by Dana Lyons
Sole Survivor
Dreya Love Book 4
Dana Lyons
Copyright © 2019 by Dana Lyons
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Cover design by Paul Casselle
https://paulcasselle.com/book-cover-designs-by-paul-casselle/
A special thanks to author Olga Goa, from Moscow, who helped with Russian names and geography.
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Animal versus human …
Who wins?
A haunted forest, a broken man, a pack fighting for survival. Can Dreya and the boys heal Quinn’s pain, or is staying a wolf the only answer for him?
Sasha Ivanov, sold into slavery as a young boy, becomes a monster in his relentless drive to never be a victim again. Deemed the worst of the worst by Dr. Anthony Lazar, the geneticist who wants to remake the human race, Sasha discovers he will never be the same.
Quinn Kingston knows what Dr. Lazar can do from personal experience. But as a Nobilized and highly evolved human, is he able to forgive Ivanov of the most heinous acts? Can a wolf overcome the past?
Soul Survivor Dreya Love Book 4 digs deep in this shifter reverse harem series as Dreya and her men struggle with life as genetically edited humans.
1
Nevyansk, Russia, 2000
Young Sasha Ivanov sat next to his owner, Nikolay Reznikov, on the bed. Fear ripped through his body on a wave of adrenaline, driving his heart to pound. His palms sweated, and he wiped them on the bed covers where Nikolay couldn’t see.
His excitement came not from fear of what Nikolay was going to do to him. Instead, knowledge of what he was going to do to Nikolay added a jittery rush to his nerves he had to hide. A razor-sharp knife rested in his pocket; the weight of it terrified and liberated him at the same time.
Calm yourself before he sees murder in your eyes.
With a slow smile, he lifted one shoulder and let his shirt slide free to bare his flesh, diverting Nikolay’s attention.
Nikolay caressed the bare shoulder. “I am always amazed by your beauty, Sasha.” He drew his finger along Sasha’s jaw to the cheek bone, where a lightning bolt tattoo showed the world Sasha was Nikolay’s property. “Your mother could have doubled your price.”
Sasha wanted to cringe at Nikolay’s praise, knowing his owner never delivered a compliment without a backhand. He forced himself to relax, even as he held his breath and refused to blink.
Nikolay’s hand traveled to the back of Sasha’s neck and tightened in a painful grip as he glared into Sasha’s face. “You were supposed to wear the blue outfit. It’s Tuesday, or have you forgotten how I like you to dress? Have you learned nothing?”
Sasha glanced at the closed bedroom door. Once Nikolay locked the door, the bodyguard would retire to the next room for the night. No one ever attempted to open the bedroom door after it was locked—no matter what sounds arose.
A genuine tear gathered and trickled past the tattoo; the tightrope of death in his young life had never been so thin. “You also like me to surprise you, Nikolay.” He looked down and batted his eyelashes, the coquette.
This appeased Nikolay’s mercurial nature and he released his grip on Sasha’s neck. “Look at me, boy.”
He did as Nikolay ordered, but first softened his gaze lest the hatred in his soul gave him away. “My every wish is to please you,” he added. He brought his bright blue eyes to meet the cruel black orbs of his owner.
“I fell in love with your eyes, boy. You’re the sweetest I’ve ever seen.” He reached into Sasha’s pants and cupped his genitals before slipping his hands back to gently pull apart his buttocks.
Sasha kept his face blank, his body relaxed. He’d been plucking pubic hairs from his genitals for weeks, knowing once he ripened sexually, his allure would be finished. Blue eyes or not, he’d become considerably less precious to this man. Time had run out for him.
Nikolay untied his evening pants and let them slip to the floor. “Do me Sasha. Do me the way I taught you.” He held his flaccid cock to Sasha’s lips. “Do me and show me those beautiful blue eyes.”
Since Sasha acquired the tattoo on his face, he’d come to understand Nikolay bought him for his blue eyes, his mouth, and his anal passage. Tonight, like a thousand nights before, he’d coax Nikolay’s soft flesh into a hardened spear that would next pierce his still smooth buttocks.
Not tonight. Not ever again.
He kept his eyes open as he worked on Nikolay’s flesh to bring him to the point he needed, watching for the perfect opportunity. The moment arrived, just as he’d seen it so many times before, when Nikolay closed his eyes and dropped his head back, completely unguarded in the throes of building ecstasy.
Now!
Still sucking, he slipped the knife from his pocket and shoved it into Nikolay just below the ribs, angled to pierce the lungs. Before Nikolay could scream, Sasha spit out the penis and clamped his free hand over the big man’s mouth. Remembering those thousand nights, he ripped the knife straight up, tearing into Nikolay’s heart, killing him instantly.
He paused, panting and covered with blood, and tilted his head to listen. No alarms rang and no bodyguards came to break in the door. The only movement in the room was Nikolay’s blood as it dripped from the silk sheets to the carpeted floor.
