I’d always loved my hair.
Funny how the things I loved the most about myself were the things my brother had hated.
My lips.
My hair.
He always commented on how both were too pronounced, like I was begging for attention.
Attention he always said he hated to give me.
I shut off the shower and reached for a towel and wrapped it around my naked body, feeling better than I had in years. I was alone. Safe and alone. For now.
I looked around for a bathrobe or something to put on and stared at my dirty clothes. I could always wash them, but putting them back on after that shower, after feeling like my old life was gone felt wrong.
So I put them in the trash and opened the door, looking both directions like someone was spying on me, before walking down the hall. The room he said I could sleep in was on the right. It had a bed, a dresser, a closet, and no windows.
I prayed the closet would have clothes.
It didn’t.
I couldn’t walk around in a towel, and I knew he wasn’t the sort of guy, at least from what I could tell, who would be amused by it. If anything, he would probably ask me why I didn’t logically just wear a curtain or something.
I chewed my lower lip and made my way farther down the hall, stopping at another door and slowly opening it.
It smelled like him.
I walked in.
And gasped.
The room was absolutely phenomenal, it had a flat screen TV in the corner, a huge king-sized bed, a fireplace that nearly took up the whole wall, and an attached bathroom bigger than the one I’d just used. It was in dark navy and browns and it seemed to fit him so much better than the living room.
Not that I would know.
Right?
I was ready to leave when his closet caught my eye, the door was slightly ajar, and I could see clothes hanging, expensive clothes, no not clothes, suits, what looked like dozens of suits, some with price tags still on them.
Maybe he would have a tank top or something I could put on? Boxers? At this point, a suit would be fine, but it would probably get me killed.
Mind made up, I walked over to the closet door and flicked on the light.
The closet was massive. Almost as big as the room, and that was saying something.
Suits galore.
Expensive shoes.
Sunglasses had their own space in the middle of the room, where a table stood with a decanter of whiskey and crystal glasses.
A chandelier hung in the middle right above it.
How loaded was this guy?
I didn’t see normal clothes, street clothes, jeans, or anything that a normal person who looked my age would wear.
I did a small circle and spotted drawers in the corner. I pulled open the first and found a pair of boxers that felt soft and expensive. Then I opened the next to see nothing but white and gray T-shirts. I grabbed a gray one and prayed it was the right choice.
It was either this or the towel.
Maybe it was a test.
Maybe the last thing I would do would be putting on these boxers and that T-shirt.
I sighed, dropped the towel and did just that, and prayed I wasn’t wrong.
CHAPTER TEN
Andrei
“They have more guards out today,” Chase said in a bored voice.
The iron gate that led to where she used to live was locked up tight. Two men in suits stood behind the gate. I imagined they had guns with them, and I wondered how many men were still in that house waiting to be killed.
“You got in the first time.” I nodded to the gate. “What did you do? Just waltz in and say I’m Chase fucking Abandonato?”
“Something like that.” Chase held his Glock close to his face. “It was either shoot them all on sight including the dirty girl or make a trade. She was already half dead, but you know how Phoenix is. With his past he can’t—”
“I know.” I wanted him to stop talking about it. My past and Phoenix’s past were too identical for words.
Both of us raised by complete monsters who took joy in hurting women, only Phoenix was forced to break those women.
While I was forced to watch while my father did the honors.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Watch, son,” Alexander Petrov was a big man, the way he held the girl down, a girl who looked at me like I was her only saving grace when I was thinking of shooting her so she didn’t have to endure any longer while he fondled her breasts and laughed. “She’s used goods, won’t get a good price for this one.” He tore her shirt.
Bile rose in my throat.
His hands on her skin.
Her eyes locking on mine practically begging for death.
I pulled out my gun and fired two shots into her head.
I made it quick.
Blood splattered all over the small room, and my father jumped to his feet. “Son of a bitch! I was enjoying her!”
“You were suffocating her,” I said in a cold voice. “And yesterday her tests came back positive for syphilis, you want in on that or are you gonna say well done?”
He shuddered. “Syphilis, you say?”
“And God knows what else, she was a prostitute.” I’d alter the records later, wouldn’t be the first time. “Plus, I don’t like seeing half dead women get raped, there’s no pleasure in it when they don’t fight back, don’t you agree?”
His eyes flashed with an unholy gleam. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud to call you son.”
I gave him the dutiful smile I always did while I mentally wrapped my hands around his neck and strangled him.
Him… I would kill slowly.
“Hey!” Chase smacked me in the shoulder. “You still with me?”
“Let me go in alone.”
“The hell I am.” Chase was already grabbing more ammo and strapping it to his chest. His sleeved tattoos gave him away to anyone who knew about the man they now called the executioner.
The right hand of the Abandonato family and the Capo.
Last year someone shit himself, literally, when Chase got out of his car.
