by Leah Wilde
“Whose side are you on, exactly?” I asked. “Are you with me, or are you with Dimitri and Ivan? Is there something going on I should know about, Julia?”
She sat back and shot me an appalled look. “You know whose side I’m on,” she hissed. “It’s not like I’m sneaking down there and sleeping with him.”
I raised an eyebrow, unable to resist the opportunity. “Now, there’s an idea. I wonder if it would get him to talk.”
“You ass,” she responded playfully.
I chuckled, trying to keep the mood lighthearted, but I really had expected her to fall in line more after sleeping with me, at least more than she was.
“Well, look, while you’re eating, I think I’m going to go downstairs and check on him,” she said.
I reached out and touched her hand. Covering my mouth while I finished chewing, I protested, “No, he’s fine. Sit down. Let’s talk for a bit before you get started. He’ll be there no matter when you go down.”
She sat back down with a puzzled look on her face. “Wow, I certainly didn’t expect this,” she said, staring me right in the eye.
“What?”
“I expected you to be done with me after sex. I expected all that caring and closeness to turn out to be an act just to get me in bed. I figured things would be back to business as usual today,” she explained.
Juarez and Chase weren’t back from the basement yet, so no, things couldn’t go back to business as usual. Not while they were still working Dimitri over.
I grinned at my beautiful companion. “Now why would you think that?” I asked.
She blushed and shook her head. “I don’t know.” She turned her eyes away, but before she did, I saw something in them. I couldn’t read her mood yet, but I got the distinct feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me.
I gently stroked her arm and hand. “Nothing is going to change what happened, or how I feel,” I told her, sweetening my tone so she’d believe me.
“I know. I’ve told myself I’m just being silly,” she admitted.
“It’s okay, but wait for me to finish eating,” I told her. “I want to go down there with you.”
“I really think I should meet with him alone,” she said in a serious tone. “I think I stand a better chance getting him to talk that way.”
I stared into those deep green eyes, unable to tell her the real reason I was keeping her from going downstairs to resume questioning Dimitri. I knew if I told her I had a couple of guys persuading him to talk to her, she’d probably try to call it off again. Luckily, if it did come to that, I knew the sex would give me at least a little leverage. While I wouldn’t have to say anything, I hoped she would be a little less likely to just jump up and walk out now that we’d slept together.
“I certainly agree,” I told her, taking a bite of my omelet. “I just want to be down there in case anything happens. I want to be able to get to you quickly.”
“I’m flattered you want to protect me, but I can handle myself,” she said. “Especially in a room with a man tied to a chair.”
“Don’t underestimate Dimitri,” I warned her. “He’s not as compliant and weak as you think.”
“You keep telling me that,” she said, challenging me. “I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Yet being the operative word.”
She got up to leave. “Look, just come down there when you’re finished,” she said, starting to walk away.
I grabbed her arm, and the feel of her soft, delicate skin under my grip sent a jolt of pleasure through me. I wanted her again. “Sit down,” I told her, covering my full mouth with my other hand. “Why are you in such a hurry to go down there this morning?”
“Why are you trying so hard to keep me here?” she snapped back.
I realized I was all out of answers. “Just sit with me for a minute,” I told her.
She sat back down, but I could tell I was losing her.
“What’s with you this morning?” I asked her, knowing I was asking for a fight.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you being so headstrong and argumentative?”
She cocked her eyebrow. “So, that’s what last night was about? Here I thought we’d connected, and you were just using the sex to make me more compliant.”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, that’s not why last night happened,” I told her. I opened my mouth to tell her that I’d wanted her since the first time I saw her. I wanted to tell her that I wanted her because she was so different from anyone else I’d ever been with. But the words were lost to me. I just shook my head and finished my breakfast.
“Let me guess. You don’t think you can tell me in front of everyone here,” she snapped.
Juarez and Chase walked up to the bar and ordered drinks, saving me from having to explain myself any further to her.
Julia stood up and narrowed her eyes at me in anger. “You’re a coward, Gage,” she said, storming off and going downstairs.
I didn’t try to stop her this time. I just hoped that what the guys had left her wasn’t too upsetting for her to find. I glanced up at the guys. Chase nodded and tapped Juarez on the shoulder as he walked over.
“It’s done,” Chase said, sitting down at the table.
“We’re pretty certain he’ll break down the next time he talks to your girl,” Juarez added, taking a sip of his beer.
“Well, let’s hope he gives us something soon,” I agreed. “Otherwise, we’re going to have to let him go.”
“Let him go?” Chase asked.
I ran a thumb across my neck.
