Back in the kitchen, she waited for Robbie to rejoin her before she poured them both a cup, fixing hers the way she liked before passing him the creamer and sugar. He looked less dead now, but she didn’t doubt that by tonight’s show, he would look relatively normal.
“I think your dog hates me,” Robbie said as he took a sip of his coffee. “Every time I come over here, he’s always waiting to take a bite out of me.”
Alex shrugged, not bothering to make any excuses.
“What time is it anyway?” he asked looking around them for a clock.
“Not too early. We still have a few hours before rehearsal.”
He gave her a heart-stopping smile, but it didn’t do anything for her. She almost wished it would…
“Want to go out to the market with me?” Before she could answer, he amended that. “We’ll have to stop by my flat first…if that’s okay.”
Alex wasn’t really in the mood to spend the next four hours alone in her apartment before she was meant to go to the studio, so even if it wasn’t with Robbie that she wanted to spend time with, she found herself agreeing anyway.
47
____
The End is Nigh
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The constant plop of water on his head had once been a nuisance, then a slow agony, and finally, it had to be the only thing keeping him sane—if that was what he wanted to call it.
Luka didn’t know how long he had been left in the hole, not even able to see his own hands in the unwavering darkness that surrounded him. He’d tried to think of everything to keep the insanity at bay, thinking of his former life back in New York, his friends, his family—though he had never called them that—and Alex. Those first few nights, she had been the only thing that got him through it. Remembering the way she smiled, how happy she was as long as they were together, but the more he thought of her, the more the reality of his current situation sunk in.
He wouldn’t say he was optimistic by nature, but he had hoped that he would get out of this and get back home to the one person he needed in his life. But with each day that passed, that hope began to dwindle until now there was nothing left.
He had long since accepted that this was his fate, and after everything he had done in his life, this was what he deserved.
Luka had tried to get as comfortable as possible in his new cell, stretching out on the floor, adjusting as much as the chain would let him, but anytime he’d even got a modicum of comfort, his tormentors came back to resume what they’d started.
How long he had been left alone escaped him, but he wasn’t granted a reprieve for long. The door was shoved open again, and Fatos was back with his minions.
Luka lost track of how long Fatos toyed with him, alternating between torturing him and professing how much he had been missed. The first night had been easy. He wasn’t a stranger to the techniques that Fatos utilized, especially since he’d been the one to show him how.
No, that hadn’t bothered him. Nor the next night, or the following one. Three straight days of physical pain, then nothing. Fatos left him to bleed on the straw, pain, his old friend, the only thing to keep him company.
The silence was the real torture. It was deafening, like a physical force suffocating him. He’d always hated it.
Then, the torture resumed.
In the middle of his next session, Fatos had stopped in the middle, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead to clear the sweat that had beaded there, only managing to smear Luka’s blood over his face.
“Don’t you remember the fun we used to have?” Fatos asked, looking at Luka with wide eyes. “We were a team, you and I. There’s no reason we can’t have that now.”
Despite the agony in his chest from the repeated hits he’d sustained and the blood in his mouth, Luka still laughed, coughing some up as he tried to clear his airway. “We were never a team, you delusional fuck.”
Fatos looked hurt. “I love you like a brother, Valon. What—”
In Albanian, he asked, “What did you want from me, Fatos? Did you want a partner, or did you think me a whore like my mother and thought I would be yours?”
Fatos’ face colored in rage at what Luka was insinuating, but seeing his reaction only made him laugh. This wasn’t the first time his interests had been questioned, especially when it came to Luka, and just like now, he always grew enraged at the suggestion.
But as quickly as that rage had manifested, it vanished as he forced a laugh, shaking his head. “You’ve always been fond of your whores, Valon. Tell me, what do they do for you exactly? Smile coyly when you’re near? Hang onto your every word?”
“You don’t care about the whores,” Luka said calmly, spitting out another mouthful of blood. “If you did, Natasha would be dead. Yet you left her alone because you knew she meant shit to me.”
Fatos frowned, looking at Luka like he was the one who was insane. “They’re all whores, Valon. Have you learned nothing?”
“Only that we’ll both die here.”
That seemed to, at least momentarily, shut him up but not for long. “I wanted—no, I expected more from you. Yet, you continue to disappoint me.”
“This is getting tedious. If you’re going to use that”—he gestured to the whip Fatos held loosely in one hand—“get on with it.”
Fire flashed in Fatos’ eyes as he struck out, landing a solid blow to Luka’s face that made him laugh despite himself. No one liked to be laughed at, especially when they were trying to be taken seriously.
“You’re not going to goad me into killing you,” Fatos said evenly, making sure he had Luka’s attention as he said this. But he realized too late that he had gotten too close.
With a sharp jerk of his head, Luka head butted him, feeling the cartilage of Fatos’ nose give under the pressure. Fatos stumbled back, nearly slipping on the glass that littered the floor, but as he righted himself, blood dripping from his nose, Luka saw what he’d been waiting for.
