by SR Jones
My phone goes and I pull it out of my pocket, surprised to see Stamatis’ number. The guys won’t be at his house yet. I answer with a sense of unease, knowing I’m about to lie to my boss. I can’t give him a heads-up on this situation when I have no idea which way he will go.
“Yeah.” I keep my voice as casual as I can.
“Damen, can you gather the troops and come to the house? We have a problem. It seems Marina has been taken. Spiros is on his way.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. The fucker took Marina too. This is getting out of control. I think fast. “I can’t be there myself, as I’m quite a way out.”
“What? Where the hell are you? Is Maya with you?”
“Yes.” The lie trips too easily off my tongue. “I took her for a long drive to a great restaurant I know, but it will take us a while to get back. She’s just in the ladies now, so I’ll think about how to tell her about her mother. I’ll call Alesso and Markos, make sure they head your way right now, and we will be back as soon as we can.”
“Okay.” He sounds exhausted. Defeated almost. “Hurry.”
It’s a sign of weakness I’ve never heard from him. An admission he needs us there, and fast. Not an order, more of a plea.
“Of course. Alesso will be there soon.” He has no idea how soon, or how much further his world is going to fall apart once Alesso and Markos arrive.
I want to tell him so bad, and he might be livid at me for this deception, but if he chooses Costas, we’re all done for. I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to massage away the pounding between my eyes.
The SUV we are in pulls up as Liam kills the engine. We are about a ten-minute-walk from the warehouse. A few minutes at a brisk jog. I don’t want us parking too near; it might give us away, and we need the element of surprise.
There are street cameras around here. I hacked into them and now have access to them, and can see the building clearly on my phone.
There are two guys outside, standing guard. Both are on serious alert, and I’m starting to wonder if Costas is expecting us. Or someone, at least.
My phone beeps, and I curse—damn thing is on fire. I glance down and hold my hand out, stopping the men around me who are about to run off toward the warehouse. It’s a text from Costas. Jesus, does he know we are here?
“Damen, you fucker. I have something you want. Do not contact my father. Or she dies. Get yourself, Alesso, and Markos to the following address. Come alone. I will know if you have anyone else with you.”
No, he does not know we are here. Clearly, though, he wants us to come to the rescue and not tell his father, so his plan is to take Maya, her mother, and us three out of the picture. It makes sense, in a crazy way. If he can pull it off and avoid the blame, Stamatis will be devastated, and his organization weakened by the loss of his three best men. Perfect time for Costas to strike and try to take over.
The phone beeps again. There’s a picture of Maya bound and then an address. This address, so thank God I got it right, because he won’t be expecting me for at least forty minutes or so. Now I have the element of surprise.
I need to focus, though, to maintain my advantage. My blood boils at the image, fire burnishing my insides. I have to put it out and lock that shit down, because otherwise my head won’t be in the right place.
My phone is tilted away from me, and I see Andrius look at it. He turns to me, raises one dark slash of a brow, and sighs. “She’s bait. It’s you he wants. Makes sense. He takes you, Alesso, and Markos out of the picture, it makes Stamatis much more vulnerable.”
“How the fuck would he explain killing three of his father’s best men?” Liam asks. “Sounds crazy to me.”
“He can say they attacked him.” Andrius shrugs. “Or he might plan on doing the deed and running away, covering up his involvement.”
“Yeah, but he’s taking a massive risk with all this,” Liam argues. “It’s a shitty plan.”
“He’s a shitty idiot,” I snap. “His brain is addled by drugs, he’s overconfident, and he doesn’t think things through. This is a bad plan, yes. But it’s still dangerous for us because I have no idea how Stamatis will react to this, or whose side he’ll fall on.”
“I love the smell of danger in the evening,” Reece quips with a shit-eating grin.
Liam rolls his eyes, and Andrius lets go a series of orders in rapid-fire Russian to his men.
