Empires and Kings (A Mafia Series Book 1)

by A. C. Bextor

  “You need to go if you’re going,” Vlad responds.

  “You’ll only ever know sorrow,” Abram punishes. “You’ll go back to who you were before you loved her.”

  Before you loved her.

  A deeply seated sadness causes a harrowing sob to break from my chest. Not because what’s about to happen will happen, but because Vlad’s never told me he loves me. Those words were never spoken between us. And now they never will be. Not after this.

  Vlad takes a step back, clenching the whip tightly in his hand. “Abram, this is as good as done.”

  With Vlad’s parting promise, Abram turns to me, softens his features, and smiles carefully as though he believes his face will be the last I ever see.

  And with a heart heavy in loss and full of regret, I believe this, too.

  “I hate you,” Klara sneers somewhere between physical and emotional exhaustion.

  Her blood stains each wrist, caused from the ropes she hangs from. Her body isn’t long enough to hold her in one steady position, so she continuously sways in place. Her shoulders are stretched at awkward angles, and her face is red and marred with angry tears.

  Only fifteen minutes have passed since Abram left Klara and me alone. Her emotions have been all over—fear, sadness, and now finally anger.

  “I was saving an innocent man,” she claims. “He’s my family, Vlad. I heard Gleb say it.”

  Innocent man? No.

  The whip burns the palm of my hand, as if it also feels the regret of what I’m about to do. Klara must understand her position. For her own safety, she must never forget her place in my bed again. Questioning my authority and judgment, even the means by which I choose to protect her, cannot ever happen.

  The cracking of the whip comes fast and hard. Her screams of holy terror come just as furious when it lands three inches from her face as it was intended.

  Bringing the whip from the floor and wrapping it around my fingers, I explain, “There are things I do that you don’t have the right to question, Klara. I’ve protected you for your own good.”

  “No,” she sharply denies. “You didn’t protect me. You hid this part of yourself from me.” With venom lingering in her tone, she looks down, saying only “I hate you.”

  Anger at her statement, fear that she may mean exactly as she says, and regret for what I’m doing brings the whip up again before I send it sailing through the air. This time it makes contact, shredding the material of her nightgown near her thigh.

  Once she’s composed herself, she cautiously lifts her head.

  “Do it,” she orders, void of all emotion. “I want to know what the others, my family, felt when you tortured them.”

  “You could have been hurt,” I accuse, hovering the whip and then freeing it to land at the bottom of her feet.

  Another shriek bursts out, but she still refuses to relent.

  “Or you could’ve been killed. I have enemies, Klara!” I bellow. “You know this!”

  “Beat me,” she murmurs as she winces from the pain caused from the restraints. “I’m here now. A traitor’s daughter. I want to know what you did to my father. And my uncle.”

  “You don’t,” I calmly assure. “You wouldn’t survive half of what they did before they finally told me what I needed to know.”

  Releasing another slice through the air, the end of my whip strikes only inches from her wrist. This time, she doesn’t turn to check where it’s landed. Instead, Klara lifts her eyes to me in challenge.

  “Do you want me to confess?” she sneers. “That’s why you do this, isn’t it? You bring people you say are guilty, tie them up to hear their confessions before they beg for your mercy.”

  “Yes,” I confirm. “That’s exactly what I do.”

  Softly, Klara offers, “If you want me to confess, I will. I loved you.”

  She loved me. She doesn’t anymore.

  Klara is young. Her alleged love for me doesn’t come from my treating her as an equal or sharing quiet times together. Nor is it from hours spent getting to know her as a man should a woman he cares so much about. Her love for me can’t be real. For her sake, I hope what she thinks she feels, or felt, isn’t anything of love at all.

  Pushing through my thoughts, she utters, “I used to think you were so powerful that no one could ever hurt me. But a person who can do this to someone…,” she starts, fighting the restraints and wincing in pain, “he doesn’t deserve any of the love I have left to give him.”

