by SR Jones
Andrius sits by me and shakes his head. “The house is fucked,” he says.
Don’t I know it.
I find myself unable to say anything else, what the fuck can I say? The house is the least of my worries. My worries are Michael, Cassie, and Vasily. Nothing else right now.
“You’re going to need men. Men you can trust to ensure your safety,” he says.
“I know, but not sure where the hell to get them from.”
“You have Bohdan, yes?”
“He’s busy right now,” I say.
“Speak with him, see if he thinks business can take care of itself with some of the ground troops running things, and if he does, bring him here. I think you need him.”
“What for?”
He stands and jerks his head for me to follow him.
We head outside and to an open space under a copse of trees. We’re speaking in Russian, but you can never be too careful.
“You need Bohdan here now for the battle we’ve got on our hands. You could do with him around while Vasily is out of commission, to help you train a damn army, friend. I also know someone who can help with your security and hacking issues.”
“Doubt Damen will come over here to help me. It will mean putting his own loved ones at risk if he leaves now to come join this fight in any meaningful way. Coming to the UK is too risky.”
“Not Damen. British SAS … knows his shit. Works private security now, and he and his colleagues specialize in the sort of set up you need. You might have to go more for the businessman approach, and play up Cassie being in danger too. But I think I can persuade them to help.”
I think about it. If Andrius trusts them, maybe I should. Right now, I’m rudderless, and I’m not thinking straight, but he wouldn’t recommend people who aren’t trustworthy. I should have trusted Damen in the first place, then none of this would have unfolded this way.
“Okay, sounds good.”
“They run a big operation now, but the four founders are all ex SAS and SBS. Liam, Ethan, Luka and Reece. Those four, I trust. I can get them to come out to the house, secure it, check out your systems, and make sure anything new isn’t easily hackable.”
“I paid good fucking money for that system. It’s meant to be one of the best in the world.”
“Yes, but these guys? They know their shit, and they can ensure your set up is so damn tight no one is getting in. Not many can do that.”
“Do you use them?”
“Yes, and I trust them. Their leader, Liam, he’s a fucking judgmental cunt, but he will do right by you if it means protecting Cassie and Michael.”
“Okay, call them.”
“Yes, I’ll call them and see if they will help us go get your woman back and deal with our Armenian friends. I talked to Damen before I came to you, and as you know he’s been watching these guys. Turns out, they’re smuggling people, human trafficking level shit. Liam and his men won’t take kindly to that; they’re honorable, and as you know, I don’t take kindly to shit like that either.”
I turn to him. “You’re going to help?”
He sighs and fixes me with a disappointed look. “Of course. Firstly, you’re like a brother to me, and secondly, they want me. That means me and mine aren’t safe until they are dealt with. You know, Allyov has a good man, Alexei. These fuckers want Allyov too, right? We can ask him to lend us Alexei. You, Bohdan, Alexei and I can round up a rag-tag army and go get these cunts.”
“Tigran wants me to take you, unarmed, to him, or he’s going to start cutting bits of Cassie off.”
“So … take me. Like a trojan horse.”
“Are you insane? We walk in there unarmed, we’re dead. The Trojans had armed men inside their horse, but we won’t have any weapons.”
He turns his ghostly gaze on me, and says, as serious as fuck, “K, my friend, we are weapons.”
I think about it. We are, but even with the training we’ve had, up against ten or more armed men? No chance.
“Of course, we don’t run off there this moment, unprepared.” He shakes his head. “Firstly, we need more intel. We need to find out how many men they have total, and how armed they are. We go in there unarmed, and we use that to buy some time. I know Tigran—he’s a dramatic fucker. He’ll want to drag it out, make me suffer. Popov is useless. Frankly, he spent his whole life failing upward. We need to buy some time and create a hell of a distraction.”
“How do we do that?”
