The lift is old and it was slow on our way up so I don’t use it. I open the fire exit door and run down the three flights of stairs. Outside, I realize that it is going to take too long for me to call Noah and wait for him to come. As far as he was concerned I was going to wait for Stella to finish her massage and we would be an hour. Who knows where he’d be right now?
As if the Gods are with me, I see a taxi turning the corner into the street and its light is on. I run to the edge of the street and hail it. I get in quickly and give him Zane’s address.
‘Sorry, love,’ he says shaking his head. ‘Can’t take you there. There’s a huge jam in that area. Big accident earlier. People died,’ he tells me.
‘Just get me as close as possible, and please hurry,’ I say to him.
‘It’ll cost ya,’ he warns.
‘Charge me whatever you want, but please get me there as quickly as you can,’ I say anxiously.
Twenty-six
Aleksandr Malenkov
“Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence,
I would advise violence.”
-Mohandas Gandhi
It is a winter afternoon. Big, soft, white flakes of snow swirl down from a black sky and fall on me. I quicken my footsteps through the deserted street when a bitter wind starts biting into my face. As I run up the stairs to the second floor and put my key in the door, I have no other thoughts than how glad I will be to get into the warmth of our home.
As soon as I open the door I hear it, the dull thud coming from the kitchen. It is not a good sound. I’ve heard it before. Many times before. Flesh hitting a hard, flat surface; like a wall, a floor. I fling my schoolbag on the ground and run towards the noise.
My father is kneeling astride mama and he is strangling her.
In the thick, iron grasp of his red, meaty hands, her neck looks as thin and white as a swan’s. The sound I heard is the weak thrashing of her legs against the floor. As if he was waiting for me to arrive before the real action starts, he turns his head slowly, a cruel smile creeping across his face. The spooky smile of a madman. Fear slams into my body.
‘Nooooo!’ I yell and, rushing forward pounce on him.
I rain blows on his head, neck, and back, but he was always a man possessed of extraordinary strength. Like the locking jaws of a pit bull that will not let go even after the dog he’s attacking has expired, his death grip cannot be disengaged. My mother’s eyes are bulging out of her head. He starts shaking her by the neck like a ragdoll. He is killing her right before my eyes.
I have to stop him. In desperation, I rush to the counter for something to bang on my father’s head. Something, anything. I could have come across a heavy bottomed pot, or even mama’s heavy rolling pin, but what I see is a knife.
Eight inches of shining steel.
My mother was cutting a chicken with it. The carcass lay decapitated and partly dismembered on the chopping board next to the knife. I swallow back the fear. I don’t think. I have to save mama or she will die. With my heart racing and the blood roaring in my ears, I pick the sharp blade up.
The handle has ridges that fit my grip perfectly.
Turning around I swing it downwards directly into my father’s broad back. It slices through his clothes and without any resistance at all embeds itself to the hilt into his dirty flesh. My father grunts like a hog in pain, but he does not let go of his quarry.
I grab the black handle with both hands and pull it out. Dark blood rushes out of the wound like a fountain of red. The jet of red splashes onto my legs and shoes as I raise the knife high over my head and, with a shout of blind fury and hatred, bury it into the side of my father’s bull-like neck. It makes a sickening wet sound. Squelch. Like when you kill a bug, but a thousand times worse.
Blood sprays everywhere: over my mother, the cabinet, the peeling linoleum, the walls, my father, and me. Everything is scarlet, like the brightest flowers in full bloom.
After that I go crazy. A red mist descends and I stab him over and over, compulsively, until he falls to the floor with a muffled thump. I kick him away and pick my mother off the floor. I cradle her lifeless body in my arms.
I don’t rock her, and I don’t shake her. I know it’s too late. She is gone. Her skin is as pale as a starfish, and her beautiful blue eyes are fixed and vacant. Like stones. Dead. I have never seen anyone dead in real life before and I know nothing will ever be the same again.
