You Don't Own Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (The Russian Don Book 2)

by Georgia Le Carre

  ‘Why the fuck did you do that?’ I ask, my whole body clenched.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have. I acted unprofessionally, but I couldn’t take the risk that she might get caught in the middle of a bomb that was meant for you. I was trying to protect her, warn her.’

  ‘How did you know about it?’

  He hesitates. ‘I can’t reveal my sources.’

  I knew then. He was a fucking musor. Pig!

  ‘I want to see her,’ he says.

  ‘You come anywhere near her and I’ll fucking kill you. You’ve done enough. Stay the fuck away.’

  I disconnect the line and grab my head in frustration. Why did he have to call her? Why did she have to interfere? Everything was going so smoothly. I knew what Lenny was planning. As if I’d ever trust a sewer rat like him. I let him make his move and I was about to execute mine. Everything was ready to go. They were about to fall into my net in one fell swoop. Then she goes and foils it all.

  Why Dahlia? Why?

  I feel the fear building, my breath starting to come in shallow and fast. I can’t submit to it. I have to get control. Put it somewhere it cannot seep out. She’ll be all right. I know she will. She has to. I’ve got the best surgeons working on her.

  I feel a dull ache in my eyes. I turn around to go back to Stella when Noah approaches me, his face horrified.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  My mind buzzes like an electrical circuit fried by overload. Images get scrambled in my brain. I see her alone running barefoot in the rain as if the hounds of hell are after her. I lash out. My fist swings out hard and lands on his chin. He is not expecting it and stumbles backwards, slamming into the vending machine.

  ‘Where the fuck were you?’ I snarl. ‘You had only one thing to do. One fucking thing. Trail her. Never let her out of your sight.’

  He holds his chin in the palm of his hand. ‘She didn’t want me to come in. It is standard. We always wait for her at the nearest coffee shop, and when she’s finished she calls and we go and collect her.’

  ‘That’s not what we agreed. You let her decide? Have you gone soft?’ I grit out between my teeth.

  ‘We can’t follow her into people’s homes. She wouldn’t let us. This is the first time she left without calling me. There was nothing I could do.’

  I slam my fist into the wall. It cracks and bits of plaster and white powder fall to the ground.

  A busybody in a nurse’s uniform comes towards us. ‘Excuse me,’ she says sternly.

  Both Noah and I round on her with such maniacal expressions of rage that she stops and backs away, a terrified expression on her face.

  ‘I’m really sorry, boss,’ Noah says again.

  The rage goes away. The ice re-forms. ‘Have you picked him up?’ I ask, my voice icy.

  ‘Yes, he’s in the warehouse.’

  ‘And the rest of them?’

  ‘Pig food.’

  I turn from him and walk away. From the corner of my eyes I can see two detectives coming up to me. Well, they’ll get nothing from me. I’ll be sending them directly to my lawyer.

  Twenty-nine

  Zane

  Dr. Hassan Medhi, the neurosurgeon, comes in. I turn away from staring out of the window and Stella stands. He looks tired and somber. He’s been in surgery for the past seven hours.

  ‘How is she?’ I ask, my voice tight.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ he says moving to the chair opposite the one Stella was sitting on.

  Stella resumes her seat and I take the one next to hers.

  Dr. Medhi clasps his hands and clears his throat. ‘I’ve done all I could. Her skull was badly fractured and basically the entire left side of her brain was bleeding and covered in blood clots. I’m afraid I was forced to remove ten percent of her brain.’

  I gasp, rising to my feet and towering above him.

  Dr. Medhi’s face twitches. He’s afraid of me. Most men are. He clears his throat again. ‘It was too risky to remove all the skull fragments. She’s on life support at the moment and I’ve inserted pressure-monitoring devices inside her brain, which will allow us to intervene if the pressure in the brain increases, but I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for the worst. The likelihood of her even making it through is very slim, and even if she does make it, she may never become cognizant. You do understand my meaning … become aware … conscious of her surroundings.’

  Stella appears frozen with shock.

