Love Scars

by Nicole Snow

  I shook my head. Insane as it was, I hoped against hope that he was wrong, overconfident. Surely, it couldn't be that easy to capture me and kidnap David on his own turf?

  “His blood is on my hands, Annaliza. I have to live with it. The very same as my attempt to kill you. I admit my mistakes. Go ahead.” He puffed out his chest, taking another revolting step forward, too close for comfort. “Slap me across the face.”

  My palm twitched. God, the temptation was strong. I wanted to slap him silly and then do worse, cut out his tongue and gouge out his eyes, especially if he was telling me the truth about murdering David.

  But he wanted me to hurt him, and doing anything Dad wanted me to ever again made my stomach churn.

  My father relaxed when he saw I wasn't moving. He stepped closer still, pushing one hand against my cheek, scratching at the dry salty lines left by faded tears.

  “What will it take to make things right again? I want us to be normal again. You understand why I had to do it, don't you?”

  “Yeah!” I spat, jerking away from him. “You and your stupid pride, your honor. Everything you love about this evil fucking business. Spilling more blood means nothing to you. Neither does ripping my heart out!”

  His eyes blazed at me, no doubt pissed that I'd dropped an F-bomb on him. My father was a ruthless man, but so squeamish about his perfect daughter using rough words. I wished those words could've hurt a fraction of what he was doing to me.

  His face twisted, anger contorting his features. “Damn! How have I raised a girl who understands nothing? You're not a dense girl. You just like to play stupid.”

  I watched his fist tighten. Shit, if he hit me, I wouldn't be able to resist diving at him and doing as much damage as I could, anything I could for David.

  “Blood is everything to me, my daughter,” he said, a little more softly. His voice was almost sad as he turned away from me, gazing at the calm waves out the small window. “Do I really have to spell it out? I gave up your own mother for this family, for our future...”

  Blood throttled my brain. What the hell was he talking about? Mama died in a skiing accident in the Alps, or so he'd said since I was six. That was when he returned alone, and I never saw the bright, beautiful woman who held me and sang to me ever again.

  When Dad turned to me, eyes full of pain, my heart nearly stopped. I'd never seen him look so awful...so hurt. I stumbled backward, lips cracked, muttering as my world broke apart.

  “No...no...you can't mean...”

  He nodded. “Yes, my daughter. Your mama was seized by a demon from Strelkov's European branch when we were celebrating our anniversary. The things they did to her...”

  His eyes flashed, red and dark and evil. He sucked in a sharp, shaky breath. For a second, I wanted to reach out and comfort him, and then instantly recoiled at the thought. I'd hear him out, but I had to remember the old fraught, but loving relationship between us was dead. It had to be!

  “My men found her two days later. She'd been beaten, raped, and shot in the back of the head. Execution style. A note was tucked beneath her broken skull, written in crabbed Russian and broken English underneath it.” Dad cleared his throat, swallowing the rock in his throat. “Ignatiev Strelkov told me to back off and never set foot in Europe again. He tried to scare me off our ancestral holdings in Florence, the place where your ancestors bled and died. He twisted my balls by killing my fucking wife!”

  I gasped. Dad never used coarse language. The memory had broken him, wiping the calm, cool, wolfish veneer he'd always shown me before. He was shaking while he stepped to the small bed and sat, burying his face in his hands.

  “I'm so sorry, Annaliza. Perhaps I should've let the man you're so taken with slit my throat when he had the chance. It would've been better than involving you in all this, trying to put a bullet in your head before he did the same thing he did to my precious Cora.” Dad's face was red and crystal tears were thick in his eyes when he looked up. “Did that bastard touch you?”

  I wanted to be sick. My heart was torn, blown apart, its bloody pieces scattered to two worlds.

  All I could do was shake my head, a lie and a nightmare in one. Except I wasn't sure anymore who the hell I was trying to hide from. Was it Dad, or was it me?

  His story pierced every part of me, a waking nightmare that added a whole new fucked up dimension to this joke I called a life. For me, irony was never funny. It was always savage.

  No, no, no...it can't be true. It can't!