Everything I love is gone.
My heart feels like it has turned to stone. I take her hand, still wonderfully warm and familiar, lay it on my cheek, and close my eyes for a moment. In that eternal instant I feel her warm, kind presence again. We should have played the piano together. We should have had a different life.
I hear a sound and turn my head. My bull-like father is still alive. The blood is no longer rushing from him. It is flowing out like a lazy river. He is lying in a pool of his own blood. As a matter of fact, I am also sitting in that pool of cold blood. It feels no different than wet mud.
His expression of suffering is exaggerated by the dark shadows around his eyes, and the pallor caused by being drained of blood. A sick, feeble grin curves his mouth, but the mirth and the triumph don’t make it to his bleak eyes. I look down at him, as passionless as an executioner.
‘You did well,’ he chokes, blood trickling from his mouth.
The man is insane: he wanted to be killed by his own son. I watch as the life ebbs out of him. The flat falls eerily silent. Like a soundless dream. Carefully I lay mama back on the floor. Sitting up against the kitchen cabinet, I pull my knees to my chest and look at my hands. My bloody hands. I’ve just killed my father. No amount of horror can prepare a child for that tearing knowledge. I’m a killer, forever tainted by my father’s blood. But I don’t scream, I don’t cry, I don’t break the sacred silence. Mama’s spirit might still be around.
I stand, go to the sink and wash my hands until they are clean. I look up and see my reflection in the window. Blood is dripping from my hair onto the collar of my shirt. I hold my head under the running water and rub my hair until the water runs clear.
There is blood on mama’s cheek too.
I take a tea towel, wet it, and go back to clean her face. There. Her face is clean. I sweep away the lock of hair that has tumbled over her cheek. Then I close her eyes so she’d have the look of someone asleep and dreaming peacefully.
I exhale heavily. ‘Shall we play one last time, Mama?’ I whisper.
In my head her voice, happy and free at last, says, ‘Yes, lyubov moya.’
‘Let me open a window first. It smells like the butcher’s shop,’ I tell her.
I go to the window and open it. A blast of freezing cold air rushes in as I turn to walk to the piano. We kept our promise to my father and it has been nearly a year since I played.
I open the lid and all the old memories rush back. I forget that my parents are lying dead on the floor. I play mama’s favorite pieces, and I swear it feels exactly as if she is sitting beside me, her long, white fingers moving on the keys.
I am so lost in the music I don’t hear the man come in. It is only when he stands right in front of the piano that I notice he is there. I stop playing and look up at him. He has dark, dark eyes and he is wearing a shiny red shirt, a thick gold chain, and an expensive long black coat.
‘I killed him,’ I say, shivering in the cold air blowing in from the open window.
‘You saved me the trouble,’ he replies.
I continue to look up at him.
‘Well,’ he says finally. ‘You might as well come with me. We could do with a good foot soldier.’
I knew he was a bad man, but I left with him. Mama was good, but was no match for bad. I learned that papa was no spy. He was not like James Bond. He was just a member of a group of thieves. Bad men.
From now on I will be bad. Bad always kills good.
I no longer have an appetite for violence
- Aleksandr Malenkov
Twenty-seven
Dahlia Fury
Pay the ticket, take the ride
The journey is excruciating. I never managed to contact Zane despite the fact that I tried his number numerous times. Finally, the taxi arrives a few blocks from the house. The taxi driver was right; the road ahead is chock-a-block with standstill traffic. It is only four o’clock, but it’s already dark and starting to rain. I thrust some money at him and jump out of the taxi.
‘Please, God. Let me be on time,’ I pray.
I start running down the street and realize that the smart heels I am wearing are doing me no favors. I kick them off, and with the cold, wet pavement under my feet, I start to sprint hard, avoiding people on the street. I run as fast as I can, the freezing evening air shocking my throat and lungs as I inhale faster and deeper. There doesn’t seem to be enough air as I fly forward. My lungs feel as if they will burst.
