The Dance: Bratva Vows

by SR Jones

  My fear is she’s dead. Did she wander near there for some reason? Maybe she goes jogging, or perhaps she was walking around there, and some freak took her. There are a lot of crazy people in this world.

  We only had one night together, but I felt a connection, one I want to explore. She’s the first thing to seem truly real to me since I lost my wife, and I want her. For more than one night.

  I can keep her safe. I can stop her from having to dance for money, for other men. The thought has jealousy burning in my gut, even though I know I have no right.

  I don’t care.

  I am a man who takes what he wants.

  For so long, I’ve been living in a fog of grief, no longer myself. Amanda has brought me roaring back to life. I need to find her, to protect her, to make her mine. My mind pushes away the thought she might already be dead, and instead focuses on finding her alive.

  And then making her mine.

  4

  Amber

  My mouth is so dry it hurts to swallow. I move position and moan. God, my head hurts. So does my face and side. He has hit me hard enough to really do some harm.

  I don’t think this guy is simply a customer who liked what he saw. No, he’s been watching me, following me. This is a way worse situation for me than I initially thought. I think this guy is a killer. A murderer, and I’ve fallen into his clutches.

  It’s ironic it ends this way. Out here in some ugly, disused building. My whole life has been about putting on a façade, pretending to be someone I’m not, and in the end I’m alone on a dirty floor, waiting for death to come, and oddly I’m nowhere near as terrified as I should be.

  What have I to lose? No parents. A sibling who, let’s be honest, doesn’t give a shit about me. A friend, one friend, and the rest nothing but acquaintances who only know party girl Amber.

  Ilya.

  He saw the real me. For one night only, I let my mask down. Yes, we fucked, but we also cuddled and talked well into the night. He told me his secrets in the dark, and I told him mine.

  It’s pretty tragic that the person I’ll miss the most, other than my best friend, is a man I’ve only known mere hours. How did I get to be so alone?

  I ache for Ilya as I lie on this cold, hard floor. I want his warm, big arms around me, the solid surety of his chest to place my sore, weary head on. I want someone to care. The realization hits me so hard, it knocks the breath from me. I want someone to care about me when I’m gone. Will Ilya care? I doubt it. I’d be nothing as to the loss of his wife.

  Tears spill down my cheeks, and I angrily blink them away. I don’t cry. I’m not a crier. I’m the girl who gets on with it, who survives. Except, how do I survive this?

  I can hear the bastard who took me moving about, whistling as if he’s at work, doing normal shit instead of about to kill a woman. Will he rape me first? I’m more scared of that than I am of dying. I don’t want him to take that from me, my final piece of control.

  “Why don’t you just fucking finish it now?” I scream in frustration. This waiting game, his endless whistling and cheery singing is driving me insane. All part of the plan, I’m sure.

  His boots come into my line of vision, shiny, with those little holes in them men’s shoes often have. Expensive probably. This guy isn’t hard up. He’s also not bad looking. He called himself generic, and maybe he is, but he’s got a pleasant enough face. Probably a decent job. If he’s alone, it’s because he’s toxic. A self-pitying, whiny little boy who never became a man and blames everyone else for his problems.

  “Oh. I will finish it, as you say, but in my time. You’re not the one in control now, Amber. I am. Me. You’re not calling the shots in your cheap, fancy dresses and your war paint. I am. In fact, I might make you dance for me in a bit. I haven’t decided yet, and if I do, you’d better make it the best dance you’ve ever given, or I’ll make you hurt so bad you will be begging for death.”

  He wants me to dance for him? The thought has nausea surging in my stomach. I don’t think I can do it. My head is so sore. I’ll probably vomit all over him, and then he’ll beat me more.

  “My mother was like you,” he says as he strolls out of my line of sight once more. I can still hear him, though. I wish I could sit, but he’s got my arms tied to some piping that runs the length of the wall, and I can’t raise my body.