He grins, and it’s got that crazy fucking edge about it, the one I’ve not seen in some time. “We fight one another.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I get all fucking emo, cry about how could you do this to me when I loved you like a brother. You say that I’d have done the same thing. I deny it, and we fight. Make it look fucking brutal, and I bet their men will come watch. Enough of them that things will be lax. That’s when our guys will be able to approach and get in place. We only need to make a move and get one gun. I can take out a lot of men with one gun.”
He can. I’m not as good as he is with a gun. Few people are. Andrius is deadly accurate, super-fast, and merciless.
“You’re bigger and stronger than me,” he says. “You focus on incapacitating as many of those fuckers by hand as you can, and I’ll shoot the others. So long as we get one gun, I think we’d be okay until our troops storm the fortress.”
“It’s risky,” I say. Shit, it could work, though. We don’t seem to have much choice. If we do nothing, Cassie will be mutilated and eventually killed.
“Life is risky, but I know Tigran. If the whole distraction ruse doesn’t work, he’s not going to kill us straight off. Trust me, he’ll spend ages torturing us both. We can take it until our guys get there. We need to distract him, Popov, and their men, enough so that our guys can approach.”
I turn to face him. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s the only way. We’ve got to give them what they want. Distraction techniques, eh?”
“Remember to zig not zag,” he says.
He grins, and I smile too, then I clap him on the back, and we head back toward the hospital to see if there is any news of Vasily.
Hope blooms in my chest. The war is here, the time is now, and if these men Andrius knows will help, I have my army.
Time to fight.
Chapter Two
Cassie
I can’t even look at Liza, sitting in the corner of the room stroking and patting her belly and humming nursery rhymes under her breath. The woman is insane and vile.
She’s got an annoying sugary singing voice that is as false as her persona and her beauty. It’s a stupid thing to get angry about in my current predicament, but I keep going back to what the hell Konstantin saw in her in the first place? I feel like a total bitch, but honestly, if she were actually beautiful, I’d maybe be less upset, but she isn’t. She’s skanky when you take away her glaring surface attributes, and it makes me think he’s skanky too.
Let’s be honest, he is a skank and a man-whore. Once I’m out of here, I swear, I’m done with him. Yes, he gave me the best sex of my life, but is it worth it? Kidnapped and held in a room with Liza, which frankly counts as actual torture, and possibly about to be maimed, and for what? A great orgasm.
Okay, three great orgasms, but still. Not. Worth. It.
“You know, it bugged me seeing him fawn all over you,” Liza says, making me jump. “Now though … now I think it was an act. Part of the game we were playing. After all, you’re not screwing, right? So how into you is he? Not very, that’s the answer. A man with his libido? Not into you at all, boring little mouse.”
I could tell her. I could burst her smug bubble, but what’s the point. She can have him.
It doesn’t hurt, I tell myself. I didn’t care for him. I was simply beguiled by him. Bewitched. Well, now the spell is truly broken.
When I get out of here, and I will, I promise myself, I’m making some huge life changes. I’m going to look for a new job; something I want to do. What that wo
uld be I don’t know yet. I’m probably going to have plenty of time to think about it while stuck in here, though.
I enjoyed working at the coffee shop, but I can’t do that forever. It’s hot and tiring work, and whilst it might be fun now in my twenties, I think it would be exhausting in my fifties.
Something similar might appeal, however. Something where I work with people because generally, I get on with folk and enjoy their company. I like chatting and finding out how their day has been. I think of my neighbor, Mr. Clarke, who I go dancing with once a week. Suzy was horrified when she found out and said it must be the most boring thing ever. Tim thought it was weird, but I loved our dance dates. Mr. Clarke is an interesting character. He was a child in Sheffield during the war, and he said he remembers the sky lighting up in a horrible red glow from the bombs dropped on the city.
