by Shandi Boyes
I learned that the hard way many times the past twenty-two years.
The knocks keep coming when another disturbing notion smacks into me. What if we weren’t saved? What if we’ve been captured by another sanction as demoralizing as Vladimir’s—or worse, one shoddier?
I barely survived my last trade.
I won’t survive a second one.
Preferring to die fighting than be seen as weak, I kick out with a grunt. Trey’s jeans wear as much of the stew as mine when my shove knocks the bowl out of his hand.
When his back slams into the six-burner stovetop opposite the counter I’m sitting on, I leap off it with a soundless grunt, confident I’ll have the speed needed to reach the open screen door before him.
I’ll come back for Ana the instant I find help.
I’ll save her once I’ve saved myself.
My plan goes to shit when my bare feet slip on the mess I made on the floor. I fumble like a newborn giraffe, my campaign for freedom undone in a matter of seconds.
Trey’s earlier clutch on my wrist has nothing on the one he wraps around my waist. He pulls me into his fit body before he drops our weird, tangled mess to the floor with a thud.
“Stop it!” he demands when my nails digging into his tattooed arms agitate him more than my wish to escape. “I’m not going to hurt you. I am trying to fucking help you.”
When his roared words reach the ears of his crew, we’re joined in the kitchen by three of his men. I thought their humored faces would end Trey’s charade in an instant. It couldn’t be further from the truth. With one of his legs wrapped around my waist, and his arm pinning my back to his thrusting chest, Trey demands a dark-haired man to bring over the pot of stew simmering on the stovetop.
Once he has a generous helping sloppily served into the bowl I kicked out of his hand, he fishes out a large chunk of meat before steering it toward my face. I clamp my lips together as firmly as I can, but they’re no match for the strength and girth of Trey’s fingers. He strains the chunk of beef through my lips, and then my teeth in a matter of seconds before adding a warning to the deadly gleam in his eyes.
“If so much as a drop of stew spills from your lips, I’ll feed you like this every fucking day for the rest of your life. Do you hear me, K? I’m not fucking playing. I’ve got all the time in the world to force you to eat, so there won’t be any skin off my back if moments like this are added to my daily routine.”
With my shock higher than my belief my food is tainted with drugs, my lips part to accept the next chunk of the food Trey fishes out of the bowl. Its texture and starchiness tells me it’s a piece of potato. It is tastier than the chunk of steak, although my body will never admit that. It is shut down in shock, muted and confused as to why this rough, rugged, and pierced man is so pedantic about me eating. It’s not like he’d be upset if I starved to death. No one cares about me, not even people I classed as family, so why does a stranger feel the need to take up the campaign?
I peer at Trey through a different set of eyes when he mutters, “Good girl. Keep eating.” He feeds me like a father would their sick child. His hold is anything but gentle, but his eyes are brimming with unusual tenderness.
By the time I realize Trey’s Adam’s apple matches the bobs of my throat when I swallow his offerings into my stomach, I’ve consumed half a bowl of stew. It feels good to have food in my tummy, but no amount of heaviness stops its flips. I feel out of my element here, even more than I did when I ‘entertained’ my first lot of guests.
After wiping away the meaty dribbles running down my chin with his hand, Trey lifts his eyes to something above us. When I follow the direction of his gaze, I’m anticipating to see three humored faces peering back at me, so you can imagine my surprise when I discover the kitchen is empty. It’s just Trey and me, alone, and in a lighted room.
With no concerns about waste, Trey uncurls the leg wrapped around my midsection to knock down a bowl of bread from the counter. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about his worry I’ll attempt to escape the instant he releases me, so I smile instead. It’s not a big smile. I don’t think I’m showing any of the teeth that were hard to keep clean with a lack of accessories, but Trey notices it in an instant.
