torn. I want to stay here and make Bianchi pay, but I can tell something horrible has happened to the woman I came to save. That I came to make mine. I don’t know that I can leave her here any longer, no matter my reasons.
I pull her up off the floor and bring her to my side.
"She comes with me," I tell Bianchi. "You’ll let us leave or I will blow your brains out all over this place for all your whores to see." She is smart and says not a word as I sweep Blanka away into my waiting vehicle. I make sure I'm in the backseat next to her so she can tell me everything.
Though, much of it I already know. I just don’t know who shot Valentin and why.
But the problem is, she is shaking, in shock, and she has no clothes, just this ill-fitting robe. So, instead, I let her have her moment, asking the driver to stop at an all-night store where I go in and buy her some clothes, as much as I can in a short time, and then we take to the coast. Where a boat will be waiting for us.
It’s no yacht this time, much smaller, but just as nice. It'll be mostly us out there, less detectable, and maybe then she will be okay to tell me what she knows.
It’s sunrise when we finally make it onto the boat, and she is calmer. I hand her the clothes to take below into the small bedroom down there so she can change. She comes back up in a bikini and a button down shirt open over it. I like how she’s making light of the situation, even if everything is insane and possibly morbid, considering what all she’s witnessed.
"I'm ready to talk," she said calmly, "as soon as you tell me the plan."
"For now, until I know more and have a plan, we will be on this boat. It can’t be tracked as easily as my yacht. We'll travel around and make port when we need to but likely nowhere Volkov and his men will be looking for us or to find you," I assure her.
"Then, I should start by telling you Volkov has been shot. He was dating my sister. Giving her drugs to sell. Galina , one of the other girls in the house, she shot him because he was going to rape me at her orders. And brutally, mind you."
"If you knew he was shot and in the hospital, why did you pretend you were in immediate danger and in need of protection, which by the way, I already knew."
I look at her, seeing what her answer will be. It all depends on this what I do next. I know what the long term plan is, or the hope, but it’s whether I need to force her or if this will go more smoothly, and actually be a little fun.
; "I did what I had to do in order to be saved. I couldn’t be there anymore. Not after all that."
I grin at her, walking up and getting close for the first time since I took her out of that hellhole. "I knew you were perfect."
She looks shocked as I lean down to place my lips against hers, but she doesn’t fight me as I lift her up, her legs wrapping around me while the kiss deepens.
This is what I've been missing, and I don’t know how I’ve been without her so long. Carla's efforts to find me someone to distract myself with never would have worked. I know that now more than ever.
There’s no replacement for the real thing.
I carry her down below deck, trusting the captain of the ship to handle things. I lay her down, my hand sliding over her hot center, slipping my finger underneath to feel her folds.
As much as I like to do crazy things like when we had sex on the mat after the MMA fight, this is about more than that.
I need to show her I am the same man that offered the passion she'd always wanted, if she’s going to trust me for whatever comes next, because it’s not going to be easy.
I lay over her, my fingers still teasing her pussy a bit before sliding in, my words in her ear telling her in every language I know how beautiful she is.
Chapter 27
Blanka/Belladonna
A loose shirt belonging to Davide hangs over me, covering my top half from the sun’s rays. After a while, I'm sure I will get used to it, but by yesterday, I had quite the burn across my back and stomach from being out here.
The water is gorgeous, and I have never seen so much open space in my life. There are more whales and dolphins to see here than there are people, and I kind of like it.
Venomous (The Clans Book 11) Page 12