by Coco Miller
“Everyone gets ill, Kazimir. I’m an old man. It’s bound to happen. I’m going to go rest. Come to me if anything changes.”
“Yes, Papa,” I tell him as he gets to the top of the stairs, taking a right to go toward his wing.
I wait until his doors shut before I collapse against the door and slide down, laying my elbows on my knees. Vlad sits next to me, mimicking my position. I need a moment. It’s all I need. My heart feels like it’s been ripped out of my chest, and I’m just waiting to die until she is back again.
“It will be okay,” Vlad assures me and perhaps himself. “She is strong, Da? If the Italians have her, they are in for the fight of their lives.”
I lift my chin up and stare at the ceiling, blinking tears away at the bright lights that shine down from the chandelier. “I have to get her back, Vlad. I need her to breathe. My life was so empty until she was here.”
“Da,” he says on an exhale. “She is special. I knew that as well.”
I turn my head to see the same lost look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, dear friend. I had no idea she was your sister. We will get her back.”
“It’s odd, you know. I went my entire life thinking I was an only child, and I felt this immediate, not sexual, connection with Alegra but I had no idea why. I thought we just got along, and now I have a strong baby sister who needs me. I’m her brother and I cannot save her from wherever she is at. It’s different for me than it is you, Kazimir. You are her lover, of course you want her back, but I just found out she is my blood. My fucking blood, Da? She’s all I have left of a family I had no idea existed.”
“No, I am your family too. Don’t ever forget that. Alegra is your family and I am as well. I will die to bring her home. I promise you that. Both of us need her.”
He holds out his hand to me and a determined glare reflects in his eye. “As will I, brother. Let us bring our family home, Da?” he says.
I slap my hand against his, making a pact with the man that has been by my side ever since I can remember. I’m determined now more than ever to get her back, and I know the place to go. But first, I need to take care of Ivan. I need to send a message. No one fucks with a Volkov and gets away with it.
“Get the supplies,” I say as I stand up and brush the wrinkles out of my suit. “Prepare the room.”
Vlad’s eyes widen. We haven’t used the room in a long time. The one where we take our enemies to torture…to kill. We typically only use it during war time with enemy factions, but now I consider this one of those times. It’s time this so−called truce we made with the Italians comes to an end. If I want to be honest, there never really was one. There has always been tension. War has been brewing between us for far too long now, and the time has come to show them just who owns this city.
It isn’t the dirty Italians.
They only own a few titty bars.
We own almost every skyscraper in the city.
If they want a dick measuring contest, they are about to see how small they really are.
Chapter Three
Alegra
I wake up in an instant, rolling over when nausea takes over. Rolling to my hands and knees, I vomit all over the floor. My head is throbbing, splitting in two from whatever drug they gave me. I spit the remainder that’s poisoning my mouth onto the floor and wipe my lips on the back of my hand. I fall backward, my back hitting what feels like a metal bar.
Reaching up, I wrap my hands around the bars and try to get a good feel of my surroundings. They are cold, a bit wet and rough, maybe from rust, I’m not sure. Everything is dark. I can’t see. My stomach rolls again, but I manage not to throw up when realization sits in.
I’m in a cage.
If I thought I was a prisoner with Kazimir before, I was clearly naïve. Kazimir gave me presents, pampered me, showed me affection me in a way that was perhaps odd but never cruel. Not like this. He never kept me in the dark, never drugged me, never put me in a cell. Granted, locking me in a fancy room was still locking me up but at least he went out of his way to make me feel comfortable.
Closing my eyes, I give in to the wooziness and let my head sway, leaning against one of the metal bars. A part of me accepts my fate since I’m still strung out on whatever they’ve shot me with. I can’t feel enough to panic right now. I’m concentrating on my heartbeat and how slow it feels and how sluggish my body is.
The light above me flips on, and I hold my hand up to block it because the bright light stings my eyes. I squeeze my lids shut a few times until my eyes adjust and finally take a look around. My cell is no bigger than a small closet. I barely have room to stretch my legs, and I might be able to stand. My vomit lays six inches in front of me, and I wince when I see it. I can’t move from this position or I’ll get it on me.
Disgusting.
“Look who is awake,” the big man says. I’ll call him Igor since I don’t know his actual name. He looks like an Igor. Big and dumb and probably can’t even count to twenty without using his fingers.
I swallow and start cringing when the rancid taste of stomach bile makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. I don’t have the energy to speak yet, but I do have the energy to lift my hand and give him the middle finger.
His laugh sends shivers down my spine. “In due time, in due time. You need to be patient.”
Is that what is going to happen here? Is Kazimir going to be able to find me or am I going to be lost for good in this jail cell? A slave to Igor.
“I hear you belong to Kazimir Volkov. Is this true?” Igor comes out of the shadows, rolling up his shirt sleeves to show thick forearms with large protruding veins. “Or are you just a victim of circumstance.”
I swallow, doing my best to find my tongue. My eye lashes flutter when I try to look up at him, his large hairy nostrils and chapped lips make my stomach turn again.
“I,” I do my best not to pass out again, “belong to—” I take a deep breath, “no one.”