“Come, let us go get your woman back, Damen.” Andrius sets off at a jog, body half crouched, and sticking to the fence that leads all the way to the warehouse. It is crowded with overgrown shrubs that will help hide us somewhat from sight of the men guarding the outside. I’m not bothered about the cameras because only I’m getting the true feed now. Costas is getting the loop feed I set up before leaving the house. He also has no idea I have hacked his emails, so he thinks I’ll just be receiving his text about now, and therefore, he won’t be expecting me yet. Stupid fucker.
This all plays nicely into our hands.
We turn our phones to silent and begin the approach to the warehouse. I’m relieved the bastard is here. There are two other locations he could have been at, and it would have been a waste of precious time to be at the wrong one.
The guards are chatting in low voices, talking in Greek. Their words reach me, and my heart slams hard, almost painful in the intensity of the beats. They are talking about raping someone.
Oh, fuck. No.
I stop moving, causing one of the Spetsnaz men to bump into me.
He curses and Andrius holds his fist up, stopping us all. He turns a deadly glare my way. I get it. I screwed up. This is why he didn’t want me along. I can’t seem to clear my mind or think straight.
They’ve raped Maya.
How will she live with it? How will she get over it? I’ve seen victims of mass rape before in wartime, and it’s not something a person gets over. Ever.
“Get your shit together, or go back to the vehicle.” Liam’s tone is low, but no nonsense.
I need to be here for her. She’ll need a familiar face now, as she’s sure to be traumatized. I have to do this for her. Face it for her. She’s the victim here, not me.
I swallow and nod once to show I’m not going to lose it.
Forcing myself to push everything aside and go into that space I used to inhabit as a soldier, I become a machine. Nothing remains of any human emotions as I narrow my focus down to everything going on around me. The footfalls of the men at my side. The way Andrius and his Russian men peel off from us. The chatter of the guards at the door. The distant hum of traffic. The moment one of the guards clearly hears something and their talk stops.
They both look up at the same time and see me, Liam, and Reece approaching. I’m talking in Greek to the guys, even though they don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m telling a filthy joke, and it’s enough to throw the guards off their stride for a moment. They glance to one another, and it’s all it takes. Andrius and his men approach from the side, one big Spetsnaz soldier grabs each of the guards, arms around the neck, and twists viciously.
We aren’t fucking around here. We aren’t putting these guys out of action for a few minutes; we’re putting them out of action forever.
The guards slump to the ground, lowered gently and oh-so-quietly by the Russians.
The door is half open, ajar, which is sloppy even with guards outside and a security feed. This sort of shit is why people like Costas end up fucked up. I’m going to drag his death out slowly, maybe make him eat his own balls. After I force his dick down his throat.
We walk quietly down a long, deserted hallway, our weapons drawn. Andrius, Liam, and I take the front, and we all have knives out. Gunshots would alert too many people at this point. Our guns are there for backup if needed, but hopefully they won’t be. Maintaining the element of surprise will help us get Maya and her mother out of there safely.
Three big men are lounging against a set of swinging doors, the kind you see in a meat processing plant or butcher shop.
> They are laughing and talking about enjoying screwing a bitch.
I keep calm with superhuman focus, but as I near them, I put my arm around one’s mouth and gut him like a pig. Covering his screaming with my hand and arm as the terrible pain rips through him. The other two are dispatched more humanely by Andrius and Liam. My victim is shaking in my arms, trying to grab his stomach to hold his insides in place, but he can’t move his hands to do so, the shock is so severe.
Soon, his eyes roll back in his head, and he goes slack.
I drop him to the floor and step back. I see Reece staring at me in shock. Not something I expect from a hardened soldier. When I look down, I’m covered in blood.
“Fuck me,” Andrius whispers. Then he taps me on the forehead with his pointer finger. “Focus, you whacko. Or I’ll put you down myself.”