  But it was. Dad had no training in the fine arts. He never acted with raw emotion like this in front of me – never. For once, he was letting his true heart spill out, monstrous secrets shaking apart the small, distant love I tried to cling to.

  God. God damn! How could I keep loyal to David's heart when his family killed Mama? How?

  “Thank God. I knew he was lying when he said he'd defiled you.” Dad stood and approached me, offering a hand on my shoulder. This time, I didn't push him away.

  “Things have been dark and dangerous for a long time, Annaliza. You've had enough to last a lifetime in just a few short days. I promise you this: the light's coming, daughter. With Strelkov dead, we can put this behind us. The way you've changed through all this is proof it's time to make you a proper businesswoman.” His hand tightened, and I shuddered beneath his fingers. “You know how badly I've always wanted you to flourish? You have a soft heart, my daughter, so much like your mama.”

  He waited until I looked at him. It was hard to stare without my vision going blurry with tears.

  “But there's a lot of me in you too. If your eyes will just open a little wider, you'll see. You'll understand. You'll be able to handle all this with a level head and a stone heart. Someday when I'm gone, Annaliza, everything our family's built will be in your hands. The business – our enterprise – is greater than both of us. It's what makes all the blood and lives we've lost worth it.”

  I pushed him away. Had to make it stop. The anvil in my stomach was dragging me down, and every terrible word he spoke added another pound to its bulk.

  “I can't deal with this right now,” I said, throwing one arm out to the wall for support, resting my head there.

  “Of course,” my father said softly. “Take some time to rest your eyes and think about all this. No big decisions need to be made until we're home. You've been through quite an ordeal. Thankfully, as soon as we pull anchor and go home, all this nasty business will be behind us.”

  He closed the door softly, leaving me alone.

  Behind us? Is he fucking serious?

  I wondered how I'd ever see this dark cloud behind me. I couldn't forget David, much less the whirlwind emotions he'd sparked in me. But now that my family's vicious secret was out, I couldn't forget it either.

  Strelkovs and Rossinis were naturally enemies. My tragedy was just the latest chapter in a blood war that seemed destined to go until the end of time.

  Hell, even now with the horrible truth out, I still loved him. But I didn't want to.

  How could I love him when the universe and my own DNA screamed how wrong it was? But how could I just forget and let him die when he'd claimed me without a second thought about names?

  My brain struggled for answers as I laid down, listening to the gentle clap of the ocean near my window. If I didn't find them soon, they'd find me.

  If there was one thing that was clear in all this, it was that the world never waited for things to be easy. And I couldn't let it break me either, couldn't let it suck the color away forever and turn everything dead and gray. I'd rather die of passion a thousand times over before I stopped breathing with a dull, disinterested heart.

  VI: Room for One Grave (David)

  I woke up to thunder shattering the whole damned world. Metal burst open just a few inches above my head, shredded like the shit was butter hit with a hot poker.

  A man screamed. His heavy weight fell on my back. I jerked up, pulling at the chains around my hands. Fuck, I was bound. No way t
o get his asshole off me except by pushing.

  I rolled, twisting on the ground to knock his ass off. When he hit the floor next to me, I saw his dead eyes through the little slit in his black mask, a neat cherry hole above them where his brain used to be.

  Where the fuck am I?

  It took several seconds to feel my senses rushing back. Knocked out cold, captured, thrown in a truck for transport...Anna! They knew I'd go after her, so they'd thrown my carcass in a truck to haul me as far away from her as I could go.

  The bastards wouldn't have been shooting while I was down unless there was damned good reason.

  It had to be my boys. I grinned, listening to the other asshole screaming several feet away. Sitting up for a better view, I noticed his arm was all fucked up. Must've been shot in multiple places, too many places to reach for that big fucking rifle next to him and retaliate.

  When he saw me awake, starting to sit up, he really struggled. I inched my way toward him, shirtless torso slapping the metal beneath me like the world's most dangerous fucking snake, chains clacking as my hands bounced above my ass.