The urge to stop and take a rest is overpoweringly strong, but I fool my body into thinking my goal is only until the next streetlight. Just until the next, and the next, and next until finally, just when my thighs feel as if they are burning, my breath is like thunder in my ears, the muscles in my stomach are trembling, and a frightened scream is locked in my throat, I round the corner into our street.
Taking great big lungfuls of air I try to increase my pace, but the muscles of my calves give way and I pitch forward, and almost fall on my face. Thank God, I land on my palms. I push myself up and continue running. I can already see Zane’s blacked out Mercedes parked along the kerb on the opposite side of the street about twenty yards away from the house. Fear twists my insides. Something is very wrong. The car is always parked on the side the house is on.
To my horror I see the first car, usually with Anton in it, pull out into the road. I know the security drill. Anton always goes first, then the car carrying Zane, followed by the car with Noah.
That means the Mercedes will be pulling out next!
I’m only a few yards away, but I don’t shout because I know no one will hear me. I just increase my speed until it feels as if my feet hardly touch the ground. I reach the car and, grasping the handle with both hands, wrench it open. Gasping for breath, I look at the interior of the car blankly.
There is no one there.
For a second I feel relief then I hear my name being called. I turn and see Zane running towards me.
‘Run, Dahlia. Run,’ he is shouting.
For a second I freeze.
Great, he’s not in the car … oh fuck.
The adrenaline rush takes over, and I race away from the car towards him. I can see his face lit by the streetlamp. It is white with terror.
I can make it, I think.
I see the light first, flaring out behind me and reflecting as an orange hue on Zane’s face as he runs towards me, then I hear the noise – wow, deafening, and finally I feel the heat at my back.
The force of the explosion lifts me off the ground and I feel myself rushing upwards, the wind whooshing by my ears. Look, Olga, I’m flying. I see the horror on Zane’s face. I open my mouth and start screaming with fear. Then something slams into the back of my head. For an instant it feels as if my entire head is on fire, then it all goes black.
I don’t feel my body hit the ground, and I don’t see Zane hold my unconscious body in his arms, and bellow, ‘No, no, no, no, noooooooo.’ I don’t see him crane his neck backwards and, with his eyes squeezed shut, howl like a wild beast in terrible pain, the sound tearing from his throat and lifting into the night.
I loved her and she went away from me.
There is nothing more to say.
- Zane
Twenty-eight
Zane
I stand at the window looking down at the hospital’s drab car park. It is raining, an icy, mean, diagonally driving mix of sleet and freezing cold rain that pounds the asphalt and breaks up into chaotic splashes of water.
A woman opens her car door, pokes a pink umbrella out of the gap, and unfurls it before she gets out. I kept a woman once who used to do that. I can’t remember her name, and I’d have difficulty picking her out of a line-up, but I remember that odd detail. She had hair that would become curly if it got wet. I turn my eyes away from the woman in the car park and look at the sky. It is full of dark grey smudges.
Jesus, how come I don’t feel a fucking thing?
I feel like a block of ice. My hands are shaking though. I reach out and touch the glass. It is cold. Her blood is on my sleeves. I couldn’t protect her. All the guards, the twenty-four-hour surveillance, and I couldn’t keep her safe. There is not one damn thing I can do for her now. It is completely out of my hands. I’m like a leaf in the river.
Her phone rings and startles me. I take it out of my pocket and look at the screen.
Stella
I feel the name like an icepick to my heart. This is a part of her life, a part I never took any interest in. What have I done?
I accept the call.
‘Where the bloody hell are you? You bolted out of Eliot’s like a bat out of hell and just disappeared. I was worried. I’ve left like a hundred messages on your phone,’ a woman’s quarrelsome voice scolds.
‘This is Zane,’ I say quietly.
For a few seconds she goes completely silent. ‘Why are you answering Dahlia’s phone?’ she asks in a tone that gives me goose bumps.
