The priest stands before us and says a few words to begin and then announces me. I don’t know why I ever agreed to say shit in front of everyone, but at least it’s just a priest, and the rest of family in some way or another. And if the men I have gained from the fights give me any shit, then I will just cut off their fucking heads and feed them to the mice.
"Spasybi," I say, trying not to make eye contact with anyone in particular. "I just wanted to say a few words because it felt right. I am not a good speaker. Olena knows that, so I know she will forgive me if I just say it straight. She was special. Special people sometimes don’t fit this world just right. They hurt because of it. But she was my star while she was here, my sister, my family. And maybe her not being here means it’s time for her to rest and be a star for herself. But I am a selfish woman, and so, I will miss her all the same."
I take a deep breath as I almost whisper the last words and quickly return to my seat. I stare straight ahead and tune out the rest of the service because I just can’t take anymore. My bottle of pain is too full.
But when I feel Rhys' hand on mine, I let it stay.
***
My favorite songs have been blasting to a deafening level in this guest room for at least an hour now. It could be more. I don’t really know because I have spent the whole time knocking back vodka. I am dancing and belting out slurs that are out of tune, but I can barely even hold my body up now I feel so fuzzy. I flop into the bed just as a knock comes at the door.
"Come in!" I think I say loudly because I don’t think I am making it to that door to open it.
It must have worked because now Rhys is walking in and shutting the door behind him. Normally in this mood, I’d ask him to fuck me, but things have been hard for us lately, and I don’t think there is much sexy about drunk Vera. She just is stumbly with the loud mouth of a sailor.
He comes over and turns the music down but not off, which I guess I fucking appreciate. I don’t know. I am a mess.
"I came to see how you were. I know we are still angry with each other, but your best friend’s memorial was today..." he trails off as if he doesn’t know what the fuck else to say. I don’t blame him. I don’t know what anyone should say to me either.
What I do know is I don’t want him to go. Not tonight. "Don’t leave," I tell him. "You don’t have to talk." I don’t know how garbled it comes out, if it is clear, but he lays back with me, his hands starting to trail my body. I don’t think he gets what I want, but I can’t blame him for assuming that’s what I would want.
"Fuck....no, Rhys. Stop!" I yell a little too harshly. "Sorry, this just isn’t about that."
Shit. What is wrong with me? What bullshit is spilling from my drunken mouth?
"Then, what is it?" he asks, and I can’t read his expression, but maybe that’s because everything is a little dizzy right now.
"Shit. I don’t know. I think I might be falling for you....shit! I don’t fucking know." I try to sit up and fall back down, my hand running nervously through my messy hair. "I just, I don’t know if I can do this. If I can ever do this."
"Well, why the fuck not?" Rhys asks, and I can hear the pain behind the anger. I don’t think I can hold it in with the state I am in. It’s like there is some kind of damn truth serum in what I had to drink.
"My parents fucking sucked. So did Olena's. And they broke each other. And here I am, already broken. I'll ruin you. We'll ruin each other. We'll rip each other apart if I tell you for one second I feel something."
Rhys leans over me, pressing one side of his body against mine as he tries to get me to focus him. It is no easy task, but I hear him loud and clear. "Everything I have done has been for you, my wife. I don’t know at what point I stopped hating you for being such a bitch, Vera, but I will never hate you again. I can't. And you’re not broken. Someone broke you, but you put those pieces back together all by yourself."
Chapter Seventeen
Rhys
"I still don’t get why the fuck we didn’t just blow his damn head off!" Vera whisper screams as we haul a tall, thin man who I knocked out down into our bunker of sorts. Though, it’s not exactly for riding out storms. I created it, with a back entrance, for the purpose of what we are about to do with this motherfucker Vera and I just found on the streets of Ukraine; torture.
It has now been over a month since she finally admitted to me that she could start feeling something, and while we aren’t exactly lovey dovey and all that mushy shit, we sure to fuck like rabbits and work well as a team.