  “I’m still the person you know me to be.”

  “No,” she denies. “My Vee never existed. At least not as the person I thought he was.”

  Coldly, I urge, “I’m the person who wants to protect you.”

  Klara pulls in a heavy breath of anguish. With eyes sad and full of remorse, she asks what I’ve asked myself many times before.

  “But then who is here to protect me from you?”

  Her head drops, but not in fear. If Klara were truly scared, she’d be pleading for her release. She’s not. Even strapped with her back against a well-used cross, inside a barren shed without any witnesses of what I may do, Klara has no fear. This demonstration into gutting her disobedience is useless.

  The door opens. Klara’s broken eyes come to mine before shifting to see who’s entered. I don’t look back, instead keeping my focus to her. When her body relaxes in immediate relief, I finally hear who’s come.

  “Boss?” Rueon quietly addresses.

  “Get her down,” I order, knowing whatever point I had to make has been made. Rueon moves across the room quickly. His hands fumble at the knots, and Klara gasps in pain. “Take her to my room. Don’t let her leave it.”

  Klara’s face, realizing what I’ve said, morphs from relief to anger. Her eyes narrow, and she takes a breath while biting her lower lip. She says nothing. The tear marks on her face and the redness in her cheeks have all but faded.

  Dropping my whip to the cement floor, I lean my body against the wall and watch as Rueon does as I’ve instructed. Klara clings to him, her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. She says nothing to either of us as he carries her back to the house.

  As I quietly enter through the back door, I find Abram hasn’t left as I thought he would. He’s sitting on the couch, holding a drink in one hand and clutching his personal revolver in the other. When he lifts his eyes to mine, he pales. The anger he held earlier is gone; in place of that is pity.

  At this point, I don’t know which is worse.

  “I can’t decide if I want to shoot you and end your miserable life or sit back and witness you suffer alone through the rest of it,” he calmly states before bringing the glass to his lips.

  Dropping the bag I had carried to the shed, I exhale a heavy breath.

  “If you wanted to kill me, Abram, I’m certain I’d have been dead years ago.”

  “Suppose you’re right about that,” he replies, boredom streaking his tone. “Is Rueon still alive?”

  Abram’s testing me. Sending Rueon into that shed uninvited could’ve served as Rueon’s death. Abram and I both know that. However, what was happening wasn’t like any protocol before.

  “Rueon is fine.”

  “No,” Abram denies. “He’s as sick as any of us.”

  “You sent him in there to get her,” I confirm the obvious.

  “She’s young,” Abram replies, sitting up and placing the gun and his drink on the table. “But Klara’s soul is old. You’ve seen to that. All these years with you—”

  “Enough,” I clip in warning.

  In a voice low and full of loss, he ignores my order, stating only “The girl’s been gutted.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  He runs his hand through his hair, then tells me, “No. I imagine she wants nothing to do with anyone in this family anymore.”

  “You don’t get to be pissed—”

  “Pissed?” He tenses, then mock-laughs. “Vlad, I’m not fucking pissed.”

  “Abram.” My tone
is warning again as I sit on the couch across from his. The leather is cool against my fevered skin, but it does little to lessen my heated disposition.

  Once Rueon cleared Klara from sight, I wasted no time in destroying the small room until my body tired and I gave up. I left behind broken bottles, upturned chairs, and gaps in the walls that were split against my fist.

  My beautiful girl wasn’t only done with me—she’d left me entirely. And even if I were a man willing to forgive so easily, I can’t. Not until I know without a doubt her lesson has been learned. She can never be part of my business—never interfere as she did—again.

  “What you did to her was completely over the top,” Abram counsels. “Christ, Vlad, there were other ways of explaining, showing her the dangers of her position in this family.”

  “What I did was my decision.”

  “It was,” he answers quickly. “And it was irrational.”

  “I won’t justify anything to you or anyone else,” I tell him honestly.