Silent as a cat on soft feet, he washed and dressed in clothes he’d stashed under the bed. From the bottom drawer of the bedside stand he grabbed a handgun and stuffed it in the back of his pants. He went to a painting and pulled it out from the wall to reveal the wall safe, and spun the dial, eyes closed, listening to the tumblers he’d heard hundreds of times before.
Right. Left. Right. Click. The safe popped open.
He crammed bundles of cash into a pillow case along with jewels and gold Krugerrands before tying a knot in the silk fabric. He picked up the bedroom door key to his prison and paused, gazing at the disgusting remains of his owner.
Never again, he swore silently. He returned to the body and sawed off the shrunken penis, then stuffed it into Nikolay’s slack lips.
Suck on this.
“Oh, I learned,” he whispered into a deaf ear. He unlocked the bedroom door and peeked up and down the hall. Silent and deadly, he tiptoed down the hallway and exited the house from a servant’s door into the gardens.
From that day forward, no one ever saw him east of the Ural Mountains and lived to tell of it.
* * *
Brussels, Belgium 2015
In a NATO Special Ops tactical room, Quinn Kingston evaluated the intel his team had assemble
d. While his team members were the best he could gather, with access to the latest in surveillance systems, they didn’t have what they needed to bring in Sasha Ivanov. As an experienced human trafficker, Ivanov never left himself vulnerable. “He learned from the best.”
“The best of the worst,” said Anika, the team profiler and tactics specialist.
August, the team’s weapons specialist snorted. “You have to admit, killing Nikolay Reznikov at a tender age then stuffing his dick in his mouth was appropriately vicious. If anyone deserved such a death, Reznikov qualified.”
“Granted,” Anika admitted and shrugged one shoulder. “It’s called How to Create a Monster for Dummies.”
“I’ll never understand why victims grow up to mimic their torturers. Explain that to me,” Felix mumbled. “Give me processors and micro-code, things I can understand. Human nature is too human.”
“No one treats a predator like a victim,” Quinn offered. “It’s protection from ever being victimized again. So, tell me what we have? Does it add up to putting the monster in a cage?”
“Putting him in the ground helps me sleep at night,” August said.
Felix passed around copies of a file. “Ivanov’s properties, factories, plantations and brothels are on every continent but China and Antarctica. His operation traffics thousands every year.”
“Young white girls from Europe,” Anika added, “go into his high-priced brothels in Europe and the Mideast. Women rejected by Boko Harem fill his factories in the Philippines; homeless children from Africa work his cocoa plantations. There isn’t an abominable practice known to man he doesn’t make money on.”
Quinn tossed the file on the table. “But can we get him?”
* * *
Hungry and cold, carrying a sack of stolen money and jewels, a gun and a knife, Sasha walked all night.
Stay strong. Stay alive. Never go back.
He kept to the edge of the road and hid when vehicles roared past him towards Nikolay’s compound. The vehicles returned, racing back to where they came from, spreading the news of Nikolay’s death. He hid deeper in the woods. But he never stopped.
When he came across a train track, he left the road and followed the track, counting the railroad ties to stay focused. The track finally reached a yard and he found a car with a sliding door and dragged the door open. Seeing it clean and empty, he jumped inside and closed the door.
He gathered straw and made a pile in the corner, climbed in and covered himself. Hidden at last, he huddled, panting and shivering with reaction, heart pounding, tongue dry with fear.
The big-eyed shock on Nikolay’s face when the knife pierced his ribs filled Sasha’s mind. Again and again, he played the memory, smiling broader with each moment of recall.
Never again, he swore.
Never again will I be helpless.
Knowing Nikolay’s days of raping him were finally over, he relaxed. In his exhaustion, he fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of his mother, whose face lived in his mind with vivid detail.
He could recall the way her short hair had blown into her eyes when she took the money from Nikolay. She shoved the wad of bills into her scrawny bosom and left him with a last bit of advice. “Try not to cry; it makes your eyes red.”
He would have killed her then if he’d known what he knew now.
Suddenly a firm grip wrapped around his lower leg. “Hey, what have we here?” a voice announced, stirring Sasha from his dream.
Before another word could come, he jumped up and flew at the face of the man who dared touch him. With a lunge driven by all his weight and anger, fear and rage, he sank his five-inch blade into the man’s eye socket.
The knife came out of the skull with a wet sound, reminding Sasha of Nikolay’s penis coming out of his mouth. He bared his teeth and growled at the two shocked men who stared at their companion’s suddenly bloody body on the floor of the train car.
“Who’s next?” he asked. He grabbed the gun and pointed at them, his finger on the trigger. Speechless, both took a step back, hands held up in defense.