  My throat constricts and my muscles coil uneasily. ‘Dr. Hassan I chose you because you are supposed to be the best neurosurgeon in Europe. I don’t want to hear anything from you except how you’re going to make her better.’

  For a few seconds a stunned silence prevails.

  Then Dr. Medhi speaks and his voice is filled with a quiet pride. ‘I can assure you, Mr. Malenkov, that Miss Fury has received the best treatment she could possibly get, not just in Europe, but anywhere in the world.’

  I take a deep breath. The understated confidence in his voice some how soothes me. Yes, she is in the best hands possible.

  ‘The next twenty-four hours are critical,’ he says, ‘but you will be able to see her in two hours’ time. We’ll talk again after tomorrow.’

  He stands.

  ‘Wait, Doctor,’ Stella says, standing up herself.

  ‘Yes,’ he says politely.

  ‘I don’t understand. Is she going to be OK?’

  The corner of his lips turn down in a deprecating gesture. ‘God willing,’ he says softly. Then he walks out. Not looking at Stella, I walk out of the room. In the corridor I meet Shane.

  ‘I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry. I just heard from the guys.’

  I nod.

  ‘Look, let me take care of Lenny. You stay with your woman. She needs you.’

  I look at him and feel as if I finally know the definition of the word bleak. For me, time has stopped. I hear him talking. I see people walking by us, but I don’t feel anything. I know I am breathing, and I know my right leg is shaking restlessly, but I can’t feel it.

  ‘No need,’ I tell him. ‘Dahlia’s not about to come around for some time. I’ll take care of him. He’s mine’

  He frowns. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say, and walk towards the toilets. I get in there and I vomit my guts out. Then I wash my face, dry it with some paper towels, and go out of the hospital. I stand at the entrance and smoke a cigarette. I have two hours to kill.

  Tiptoeing in after washing our hands to see Dahlia is the saddest occasion of my life. She is unrecognizable. Her head is bandaged, an oxygen mask is over her face, there are countless IV tubes coming out of her connecting her to beeping machines. We are only allowed to stay for five minutes.

  ‘You can try to talk to her, if you want,’ the nurse says with a smile, but both Stella and I are so horrified we don’t say a word.

  Once the five minutes are up she herds us out and we stand in the corridor for what seems forever, unable to comprehend that the person in that room is Dahlia.

  ‘Do you need a lift somewhere?’

  She bites her lower lip and shakes her head.

  It is three o’clock in the morning. ‘Come on,’ I say to her. ‘Noah will take you home.’

  She follows me like a lost lamb. We part in the car park. The rain has stopped and I stand for a few seconds watching them get into the car and drive off. I think I’m putting off the moment I reach home, or maybe I just don’t want to leave her here.

  The whole street has been cordoned off and Anton has to drop me at the edge of the police tapes before driving away. The blackened car is still there and the place is crawling with policemen and their forensics team. One of them calls to me. He is wearing a cap and holding a clipboard.

  ‘I live there,’ I tell him, pointing to my house.

  ‘Right, you are,’ he says.

  Yuri opens the door for me. He doesn’t try to offer any words of condolence because he is like me in that way. He recognizes word
s for what they are. Ultimately empty. He nods respectfully and disappears into his station.

  As soon as he closes his door the house feels like a tomb. There is not a single sound. I walk up the stairs quietly. I open my bedroom door and my eyes glance at the bed. I need a shower. I get into the bathroom and look in the mirror.

  That is when I come apart. I lose myself. The ice melts. The pain slams into my solar plexus and I remember the way her face felt against mine, the way she would smile at me, and the tears start falling, at first lightly, then a deluge.

  I hang on to the sink and bawl my eyes out like a fucking baby. I didn’t tell her that I loved her. I never once told her. She was willing to give up her life for me and I wasn’t brave enough to tell her I love her.

  ‘I love you, baby. I love you,’ I sob.

  I switch on the shower and get into it. The water washes away the sweat, the tears, the blood. I come out, dry myself and pad over to my bed. I lie on it and stare blankly at the ceiling.