Chase smiled. “I was hoping that’s what you meant.”
“Yeah, we can’t keep him around too much longer,” I said.
“You think your girl’s going to say something?” Juarez asked.
I wasn’t sure. I had hoped that by allowing the connection between us to grow, I’d be able to guarantee her loyalty, but it just made it seem like she thought she had me under her thumb. Not the other way around.
“Can’t trust her, can you?” Chase asked.
I sighed. “I don’t know, guys. I just don’t know.”
“That’s a damn shame, too.” Juarez looked down and shook his head.
“You’re telling me,” I said with a laugh.
Chapter 14
Julia
When I stepped into the room where Dimitri was being held, something felt off immediately. The large Russian was slumped over in his chair, and his breathing seemed heavier and more labored than usual. The room also seemed darker, but I chalked that up to being in well-lit rooms since the last time I saw him. I figured my eyes would adjust to the dark room eventually.
I sat down across from him in my jeans and tank top, realizing I didn’t look the most professional but not caring. We weren’t exactly in the most professional setting. Besides, I thought that a little skin might make him talk. I was starting to realize that the men around me operated with a different set of expectations than the men I normally had to work with.
I needed Dimitri to talk. I could sense that Gage’s patience was beginning to wear thin with his adversary, and I suspected it was wearing thin with me as well. I sat and waited for him to acknowledge me before getting started. I wanted to be sure he hadn’t just passed out in the chair.
“Dimitri, are you okay?” I asked him.
He didn’t lift his face, but I could see his eyes looking up at me. Something wasn’t right. Maybe he was losing his patience with this whole situation as well. He spat something on the floor. “I’m sorry, Dr. Danvers,” he started. “I don’t feel much like talking today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I need you to talk. You and I are both depending on your willingness to talk right now,” I told him. I crossed my legs and sat back, trying to regain my professional composure.
“Why do you say that?” he asked me. He hacked something up and spit on the floor again. This time I heard the wet smack of whatever it was he’d expelled from his bo
dy.
I looked up at the dim light glowing above us. It didn’t offer enough illumination to see what he was spitting up on the floor across from me, but I couldn’t help feeling like it was something I wouldn’t have wanted to see anyway.
“Gage isn’t going to tolerate not getting any answers out of either of us for much longer,” I explained. “I think I’m going to be replaced, and I wouldn’t count on the next person being quite as friendly. I also worry about what he’s going to do to you if you don’t start talking.”
He laughed, hacking up more fluid and spitting. “Don’t worry about me, Dr. Danvers,” he said, sitting up and leaning back from the light.
“Seriously, Dimitri, are you okay?” I insisted. He really didn’t sound okay today. He sounded sick.
“I’m fine,” he said confidently, finding his solid, stern voice again and clearing his throat.
“Well, look, I want to ensure that you stay that way,” I told him, “so give me something to work with here.”
He sat quietly for a moment. I couldn’t even hear him breathing anymore. All I could see of him were his arms tied to the chair. The rest of him faded into the darkness beyond the light.
I started to ask if he was alright again, but I heard him shift in his chair underneath his restraints. He was still with me. He took a slow, deep breath.
“Ivan has a pretty big drug deal coming up soon,” his disembodied voice said flatly from just beyond the reach of the light hanging down just above us.
“That’s news,” I said. Encouraged by this small revelation, I leaned forward, trying to keep my voice even and contain my excitement at the information that had just spilled out in front of me. “Can you tell me when and where?”
“I don’t know anything else,” he said. “It may have already happened while I’ve been in here.”
I narrowed my eyes at him—at the darkness where he should have been—displeased with his reluctance to provide more information. “This is not much to take to Gage, Dimitri. I really need more.”
He coughed. “I don’t have anything else.”
“You know, this is probably just enough to piss him off even more. Do you really expect me to believe that Ivan’s right hand man doesn’t know the details about a big drug deal he’s got planned?” I mocked him.
He took a deep, heavy breath.
“Why is he keeping you out of the loop, Dimitri?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he said, growing irate. “I am the loop, Dr. Danvers. Do you understand? He doesn’t do anything that I don’t know about. Don’t ever think for a second that I don’t know what Ivan is doing. Who do you think arranges it?”
“Okay, what else do you know?” I asked him calmly. I had him right where I wanted him, ready to prove to me that he hadn’t been forgotten, that even in his isolation, he was still relevant to Ivan’s operations.
He paused. I wasn’t prepared to wait. I expected him to be more forthcoming with information now that I’d pissed him off. I could almost hear him thinking about which details he felt comfortable letting me know. I stared at his arms with the ropes strapping them down to the arms of the chair. I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have been more willing to talk if I could give him a little room to move around.