After the war, he joined the military. He wanted to help protect Britain if we ever faced another overwhelming enemy again, and he wanted to travel widely. Working with people would be good, but I also enjoy the technical side of the work I do at the moment. Could I set up as a freelancer? Best of both worlds possibly. I’d get to work in IT, which I’m good at, and I’d also get to chat with people and help people out, yet not have to work in a stuffy office from nine to five. I could set my own hours and spend time outdoors.
As I think about it, the vague stirrings of hope flutter in my belly, a glossy hummingbird taking flight from the detritus of the past weeks. As the pay for freelancers and self-employed contractors can be high, I’d only need to work part-time to have a decent standard of living. The rest of the time I could do things I enjoy. Dance classes, walks, and I could have a dog. Oh my, that would be amazing. I smile to myself.
“What are you smiling at?” Liza demands as if my smile is an afront to her personally.
“Thinking about getting a dog when I get out of here.” I shrug and go back to my thoughts.
“I don’t like dogs,” she says.
“Who doesn’t like dogs?” I ask, surprised.
“Me,” she says. “Konstantin. Plenty of people don’t like dogs.”
“Konstantin likes dogs,” I say before thinking.
“No, he does not,” she snaps. “He doesn’t have any, does he?”
“He didn’t have dogs because he had to work all hours,” I say. ”Now, he has two.”
“Er, earth to Cassie.” She knocks her head with her closed fist as if knocking on wood. “Wake up, Cassie. He hasn’t got dogs, you idiot.”
“He has. He got them when you left.”
“He’s got dogs?” she asks, her face a picture.
“Did he ever say to you, Liza, I hate dogs?” I ask her.
“No … maybe… I can’t remember, but he doesn’t like them.” She purses her lips and stares at me with hatred.
“He always told me he loved them. Likes German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Labradors, and Golden Retrievers. We always used to joke about how a dog should be big enough to properly cuddle.”
“What do you mean used to?”
“Before, when he used to come to the coffee shop I worked at, every day, months ago. We talked about great literature too. It’s why he bought me the book, the one he wrote a message in and signed.”
“He wrote a message in it,” she mocks me in a sing-song voice. “And? He bought me a fucking Chopard diamond bracelet, you stupid loser.”
I’ve got under her skin, and I turn away as a little smile creeps over my face. I shouldn’t goad the woman, but she makes it too easy.
“You know, you might think he likes you because he bought you a book that cost like all of ten pounds, but until he’s buying you diamonds and fur coats, you mean jack shit to him.”
I gasp. “He bought you a fur coat?”
“Jealous, bitch?”
“No,” I say with revulsion. “Disgusted that he’d buy fur.”
She looks at me as if I’m dense and shakes her head. “Cassie, he kills people. You think he cares about some mink losing its life?”
Her words pull me up short. He does kill people, doesn’t he? These men here with guns who took me, they are the same as him. He’s cut from the same cloth.
“In fact, he does worse than kill them,” she muses. “I mean, I don’t know because he’s never discussed business in front of me, but I overheard him talking to someone once, and he was telling this guy to torture someone for information. He’s a killer, Cassie, and worse—he doesn’t do it because he must to survive. He enjoys it, likes the power. You think he’d care about animals. You’re so fucking naive it must hurt. How do you even get through a day in this world with your soft insides?”
I blink away the tears. I will not cry again over this man or her. They aren’t worth it.
“It must be like walking around with a great big, undressed wound, being someone as soft as you in a world as brutal as this one.”
“My world isn’t brutal,” I tell her. “My world has good people in it. Kind people. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
She mimics me. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
I ignore her and turn away, facing the wall.
He kills people. Of course he does. If Andrius, who is Konstantin’s friend, gave Tigran that scar, then what has Konstantin done to others? Murder, torture, rape?
I think of him touching me, and I shiver as a cold, sticky dread coats me. Did I let a rapist inside me? Did I give my body, and let’s be brutally honest, part of my heart, to a truly evil man?
Exhausted, I curl up on the floor using my hands to cushion my head and close my eyes. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep, but I need to rest a little.