  The man closed his eyes. Asshole probably hoped he'd bleed out before I reached him. Unfortunately for his stupid ass, God wasn't handing out mercy to Rossini motherfuckers today.

  Took forever to get my position just right. The fucker was whimpering, clenching his wound, what little skin he showed turning pale as a ghost. I'd finally gotten my legs around his neck when the truck bounced.

  One of my guys had nailed the driver.

  We both sailed high into the air as the fucking thing jerked, slid, and then came to an abrupt stop. My spine rattled when we hit the floor, never letting go of the hold I had on his head. He went flying like a ragdoll. His head hit the bench where they'd been sitting next to me.

  I'd heard the sickly thwack when a man's skull splits like a squash more times than I could count. Never stopped being satisfying.

  The big door burst open a second later, flying up like the world's fastest garage door. Boris, Nikolai, and several guys from the casino ran in and yanked me up on my feet, guns drawn.

  “Chyort voz'mi!” Boris exploded.

  Oh, shit. Yeah, he could say that again.

  I didn't have to see the bruise those fuckers left on the side of my head to know it was bad. Fucking thing throbbed like hellfire the instant I opened my eyes.

  “Get him to the car! Boss needs a doctor!”

  They were carrying me out like a heavy sac of bricks when I jerked in their arms. Boris leaned to my ear, trying to calm me down. Took both his hands around one wrist to make me think about no longer flailing my fist. He still wasn't strong enough by himself to keep me down.

  “You'll be okay, D. We already brought in a guy from the local hospital to check you out, just as soon as we're back at the casino –“

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” I growled. “We're not heading back. No goddamned retreat. Least of all to a place where security was fucked up the first time.”

  I thrashed, but somehow they managed to move my ass, pulling me into the car. Boris sat next to me, holding me up, trying to keep me from standing up and shredding the roof of the fucking vehicle. He reached into a toolbox and used a steel cutter to snap the chains on my wrist. Bastard no doubt wondered if that was such a good idea after all when I sat up, ready to slam my free hands into the nearest face.

  “Calm down, sir! You're safe! You've taken a bad blow to the head, sir, you need to trust us!” Nikolai sputtered.

  “It's not me I'm worried about – they got my fucking girl!” The fire in my skull faded when I thought about her, and then leaped up again, a demon ready to make me spill rivers of blood. “They got my Anna.”

  Beautiful, perfect, sweet fucking Anna. My Anna. The girl I'd married and started to work on a baby with, now heading home to her asshole old man.

  Fuck! I swung my fists.

  Nikolai ducked back in the limo just in time. Good thing too because I would've broken the fucker's jaw if he'd been a second too slow.

  “We're working on it, sir!” Nikolai said. “He double-crossed you.”

  “God damn, Nick, give me something new to chew on instead of the same old shit!”

  He swallowed nervously. “Casino cameras tracked the trucks as soon as they sped off, one for each of you. We followed. They took her down to the private docks downtown. Rossini brought his ship, just like you thought. Sorry, sir, but there was only time to go after one...we thought it better to go after you, sir.”

  I shook my head, grinding my teeth. “Thoughts aren't gonna do shit. I expected that motherfucker to screw me over. Just thought it would be closer to the hand off we planned tomorrow – not in my own fucking spa!”

  Boris shifted uncomfortably. “We're still trying to figure out how they got in, D.”

  “Fuck it. What's done is done. There'll be plenty of time for rolling heads over this shit later. Right now, you tell the driver to turn this goddamned thing around and head for the docks. Get in a rental order for a ship right fucking now. We're going after her while they haven't gotten far.”

  Boris' eyes widened. “D, you're in no condition to mount a –“

  “Rescue? Fuck yes, I am. I can stand and swing my fucking fists, can't I? This fucking blow to the head hasn't laid me low. You need me to come over there and peel your damned eyes open so you can see I'm not flopping around on the ground? Look, damn you. I'm breathing, I'm pissed, and I'm ready to fight. If either of you assholes try to disobey a direct order and try to stop me, you'll be first on the fucking list.”