After that night, we decided to take to the streets ourselves, glocks in hand, and get the information we wanted out of any low life drug dealer or street rat we found. We have worked our way up from the bottom of the rung to find out who the big guys are. And it is becoming clearer each day who runs this shit.
I was skeptical at first, sure that there had to be more than just Glib involved with as many drugs are on these streets. Even took a trip to other cities to see who else is running this, and that’s where this shithead came from. Knocked him out for a car ride, and I am sure he will be awake soon, so we better get him down there.
"Information. We need to know who else is pumping Ukrainians full of drugs so we can get to them. Isn’t that what we are doing, eliminating the shit out of these men? Sometimes, we have to sacrifice instant gratification, dytyna." I smirk at her through the sweat on my face from the effort of carrying this man; he’s pretty fucking heavy for such a scrawny ass.
Vera sighs, and I know I have hit a nerve. She loves when I call her baby in her native language. I know this will shut her up long enough to get him tied up and locked up. This is something I don’t want any of our men in on. Vera has mentioned before she always wonders if there is a mole, and we can’t risk one going to Glib or anyone else about this. Whatever we learn will stay with us for now.
Vera and I get to work in silence, a dim light dangling above us and a small lamp in the corner the only guides we have as we use chains attached to pegs in the ground to keep this man in one spot. He is moaning as we finish up, clearly about to open his eyes. I don’t want either of us within scratching distance when he does; who the hell knows what diseases he has?
He looks fucking awful, exactly like what you would think a drug dealer who does it to earn more money for his own fix does.
"Shit, shit, shit!" he wakes up saying, shaking around in his chains as he looks up at Vera in bewilderment. "Please, don’t put me in the ring, please. Give me any task, just don’t put me in there. Just shoot me!" he begs, his yellow teeth chattering with the fear. This is going to be easier than I thought....maybe a little disappointedly boring.
"You know Vera?" I ask him, pointing to my wife who is sneering at him, enjoying every moment of this like she feeds on his terror.
"Tak. Everyone on the streets does. Getting caught by her is like being a prisoner of war."
Vera lets out a maniacal laugh behind me, and I feel myself getting hard. Shit, this is so not the damn time. "So, you'll tell us what we want to know, if I swear Vera can’t put you in the cage to fight?" I ask him, daring to get closer to his face. I don’t think he’s going to bite or spit or anything; he is entirely too frightened right now.
"What the hell, Romanian!" Vera yells at me, her hand on my ear in an instant and dragging me away.
I growl in anger, my face going hot as I flip around on her. This is not the fight we need to have in front of a hostage. "You’ve got to fucking trust me, dytyna," I hiss at her so that we can’t be heard. "We need to know how he works for and what their plans are if he can tell us that. You need to look at the end game. I know what I am doing."
Vera glares at me, and I know a threaten, possibly even a very hard slap is coming. "I will give you this trust one time, Rhys, but if you break it, I break your jaw and then I put him in that cage anyway."
Yep, that’s my wife.
I smile and pull her into a passionate kiss before she rips my head away with a roar and starts pa
cing, waiting for me to do my thing.
"I am a little disappointed that I won’t need to torture you first, but all I want is information, the kind that would probably get you in trouble. Are you willing to give that to us?" I ask him, my eyes boring into him.
"And s-s-she won’t make me f-f-fight?" he stammers, nodding a twitching head towards Vera.
"No, she has agreed if you tell us all we want to know, you will not fight in her cage." I am very careful with my words, and I don’t think even Vera realizes what I am doing. I am a man of my word, but only my exact word.
"What you w-want to know?"
"Who you work for," I tell him simply, my arms crossing over my chest.
"His name is Glib," he says, not looking me in the eye. He knows he will be killed for giving this away. Or worse. But I just can’t get my head around the fact that this slimy fucker controls so much of the streets in this country.
"How has he gotten his reach so far, and what all does he sell?" I ask, seeing how far I can stretch this desperate man.