  She has to come out of it. She has to. I will make her come out of it. I get up, dress, and call her sister. It’s not an easy or a short call. A bomb blast calls for a lengthy explanation.

  After the call, I go downstairs and Yuri comes to the door. He opens his mouth to say something, but I raise my hand and he snaps it shut.

  Without a word I leave the house and drive to the warehouse. I have business to take care of.

  I’m gonna show ya, what’s really crazy.

  Thirty

  Aleksandr Malenkov

  Lord, have mercy on us

  Christ, have mercy on us

  -Mozart–Requiem

  The early morning air is cold with more than a bite of frost in it and it chills my lungs just to breathe it in. I switch on the music and listen, my ears pricked up like those of a leopard. Even though the stereo is old and cheap, the empty warehouse — well, it’s empty except for a desk and a chair — has such good acoustics it makes the individual notes shimmer and sparkle.

  Beautiful, soul stirring stuff.

  I can remember playing this piece with mama. It was in another lifetime, but the notes are as alive and vivid as goldfish swimming in a pond. The sounds fill my head. I can still see her. As pure as a white swan. Ah, Mama. Tell me of the days to come, when we will walk in meadows full of wild flowers.

  I breathe it into my body, and prepare myself for the task at hand.

  He grunts and I turn to look down at him.

  Naked. Shivering uncontrollably. Trussed up to a wooden chair. His mouth stuffed with his own smelly sock and taped shut. Tough guy. He makes another sound, frightened, desperate, turkey-like. I start walking towards him. I am furious, fucking livid. My hands are clenched and my heart is racing with adrenaline. I could kill with my bare hands, but I don’t hurry.

  I stroll. I am a consummate professional.

  The music reverberates in my head. I remember the first time I came into the room and found Dahlia sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace in a toweling robe listening to this piece. She turned her head and smiled at me. ‘This is your song,’ she told me, and smiled that sweet smile of hers. Like a goddamn angel. She doesn’t smile anymore. She just lies there.

  Because of this greedy, stupid monster.

  I stand over him. ‘Hello, Lenny.’

  His skin is very white. Without clothes he is no more than a worm, squirming, cowardly, waiting to be squashed. He makes more desperate sounds. He wants to talk. Beg. Plead. Bargain.

  No dice.

  ‘Your death will be long and slow,’ I tell him calmly.

  His eyes bulge with fear.

  I kick the chair viciously and he falls backwards, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. Comical, if I had been of a mind to laugh.

  With superhuman strength I pick him and the chair up, and effortlessly throw both towards the wall. The chair breaks noisily. His scream is muffled by the sock. I walk up to him and kick his lily white ass with the cold ferocity of a crocodile. Tears start pouring from his eyes. Jesus!

  Then I take out my gun, a PB/6P9, Army issue. Sleek. Russian, of course. It’s old, 1967, but I like it. I grew up with it. The metal feels cold in my hand, but I know from experience it takes on human body heat very quickly. I screw on the silencer and he looks at me with begging eyes. Silly man. He has no idea. I wasn’t called the meanest son of a bitch on the face of the earth for no reason.

  With a steady hand I aim the gun at his pale right kneecap. He goes crazy behind the sock. Smiling grimly, I curl my finger around the trigger, and empty my first bullet dead center into his kneecap. A professional hit, fine entry wound and bleeding only from the gaping exit mess behind his knee.

  He screams and soils himself.

  I take aim and put another bullet into his left knee.

  He twists and turns vigorously, but he needn’t have bothered. I couldn’t have missed if I’d tried.

  I gave him a Jesus wound, just above the metatarsals.

  He howls and twists even more furiously.

  Aim. Fire. A matching Jesus wound on the other foot.

  With great precision, amazing really once you consider I haven’t done wet work in nearly twenty years, I aim and fire into all his major bones. I reload and aim it between his legs, at the pale shriveled worm nestled there. It explodes into a bloody mess. He is slobbering now, but in fact, he is not in pain. After the first shot, shock releases endorphins into the bloodstream that cause the pain to numb. Like yeast. Pain needs time to grow. In about an hour the wounds will marinate and swell up to the size of grapefruits and lemons.

