“I don’t care whose fault it was.” Renee spit at her feet. “You almost killed my husband.” Only a few inches away from her face, Renee could smell the conditioner on her hair and fear seeping from her pores.
Royal knew then why they had been called to the room.
Dmitry had a thing about hurting women. It was one of the hardest things for him to do for many reasons. So, he would leave the woman’s fate in their hands.
Royal walked up behind the woman with Valeriya and Lilly flanking her. There was no point in asking her husband if he was sure if this was the right person. Dmitry didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. She glanced over at her husband and nodded. “Thank you, love.”
“My pleasure,” Dmitry replied.
“What do you want us to do with her, Renee?” Gabriel asked, pulling his weapon from its holster. He was not plagued with the same cares as his uncle. He had seen Neo-Nazi women train just as hard to kill as the men. As far as he was concerned, the only people he wasn’t willing to harm were pregnant women, children and old people. Everyone else was fair game.
Royal stepped in front of the woman and put her hand on Renee’s shoulder to let her know she had their support. “We’ll take it from here,” she said, giving the men their leave.
Dmitry figured as much. It was what he was hoping for. Standing up, he motioned for Gabriel to follow him. “We’ll go up and check on Anatoly. The doctor will be by within the hour.”
“Baby…before you go, give me your little helper,” Royal said, walking over to Dmitry. Her eyes were as cold as her husband’s.
Dmitry walked over to the desk and picked up his 24-gold plated, freshly stoned blade. Giving it to his wife, he bent to her cheek and pressed a kiss to it. “I’ll send someone to clean up after you’re done.” With that, he and Gabriel quietly left the room, but Marat and Boris stayed, finding their way to the back, out of the way, to watch the show.
Royal leaned against the large polished oak desk and waited silently.
Rebecca wiped the steady stream of tears from her reddened face. She was circled by angry black women who looked as though they wanted to eat her heart. She stepped back, but ran into the wall that was the tall statuesque Valeriya.
Valeriya pushed her back in place. “Don’t you dare move,” she ordered.
Renee reached back and as hard as she could, slapped the woman in her face. “How dare you!” she screamed.
Rebecca fell to the ground. Crying out, she grabbed her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”
Renee looked down at her with daggers in her eyes. “You could have killed my husband, the father of my children, and you’re SORRY. Fuck, sorry, you worthless bitch!”
“Please don’t hurt me!” Rebecca begged.
“Like you hurt him?” Renee asked.
“What do you want to do?” Lilly asked Renee. “Talking to her ain’t gone fix this.” She didn’t believe in long speeches. If they were going to do something, they might as well get to it.”
Rebecca’s sobs drowned out the room. She cried aloud, begging for her life. “Please! Please!” She reached out for Renee’s leg, but she kicked her.
“Don’t you fucking beg me!” Renee screamed.
Valeriya looked back at Marat. “Give me your gun,” she said calmly. It was best to just put the girl out of her misery.
“No! Please, don’t. I’m sorry!” Rebecca begged.
Marat walked over and handed his gun to Valeriya. He knew that Renee had never killed anyone and despite her chaotic state, he doubted very seriously she’d be the one to pull the trigger today.
“Do you want her dead?” Lilly asked, looking down at the squirming woman. She was pathetic and pitiful, but they couldn’t go back on their word.
Renee didn’t know what she wanted. “I want her to pay for what she did. Fuck second chances. She didn’t give Ana one!”
Rebecca cried out again, hysterical at the sight of the gun. Looking up with tears in her eyes and snot running down her nose into her mouth, she got on her knees and knitted her fingers together. “Please don’t kill me!” she begged.
“Shut up!” Renee screamed, hitting the woman in her head with her balled up fist. “Shut the fuck up!”
Valeriya cocked the gun. She had killed before, killed a thousand times. She knew Renee was pregnant and fragile. She would gladly do the honors for her to keep her safe and her conscience clear.
Renee heard the gun cocked and slowed her breath. This was getting crazy. “No. Stop, I don’t want her dead.” She glanced down at the woman, her robe pushed up nearly above her bare thighs, urine pooled around her. “What you did was wrong. It is unforgivable. Do you understand that?”