The fear on their faces was a tonic to Sasha. Now, for the first time, he was in control. Whatever came next was his decision, his choice. The rush of power thrilled him, exhilarated him, emboldened him, and for one sweet moment, compensated for over a thousand nights of horror.
“Come on, boys,” he cooed. “I can do the both of you.” He batted his eyelashes over his brilliant blue eyes and pursed his lips with his best coquette pose. When their eyes popped with the light of desire, he pulled the trigger twice and did them both.
* * *
“But can we get him?”
Quinn’s question echoed through the tactical room.
Anika sighed with defeat. “He collects his victims off the streets, holds them for no more than 36 hours before moving them across international boundaries.”
Deep skepticism laced her voice and bounced around the room. Every team member shifted in their seat.
“His operation moves fast because his subordinates have the tightest ground game,” Felix added.
“He never makes collections back-to-back in any city,”August lamented. “He collects in Paris and leaves town, then moves to Florence, or Rome, Amsterdam or any one of a dozen European cities. So, times each operation by a dozen, and those are the ones we know about in the EU.”
Quinn knew where this was headed. Sasha Ivanov made himself untouchable. “Show me his people.”
Felix tapped his keyboard and a variety of mugshots appeared on the monitor. “These are our likely known associates of Ivanov.”
They were two dozen hardened criminals, ruthless, and deadly with long rap sheets in prostitution, extortion, kidnapping and murder. Yet the faces weren’t scary, in fact all were attractive—the kind of face that would lull a victim into a trap.
“Put these men’s photos into facial capture, Felix. I want cameras to ping anytime their faces show up so we know where they are. I want to learn everything there is to know about Ivanov’s operation.”
* * *
The train carried Sasha and the three dead men to Orsk where he hit the streets with a plan. Within a week of cutting off Nikolay’s penis and stuffing it in his mouth, he had new clothes, an apartment with four bedrooms, and three prostitutes filling the three spare beds with customers.
And he only had to kill two men and one prostitute to accomplish this. One of the Krugerrands convinced the shrewd and flinty eyed Police Captain to join his silent payroll, and so the empire began.
His first girl, Ekaterina whispered, “He slit Anna’s throat when she refused to work for him. Then, calm as could be, his blue eyes cool as ice while blood still dripped from his knife, he asked if I’d work for him.” She shivered. “You don’t want to cross that man.”
After one month, he made friends with a boy on the street he’d been watching. “You want to work with me?” Sasha asked.
The boy, Stepan, was older, maybe fourteen with soft brown hair and dimples when he smiled. Sasha had noticed he was popular with customers.
It’s a shame to waste that face on the street when it could be put to better use.
“Come with me, learn what I can teach you,” Sasha enticed. He held up a wad of cash. “You can be my man here in Orsk after I leave.”
Stepan shifted on his feet, arms hugging his chest. He looked up and down the alley, his lips twisting side to side with uncertainty. “What do I have to do?” Wariness crept into his eyes.
Sasha knew one wrong word and the boy would take off. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” He, too, glanced up and down the alley. “You have a pretty face, and I see you’re popular, but I have another job for you. Come. I’ll feed you and get you clothes. Then we talk.”
After a hot bath and meal, Stepan checked out his new status with appreciation. “What do you want me to do? Kill someone?”
“No, of course not,” Sasha laughed. “With your pretty face, I want you to get girls for me. Lots of girls.
I’ll teach you how.”
“And if I do this for you?”
“You’ll live in a house filled with girls who do what you say. All that’s required of you is keep the peace and give me the money. Minus your cut, of course.” He pushed away from the table and stood. “From there comes many more possibilities.”
Stepan followed, and Sasha led him out onto the street. “Does that sound like something you want to do?”
“Sounds good,” Stepan answered.
The brief statement rode on a sliver of doubt as Sasha turned down a lonely alley. “What is it?” he asked.
Stepan stopped. “There’s word—you know how word gets around, that you’re . . .”
Sasha nodded. “Ah, I know what the word on the street is.” He drew a finger across his throat.
“Yes.” Stepan hesitated. “That’s the word.”
“I understand.” He put his arm around Stepan’s shoulders and drew him down the alley to a stinking pile of trash bags. He stopped and fanned his nose with his free hand. “Whew, smells very bad here.”
With his arm still holding Stepan, he said, “You can come with me, Stepan, and I’ll make you rich. I’ll take you from the street and give you a good life.”
He tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder and kicked at the trash, exposing the dead face of a young boy. The boy gazed up at Sasha and Stepan with eyes glazed in death and cheeks bloated in decay.
“You can take my offer. Or you can be like this boy.”
Stepan went rigid. Sasha thought he might bolt, but Stepan stared at the dead face for a long moment, quaking. At last he said, “I don’t want to be a dead boy, so I go with you, Sasha. Teach me to get you girls.”