  Not letting this pass, Abram states again, “Irrational.”

  I sit in silence. My position within this family doesn’t warrant the explanation of my choices to protect it. Especially choices I make regarding those I care so deeply about.

  “Rueon did as you told him and locked the girl in your room. So now what? You plan to keep her there forever?”

  “I plan to keep her there until she understands.”

  “Good luck with that. She thought she had family. Klara did exactly what you would’ve done had the same happened to you.”

  There’s truth in his observation. If someone were to threaten someone who I believed was my family, I’d have done as she did. However, I’d also fully expect the same punishment in return—but worse.

  Grabbing his glass, Abram throws the rest of his drink back. When he sets it down, he questions, “What will you do with Josef now?”

  “Gleb and Leonid are handling the mess.”

  “Klara will never forgive you.”

  “She doesn’t have to,” I assert. “She earned every bit of what she got, Abram.”

  Klara still has no idea what she was walking into tonight. Josef wasn’t harmless, as Abram initially thought. He was dirty. A liar and a cheat who planned to take Klara from me. If it hadn’t been for my decision to torture his body until his confession leaked from his soul….

  “You strapped the first woman you’ve ever really cared about to a cross, Vlad,” Abram gravely recalls, the memory obviously still taunting him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I need to find Maag,” I explain. “She needs to see to Klara.”

  Abram laughs again, controlled but mimicking. “Maag. That poor woman is in a state. I went to check on her. Fuck me, but I’ve never seen a woman shake as badly as she was.”

  Guilt settles in my chest. Maag cares about both Klara and me a great deal. Hearing of what I did to Klara most likely wounded her deeply.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  Abram stands. I stay seated.

  “Leaving Ciro out of this, as I imagine you’re already thinking of revenge, I need to know what you want done with Katrina.”

  Katrina, as I learned, is now working closely with Ciro. I haven’t verified this firsthand, but the ramblings of a near-dead man gasping for his last breath may not lie.

  “Katrina is harmless. I’ll decide what she gets when the time comes.”

  “That whore hates Klara. She always has.”

  “I’m done, Abram,” I halt. “No more tonight.”

  As he passes me, he stops and looks down. “I meant what I said back there. Every goddamn word. Sorrow, Vlad. You’ve tasted it. My God, you’ve lived without real happiness your entire life. Until Klara, I wasn’t sure you’d ever get your own piece of something extraordinary. But you did. Now I can only hope that sharing a small part of happiness with her hasn’t escaped you entirely.”

  “Abram, this had to happen.”

  “It didn’t,” he objects.

  It’s not often he disagrees with decisions I’ve made in business, but he and I both know this wasn’t only about business. This was about family. Klara is part of this family.

  Once Abram’s standing at the front door, he holds the handle and turns in place to say, “If she speaks to you again, please give my condolences to Klara. She lost the man she loves today, no question. You’re not dead, Vlad, but she’s lost you all the same.”

  “Josef is dead,” Abram says hesitantly.

  Abram’s words are empty, as meaningless as everything he said before.

  When I look up, he’s leaning his back against the wall of Vlad’s bedroom. His arms are positioned over his chest, and his ankles are crossed. He’s wearing the same clothes he left me in last night. Traces of a dead man’s blood mark the collar of his white shirt. His hair is mussed, sticking out in every direction. And the sorrowed look of absolute disappointment isn’t for Josef’s death; it’s because of what I did.

  “Where were you planning to go?” he carefully questions, nodding to the suitcase at my feet.

  The same suitcase I’d frantically packed and planned to use sits open and still empty. After my furious frenzy of stripping all my belongings from Vlad’s closet, I’d thrown nearly everything I owned to the floor. As I started folding my clothes, tears streamed from my eyes, running down my face and dropping to the floor, taking every good memory I’ve ever had living here with them.