He squats down, his knees popping from the move. His sausage−like fingers wrap around the bars, and he uses the metal to pull himself forward to bring his face closer to mine. Now I wish I had to throw up.
I’d do it all over his face.
Ugh, just the thought has my stomach turning again. What the hell did they dart me with?
“If I were you, I’d start talking, girl. You want to live, don’t you? Don’t you want to see your little Kazimir again?”
I pinch my lips together to make sure I don’t say anything. They are going to have to kill me because I’m not telling them shit.
“No matter,” he says, standing again. “He’ll know we have you soon. When he does, he will come here all knight in shining armor, and we will finally be able to kill him and be done with his little Russian family. We were here before them. We will be here long after them. We deserve the territory they have. They stole it. We own this city, not them. And we have already started taking back what is ours.”
I grab the bar and pull myself up, my legs shaking as I try to stand on my feet.
“Oh, so that has your interest, does it?”
I lean against the cage and weakly ask, “What did you do?”
He lifts a shoulder and picks at his manicured nails.
“Your Kazimir is a stupid man. He doesn’t even know he has a traitor in his home telling us everything and slipping Daddy Volkov a little poison in his Vodka every night before bed. Old bastard should be feeling the effects of it now. He’ll feel tired, sick, bones and muscles aching, sweating, and thinking it’s just the flu,” he says on a wistful sigh. “Russians were never the smartest.”
I don’t want to believe him. I might still be reeling from the fact that Mr. Volkov murdered my mother, but I don’t want Kazimir to be without the only father figure he knows. He will be devastated. My father didn’t talk much about my mother growing up, and he certainly didn’t tell me anything to suggest that my mother lived another life with the Russian mafia. I know that the Bratva lives by
a different set of rules. I know how they feel about informants and snitches and she must have known too. If she broke those rules…who am I to defend her? I never even knew her.
I let out a weak laugh, stumbling to the left before catching myself on the bars. “You are the stupid one if you think Kazimir hasn’t figured it out.”
“Ahh, so you do know him?”
“I know of him,” I try to cover my mistake. I don’t want them to think we are together. I need to protect him in any way I can. “My mother used to fuck friends of his father back in the day. That’s all I know,” I say, sliding back down the bars. “And you’re an idiot if you think he cares about me. I am nothing to him. I was born from a whore, so he thinks I am one.” The words still hurt even though they are lies. I know Kazimir doesn’t think that of me, but I have to make this stupid oaf believe that he does.
Or Kazimir might die.
And I might get…I don’t even want to think about what will happen to me if I don’t play this just right. Igor wants me and that is unsettling enough, but the rest of his crew is upstairs, probably waiting around like a bunch of froth−mouthed dogs.
“You’re lying. Ivan said—” He pinches his lips shut when he realizes he’s spilled a name.
Ivan. One of Kazimir’s guys. I’ve seen him watching me and Kazimir a lot. At first, I thought it was because he was paid to watch me but now it makes a lot of sense now. I laugh and then moan, holding my stomach when it threatens me again.
“Ivan?” I manage to force out. “Ivan told you what? That I am important to Kazimir? Did Ivan tell you that he and I have been together?”
That lie tastes worse than the other I just said. Obviously, I’d never touch Ivan.
“Ivan has been fucking me. Have you ever thought that maybe he is turning against you?”
“You lying bitch!” he roars, slamming his fist against the bars. The metal rings, echoing throughout the basement. He reaches through the bar and puts his hand around my neck. His fingers overlap the back of my nape since he is so large and he yanks me forward, slamming my head against the iron rods. “Ivan would never betray us. He would never fuck you.”
He says the words with disdain, but I can tell that I’ve gotten in his head. I see that he isn’t sure anymore. I only need to hold them off until Kazimir gets here, so they get taken by surprise. It’s the only chance I have in making sure Kazimir, Vlad and myself (hopefully) get out of this alive.
I reach up and press my palm against my forehead, fighting back tears from the searing pain on my forehead. “Well, he did fuck me! Over and over again, and he told me he’d make sure he would rescue me from you fucks!” I spit at him, literally. A huge wad flies through the air and lands on his face.
The vein between his brows throbs, pulsing with every beat of his heart. His face turns red, and he reaches up and wipes the spit off with his fingers, flinging it to the side. I have nowhere to go when he reaches through the bars again, wrapping his hand around my throat.
I’m finding this to be a pattern.
He lifts me off my feet, and I gasp for breath, kicking my feet in hope he releases me. I claw at his hands as they apply more pressure. “You have a lot of fight in you, girl. I appreciate that. Don’t be a fool. Know your place.”
“I do know my place; the problem is, you don’t know who I share it with. Kazimir? Or Ivan?” I taunt him, loving the uncertainty in his eyes.
He snarls, slamming my head against the bars again, and this time, that damn darkness creeps in on me, and it’s lights out.
Chapter Four
Kazimir
I’ve had to call the family doctor for my father. He is getting worse and no one understands why. He doesn’t have the flu. Everything the doctor tests him for comes up negative which tells me he isn’t sick by accident. Something very wrong is going on.