Rage.
At least now he had actual torture to look forward to and not the sound of Fatos’ voice. Only one of them had helped him get through his time here, but he didn’t know for how much longer.
____
Klaus pulled the last strap of his bullet-proof vest into place, reaching for the guns next. Celt, who stood stoically on the opposite side of the weapons’ room, had his arms folded across his chest
He was aware of it, could practically feel the Irishman’s gaze on him as he got ready, but he hadn’t bothered to ask about it until now.
“What?”
Pushing off the wall, Celt asked, “You sure you can handle this?”
Glancing over at him, Klaus checked the chamber of his Glock before holstering it. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Even I know this isn’t a normal job for you.”
It wasn’t, but Klaus wasn’t going to confirm his words, not when he was using every bit of energy he possessed to keep from acting out. He wouldn’t pretend that over the last six months he hadn’t thought of Luka and what had happened to him, but he hadn’t had the resources to find him.
The Albanians had changed their location for operation and were practically working off the grid. Then, the moment he’d gone to Winter for assistance—a hacker who did work for them occasionally—the new handler had called in their team for a job.
Klaus hadn’t thought much of it at the time. They were good at what they did individually, but together they were nearly unstoppable, but he hadn’t been expecting the specifics of the job they’d been given.
The client, Mishca Volkov.
The assignment, track and retrieval, and a burn-out.
When given a burn-out, they were to kill anyone on sight and leave no evidence that a team had ever been there. It was rare that they did a burn-out, just because it was so hard to ensure that everyone was gone and finished, but with the deaths of Brahim and Jetmir, the two heads of the Organization, it was far easier to destroy an already crumbling infrastructure.
This was another reason Klaus wasn’t sure he could trust Mishca, not completely. This, everything that dealt with these particular Albanians should have been left for them to handle. This was practically all he had lived for.
Just another thing Mishca had taken away from him.
Klaus glanced back to his friend. “Let’s get this done.”
They were not the only two going on this mission.
There was also Calavera, the only female mercenary on their team. Her specialty was knives—something Luka would have enjoyed—but she was just as good with a gun. When she wasn’t being pulled off an assignment for special jobs like this one, she stayed over on the East Coast, living on The Strip in Las Vegas.
Then there was Payne, a name they all collectively hated, but he’d accepted it. After all, he was good at dishing it out. Out of all of them, he looked the most like a criminal, in part because of the raven tattooed on the side of his head, his mohawk sometimes covering it, and then because his canines were capped in silver for reasons only he knew.
And finally, offsite, there was Winter, comfortably seated safely behind a desk, already hacking into the Albanians’ mainframe to take control of their security system. She wasn’t officially part of the team, but if a job called for it, Payne called on her for help because otherwise, he feared she would get herself in trouble if he wasn’t watching out for her 24/7. It didn’t help that she was a hacker by trade. Fighting in person was one thing, fighting virtually was something Klaus couldn’t comprehend.
There were others who made up their little den of mercenaries, but for this, only a few were needed.
Chartering a jet from the U.S. to Russia, and then taking a smaller one into Albania, the trip was longer than Klaus would have liked, but he was working hard to quell his anxiousness.
After Fatos, there would be no one left. Every person who had contributed to the worst day of his life would be dead…everyone except Luka, but somehow, he had let all of the festering anger toward him go.
He still didn’t know why.
From the jet, they loaded into a Jeep, Klaus and Celt in the front, Payne and Calavera in the back. Transmitters were placed in their ears. Their gear was checked again, just to make sure nothing was forgotten. As they rounded the bend of the hill, Klaus pulled his mask free of his bag, staring at it for a few moments before pulling it on.
It was time.
____
The pain had finally faded to a dull ache, one that kept Luka on the fringe of consciousness. He’d long since wanted to pass out, to finally get a few seconds of peace from the endless agony, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t slip away.
About a foot away from him was large pieces of broken glass from the window Fatos had broken. One was long and jagged enough to have held Luka’s attention for the better part of the night. He wasn’t broken. That was something he had to remind himself of constantly the longer he remained in this place.
But…what else did he have to live for?
Escaping the Albanians once when they were unaware was one thing, but trying it again, especially without having any weapons and the sheer amount of men Fatos had here…and he would die trying. It wasn’t as if he could return to the life he’d left behind. The Russians would want him dead, and he didn’t for a second think that Mishca would stand at his side, not when he’d so happily offered him up.
At this point, what more did he had to live for?
Despite his shackled hand, Luka stretched as far as he could, ultimately using his foot to drag the piece of glass closer until he could grab it with his hand. It was thick and sturdy, and sharp enough that he knew once he dug it across his flesh, his skin would split.
Words couldn’t describe the way he felt at the thought of his blood spilling onto the dirty cement floor beneath him. He longed for that freedom.
He longed for this to finally be over.
Alex’s smiling face flashed in his mind, just a fleeting moment, one of doubt for what he was about to do.