It was one of the best days of my life since joining forces with the ridiculous Italians and being forced to kill with them as well as eat at their table.
“Please.” It was a word I rarely uttered. A word so rare that tangible silence crackled in the air with awareness that I wouldn’t utter it again, not to an Italian, especially not to Chase.
“I counted an additional six men last time, not including two De Lange captains, and you want to go in there and just, what? Ask for a meeting?”
I smirked, already opening the car door. “You forget, I’m Russian.”
“And?”
“And my balls are bigger.” I shrugged, earning a glare from him. “They think I’m their friend, they think I play both sides and that my loyalty is only to myself.”
“Good, because that’s all true, you jackass.” Chase shook his head slowly. “Just try not to die. It will completely ruin my good, mood, yeah?”
“You? Good mood?” I snorted. “I’ll get the gates open, try not to hit any plants on your way in, when you hear multiple gunshots from inside you’ll know it’s safe for you to reveal yourself to the masses.”
“Be quick about it.”
“If you’re so worried, time me.” I winked.
“Record’s four minutes, Phoenix won’t be happy to see someone take the title from him.”
At that, I smiled wide, finding immense joy in torturing Phoenix the way he constantly tortured me with his weekly meetings and trainings on how to be a good boss to a family that didn’t even want me.
“Ready?” Chase held up his Rolex.
“Set.” I cocked my gun.
“Shit.” Chase muttered as I walked up to the com and pressed the button.
“Yes?”
“Andrei Petrov, I have business with the family.”
“You’re not expected.”
The gate buzzed.
It was too easy when people thought you weren’t the enemy.
It was easy when you made them think you were their friend.
I was good at that, being what I needed to be to anyone and everyone. I was a true chameleon and I knew that’s why Chase and the rest of the bosses didn’t trust me.
Because they knew I could and would play them.
I was with them until they were against me; at least that’s what I told myself. As long as Luca Nicolasi roamed this earth, I’d taken an oath.
And I’d see it through.
As I sauntered right onto De Lange property, the two men inside the gate approached me.
I had a bullet in each of their foreheads before they could utter one word. Another man opened the door and pointed his gun at me.
Idiot.
No wonder the De Langes were getting killed off so easily, he didn’t even use the door to hide behind, just ran out into the fucking sunshine waving his gun like a jackass.
He fell against the doorframe and slumped to the ground. Sighing, I lifted my gun, and stepped over his large body and into the house.
Come out, come out wherever you are.
Blood rushed through my body, pulsed, pumped like I was high on the best drug. I could see clearer, smell better, I could sense everything around me like I’d just taken a hit of heroin.
I saw movement in my peripheral vision and shot down the hall. Voices shouted.
There were at least a few more men — that I knew. The De Langes weren’t known for having many men at their homes, it was too easy for us to pick them off.
Which meant…
“What do you want?” a voice yelled.
“Surrender, and I’ll tell you.”
“We don’t surrender.”
“I’m Russian. I’m afraid I don’t care,” I said in a lethal voice. “I give no mercy, I torture for sport, and I’m seconds away from blowing up the entire house. You may as well come out before you’re holding your own intestines and scrambling to shove them back into your miserable bloating body.”
A man moved into the hall, gun in his hand holding it high in the air. “What the hell do you want? We made a trade, gave you the girl, and were told we’d be left alone for a few more days so we could regroup. I think that’s what you call… grace? Artful warfare?”
“I don’t give a fuck what they call it. I don’t know the meaning of the word mercy.” The guy froze. “One question, and if you answer correctly I’ll let you live.”
He gulped.
“The other night, the girl you sent to me to sell. Who is she to you?”
His grin turned lethal. “Why? She not performing well enough for the members of your club?”
I shrugged. “I only care that I get paid, and she’s been… difficult. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t holding a candle for someone and plotting her escape. I hate paying for product and finding out it’s used goods, so tell me, who is she to you?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. I could see the relation similar dark hair, similar skin tone. It was him. I just needed him to say it.
“I’m her brother.”
I grinned and lowered my gun. “Good answer.”
I had maybe one minute before Chase came storming in, gun raised, shooting anything that moved.
“Come here.” I tossed my gun to the floor, barely registering the thud it made against the hardwood.
He sighed in relief and walked right up to me.
I grinned.
“What?” He frowned. “What’s funny?”
“You.” I licked my lips. “Hand me your knife, the one you’re hiding in your left hand. Now.”
He cursed and handed over the silver knife.
“Stick your tongue out.” I gritted my teeth as anger pulsed through my body, murder, monster, savior, saint. I had no idea what I was.
Maybe I was finally losing my grip on reality.
He laughed. “My tongue? No. I don’t think so.”
I held the point of the knife to his jugular and pressed the blade against his skin. “Open your fucking mouth. Now.”
Shaking, he parted his lips.