  “She thought she was the bees-knees. Had a lot of gentlemen friends, as she put it. Never any time for me. Doesn’t matter now, though. She’s dead, the ugly old bitch. Died in her own piss, bottle of her favorite vodka by her side. So, you see, I’m doing you a favor. You’re still young and beautiful now, but you’d get used up. Old. And as you age, the life you’ve led will take a toll on you. All the drinking, the drugs. You’ll look hideous.”

  I laugh because I don’t do drugs, and it’s not often I drink. At work, we get bought the champagne, but I rarely drink mine. I have learned many ways over the years of making it appear as if I do, but I don’t. Dancing drunk in six-inch heels is not a smart life move. When I go out and party out of work hours, I do the same. Maybe a glass at the start of the night for a nice buzz, then nothing more. I like the music, the crowds, the atmosphere, and most of all, I like to dance. If I had my time again, I’d have trained classically as a dancer.

  “Laugh all you want. It’s true. I’m saving you from a lifetime of disappointment. Of seeing your superiority drain away as you age, and you realize that you had nothing more going for you than youth. Your friend, she’s got more. A family who love her. A good job. A qualification. She’ll age and still be the interesting woman people want to talk to because she knows all about archeology and fascinating things like that. You? What are you going to talk about when you are fifty? The latest dance moves. Don’t make me laugh. You’re vapid. Empty.”

  Talk about projection. This man is the vapid and empty one. He’s so empty he has to fill himself up by torturing and terrorizing others. It’s the only way he can feel anything. He thinks he’s an apex predator, but he’s not. He’s a mangy hyena, hated by the other animals on the plains.

  I’m just the very unlucky gazelle that wandered into his path.

  “No one will miss you. Only your friend, and she’ll give up looking after a while. Your brother won’t care because he’s too fucking selfish. I always make sure I pick nobodies. It’s why I get away with it time and time again.”

  I’m fuming. I want to kick him in his puny balls, and then poke his piggy little eyes out. Sick bastard!

  Bang, bang, bang.

  The sound of something being kicked, hard, echoes in the room, and I look up to see my captor running away from me, away from the sound. Moments later, he’s back in my line of sight, and he’s carrying a very big knife.

  Oh, shit.

  What is this?

  Then my heart soars. It must be the police, breaking the door in with those heavy battering rams they use. How did they know?

  Then it hits me. Work. I didn’t turn up to work today. Maybe Michelle contacted the police?

  Just as I’m deciding that a manageress in a club rub by the mafia most certainly wouldn’t have alerted the police, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, I hear a familiar voice. A heavily accented, deep voice.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Ilya says.

  I lift my head despite it really hurting, and a small cry of relief flies from my lips when I see him, Lucien, and another man, all holding guns.

  My captor waves his knife around like he can do some serious damage with it.

  “Is this some game of rock, paper, scissors whereby you think knife beats gun?” Ilya deadpans.

  My captor feints to the left, and a huge boom echoes in the room, making me scream.

  My captor falls to the ground, and he’s screaming too, as he clutches his leg and rolls around. Oh, God, Ilya shot him.

  He walks to me and kneels, gently cradling my throbbing head on his lap as he examines the zip tie around my hands and the rope around my wrists
tying me to the pipe.

  “You better untie me, then call the police and get out of here,” I slur. “You can’t be here when they arrive as you shot him. I’ll make something up, say he got into a fight with someone who helped him take me. Give them a false lead. He can’t hurt me now.”

  “There will be no police,” he says as he unties the thick knots holding me in place.

  “Oh?”

  “And I’m not leaving you here. He also is not going to live.”

  My captor gives a soft moan at those words.

  “You can’t kill him; you’ll get charged with murder,” I say.

  “I won’t be here; I’ll be in Russia.” He’s got the knot undone and then a moment later, he takes a mean looking flick knife out of his pocket and cuts me free of the zip tie.

