Trey

by Shandi Boyes

  They don’t fight at all.

  They just give in.

  Like I did when my parents died.

  Determined not to make the same mistake twice, I return to the door. I pry at the hinges with my fingernails and scratch at the steel material until my nails bleed, and terrifying silence fills my ears.

  Silence isn’t good.

  Usually, it only means one thing.

  Death has arrived.

  “No!” I scream in Czech again while banging on the door with my fist. “No, no, no!” I shout on repeat as tears stream down my face. I’m so sick of this happening. It isn’t fair. Yes, every action has a consequence, but instead of the backlash occurring to the people responsible for the injustice, it’s always shunted onto the undeserving half.

  Trey doesn’t deserve this.

  I tricked him into sleeping with me, not the other way around.

  I lied.

  It was me.

  Everything happening is my fault.

  My mini-breakdown gets a moment of reprieve when I pick up the faintest patter of a pair of boots. Anyone not trapped by their own thoughts for weeks on end wouldn’t hear the faintest tap of a person sneakily approaching them. I hear every step. I’m just praying their wish to keep their approach unknown puts them on my side of the team for once.

  I send thanks to my parents when I spot the shadow of a man I’d guess to be around six foot two. Achim isn’t that tall. My father often said his lack of height was the reason he was always grumpy. He has short-man-stature syndrome.

  A relieving sigh rattles in my chest when the body of Nikolai gobbles up the shadow I’m watching like a hawk a few seconds later. He has a gun in his hands, and a crinkle of determination is popped between his dark brows.

  “There, down there,” I whisper to him in Czech, praying Achim won’t hear me. “They took them down there.”

  It dawns on me that he can’t understand me when his eyes drop to the keyhole I’m glancing out of. “Where is she?” His voice is as soft as mine, his willpower just as notable.

  “Tam dole. Pospěš si. Už je zranil. Trey krvácí.”

  I beg for him to hurry again when he tilts so close to the door, I can no longer see his face. I don’t have a good sense of time since my head is still woozy from whatever murkiness is filtering through my veins, but it feels like almost an hour has passed since I last saw Trey.

  If that’s true, we could be too late.

  Trey may already be dead.

  Tears burn my eyes when Nikolai pulls down a key from the lip above the door. When he slots it into the lock I’m peering out of, I scurry back since the door swings inward. After dropping his eyes to me for the quickest second, he shifts to the women cowering away from him like he’s one of the monsters in their nightmares.

  He isn’t. He just didn’t know he wasn’t until he found his Ahren.

  After returning his eyes to mine, Nikolai whispers, “Do you know where Justine is?” He touches his chest that’s splattered with blood while adding. “My Ahren. Do you know where they took her?” When I nod, he asks, “Can you show me?”

  When I nod again, he squashes his index finger to his lips, demanding for me to be quiet. Aware sometimes silence is your only ally, I nod again before gesturing for him to follow me. My feet don’t make the clomping noises his boots do when we quietly tread down the corridor. I’m not just barefoot as I have been almost every day for six years, I learned the importance of soundless steps when Achim’s room was placed onto my list of quarters to take care of after my parents’ deaths. I was so quiet on my feet, I made up his room while he was still sleeping, only returning when he was having breakfast to make his bed.

  After double-checking my bearings to ensure I have the right room, I point to the door across from a nick in the wall. It isn’t nail marks like the walls in my old prison cell. It’s too low for a fist and too high for a knee. It is more like the gun on someone’s hip accidentally grazed the drywall. It’s barely a scuff, but it was a great anchor point to keep me up to date on Trey’s location.

  My tear-filled eyes stray to Nikolai when he whispers, “Justine is in there?”

  While my throat works through its dryness, I nod.

  I stare at him like he’s grown a second head when he mouths, “Thank you.” It’s been a long time since I’ve been thanked. Not even after being assaulted against my wishes did I hear those two words.

  When Nikolai points to the far back entrance of the compound Trey piggybacked me through earlier today, I follow the direction of his gaze. Considering we’re in the middle of a desert, the mature trees surrounding Clarks is impressive. “They’ll be safer there.”