As his lips lift in a similar fashion, he asks, “Are you smiling ‘cause I look like I shit my pants? Or are you excited about devouring some fresh bread?” Although he’s asking a question, he continues talking as if he didn’t. “I can still recall the first time I sampled bread straight out of the oven. It was warm and spongy… almost as delicious as a woman’s cunt.” A flare darts through his eyes when he drops and locks them with mine. “This isn’t warm, K, but I swear to you, it’s fresh.”
My heart beats out a funky tune when he rips off a chunk of the bread and pops it into his mouth. After angling his head so I can see the bob of his Adam’s apple from him swallowing it down, he tears off another generous chunk for me. He doesn’t force it into my mouth this time around, though. He holds it out in front of me, offering it up as if there won’t be any stipulations attached to his generosity.
It takes me longer to accept than I care to admit. My mind is still spiraling with debilitating confusion, so a lack of respect can be excused. Furthermore, men I once called friends hurt me for less than a chunk of bread, so it’ll take a lot longer than an hour for me to trust one I hardly know.
“More?” Trey asks when our turn-for-turn on the bread roll sees it consumed in under a minute.
Although I still feel hollow on the inside, I shake my head, confident the empty feeling has nothing to do with a hungry stomach.
“Alright.” Trey stands to his feet without the slightest bit of discomfort fettering his features from my monkey hold. “Then, how about we get cleaned up.”
Don’t misconstrue his wording. He isn’t suggesting we should do this. He’s telling me what we’re doing. It’s a known trait of all men in this industry.
Usually, I hate it. It isn’t irking my nerves as much tonight, though.
After placing me back on my feet, Trey curls his tattooed hand around mine. His hold is less aggressive than it was previously, but there’s no denying its possessiveness.
When we enter the common area in the middle of the compound, my eyes float up from the floor to Trey when he says, “Give the women access to the shower stalls. They’ll need clothes and toiletries. If the whores don’t have enough to share, send someone out to get supplies.” He’s speaking with the man he was talking to earlier, the giant who’s missing a finger from each of his hands. “And have some of Nero’s men guard that side of the compound tonight, but ensure they’re aware of Nikolai’s order. If they are touched—”
“There will be hell to pay,” the unnamed man interrupts. As his tongue fiddles with the circular ring in the corner of his bottom lip, he drags his eyes down my body. His prolonged gawk of my stew-stained nightgown doesn’t make my stomach flip, but his questions sure do. “What about her? Want me to take her back to the dorm?”
I doubt he’d touch me, fear was the first emotion that flared through his eyes when he finalized Trey’s threat. It is Trey’s reply that has my stomach twisted up in knots. “No. She’s staying with me.”
I don’t know why his answer shocks me. I paid horrendously for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so why would I anticipate a lessor response for a much more heartier meal? Nothing in life is free, and I’m about to learn that the hard way for the third time in my life.
Eight
Trey
“Eight is going to get you some clothes, but for now, you can wear one of my shirts.”
After double-checking the temperature of the water pelting out of the shower, I spin around to face the main section of my room. Clarks is like a fortress. It’s made out of concrete, glass, and steel, and has an impressive amount of floor space, however, its sleeping quarters aren’t hideously ugly like the rooms Vladimir held his captives in. They’re like hotel rooms with king-size beds, double-head
ed showers, and state-of-the-art equipment.
I swear the person who built this compound was either gay or a chick because even the roughest and meanest members of Nikolai’s crew have hairdryers in their bathrooms. I’ve had my room the longest. It was the first space I was given that didn’t represent a prison cell after my failed bid to take down the Dvořáks, and the only place I go when I’m feeling lost.
K is making me feel lost. The dark bleakness in her eyes, the frailness of her skin, and the pained expression on her face that never quits has me wanting to go on a killing spree. Considering our heist today notched my tally up to thirty-three deaths this year alone, the craving shouldn’t be as strong as it is, but fuck me, the urge is fierce, even more so when my entrance to my room has me stumbling onto a butt-naked and frozen-stiff woman.
K is lying in the middle of my bed. Her nightgown is dumped on the floor. Because she doesn’t have enough meat on her bones to cover up the shadows I could see long before she removed her grubby sleepwear, she’s fully exposed.