I grind my teeth and give him a death stare, but I don’t argue back; doing so would mean I might not get through these doors to Maya, and that’s all I care about.
My whole world has narrowed down to that one goal.
We swing the doors open, and I stop dead at the sight in front of me.
Maya is on a table, on all fours like a dog, and there is a man behind her, undoing his zip. Another is tearing at her clothing, and a third has his dick waggling in front of her face. As the men walk through the doors beside me, they all stop too as the scene unfolds in front of us.
The man waggling his dick gives a shocked hiss as Maya takes him into her mouth. She makes a lurid hhhmmmmm sound, and for a moment I’m confused as fuck. Is she … is she servicing these men? Willingly? No way. No way would she do that.
And then the room is filled with the high-pitched screams of a man in agony. There’s blood spurting from the groin of the man who had his dick in her mouth, and Maya spits something onto the floor and gives a crazed laugh.
“Serves you right, you piece of shit,” she screams.
And … I’m moving. Before the men can gather their wits about them, I’m already across the room. I jab and thrust with the knife and take the other two out immediately. A door at the end of the room bursts open, and three more men rush into the space. They have weapons drawn, and Andrius’ men respond in kind.
Costas appears, his head poking around the door from a room beyond. When he sees the scene, the color drains from his face, and he pivots and runs back into the room he came from.
I can hear him babbling to a man in there, asking how we got here so quick. The other guy sounds unimpressed with Costas’ pleas for them all to leave, right now.
I turn to Maya, checking she’s okay. She’s crying and laughing at the same time, scrubbing at the blood on her face.
Oh, shit, this is not good. Liam sprints past me with one of Andrius’ men, heading for where Costas is trying to escape.
“What did they do to you, baby? Can you get up?” I reach for her slowly, gently, knowing she might not want to be touched, but she practically throws herself into my arms.
“Damen, they tried to … they were going to … oh God, my mother.”
It hits me then. Marina. There isn’t only Maya involved in this. Shit. Those men were talking about Marina. I hate myself when a wave of relief washes over me that they took her first.
“Go help my mother,” she begs as she stands on shaking legs.
I do as she says, throwing a look at Reece, who comes to stand by Maya and begins to draw her torn clothes around her.
Andrius and I burst into the second room in time to see Liam holding his hands up as Costas places a knife at Marina’s throat. Two men who look like bikers rush for the exit, not waiting to see how this goes down. Smart move.
“You raping piece of shit,” I yell at him as I see the horror on Marina’s face. I don’t think his men had done anything more to Maya prior to our entry, if her reactions are anything to go by. Marina, however, her face tells a different story, and it’s an ugly one.
“What?” Costas laughs. Fucking laughs like the crazy bastard he is. “I didn’t rape anyone.”
“No, you let your men do it instead.”
I look at Marina, trying to gauge what kind of state she is in. She’s shaking and her eyes are checked out.
“Listen, no time to chat. This has all gone a bit wrong, so how about you guys put your weapons away and let me and my lovely auntie here leave the room, okay? I promise I will let her go once I am out of here.”
“You’re dead anyway,” I tell him. Maybe not the best choice of words when he has a knife to Marina’s throat, but surely he knows he’s not getting out of this alive?
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Your father will kill you for this himself,” I scoff. “You’ve dishonored the family name in the worst way imaginable. This can’t be forgiven, not ever.”
He laughs again and sniffs. “He doesn’t know.” My face must tell the piece of shit that his father does know, or will very soon. His features crumple, almost collapsing in on themselves, but he makes a great show of bravado. “Yeah, my father isn’t going to harm a hair on my head. He won’t kill me over this piece of trash.” He shakes Marina.
I jerk my head at him. “You make an awful lot of assumptions. Let’s assume you’re correct, and you are right about Marina’s worth to your father. He will still want you dead when he sees the files you’ve been sharing with your friends. Files where you discuss taking down your own parent. Betraying him, taking his business from him eventually.”