  “I might get into trouble. The police might figure out he took me and think I killed him.” I lift my gaze to Ilya’s.

  He smiles at me, and it’s gorgeous, but also dark and filled with something I’ve not seen before.

  “You won’t be here either.”

  Oh, God. He’s going to kill me? Why? And why bother saving me?

  “You’ll be in Russia too, with me.”

  What? His words make no sense, and my head is hurting even more.

  “I can’t come with you, Ilya.” I shake my head and wince, regretting the movement immediately. “I need to stay here. I have a job.”

  “It’s a terrible job, and you aren’t to go back to it.” His words are gentle, but firm.

  “I have family here, friends.”

  “One friend, a few acquaintances, and a brother who is not particularly good for you.”

  I bristle at his words. He sounds as much like my stalker as my captor does.

  “Been researching me?” I demand.

  He smiles softly. “No, not really. You told me a lot when we talked the other night, and the rest of it I learned from your friend. I called her when you were missing to see if she knew where you might be, whether you might have gone somewhere last minute. I had your phone tracked in case she didn’t give me any ideas, which turned out to be the case.”

  “You had no right to ask my friend about me,” I tell him. I’m mortified because I know she’ll have said, no, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere last minute because I had no one to go with.

  “It saved your life. More than that, it saved you from being raped and tortured, which is what I think this sick fuck had in store for you.”

  “Go to hell,” my captor grunts.

  Lucien kicks him hard in the stomach, and he throws up.

  Ilya is untying my feet now.

  “Finish it,” he tells Lucien as I sit and rub my sore ankles.

  Lucien smirks and winks at my captor, but it’s Mischa who lifts his gun and puts a bullet in the man’s skull.

  I scream and close my eyes, trying to erase the image of the bits of blood, muscle, and brain matter splattering the wall.

  “If I get her out of here, will you two clean this up. No traces left?” Ilya demands as if I’m not rocking and moaning at his feet like a gibbering lunatic.

  “Yes, boss.”

  I can’t think clearly or stop myself shaking. I’m going to puke, I know it. Then, I’m being picked up and carried as if I weigh nothing more than a bag of oranges.

  God, he’s strong. I wrap my arms weakly around his neck.

  “Ilya,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” he murmurs in response.

  “I don’t feel so good. I think he hurt my head.”

  “I’m going to get you the best medical care, don’t you worry.”

  I can barely keep my eyes open. The sickness feeling increases, and to my horror, the next moment I throw up all over Ilya’s suit jacket. Oh, Lord, the mortification.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cry.

  “It’s okay, Amanda. It’s okay; I’m getting you help.”

  Ilya keeps saying soothing things to me, cradling me in his arms as he races down the stairs, and out to a waiting car.

  I try to focus on the words, but everything is spinning now. I feel as if I’m a shirt in a tumble dryer, getting tossed around and around.

  Then the static starts. Everything starts to look as if snow is drifting in front of it, and then the darkness comes.

  It all goes black.

  5

  Ilya

  “She’s got a concussion, and she’s in a lot of pain, but she’s going to be okay.”

  The doctor onboard my private jet sits down opposite me and loosens his tie. His name is John … now. That’s the English name he took when he came to live here and married a Brit. He still has traces of his Russian accent, though, despite elocution lessons to dim it.

  “She’s freaking out about why she’s on a plane.” He shrugs. “I told her, she was being flown for better medical treatment, but she’s going to flip when she finds you’ve taken her to Russia, and I don’t know if that’s going to do her any good. Luckily for you, she’s sleepy and out of it, so I doubt she’ll realize yet we’re flying for too long to be taking her to a hospital in the UK.”

  “Sleeping?” I ask, concern lacing my tone. “Isn’t that dangerous if you have a concussion.”