Her tits, although smaller than I guess they’d be if she weren’t starved, are perky and sit high on her chest, her lips are naturally plump, and her seductive-smelling cunt is barely concealed by a thin layer of blonde hair.
For how bruised, nicked, and malnourished she is, she shouldn’t look enticing, but she does. She looks ravishing enough to eat, and my cock isn’t ashamed to admit it. He sits heavy against the zipper in my jeans, throbbing with both need and desire.
As I close the distance between the bathroom and my bed, I tell my cock to calm the fuck down. It’s twitching like K is a whore waiting to be consumed. Even if I wanted to pretend that’s the case, I can’t. The whores are too scared to come into my room without permission, so no amount of pleading from my cock could have me pretending I don’t know what this is really about.
Although her eyes are open and her chest is rising and falling as she sucks in shallow breaths, K isn’t here. She’s completely fucking gone, swallowed by the blackness of her miserably bleak existence.
I know better than anyone that sometimes the only way you can escape the torment is by fully emerging yourself in it. More times than not, the darkness in your head is worse than anything you’ll face in the real world, but when you’re beyond broken, you’ve got no choice but to let it overwhelm you occasionally.
While tugging the bedding out from beneath K’s immobile frame, the reason I was so desperate for her to shower smacks back into me. It isn’t her smell. For someone who lived in the equivalent of a dungeon, her scent is intoxicating. It’s the dry blood on her back and the marks that look like she was whipped.
“What the fuck did he do to you, K?” I murmur to myself while carefully rolling her over.
An itch to kill steamrolls into me when I see the full extent of her injuries. She wasn’t whipped once. She was struck multiple times. The slashes across her back are so red and blistering, I’m confident they’re brand new, like they were done mere minutes before she was freed from hell.
The torment tearing me up inside grows so perverse, within seconds, I’m trapped in the darkness in my head right along with K…
The breaths I suck in to cool the fire roaring through me does little to reduce the shakes wreaking havoc with my body. My hand holding a gun is shuddering so much, even with my target selected, I may end up killing the wrong person. I spun the wheel, her fate has been chosen, but no matter how hard I fight, I can’t inch back the trigger.
It was one fuck, I remind myself again. It meant nothing. A hessian bag is pulled over her head. She won’t even know it was you.
But I will know it was me. I’ll remember how our night in the butler’s pantry was the only time my pulse has fluttered in my ears. How her heat wrapped around my cock was the best it had felt. And her scent, my fucking God, her scent when she came undone will never leave me. It wasn’t pure, it wasn’t even sweet, but it was the most addictive scent I’ve ever sucked in.
If I kill her and live off the memories, my father won’t pay for my crimes. If I don’t, they’ll both die. Those are the terms Achim spelled out when he caught me off-guard. I was still relishing her scent, still caught up on how her skin heated under my touch, I didn’t realize I was walking into a trap until my leg was already snared by the prongs of an invisible bear trap.
My father shouldn’t be here. I had not yet sent for him or his men, so not only was I surprised when I saw him bound and gagged at the round table Sahib makes all his decisions at, I was angry—really fucking angry. My father is stronger than Sahib and Achim combined. He has killed men by the thousands and is feared by millions, yet he sits in a chair, defenseless and weak.
And now I stand before him just as spinelessly.
I should take a risk. I have a gun in my hand, and the killer instincts to take down Achim long before the man with his pistol butted to my temple will yank back his trigger. It will most likely see us all go down in a fiery gun battle, but it has to be better than dying like a coward, right?
Ugh, it shouldn’t be this fucking hard. Hate was born inside of me. It was nurtured by every man I took down and grew to a point I shouldn’t give a shit about anyone, not the man who raised me or the woman who made my heart thud in my ears. I just need to get her smell out of my head, her taste from my mouth. If I can free myself from the memories debilitating me, I’ll be able to inch back the trigger without a single worry. Killing is who I am. It’s all I know.