‘Dahlia was in an accident and—’
‘Accident? What the fuck are you talking about?’ she demands aggressively.
‘There was bomb, a car bomb,’ I say. Even to my own ears it sounds incredible, implausible and fantastic.
‘What?’ Her voice is a screech of disbelief, a dagger shoved into my brain.
‘It was an accident. She was not the intended target,’ I tell her. My voice is quiet and calm as if I don’t care, but maybe that is a good thing. It won’t do to fall apart now. I have to be worthy of her.
‘Target? What are you talking about?’ she asks with growing frustration.
‘The bomb was meant for me, but she opened the car door and set it off. It was timed to go off thirty seconds after the door was opened,’ I explained.
‘Where is she now?’ she whispers.
‘She’s in surgery now. If you want, you can come to the hospital.’
‘She’s in surgery?’ she repeats in a daze.
‘Yes.’
‘How bad is she?’
My jaw clenches hard. I loosen it deliberately. ‘I don’t know. She never regained consciousness after the explosion.’
She starts sobbing. ‘This can’t be happening.’
‘Shall I send someone to pick you up?’ I ask.
She stops weeping, her voice suddenly strong. ‘No. What’s the name of the hospital?’
I give her the details, ring off, and put Dahlia’s phone back into my pocket. I should call her family. I know I should, but I don’t. Not yet. It will be better once the surgery is over, and I can give them good news. No need to worry them. There is nothing they can do anyway.
I walk over to one of the couches and sit down. On the wall across from me I see a poster of a human being without skin, all his tendons, muscles and blood vessels exposed. I stare at the image without seeing it. Stella is right. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.
‘Fuck.’ The word explodes out of my mouth as my hand moves downwards in an unconscious striking motion, venting my frustration and fury.
‘Fuck,’ I shout again.
Noah flings open the door, rushes in, takes one look at me, and goes out quietly closing the door behind him.
‘Shit.’
She didn’t deserve this. Why the hell did she run to the car and open the door? Why? In my mind’s eye I see her face that moment when I called to her and she turned around terrified, then she saw me and her whole face sagged with relief. Relief that I wasn’t in the vehicle. The thought chills me: she knew about the bomb in the car. She thought I was in it and she was running to i
t to warn me.
Who told her? Who sent her there? I stand up and pace the floor. I stop and run my fingers through my hair.
‘Fuck.’
The door opens and Stella walks in. I stare at her. She must have been really close by. Her face is red and her eyes swollen. She strides up to me. ‘What the hell is going on with Dahlia?’ she demands.
‘She’s still in surgery.’
She shakes her head as if she cannot understand what I am saying or can’t take it in. She is obviously in shock.
‘Sit down,’ I tell her.
She covers her eyes with her palms, her face contorted. ‘I don’t want to sit. I want you to tell me what happened.’
‘She was with you last. Can you tell me if you know any reason that would make her rush to my house and run to my car to look for me?’
She frowns and tries to remember. ‘She got a call from Mark. It was something urgent. I don’t know what it was, but it made her run out of the flat we were in.’
‘Mark?’
‘Yeah, Mark called.’
‘What’s Mark’s last name?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘Wait here,’ I tell her and walk out of the door. I walk down the corridor and stand by a vending machine. Taking out her phone I scroll down to the last number received, and hit it.
‘Dahlia,’ a man says urgently.
‘No. This is Zane.’
‘Where is Dahlia?’ he asks hoarsely.
I can barely hold on to my fury, but my voice is dead calm. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘Where is she?’ he pleads.
‘She was caught in a bomb explosion, Mark. It was you who sent her right into it, wasn’t it?’
He makes a strange sound of anguish. ‘No, no, no,’ he says. Hearing him break down makes my heart feel like it will explode. He has no right. He has no fucking right. That’s for me to do and I can’t do it, because I have to be strong for her.
You Don't Own Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (The Russian Don Book 2) Page 13