  My mouth falls open when it dawns on me what he’s saying. He wants me to take the captive women into the tree lines to keep them safe. His unexpected chivalry is both pleasing and shocking, however, I can’t do as he’s requesting. I can’t take responsibility for my mistakes out there.

  I also can’t protect Trey.

  Before I can explain that to Nikolai, a roar projects from a door two spots down from the one we’re standing next to. “What do you mean! You were told to keep him there until I gave word I had finished here.”

  The undeniable noise of someone being backhanded overtakes the growling tone not even a second later. It’s closely followed by a pained groan. Although I’d rather no one be hurt, groaning means the person being tortured is still alive. It means we may not be too late.

  “Go,” Nikolai demands before shoving me back toward the room that’s oddly silent. It isn’t a rough shove. Just one that reveals his panic. He knows as well as I do if the women commence sobbing again, Achim will be alerted about his approach, and he and his goon will kill Trey and Justine without hesitation.

  With that in mind, I race back to the dorm. The reason for the rare silence comes to light when I enter the room three heart-thrashing seconds later. The captives are no longer huddled in the corner of the sterile-feeling space.

  They’re nowhere.

  The room is completely bare.

  As panic sets in, I pivot on my heels to face the room Nikolai is gingerly entering. My scream to alert him to watch his back is gobbled up by a large hand clamping over my mouth. I know who has me in an instant. His smell is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s as familiar as the prick of the needle he jabs into my neck for the second time tonight.

  When I fall to my knees, the toxins pumping through my veins too much to keep me upright, Achim slaps a piece of duct tape over my mouth, yanks a hessian bag over my head, zip-ties my wrists and ankles, then tosses me over his shoulder as if I am weightless.

  It’s lucky my stomach is empty, or the thumps of his feet as he races us across a sloshy ground would cause me to vomit. Considering my mouth is taped, that could end disastrously. My lungs are already depleted of air since I’m putting everything into screaming out for help. The walls of Nikolai’s compound are built from concrete, but I’m still hopeful.

  Hope encourages courageousness, and courageousness encourages miracles.

  I could do with a little bit of both.

  As Achim jogs us through the trees surrounding Clarks, I scream about how many injustices I’ve been forced to face my twenty-two years on this planet. I tell him how I hate him, and that no matter how cruel he is, I’ll never submit to him. And then I scream to Trey that I’m sorry for what I did and that I hope one day he can forgive me.

  If that’s even possible.

  Dead men can’t offer forgiveness.

  Thirty seconds later, I’m tossed onto a cool and hard surface. The idling of an unhealthy engine reveals I’ve been placed into the back of a transport van, much less the noise of its door sliding shut a few seconds later. The Novaks are well-known for choosing versatility over luxury when it comes to anything they own—captives included.

  After the boom of a car door slamming shut adds to the thump of my woozy head, a man asks, “Should we wait for Alexei?”

  “No,” A
chim replies, “I’d rather he not come out of this alive.” I can’t see anything through the bag over my head, I’m barely lucid, but I can tell Achim is smiling when he mutters, “Saves the need to find a dumping location on the way to the airport.”

  Their brittle laughter is the last thing I hear before I grant my head permission to slip into a shadowy void. I feel protected here. Safe. It has been my shelter for the past six years, and it will remain my shelter until I’m given a good reason to once again step out of the dark.

  Eighteen

  Trey

  Two months later…

  * * *

  I swish my tongue around my mouth, hopeful a bit of spit will loosen up its dryness as the conversation of two people standing next to me trickles into my ears. “How long was he awake this time?”

  I could be mistaken, but I believe voice number one belongs to Nikolai. It sounds like him, just more worrying, which is surprising. Usually, nothing rattles him.

  “Barely a few minutes. The doctors are lowering his sedation, but they don’t believe it’s the reason he’s been under so long. His head was pretty fucked up, Nikolai. He may not wake up as the Trey we once knew.” The only good that comes from Eight’s comment is the fact my name registers as familiar. I don’t know where I am, or how the hell I got here, but I know my name.