So pull back the trigger! Roars the evilness inside of me. Kill her as you had planned to do only weeks ago. Begin the war you crave more than the heat of her cunt wrapped around your cock.
With a roar, I inch back the trigger as I was trained to do. The gun clicks, but the barrel fails to bang. The chamber is as empty as the now-gaping hole in my chest. I chose my family over her, yet the torment still won’t end. Not just because India heard the empty coil of the chamber when I chose her fate, but because of the man entering the room from my left, clapping like he just watched the performance of his life.
“Bravo, Trey, Bravo. Blood is clearly thicker than water…” He angles his head to the side to fully free his smile before he adds, “… for you. I wasn’t so lucky, was I? He didn’t pick me over her. He left me to die.”
“She was our mother,” I argue even though I’m not truly sure if the ghost of my brother is standing across from me or if I’m overdosing on the adrenaline surging through my veins. “She should have always been his first choice.”
“I was his son!” Cole’s roar shudders the dishware lining the far wall. They’re china plates for each year the Dvořák’s have been in power. I should have paid attention to how many there were before I agreed with my father that this takeover bid would be easy. “I was his blood, but that still wasn’t enough to save me. I was still taken by his enemies, maimed, tortured, and beaten without him feeling a single ounce of remorse.”
“That’s not true, Cole. We searched for you for months. We killed men across the globe in the hopes of finding you. We’ve never stopped looking.”
My older brother steps closer to me. His chest is flaring as hard as his nostrils. Although we’re only a year apart, his face is wearier than mine, aged by the hardness of the war we were born in. “Yet, this is the first time I’ve seen you in the flesh in years.” After straying his eyes to our father over my shoulder, he snarls. “We were never important to him. We were not his sons. We were soldiers used for war. Pawns in a game we never signed up for. He used us as much as Achim used his whore to get to you.” He returns his eyes to mine. They’re not wet with the tears they had when the enemies of our family made my father pick between his wife and his almost-grown son. They’re dark and evil, an equal match to mine. “Was she worth it, Trey? Will the memories from your fuck in the pitch-black room keep you alive long after your soul leaves you?”
The tactical side of my head tells me not to fall for his tricks, the man standing across from me isn’t my brother, so he shouldn’t be
treated as if he is, but I’ve always been more emotionally responsive than impersonal.
Cole’s lips curl at one end when I dip my chin. “Yet, you still chose our father over her. I wonder how she’ll handle the news?”
Confusion twists through me when he clicks his fingers together two times. I assume one of the many men surrounding me will yank the bag off India’s head so I can see her disappointment as readily as I feel it, so you can imagine my surprise when they draw back the curtain separating the royal-size dining room from the crystal ballroom on our right. India is standing on the other side, uninjured and wide-eyed.
How can that be? She can’t be in the ballroom and seated in front of me. She must be a doppelgänger. I can smell her heated skin lingering in the air. The bulletproof glass separating us wouldn’t allow that. Cole must be playing tricks on me. He’s fucking with my head as well as the years he was missing screwed our father’s mind. He couldn’t forgive himself for giving in, even when he would have lost everything if he didn’t, so he drove himself mad to fix the injustice.
He destroyed anyone who played a part in Cole’s demise, yet it still wasn’t enough. He wants every man responsible to be held accountable for their crimes—himself included.
Now I understand why we’re here, and how my father was taken down minus the bloodshed I’m accustomed to.
This isn’t a takeover bid.
It’s a mercy kill, a beg for forgiveness. Even if he ends up dead, he’ll be freed from the torment that’s been eating him alive the past four years. He will finally be free.
Refusing to let my family’s legacy die without so much as a fight, I disarm the man holding a gun to my temple before turning his weapon onto Achim. It was foolish of me to do. I forgot blood is no longer thicker than water to Cole. He fires at our father a mere second after I gun down the man stupid enough to put himself between Achim and me. Cole doesn’t just discharge one bullet, though. He pops three into our father’s chest, ensuring there’s no way I can mistake how he’s hoping today’s battle will end.