  My wrists ache. The blood has dried, the skin starting to bruise. My shoulders burn from being trussed up, leaving me powerless to stop Vlad from a cruelty I knew he was capable of but never expected to be used against me.

  Just as quickly as I plotted my escape, my plan was derailed. Not because I couldn’t find the strength if needed, but because when I checked the door it was locked.

  Locked from the outside. I had no way out. Vlad’s bedroom is on the second story of the house. Even if I thought I could climb out of the window, one slip and the fall would kill me.

  The gutting realization of this, coupled with the notion that the man I once loved is the monster I’ve always known he could be, sank heavily in my chest as I collapsed to sit still for the first time since all this started.

  “Get out,” I murmur to Abram, further tainting the already stifled air between us.

  Abram doesn’t move. Pulling himself from the wall, he straightens and then takes two steps toward where I’m now sitting on the floor.

  “Abram, I said get out,” I forcefully try again.

  “Did Vlad tell you who Josef was?”

  Closing my eyes, I shake my head. When Vlad came to our room last night, he said nothing. I heard his breathing, felt his presence as I always do. I was too angry to acknowledge I was awake. The palpable tension rolled off him in waves, crushing the air between us.

  “Did he tell you what Josef was going to do to you?”

  Shaking my head again, I look up. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

  “So you have no fucking idea what could’ve happened to you had Vlad not done what he did?”

  “Maybe you could explain it.”

  Bending down, resting his weight against his calves, Abram does. “That man, Josef. The man you tried to save. He wasn’t your uncle, Klara.”

  “What?”

  Angrily, Abram shakes his head and takes in an agitated breath.

  “No. Vlad had him talking. Before you busted in where you didn’t fucking belong, Vlad listened to the man confess, in gruesome sordid detail, about what he planned to do to you.”

  “He wasn’t my uncle?”

  Shaking his head and scoring me with another disappointed glare, he states, “No. He was to give you to Vlad’s enemy.”

  “No,” I deny in a faded whisper.

  I didn’t have family. I didn’t have a soul to save, Vlad’s or otherwise. I believed something that I wanted to believe.

  “You would’ve been as good as dead at the hands of any of Vlad’s enemies.”

/>   Angry at the visual of being bound or beaten, I snap, rearing my head back and gaining distance from Abram. “Look at what he did to me!” I cry out, pushing my wrists in front of him. “Wouldn’t whoever had taken me have done the same?”

  “Vlad didn’t fucking hurt you, Klara. You’re angry, but it’s for the wrong reasons.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit. “You’re no better than him.”

  Abram’s face reddens. I never remember a time when he’s been so angry at something I’ve created. Abram’s held a special place for me, a place where I’ve always felt comfortable.

  “You did something last night that no one has ever done.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I mindlessly reply, looking down at the mess on the floor. “What’s that?”

  “You questioned one of the greatest men I’ve ever known. You made him act in a way even I’ve never seen. And I’ve seen a lot of shades to Vlad.”

  “Comes with the job, I suppose,” I smart.

  Abram grows more annoyed at my tone.

  “I’ll leave,” he clips as he starts to stand. “But first I need you to hear something.”

  “No,” I reply. “I’ve heard and seen enough already.”

  “Stop acting like a spoiled child,” he chastises. “Be grateful that you’re still here, in this home, and as always you’re still being protected.”

  Shaking my head, I keep my chin low. My fingers twine the hem of an old dress sitting in front of me, carefully weaving the ends of the material between them.

  “I haven’t always liked my boss,” he starts. I don’t look up as he continues. “A man like him, as powerful and strong, doesn’t understand any true limits. That makes him dangerous.”

  My body jerks with a mock laugh.

  “But dangerous to others. Never to you,” Abram asserts.

  Finally lifting my gaze to his, my eyes narrow. “He abused me.”

  “Your superficial wounds will heal.”

  “He hurt me.”

  “He’s hurt you before. It only hurts more now because you know he cares for you.”