  Nikolai held his hands up. Fucker had good reason to guard himself. Right now, I was a crazed bull, ready to charge the whole fucking world, friend or foe. They were all the same – anybody and everybody who kept me from my wife a second longer.

  “Of course, sir. We're cautious, like you trained us. Not idiots. Boris has a point and you should consider –“

  “Consider your ass out on the street, looking for a new job, if you don't ask for that fucking rental right now. Turn this fucking thing around and take us to the marina. I'm not gonna ask again.”

  Sighing, Boris tapped the little radio next to the seat. He barked rapid fire Russian to the chauffeur, who sounded bewildered, undoubtedly double-guessing everything he heard after seeing the deep purple on my face.

  When the chatter stopped, my boys turned back to me.

  “I'm gonna need you both to shut the fuck up, stop questioning, and do exactly what I say. I took a hard blow to the head, yeah, but I'm not fucking senile. I know how to kill and I know who we're going for. Just like I know we need a boat. If I go down first, both of you gotta promise you'll make sure old man Rossini's dead and my wife's safe.”

  Boris reached into the holster beneath his jacket and rested his nine millimeter on his lap. “Anytime, D. We're with you.”

  “Good. Now get my fucking lawyer on the line while we drive. Gonna have that fucker change my will so everything's going to Anna and any kid by me she spits out in case our asses end up drowned. The time for second guessing anything is fucking over.”

  The two Russians looked at each other, sharing a silent question about whether or not I'd lost my mind. I didn't give a fuck.

  This shit had just turned real in a way that went beyond blood and family. I had to get my girl back, or die trying. The war my Great Uncle had fought for fifty fucking years with the Rossini clan was gonna end here, today, one way or another.

  I just hoped love and fucking would finish the job bullets and knives started. One way or another, one family line was coming to an end. And if all the loads I'd pumped in her sweet pussy did their fucking job, a new one was beginning.

  I'd wolfed down two handfuls of prescription strength painkiller by the time we were on the rental yacht. Some caffeine helped take the edge off further and let me focus. The ship my boys secured was smaller than most luxury cruisers, but it would do, indistinguishable from all the other pleasure seekers along the Jersey shore.


  The fuckers in my sights wouldn't figure it out 'til we were right on top of them, boarding their asses like rampaging pirates. Except I wasn't after treasure or heads.

  Just one fucking head, one dead asshole, and one beautiful girl. My girl.

  Fitting that this shit was gonna end one way or another here on the sea – the same fucking ocean where Rossini spilled Strelkov blood.

  I waited with my men as we approached the vessel holding my girl prisoner. It was almost night and a cold rain kicked up, adding glacial bullets to the bitter wind slapping us in our faces.

  Me and half a dozen guys crouched just out of sight, hands on our weapons. When we were only a few feet from Rossini's ship and they started to shit their pants, we'd hop in the motor outfitted life raft and head over, storming their stupid asses before they knew what hit 'em.

  “Three minutes, D.” Boris' voice came over the little earpiece I wore. He was the one guy staying behind to man the ship, the only one here trained in steering these fucking things.

  I radioed my confirmation and closed my eyes. Icy droplets rolled down my face, caressing the bridge of my nose. Shit was like a baptism for the hell that lay ahead, an otherworldly reminder that the only way to bring fire to this frozen world again was by opening my own damned heart.

  Soon as I was on that ship, there was no more holding back.

  Anna, old man Rossini, and any other asshole unlucky enough to get in my way was gonna see it all. Every raw, monstrous, beautiful instinct I had.

  Bare, vicious, glorious in its fury. Love, hate, lust, roped together and given license to frolic. Anything that ever stirred my passion and everything that gave it life.

  “Two minutes...”

  We were closing in on the dark shadow bobbing on the black waters up ahead. No joke, I fucking meditated.

  Every time I saw her in my head, my heart throbbed like it was hit with lightning. I gritted my teeth, the rhythm in my veins becoming sheer bloodlust when I remembered who took her away from me, and how the fuckhead was gonna pay.

  “One minute...” Boris' voice faded into a long pause before he started ticking off the last intervals. “Thirty seconds...”