“Vlad,” I whisper from the chair next to my father’s four-post bed.
“Da?” he asks me from the other side, patting my father’s hand. Vlad doesn’t look well. My father has been the only father−like figure in his entire life and he’s worried too.
“Someone did this,” I say. “I want Ivan brought here as soon as they come home.”
“Da, the room is ready as you requested.” He coughs and then stares at the ceiling, the wall, and then looks down at my father again. “It’s hard to see him like this. He is such a powerful man. He has control of the city and something that we do not know of brings him to his knees? He is unconscious, Kazimir. What the hell are we going to do?”
His chest rises and falls in quick, unsteady beats. It isn’t often that I see Vlad out of character. He is a man I always know will be level−headed and calm. It’s why he is my right-hand man, but Vlad out of control is dangerous.
There was one time where calming him down took ten men to tackle him to the ground. He was killing recklessly, making us a target, and the crazy shit is he doesn’t remember a thing. It’s that red haze I worry about with him, because next time I might not be able to pull him out of it.
“I can’t lose him too,” he says, collapsing in the chair. It’s the same style I am sitting in, just on the opposite side of the bed.
“Alegra is not lost. I cannot have you thinking like that, Vlad. Do you understand me? That Ivan asshole knows exactly where she is, and I plan on finding out today since we can’t figure the shit out. I even raided the warehouses they own; she is nowhere.”
I’ve been wondering if they took her out of the state, but they aren’t that smart and they obviously want something in return. I haven’t heard any news of a ransom or anything of that nature which tells me it isn’t about that. They want to ruin the Volkov name and they can try, but we do not give up easily. I’ll fight to my last breath to bring her home.
“Da. I’m sorry, Kazimir. I’m feeling antsy. I need a release,” he mutters under his hand, smoothing it over his mouth before it falls to his knee. Now, anyone else would think he is talking about a sexual release but I know better. He needs a violent release, an outlet for all of his pent-up aggression and helplessness he feels.
I understand, considering I feel it as well. I’m more in control of my emotions than he is though. I don’t let my torment show often because that’s how people, enemies, see your weakness. If my father has taught me one thing, it’s not to have anything that can be used against you.
But then I found my sweet Alegra.
My one weakness.
And now someone is using her against me.
My father was right. I should have never brought her here. I should have left her alone. Left her safe. But then she would have been alone, because we would have killed her father and I would have had to take her anyway, to care for her.
I know how that sounds. It sounds a bit fucked up, but no matter the scenario, I had to have her. No one understands this need. It’s deep and profound and no other woman has ever been able to make me feel like this. Alegra is important; she is going to be the mother of my children, the queen of this empire the Volkov’s have built. She might not know it yet, but she is made for this life because she is made for me.
“Everyone just got here,” Vlad says as he checks his phone.
“You know what to do. I’ll be there soon,” I tell him as I stand. I tug on my tie, loosening it before taking it off completely. I roll it up and set the blue silk on the dresser next to me.
Vlad disappears, leaving me in a room alone with my father. Vlad is about to get Ivan into the room downstairs, the room I never want Alegra to see because then she will see a side of me that she will never be able to forgive me for. I know right now she is struggling with what she overheard, she has to be, and I’m sure she hates me right about now. She probably thinks I knew something about her mother’s death and never told her, but I had no idea at all.
My father has strict rules when it comes to women. Don’t harm them; never kill them. I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that the rule got started because of Alegra’s mother. A
nd then Vlad is her brother? Fuck, she learned so much within just a few seconds. I hope she can forgive me for the sins of my father. I hope she gives me a chance to explain myself.
I shrug off my blazer and lay it on the chair, sighing as I roll up my sleeves to my elbows. “I will figure out who did this to you, who did this to Alegra, and I will fucking destroy them, Papa. You taught me everything,” I say to him, placing my hands on either side of his head and lean down, kissing each cheek. “I love you. Get better. We need you.”
I take the comb next to the lamp and run it through his thick, silver hair. He loves for his hair to be perfect. His olive skin tone has lost its hue. He is pale and clammy, sweating constantly, and his teeth are chattering together like he is cold because he is running a high fever.
Whatever is wrong with him, it’s killing him.
I take a deep breath and back away. I can’t let my emotions get the best of me right now. It’s up to me to make this right in our family. My father has trained me, groomed me for this position, and I can’t let him down now because this is when he needs me most. I can’t let the empire fall. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do what is expected of me.
As I’m leaving, I walk across a red oriental rug, a beautiful addition to my father’s room from when he went to China to visit an ally and received it as a gift.
“Kazimir,” my father wheezes behind me.
I turn around and run to him; my eyes are darting around his face to make sure I am seeing what I’m seeing. He is awake, his eyes are red, but he is looking at right me.
“You’re awake. I need to get the doctor.”
“No,” he gasps. “Not for long. My vodka—” he stops speaking and coughs, but what I’m not expecting is the blood that coats his lips and sprays against his hand.
“Father,” I say, devastation laces my voice when I see the red on his skin. I know that once blood is coming out of the mouth, that isn’t good. Most likely there isn’t much time left.