  That’s got to be good, right?

  “Did you convince Dok to let us take him home yet?” Eight asks, his tone lowering. “Might help with his recovery. Familiarity and shit.”

  “We can’t yet…”

  The rest of Nikolai’s reply trails off when darkness once again overwhelms me.

  “Successful pain management for recovering addicts is just as essential as primary care. Trey is an addict, so you need to manage his pain relief with that in mind, or he’ll come out of this with even more issues than some memory loss.”

  That’s Dok. How do I know that? He’ll never let me forget I was addicted to popping pain medication the months following my release from hell. He can’t harp on about blow and crack, they’re pretty much necessities in this industry, but he has no trouble chewing your ass out if your crutch of choice is meant to ease your pain instead of increasing it.

  “Acute pain relief is treated the same way for all patients… addicts included,” replies a voice I’m not familiar with. It’s anal and retentive, a voice none of my brothers would ever have. “He has multiple skull fractures. He’d be in a heap of pain.”

  Me, in pain? Never. I survived hell, so whatever they’re talking about would be a walk in the park. Before I can tell them that, I blank out again.

  “Make sure they put on the double cheese as ordered this time. Fuckers ripped me off last week.”

  Laughter breaks out across the room, exposing there’s more than a handful of people surrounding me. Can’t see jack-shit, though. It’s all red and hazy like when you close your eyes and stare at the sun.

  “You’re only cranky because the nurses turned down their noses at your offer for them to suck your dick. You always get extra moody when you’re without a whore for the night.”

  My entire face aches when my lips notch up into a smirk. Nero loves giving Eight shit about his fascination with fucking. Can’t say I blame him. Eight has a face you can’t help but hate. It keeps the whores on their toes even with him missing two digits.

  Eight tosses me into the flames to save his own ass. “Do you think if I slip a twenty under Trey’s sheets tonight, they’ll make his sponge bath extra enticing?”

  The laughter of over a dozen men simmers to a whisper when another voice mutters, “I bet he’d rather K do it.”

  K? Who the fuck is K?

  “Are you sure this is right?” The playfulness Nero’s voice had the last time I heard him has up and vanished. He sounds pissed. “Perhaps Hunter is wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to steer you in the wrong direction.”

  Nikolai’s growl rumbles through my chest. “I went through the records myself. This is the only anomaly.”

  There’s a short pause before Nero asks, “Did Justine decipher what it says?”

  Justine? That’s another name I’m not familiar with.

  The ripples of a chin being lifted fans my face. It isn’t as sore as it was days ago, but there’s no doubt I’m busted up. I can’t even lick my lips because they’re too swollen for my tongue to pierce through them. “It says, I have Ana.”

  Ana. I work the name through my head a handful of times, struggling to work out if it belongs to one of the many whores at Clarks. It sounds familiar, but that could have more to do with the fact it’s an ordinary, everyday name. Everyone will eventually run into an Ana at one stage of their lives.

  “Oh shit,” Nero breathes out in a heavy groan. “That’s what K called her sister. She barely made any sense since she was speaking a foreign language, but that word stuck out.” He either scratches his chin or his head. They’re both hairless, so they make the same noise when being rubbed. “Do you think K was the one who told Alexei about Clarks?”

  I don’t know who the fuck K is, but I hope she’s picked a good hiding place. If she didn’t, she’ll be dead by the end of today. Second only to Vladimir, Alexei is Nikolai’s number one enemy. Just him knowing the location of Clarks will throw up a ton of challenges for Nikolai.

  The thought alone should give me plenty of incentive to wake up.

  I just need my fucked-up head to get on board with my plans.

  “Hey.”

  This time around, there are faces with the voices.

  Many of them. It’s as if my brothers brought Clarks to my hospital room. We’re just missing a jacuzzi tub full of whores.