Pounding jars me awake, and I make a startled sound as I come online. My body must be full of adrenaline because my heart is pounding, and my breathing is fast. I realize straightaway, I’m not at home, nor am I at Konstantin’s house.
Then it all rushes back to me. A terrible montage of memories.
The door to the room I’m sharing with Liza bursts open, and Popov lumbers in. He’s a whirlwind of idiocy, mediocrity, and bumbling menace.
“Fucking hell, he’s going to do it.” He looks at Liza with triumph. “You might be a double-crossing bitch, but you proved useful. K’s bringing Andrius here. Told him it was to come see some guys who want to deal with Allyov, and there will be a massive cut in it for Andrius. To be honest, I can’t believe Andrius fell for it, but I suppose he trusts Konstantin from their time fighting together.”
“How do you trust they aren’t setting you up?” Liza asks, stretching lazily.
I want to scream at her to shut up. If they are setting these guys up, which is likely, why give them a heads-up?
“Because.” I jerk at Tigran’s voice and see him then, lurking in the shadows of the hallway behind Popov. “They have been told to be unarmed. We can see them approach from half a mile away, as they must drive up a single lane gravel road to the house. We have infrared cameras so we can see if they are concealing anyone else in the car. If it’s only Andrius and Konstantin, we let them approach, get them inside and check them for weapons… That’s when the fun begins. I have ten men here, and there’s also Popov and myself. They can’t take on twelve armed men. I doubt Konstantin would bring Andrius here unless he really is going to hand him over. Of course, he’ll be hoping I let him and you little ladies go, but I won’t.”
“What?” Liza is outraged.
“You’ve seen my face, stupid. Can’t let you go, can I?”
“But…” She pales. “I helped you.”
He enters the room and walks over to her. “Yes, you did, and for that I’ll make it quick.”
“I’m pregnant,” she says on a sob.
“So?”
“Popov?” She looks to him, her eyes wide. She parts her lips so they look all pouty and sexy as she widens her tear-filled eyes.
So Suzy was right, and sexy crying is a thing.
“What?” he says, cold and nasty.
&nbs
p; “You won’t let him hurt your woman, will you?”
“I’d do it myself for the way you’ve fucked me over. The minute you thought Konstantin still cared, you went all fucking pathetic over him.”
She frowns, but it’s only a partial frown. I idly wonder if she’s had Botox.
Are these my last thoughts? I shake my head at myself. If I’m soon to be dead, I should think about important things, like my grandpa and grandma and how much I love them. I should think about the thorny issues in life; like how come you can buy twenty hair bands, and in a week there isn’t one to be found?
How do bees fly on those tiny wings with their big, relatively speaking, heavy bodies? How did the Brontes come up with such amazing stories, and what were their lives like? Were they as dark as their novels suggest?
The men leave the room, closing the door once more. Time stretches taut, an elastic band of anticipation and dread, as we wait.
“Got company,” someone shouts from downstairs, in a heavy Yorkshire accent.
It seems some of the men working for Popov are not Russian.
Liza stands and rushes to the window. She stares out of it and claps her hands. “He came for me! Oh my God, he brought Andrius. He did it, and it shows how much he cares.”
I can’t help but join her to look as the two men step out of the car and approach the house. The smaller top window is open a crack, and as the door to the house opens, Andrius turns to Konstantin and stares at him. He says something angrily in Russian as two armed men rush them and drag Andrius inside. Konstantin shrugs, cold and indifferent.
He’s sold his friend out. He doesn’t even care.
That’s the kind of man he is.
They enter the house with raised voices and shouting. I hear Tigran speak clearly to Konstantin.
“You brought him. I didn’t think you would.”
“Hello, Tigran,” those are the smooth, almost bored tones of Andrius.
“Where is Liza, oh and Cassie?” Jesus, Konstantin adds me like an afterthought.
“Go fetch the women,” Tigran orders. Moments later heavy footsteps thunder up the stairs, and three big men burst into the room.