But what could he offer her here?
She could have so much more without him in her life. Even if by some chance he did get free of this place, Mishca would never accept them together, not now, not after the truth had been revealed. He would never force her to choose between them because he knew she would choose him and he would want her to choose her brother.
This was the easy way out, Luka realized as he pressed the glass to his skin. For everybody.
He applied pressure. Just enough that the sharp bite of pain made him blink, looking to his own arm where blood was welling.
He could do this.
He could do this.
He could do this.
But the moment he’d readied to pull his weapon along his skin was the same moment he heard muffled gunshots. There was no reason for Fatos to be shooting at one of his own men, which could only mean that someone was here…an enemy who Luka didn’t know about.
The Albanian Syndicate had plenty of enemies of their own without factoring in the Bratva, probably more since Luka had left this place. It was one thing to be tortured by people he knew, he could at least account for what they were going to do to him, but something else to face an unknown threat.
Luka couldn’t go through this again.
Gripping the glass harder, he’d resolved himself to the decision he made. Just a second away from ending this, the door was kicked open and an assault rifle was the first thing his eyes focused on besides the light pouring in.
He knew, even with the mask, that he was looking at Klaus. Who the other person was coming in behind him was still a mystery.
Luka didn’t release his hold on his weapon, not even when Klaus shoved the mask up, revealing his face. He should have felt relief at seeing him there, but the only thing he felt was confusion. He didn’t know if what he was seeing was reality or if this was all just a dream. But if this were the latter and there were no consequences to what he was going to do, he would accept it happily.
Maybe he had passed out or else was suffering under an intense delusion because there was no other way that Klaus could be here.
“He’s gone ‘round the bend then?” A man, the one he didn’t recognize, was standing over him with a machine gun in hand.
“I got him, Payne. Just make sure the others are dead.”
The Englishman looked at Klaus, shrugging once before heading off. Klaus took a hesitant step forward, and instead of his usual arrogance, he looked thoughtful. He crouched in front of him, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped together in front of him. It was the most vulnerable he had ever allowed himself to be, especially around Luka.
“I think I’m dying,” Luka whispered brokenly, the sound of his own voice sounding foreign to him. “I didn’t think you would be the last person I see before I go, though.” He looked away. “Do I need your forgiveness before I finally stop breathing? Would you even offer it?”
Klaus shook his head, reaching a hand out for Luka’s, his hold firm. He didn’t understand why at first or even how his touch felt so real.
“This is real,” he said quietly. “I’m here, right now. But I need you to put this down so I can help you,” he said with a nod of his head to the glass that Luka was gripping so tightly, his hand was bleeding.
Luka, who was realizing this wasn’t a delusion, let his hand fall open, watching the glass clatter to the floor.
He looked up at Klaus with haunted eyes and asked the only question he could. “I’m not dead.”
“Not today,” he answered as he withdrew a handgun from a holster at his back, shooting at the chain that bound Luka to the wall.
Dragging his arm over his shoulders, Klaus help
ed him to his feet, supporting most of his weight since he could barely stand. He made a concentrated effort to walk on his own, but whenever his step faltered, Klaus was there, wordlessly righting him.
Luka was good at pretending. Pretending that everything was okay now. Pretending that he wasn’t stepping over multiple bodies as Klaus walked him out of his own personal hell.
They ventured out the front door of the house, sunshine making Luka’s pupils contract painfully. He didn’t know where they were going, and he didn’t care, as long as it was far away from here.
“You got the package?”
Luka forced his head up at the voice, looking at a girl who was a small thing but looked like she could handle herself pretty well since she was armed like the rest of them. Had Klaus gotten his team to break him out?
If Klaus gave a response to her question, Luka didn’t hear it.
“Celt’s waiting for you with the other one.”
Other one?
Was there another person Fatos had kept here as a prisoner? It would make sense since he enjoyed hurting others, but Luka didn’t think he had heard anyone else’s screams but his own.
The girl, whatever her name was, swooped down beneath Luka’s other arm, helping them move faster across the lot.
Laughing humorlessly though his ribs ached, Luka said, “Sorry, I’m spoken for.”
“I just bet you are,” she responded wryly, her Spanish accent warm and friendly.
As they ventured closer to Celt—one mercenary Luka actually did know—he felt a chill run down his spine at the sheer amount of bodies around the place. He had never doubted the efficiency in which Klaus worked, but seeing it up close and personal, especially with how calm everyone was, was kind of terrifying to witness.
Fatos was on his knees, his lip split, his eye swelling rapidly. And even after all he had done, he still looked at Luka with reverence in his eyes.
Celt took a step back, his gaze flickering from Luka to Klaus. “Your call.”
The girl stepped out from under Luka, moving away so that she was out of range, but more surprising, Klaus moved too, but Luka knew this needed to happen. After all they had taken from him, it was no surprise that he wanted Fatos dead. He had told him as much when he’d first suspected that he was in New York.
Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva Book 4) Page 34