His face drains of all remaining color. “What the fuck?”
“You know what I do, right? What made you think you could hide those files from me in such a basic, shitty way?”
The knife presses harder, and Marina makes a choked sound. I hold my hands up and throw my own knife to the side, the clatter of it on the hard floor jarring.
I make my play. “Let her go. And I promise you, on my honor and my life, I will tell your father you didn’t mean for all this to happen. I’ll go to bat for you.”
He giggles, and it’s nervous and high pitched. “Right, you must think I’m totally dense.”
He’s distracted, and in that moment, Marina grabs the knife. I watch in horror, as if time slows down, as she stabs Costas deep in the thigh, and then with a gaze devoid of all emotion, turns the knife around and stabs herself deep in the stomach before pulling the knife out with a scream and a spurt of blood.
“Oh, God. Marina, no!” I’m at her side in a moment.
I’m only vaguely aware of Liam grabbing Costas and wrestling the bastard to the floor, yanking his arm so hard he screams. They struggle in my peripheral vision, but my focus is on the horror in front of me. My hands are slippery with blood. I turn to the door to shout for help, only to see Maya staring with wide eyes full of shock.
CHAPTER THREE
Maya
Blood. So much blood. All I can see is red.
I blink, and there’s even red behind my eyelids. Damen told me the world came in all sorts of colors, even red. He wasn’t wrong. The world is soaked in the disgusting shade. Not a bright, pretty crimson, but a dark, dirty metallic red that I can’t seem to escape.
It’s on me, around my mouth. The taste of it in my throat is making me sick. It’s on the floor, it’s all over Damen, Costas too, and my mother. The worst is my mom. She’s covered in it, and more keeps coming.
I can’t process what’s happening. Damen is holding my mother, and he has his hands pressed against her belly.
She puts hers on top of his. “Let me go.”
No.
I’m running to her, slipping in the mess on the floor that so much carnage has left. I fall to her side, not caring about the pain as my knees hit concrete. “Mom, you have to let him help you.”
“Paramedics are five minutes out,” someone calls from the other room. “Picked it up on the scanner. Police too. This is going to be one unholy clusterfuck.”
The smell of blood and death is clinging to me like a foul miasma, and I don’t think I’ll ever be cl
ean of it. Mom can’t die like this. She can’t.
I’m aware of Costas somehow getting away from Liam and throwing himself out the door, into the daylight beyond, but in this moment, I honestly don’t care what happens to him. Mom is all I can focus on. Liam is right on his heels anyway.
“You can’t give up, Mom. I know … I know what they did to you, but you have to fight.”
She looks at me, and her eyes are sad. So sad. “Maya, I’m dying. I found out months ago I have cancer. Incurable. It’s one of the reasons I finally found the courage to do what I did, and try to get you out of the hellhole we have been living in. I can’t honestly say I would have found that courage if I hadn’t been sick.”
I don’t want to believe her. I need to have hope, but her words ring true. She changed, didn’t she? Went from not being all that interested in me to caring for me more. She softened somehow.
I recall the conversation we had where she wistfully asked me why I didn’t sit at her feet anymore as she did her nighttime routine, and I know. Her words are true. My mother is dying anyway, she already was.
She coughs and groans, once more trying to remove Damen’s hands from where he’s making a futile attempt to stop the flow of blood. “This, my dying here, it saves you, Maya. Stamatis, he loves me in his way. I know this. He never stopped.” She coughs again.
“You tell him Costas and his men so defiled me I took my own life. Don’t tell him I was sick, although he will find out if he digs hard enough. Don’t tell him, let him…”
“Mom?” Her eyes flutter closed, and I can’t see her properly. I realize tears are pouring down my face and clouding my vision.
A man I don’t recognize falls to his knees next to Damen. His hands touch Mom’s throat as he feels her pulse. He’s wearing an expensive suit, and it too is covered in blood.
So much blood. Everywhere.