  He shakes his head. “No, so long as I wake her and check her responses every couple of hours, it’s good for her to rest. She’s not got a severe brain injury. Or at least, the signs so far don’t show that. When we get her to Russia, I suggest we go straight to the Ramin clinic and get a scan. It’s one of the best clinics, and they’ll do it immediately. They are also … discreet. I can stay for a few days to make sure all is well, but then I have to return to England. My wife won’t be happy if I’m gone too long.”

  “Of course.” I dip my head in answer. I’m lucky he came at all. I’m a scary man, but the man opposite doesn’t intimidate easily. He’s ex-combat medical, and he’s seen shit I can only imagine. Like Andrius. He, Andrius, and a man called Konstantin are like the unholy trinity. Two angels of death and a twisted, hardened medic. They don’t see one another often, as Konstantin is in London, but with operations in America and Russia too. The man is making his fortune, and like myself, not always legally, and Andrius rarely socializes these days. I know though, for a fact, they’d lay their lives down for one another. For that is the sort of bond forged in the flames of war.

  I’m lucky. I had a good life while they were fighting. When things collapsed in the nineties, and the Russian economy deregulated to a crazy degree, I was young, ambitious, and I made a lot of money. Legally, and illegally.

  Now, I’m one of those oligarchs you read about on the news. Wealthy. Powerful. Untouchable … almost.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out to see Allyov calling. I answer, and the good doctor stands and moves to the back of the plane, giving me privacy for the call.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “My men tell me the clean-up is done. Where is my girl?”

  I tamp down the growl his words draw out of me. “She’s my girl now,” I tell him.

  He surprises me with his next words. “Good. You’re taking her to the homeland?”

  “Yes.”

  “Also good. You have to understand, she’s a loose end. I can’t have her flapping her lips about what happened. One of my men killed a man, and I normally never leave witnesses to such things. If you ever get bored of her and decide to let her go, tell her in no uncertain terms not to return to the UK. She’s officially a missing person now, as is the fucker who took her, and if she comes back it will mean a lot of police attention that I don’t need. It’s bad enough she worked here, but luckily for me only for one night, and no other girls here have got a bad word to say about the place. Also … you know Andrius has his code. I don’t want him getting on my case about this girl being with you against her will. For that reason, and not to undermine you in any way, I am setting her up with an identity and a bank account with half a million in it. One of my contacts in St Petersburg will be in touch with the deta
ils in a few days.”

  The overstepping bastard. I bristle. Him doing this is not okay.

  “No need. I won’t make her stay against her will, once she’s recovered,” I say, not adding that I’m sure her recovery will take a very long time, if I have anything to do with it. “When that time comes, I’ll give her money to leave if she so wishes.”

  He sighs. “Ilya, my friend, and you are my friend. Let me do this. It makes Andrius less of an issue.”

  “No. And it sounds to me like the tail is wagging the dog in your organization, my friend. Maybe Andrius needs something to occupy his mind instead of sticking it in everyone else’s business?”

  Allyov chuckles. “If you were here, in front of me, I’d say we would have a problem right about now. But you are not. So instead of shooting you, I will admit, only this once, you might be correct. I too think Andrius needs something … perhaps someone, to keep him busy.”

  “Pity you can’t make the soulless bastard fall in love with his housekeeper. She’s fucking hot.”

  “No, I can’t. But I can give him something to keep him so occupied he can’t spend all his time being a pain in my ass about what I do and don’t do.”

  “Oh, I’m intrigued.”

  “Yes, well, there are plans afoot. That man is going to find himself bound to me and my organization in a way he can’t ever escape from.”

  I shudder because I don’t envy Andrius if Allyov is going to suck him in deeper. I also think Allyov needs to be careful what he wishes for. If I had Andrius working for me, I’d be more likely to cut him loose than pull him in.

  The man’s deadly, cold, and so focused it’s scary. Keeping him tied to you, if he doesn’t want to be, is like training a deadly attack dog by beating it senseless daily and not expecting that one day it will turn on you.

  “I am still sending the girl money to a bank account, this I will not move on.” Allyov hangs up before I have the chance to reply.