  “How are you feeling?” Nero asks before he nudges his head to the door, commanding for Eight to fetch the nurse. “I wouldn’t touch them. The nurses treat you like a pin cushion every time you pull them out.” He places his hands over mine, stopping them from moving for the cables, wires, and IV lines poking out of several regions of my body. “If you stick around for longer than five minutes this time around, they might consider loosening the shackles.”

  “Good morning,” says a bright, bubbly voice as she bounds into the room like she isn’t a lamb being sent to slaughter. The nurse in light blue scrubs has the eyes of over a dozen murderers on her, yet, she acts like she’s just walked into a gay bar. “I’m glad to finally see you’re back with us.”

  “Finally?” I cringe at the high-squeak of my voice. Even before my balls dropped, my voice was never this high-pitched. “How long have I been out?”

  My eyes almost bulge out of my head when Nero answers on the nurse’s behalf, “Ten weeks.”

  After wordlessly checking she has everything covered, Nero frees my hand from his grip then moves to the corner of the room to make a call. I hear him tell Nikolai I’m awake before his voice is gobbled up by the nurse pushing buttons on a heap of monitors at my side. She takes my blood pressure, checks my pulse, flashes a torch in my eyes, then paces my way with a long glass thermometer in her hand.

  “Bend over, Trey. It’s time to take your temperature,” Eight jokes from his station in the corner of the room, rousing both the men surrounding him from their half-asleep state and the nurse’s cheeks.

  I give him a stern glare, warning him to shut the fuck up before opening my mouth at the nurse’s request. While she watches the red mercury in the thermometer rise, I scan my eyes over her name badge pinned to her enticing chest. Her name is Kendall.

  “K? You’re K?”

  Smiling, she pulls the thermometer out of my mouth, jots down my temperature into my file, then drifts her eyes to mine. “Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you through the thermometer.”

  “K? Are you called K?”

  I rip the cords off my chest when they advise of my skyrocketing heart rate. My pulse isn’t thudding in my ears, but I feel seconds from having a heart attack.

  “No, I’ve never been called K.” Kendall curls her hand arou
nd my wrist in a caring manner, halting me from removing the rest of the cords while inconspicuously checking my pulse. “But you can call me anything you’d like while taking in some big breaths for me. Your heart rate is very high.”

  While she wordlessly begs for me to calm down, I drift my eyes to Nero. He’s no longer on a call. “Who’s K?”

  When Eight attempts to butt in, Nero waves his hand through the air, cutting him off. Once he’s joined Kendall in standing at my bedside opposite her, he asks, “How much do you remember about the past few months?”

  “Clearly, not as much as I should.” I remember joining Nikolai at the club for a drink, and one of Dimitri’s goons egging Nikolai for a beating, but other than that, it’s pretty much blank. “Am I here because of the brawl?”

  When Eight once again attempts to interrupt, Mikhail convinces him not to this time around. Unlike Nero, he uses his fists.

  “What brawl?” Nero interrogates like a real-life motherfucking detective.

  “The one near Cliché.” I scrub a hand down my face in frustration when the name of the bar we were drinking at slips my mind. I know Cliché as well as the back of my hand. It’s my regular haunt and one of the many businesses I own with Nikolai, so the watering hole next to it should be just as clear. “Umm…” My words trail off again when the scrub of my face switches to my head.

  My hair is fucking gone.

  I have a buzz cut.

  If that isn’t bad enough, there are grooves in my skull.

  “Trey, please, we need you to stay in bed,” Kendall begs when I flop my legs off the side of the hospital bed I’m waking up in before I rip off the remainder of the cords. Since the IV line is taped to my arm with industrial-strength medical tape, it, along with the bags of liquid dangling above my head, hobble into the bathroom with me.

  I take a step back when I see the gaunt, lifeless face peering back at me in the mirror above the vanity. My beard is thicker and longer than usual, but my hair is completely gone. Although my skull is no longer stitched and stapled together, it’s clear it was at one stage. It looks like a fucking patchwork quilt. My eyes are lifeless, and my muscles are barely noticeable. Even my tattoos don’t look as lively as they once did.