  Then the philharmonic orchestra of pain will play its first note.

  I turn and walk away from him and the sickening smell of his shit. I put my feet up on the desk at the edge and listen to the music as I wait. I don’t think of her. She wouldn’t approve of what I am doing. But she’s too good for this world and I’m not.

  ‘Kiss the rain, whenever you need me,’ she once said.

  ‘I kissed the rain last night and you never came,’ I whisper.

  From the bleeding, slowly darkening hunk of meat on the floor comes whimpers, cries, howls, growls, groans, sobs, and screams of pain. When I can no longer bear to listen to his cowardly cries, I walk over to him.

  Even without his dick and every major bone in his body shattered he still desperately wants to live. I see it in his eyes.

  I point my gun at him and aim.

  ‘See you in hell,’ I say, and fire. Bull’s eye. Right between the eyes. And you could almost call it a mercy killing.

  Thirty-one

  Zane

  (Coma)

  Coma! The word reverberates in the room and my head swims with horror. I feel a cage closing in, all the exits being sealed off. It is not going to be all right. She’s in a … I can’t even believe it … coma.

  ‘Coma,’ I echo blankly.

  ‘As bad as it sounds in her present condition it’s not actually a bad thing,’ Dr, Medhi explains cautiously. ‘It allows her brain to essentially rewire itself. In the darkness of the brain the one hundred billion odd cells can find each other again. If enough connections are made her brain will wake up. The human brain is an amazing thing.’

  ‘If?’ I ask warily.

  ‘Of course, there is still a chance that she will never wake up.’

  My mouth drops open. ‘There is a chance she will never wake up?’

  Dr. Medhi’s hands open out. ‘On the Glasgow Coma Scale assessment she scored 3.’

  ‘What is that? Is it good or bad?’

  ‘The scale assesses the degree of brain impairment or injury and measures the patient’s brain functionality. Responses elicited include eye opening, verbal responses and motor responses such as movement. The responses are then ranked on a scale of 3-15 with 3 being the lowest and 15 being the highest.’

  I stare at him in horror.

  ‘Well, a deeper coma alone does not necessarily mean a slimmer chance of recovery, because some people in
deep coma recover better than others in so-called milder comas. Many factors determine the final outcome, severity of the injury, length of time the person is in a coma.’ He spreads his hands out, as if he is a used car salesman trying to convince me that he’s just an honest guy. ‘It is a thing we still don’t understand very well.’

  ‘What are the chances of her waking up?’

  ‘I don’t know, but what I can tell you is, research at London’s Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability found that nearly a fifth of the patients studied who were thought to be in irreversible comas eventually woke. Many remember being conscious of what was going on around them but were unable to communicate.’

  ‘How long will the process take?’

  ‘No one knows. It can take days, weeks, months even years. The longest persistent vegetative state is forty-two years. She may be in a vegetative state for long a time, or she may come out of it in the next few days.’

  ‘What is recovery? Will she just open her eyes one day and be well again?’

  He makes an expression that can best be described as a facial shrug. ‘Recovery usually occurs gradually. In the first days, they are awake for a few minutes and the duration of time awake gradually increases. Some patients never progress beyond very basic responses. Others go on to live a totally normal life.’

  ‘Can she take a turn for the worst and … die?’

  ‘The most common cause of death for a person in a vegetative state is secondary infections, such as pneumonia which can occur in patients who lie for extended periods.’

  The more he talks the more cold I feel.

  I remember walking out of the little office we were in. I remember heading down the corridor. Using the lift. There are other people in it, but they are like shadows. The doors open. I get out with them. Another corridor. Reception room. People waiting in seats. Then into my view. Stella. She is hurrying towards me.

  ‘What did the doctor say?’ she asks. Her voice sounds like it is coming from underwater.

  I shake my head and carry on walking.

  ‘What did the doctor fucking say?’ she screams at me.