Then, I noticed he seemed dirty. I wondered how he would have gotten dirty sitting in this room. It was fairly clean, if a little dusty.
“All I know is there will be some shady government officials and members of law enforcement there,” he said reluctantly. He obviously wanted me to know he knew what he was talking about without having to provide any real information.
“I’m sorry, what? What government officials?” My eyes were bulging out of my head. This was not at all what I expected to hear from him.
He laughed slowly, dryly. “How do you think Ivan gets away with what he does without ever getting caught?” he asked me. “He pays off government officials and law enforcement so he gets to stay in business. You really are new to this, aren’t you?” he mocked me.
“I told you I am. Now, tell me who’s going to be there.” I couldn’t contain my excitement or my revulsion at his news.
He didn’t answer. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel him smiling in the dark.
“Dammit, Dimitri.” I smacked the table. “Who is going to be there?” I stood up, leaning over the table towards him.
He laughed at me, a slow, menacing laugh. He was mocking my insistence. I felt foolish for pressuring a man I couldn’t even see. I needed to see him. I reached up for the light, but the fixture was too hot to touch, threatening to scorch my fingers from just the lightest touch. I hit it, knocking it side to side, shifting the light with it so I could see the Russian tied in front of me.
And what I saw sickened and enraged me. I finally saw why he wasn’t talking. I saw why he was so amused at my attempts to “help” him by getting information from him. I saw why he coughed and spit up when he tried to talk to me.
And, most importantly, I saw why Gage had tried to stall me for as long as he did.
As the light swayed back and forth between us, it revealed too many details to take in at once. What was happening to this man was nothing short of torture.
Dimitri’s left eye was swollen shut, and he had bruises already forming all over his face.
The light moved away from his face, shining towards me now and shrouding him in the darkness beyond its reach. When it swayed back, I could see that blood was dripping from his mouth, where his lips were split swollen, but I couldn’t tell if he was missing any teeth or anything like that.
The light swayed between us again, shrouding him and giving me a moment to recover from the sight of Dimitri’s face. When it returned to him, I saw his bloodied nose and the tired, humorless eyes of a defeated man. He wasn’t broken, though. If anything, he seemed amused by Gage’s attempt to torture him. I was certain he would prove to be able to take much more damage than his body had already sustained.
Then, the light moved again. When it moved back to him, I saw the blood stains on his shirt and on his arms. From where I stood, I could even see the blood he’d spat onto the floor.
The light continued to sway between us like a slow strobe partially revealing the horrible violence inflicted upon the man sitting in front of me. I grew angrier and angrier each time the light forced me to see what had been done to him.
“Who did this to you?” I asked, though it didn’t matter. I knew who had given the order, no matter who had actually carried it out.
“Two big guys,” Dimitri answered. “I don’t know their names, but they came in here with Gage. I’m guessing he ordered them to beat me before he left the room.”
I thought back to my meeting with him earlier. The only two big guys I’d seen come in upstairs were Juarez and Chase. In fact, it wasn’t until after they’d come up that Gage finally stopped fighting to keep me upstairs. They must have been the ones who had come down with him to check on Dimitri.
“I can’t believe that bastard.” I spat the words out of my mouth. “Dimitri, I am so sorry this happened to you. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Are you going to be okay?”
He gave me a bloody smile. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve been through much worse than what those guys did to me.”
“Something told me you’d say that.” I turned and started to walk away from the table.
“Hold on, where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to take care of some business with Gage,” I told him. “This is not okay, and he knows I’m not okay with this kind of behavior. He was not supposed to treat you this way. He’s supposed to let me talk to you and get answers from you humanely.” It wasn’t lost on me, though, that he had finally talked only after being beaten by Gage’s men, but I wasn’t about to admit there was any possibility he could have been right.
“Are you coming back?” he asked.
I stared at him. I didn’t know Dimitri well enough to risk coming back down here
again. “I’m probably not coming back, Dimitri. I’m done. And I’m sorry, but you’re part of all this. I don’t need to get mixed up with you while I’m trying to get out of here.”
The truth was I didn’t know if I could even make myself leave. Things had become surprisingly complicated. The only thing I did know for sure was that I couldn’t be connected to what they were doing to Dimitri. Not any longer. I shouldn’t have agreed to help Gage in the first place. I’d seen how he looked when he walked through that door. He had that outlaw biker look, rough and tough, not like the pretty boys out pretending to be in motorcycle gangs.