I grabbed his tongue with my right hand, gripping, twisting, and then I sawed it off with his own knife.
Blood spewed from his mouth as he screamed and fell to his knees in front of me.
I tossed the tip of his tongue just as Chase walked in, gun raised.
“Son of a bitch, Andrei, could you stop doing weird shit?”
“Sorry.” I wasn’t, sorry that was. “His voice was annoying me.”
“He’s no use to us if he doesn’t talk.” Chase pointed out.
“There’s ways to get him to talk. After all, he still has his hands.” On second thought, I tilted my head as his right hand was pressed against his mouth.
I picked up my discarded gun and fired a shot into his left hand.
“He’s right-handed, and we have time, maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll learn sign language.”
“Crazy Russian.” Chase seemed both offended and pleased. “I’ll call for some clean up, we’ll take him to the club for questioning.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
That he would confess that the girl they were keeping was his own sister, that she was a De Lange, a walking abomination to our family.
To Chase especially.
I knelt down, picked up the tongue, and stuffed it in my pocket while Chase grabbed his cell, cursing into it like it was the first time he’d seen me do something crazy, which it wasn’t. I was known for shooting off body parts people didn’t need, I really didn’t see the point in murderers keeping things that weren’t necessary to their survival.
Suffering, I knew well.
Killing was too easy.
While Chase was on the phone, I leaned over and kissed six thirty-two’s brother on the forehead and whispered. “Mention her, and I’m going to shove this piece of your tongue down your throat and watch while you choke to death, understood?”
He whimpered.
I patted his cheek. “Good talk.”
“Yeah, no he did it in…” Chase checked his watch. “Three minutes forty-seven seconds. Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you proof. No Nixon, just shot off his hand, cut out his tongue… I’m never eating tacos again, thanks for that visual.” He clenched his teeth and then nodded to me. “Nixon wants him alive.”
“He’s alive.” I shrugged.
Chase just stared at me like I was losing it.
“What?” I wiped my gloves on my pants and shoved the guy’s knife into my pocket.
“I got this.” Chase hung up the phone. “Take the car and go get cleaned up. The guys and I will figure all this shit out and head over to the club tonight for drinks and torture.”
The brother whimpered.
I gave him a cruel smile. “Good, we just purchased some new cat tail whips, can’t wait to see how much flesh we can pull from his back before he talks.”
“Crazy bastard.” Chase shook his head at me. “Do you just come up with this shit on your own or do you Google ways to peel flesh off people’s skin without killing them?”
“Google…” I slapped him on the back. “…is your friend.”
“Google, he says, as his name tops every list in the FBI.”
“Hey, they love me over there. I almost gave them you guys.” I laughed. “They can’t touch me, and now they can’t touch you. You’re welcome.”
“You’re an annoying little shit.”
“I’m only five years younger than you, and a lot more…” I tilted my head at him and lowered my eyes. “Endowed.”
“I may kill you in your sleep one day, just thought you should know.”
I shrugged. “I may just let you so you can put me out of my misery.”
It slipped.
Chase’s smile fell.
“Leave it,” I snapped an
d walked out of the house with a knife in one pocket and her brother’s tongue in the other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alice
I was in the process of wiping off the sparkling countertops when the door to the apartment opened and shut.
I jumped when he locked it.
He wasn’t looking at the kitchen. He was staring straight ahead like he was lost, or maybe like he didn’t want to be found. I couldn’t decide which.
But it gave me time to take in his form. He had blood splatters all over his suit. He shrugged out of his jacket, keeping the leather gloves in place, then jerked open his white button-down shirt. Buttons flew everywhere. I held in my gasp at his ridiculous body.
I wasn’t attracted to men.
Men terrified me.
Men like my brother.
But this man was built like he never ate a carb in his entire life. He looked like he’d been cut from stone. His stomach was so muscular that I had a hard time understanding what he did to get it that way.
His shoulders were huge, something I hadn’t noticed in his jacket but saw now, I’d thought him lethal before.
He looked like he was barely holding onto his own sanity as every muscle flexed and he leaned his head back against the door and cursed.
I was afraid to say something.
Afraid I would make him angry or angrier. Afraid that he had forgotten I was even there and needed a moment.
He kept his leather gloves on, peculiar, but other than that, he had no clothing on except for trousers that molded to an even more perfect bottom half.
I gulped not recognizing the feeling at first, and then I nearly burst into hysterics.
I was losing my mind.
Because I found him attractive.
Not just attractive.
He was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen in real life.
And he said he would keep me safe.
What sort of mind games was he playing?
I took a step backward.
I didn’t think about the floor creaking, or that the guy would hear my heavy breathing, but he must have.
His head snapped in my direction.
His eyes locked on mine with cool indifference, and then slowly he drank me in like he’d never seen a woman before in his entire life.
Debase (Elite Bratva Brotherhood Book 1) Page 5