Rebecca felt an ounce of hope. “Yes,” she sniffled, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I won’t ever do it again.” She glanced from Renee to Valeriya, hoping Renee would order her to put the gun down.
Renee wanted to send a message, to make the woman think of her transgression every time she thought about doing something underhanded. She wanted real justice. Eye for an eye would mean giving the woman the same drug that Anatoly had involuntarily ingested, but there was no guarantee it would have the same effect.
“Please don’t kill me,” Rebecca said again as the room fell quiet. “Please don’t take my life.”
Renee wiped her own tears and glanced back at Royal, who was still leaning against the desk waiting. “I’m not going to take your life,” Renee said finally. Her voice was scratchy and grim. She wiped a hand over her hair and put her hand on her hip. Walking away from the woman, Renee looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “I’m going to take your fucking hand. Marat. Boris. Help her to the desk.”
Rebecca screamed out, crawling across the floor between the women to get away from Boris and Marat. Without struggle, they snatched her up and forced her to the desk. Boris held one arm out and Marat held the other. She struggled to free herself, but her feeble attempts were pointless.
Royal looked down at the blade and wondered if it would do the job. “I assumed it would be her throat, not a bone,” she said, feeling as though the woman was getting off light.
“I want her to remember,” Renee said, taking the knife from Royal. She walked behind the desk to make sure Rebecca could see her face. “What if it had been your husband, your child, someone you loved? The next time you even think about drugging someone, the next time someone asks you to drug someone, I want you to remember my husband and what you did to him.”
“Please don’t!” Rebecca begged, trying to pull away. “I’ll never do it again. I promise. Just let me go!” She fought hard, trying to wiggle her small, sweaty hands from the men, but they held her in place. The sensors in her brain started to go off, warning of physical harm. The stronger she became; the tighter the men’s grip was on her.
“You should let one of us do it,” Lilly said to Renee, unsure if the long gleaming blade would do the job.
Renee didn’t speak again. Raising the knife above her head, she took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to let someone else carry out her dirty work. If she was bad enough to order it, she would be bad enough to do it.
“Steady,” Marat said, looking up at Renee. His hand was on the line as well. “One swing, hard and…”
Before he could finish his sentence and without warning, Renee brought the blade down with all her power, slicing through the woman’s flesh and bone.
“Damn!” Boris exclaimed, impressed. He didn’t think little prissy Renee had it in her.
The room was silent.
Marat released Rebecca’s other hand and let her stumble back, holding her appendage in shock for a couple of seconds before she fell on the floor and cried out brokenly.
Royal looked over at Renee stunned. It was a complete mess. Blood had splattered across the table and landed on Renee’s white shirt, Royal’s green dress and Marat’s face.
No one in the room could believe Renee actually did the deed. They all expected
her to change her mind, to lose her stomach and wimp out, but Renee stood with the bloody knife in her hand in front of the severed hand with a blank stare on her face.
A fleeting thought crossed her mind about how Anatoly must have felt every time he was forced to resort to violence. There was excitement, remorse and finality in the act. Redemption had to come later.
“Holy shit, she did it,” Lilly said, putting her hand over her mouth in shock. Her gaze went from Rebecca to Renee to Royal.
“There…it’s done.” Renee dropped the knife. The tip of the sharp blade stuck in the floor a few inches from her black flats. Blinking fast, she turned trembling to Marat, who was wiping his face of the blood, and stilled her trembling voice. “Marat, get rid of the hand. please. And make this woman understand that if she says anything to anyone about how this happened, she’ll lose more than a fucking hand.” Her voice turned deep and ragged. “Then drop her off where you found her.” Nausea started to creep up on her, but she refused to be sick.
Marat nodded. He knew what to do. He had done a lot worse for a lot less. Still, he sympathized with Renee popping her torture cherry. It wasn’t for the faint of heart.
Grabbing her by the arm, Royal helped Renee to the door with Valeriya and Lilly trailing closely behind them.
Moving at a snail’s pace, still stunned by her own visceral reaction, Renee stepped out into the hall, drew in fresh breath and realized that the screams from Rebecca must have been very audible, even through the thick doors, because she could still hear Rebecca moaning in pain.
The guards avoided eye contact with Renee. It was a trained reaction after being in the employ of mobsters for so long. No one ever wanted to be gawked at after they had unleashed the fury. Instead, they went into the study and closed the door to clean up the mess and get rid of the girl.
“Are you okay?” Royal asked Renee.
Adrenaline coursed through Renee’s veins like ice cold water. She was sober and calm, but inside she was a roaring river of a emotion. She answered truthfully, despite her guilt. “No, I’m not okay. I just cut a woman’s hand off. But the strange thing is that I still don’t feel like it was enough. I should have cut off her head instead,” she said absently.
“You did the right thing,” Royal assured. “Remember what I told you. Don’t second guess yourself.” Royal had done more than sever a limb in her time with her husband and she knew all the emotions that would come with Renee’s actions. Guilt was a luxury that they could not afford.
“You did the right thing,” Valeriya said, unsure if she meant hurting the girl or deciding not to kill her. She looked at Lilly to chime in, give some comforting words.
But Lilly wasn’t sure what to say. She and Vasily had a different relationship – one built on blood and promise. If someone had done what Rebecca did to her husband, she would have killed them, hands down. But for Renee, as long as she felt vindicated that was all that mattered.
As they moved down the hall, Boris stepped back out of the study with fresh blood on his shirt and a plastic bag in his hand and yelled for them. “Boss Anatoly just woke up!” he said with a grin on his face.
Chapter Four
I’m Awake Now…
A natoly’s crystal blue eyes flashed open with a start, blinking fast before focusing on the vaulted ceiling and wooden cross beams of his master bedroom. The brown, palm-leaf shaped blades of the ceiling fan spun around on the highest notch, blasting cool air down on his reddened face and sweaty body.
Boom-boom. Boom-boom.
Instinctively, he ran a hand over his bare chest, wondering why his heart felt like it had been stretched to the seams.
Argh…
It was all a blur for a moment, dancing on the clouds of his memory like a bad dream. Sounds, lights, people from the night before, they all rushed to him in a wave - unsorted and confusing.
Taking a deep breath to fight his nausea, Anatoly groaned aloud, but then he caught a whiff of his father’s signature cologne – which meant he wasn’t alone - and silenced his grumbling.
“What happened to me?” he croaked, realizing he was attached to an IV by the bed. He ran his tongue over his dry lips and tried to sit up.
Brilliant light flooded in from the panoramic windows facing the backyard and illuminated the large room and the familiar face trained on him.
“Don’t move too fast,” Dmitry said, grabbing his son’s cool hand. “You were drugged. The effects may still be lingering.” From a seated position on the edge of the bed, Dmitry leaned over and looked down at Anatoly. His dark blonde brows knitted together as he frowned. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a fresh pile of dog shit. What are you doing here?” Anatoly asked as he looked up at his father. He had never seen the old man from this vantage point before. Dmitry looked larger and more imposing, if that was possible.
“You had me worried,” Dmitry said, voice soothing. “If anything ever happened to you…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but the anguish in his eyes spoke volumes. He loved his son dearly, more than words could ever express. “Well, I’m just glad that it didn’t, eh.”
Anatoly wanted to get up, get some space. This was too intimate, too close. Seeing his father like this, waking up like this, it was making him feel vulnerable, making him feel fucking human.
Dmitry sat up and gave his son a little breathing room. “I came as soon as Marat called. He said you had been attacked and that...you shot up a club, chasing a woman.” He waited for a reasonable explanation, already knowing that half of it had been because he was high. Surely, there had to be more than that.
“Anastaysia…” Anatoly tried to pull himself out of bed. “How long have I been out?” He glanced at his watch and saw it was already noon. “We have to get to her.” He wasn’t sure how, but he knew there had to be a way, he simply needed to find it. And he couldn’t do so in this bed, nursing his wounds like a babe.
“Whoa,” Anil said, stepping toward the bed. His blue eyes matched his father’s. His face, a younger copy of Dmitry’s in its handsome form. “You gotta rest, man. I don’t know if you can recall, but you were drugged with some pretty potent stuff. I mean, we had to revive you here at the house.” He motioned toward the IV. “Thank God we didn’t lose you. But the best thing to do right now is rest, eat something.”
“You’re not a doctor yet,” Anatoly reminded Anil.
“Anil is right,” Gabriel said, from across the room. He knew Anatoly would be stubborn, but he needed to listen to Anil’s advice.
“I can’t rest. I need to go,” Anatoly explained, sitting back on the bed. Dizziness hit, and his vision, blurred again. He looked down at his bare feet and exhaled. “She’s out there alone, and she needs me.” Her face flashed in his mind, blonde hair spilling over her back as a man pushed her out of the front door of the club.
“Why don’t you start by telling us what you think happened?” Dmitry said suggested with patience. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe his son, but he needed details. Right now, he just had bits and pieces of a patchy story. Anatoly had to paint him a full picture.
“What I think happened?” Anatoly asked. Great, they didn’t believe him. He threw his head back on the headboard. “I know what I saw. My sister was coming out one of those rooms with a fat old man behind her. I called her name to make sure it was her.” He felt the blood rushing, a migraine was looming, fighting with a hangover for space in his disheveled head. “She answered me. She tried to come to me, but I couldn’t…” He was so frustrated with his failure until he wanted to scream. His jaw clenched tight. “I couldn’t get to her. Some guy, who had been hanging out there all night, grabbed her up with another guy, a bodyguard I guess. They whisked her out of there against her will.”
“Ryan Colt,” Dmitry said, eye twitching. It was making more sense now.
“Who?” Anatoly asked. What had he missed while he was knocked out?
“I thought your sister was back in Moscow,” Gabriel asked, equally co
nfused by the story. “Why would she be here? Why would she be with anyone at the club?”
“I don’t know that either.” Anatoly didn’t say he had all the answers. He said he needed to go. There was a big difference. “My sister and I haven’t spoken in a few months, but I know it was her.” He shook his head and looked at his father. “You have to believe me, papa.”
“I do,” Dmitry assured, realizing the situation had just become a lot worse than he first thought. It had gone from a drugging to a kidnapping in a matter of seconds.
“We have to do something about it,” Anatoly said gruffly.
“We will,” Dmitry assured again, hiding his own irate fury brewing just below the surface. “But first, we have to get you back on your feet. Anil is right. You need to eat, get hydrated. The doctor should be here any minute. He’ll check you out, and tell us if you need any additional care.”
“If it were Royal, would you be worried about getting on your feet?” Anatoly asked. “Would you be concerned with food and doctors?”
“No.” Dmitry moved out of the way and let Anatoly push his feet off the side of the bed. “But I’d be acting stupid, and I’d hope you’d remind me of what was best.”
“Who is Ryan Colt?” Anatoly circled back.
“There is still a lot of information we need to acquire. What we know is that he is the man who paid to have the drink spiked. We know he owns a club in Miami called the Bouncing Beaver. We also know Klenchvenko’s manager hired Ryan to bring in the girls to the party. He said they were all strippers.”
“Well, at least one of them wasn’t a stripper. So, we find Ryan Colt, we find my sister?” Anatoly burned the man’s name in the back of his mind.
“Yes,” Dmitry answered.
Vasily was sitting in the corner listening to everything. He agreed with all the men. Anatoly needed to gain his strength, and they needed to go to work. “You have us all at your disposal. We can do the heavy lifting while you get a checkup,” he said already working on gathering information on his phone.
Dmitry hoped that might ease Anatoly’s mind just a little. “We’ve already got someone pulling Colt’s home address and the address to the club, but I doubt it will be that easy to find your sister.” He knew the idea of that broke his son’s heart, but they had to face facts. “If she had been kidnapped for ransom, we’d know it. I believe Colt wasn’t aware that she was your sister. You just happened to run up on her.”
Anatoly's Retribution: Book Two Page 7