"I have been with him for only few months," our hostage responds. "But I see change in product. Used to be heroine everywhere. Streets loved it. Then, some cocaine too. Now, he has new business. The pills. Opiates. Benzos. Sometimes, we even mix with other drugs for better high. The money is rolling in."
"What the fuck!" Vera rages, and I don’t know if I will be able to stop her now. I know just what she is thinking, and there is a good chance she is right. It is not like Olena’s family wanted to dig into her painful death and do a full toxicology, and now they can’t. She sits in an urn on top of the fireplace. But a mix of shit like that, and someone is guaranteed to OD at some point.
"I am leaving now, Rhys. I am getting my men and going hunting. I will have Glib's head by morning."
I stride across the room, just barely blocking the way out in time as she rams into my hard chest. She beats it, screaming, losing it. I grab her hard on the arms and hold her at a length. I have no choice.
"Vera!" I holler loudly, loud enough to make our hostage flinch and cower. "You are going to ruin everything if you do that. I know you want this. I know why. And he will get what he deserves. But haste can get us killed. Please, wait for clear heads and a fucking plan, or I will have to tie you up too."
She grunts but backs off. "Fine. What are we doing with him?" she spits, pointing to the hostage who suddenly looks like he could stroke out from the fright.
"We can play this one of two ways; we fuck him up and send him to Glib who will kill him anyway and have him warn Glib but scare him shitless. Or we kill the guy now and keep it quiet," I offer her.
"No! Do not send me back! Just kill me now!" the man rages suddenly, shaking and bucking against his chains.
Vera grins. "I think we have our answer."
Chapter Eighteen
Vera
Today is so very important for both Rhys and I. Ion has decided to make a special trip here to check on our progress, and I can’t wait to show him what it is that we’ve already accomplished.
Rhys and I have been on cloud nine for the past couple of weeks, taking down Glib’s men one at a time, making their darkest fears come to life.
If you assume we’re killing them, we aren’t.
I had the best plan come into my mind when our first hostage begged us to not return him back to Glib. We’d simply put them in the cage so that we could make money off of them.
After the first one, I didn’t expect we’d grab so many more, so my thought process changed quite a bit. The ancient Romans inspired me and once I told Rhys my idea, he just smiled like he always does and nodded. It’s not like I would’ve allowed him to keep me from doing what I wanted anyways.
These men might have been following orders in order to ensure their survival, but I don’t care. Truly, I don’t. They made a conscious decision to put drugs back out onto the streets, ending countless lives. Now they have to make a conscious decision everyday. They choose to fight to the death, or they choose to die. Either way, they never last too long. There’s always another man who is stronger, either mentally or physically. It keeps the crowd coming back for more and keeps my pocket heavy.
News of my antics have crossed the border to Russia, and rumor has it that they appreciate the way I conduct my businesses and are proud that they see I am not corrupt like most people are. I hate those who are corrupt, where the only thing that matters to them is money. I’m much different than them, where they spend money on drugs, sex, or fancy things. I spend my money on making sure my people have warm beds to sleep and food in their mouths. I give it to the homeless shelters, to the people who need it more than I do. There will never be another day in my life where I struggle, so why should I keep the money? My husband has more than enough to provide for the two of us.
Ion reached out to me privately and asked me not to tell my husband that he would be visiting. At first I didn’t like the idea of keeping something from Rhys, but I knew that this was my moment to show Ion that I am one of the Clans, and that even though I am a woman, I am valuable.
Rhys had told me that the Clans had operated behind the times for a long while, until very recently. Mariana was the one who started the changes to the structure of the Clans, and now us women are working our way into power. It’s been hard to convince the older Clan leaders that the woman’s voice is just as strong as theirs, but if I have anything to do with it, women will be heard more so than the men.
Fredrig comes from around the corner of the cage, I smirk at the metal rails and change I had added in. It’s not your common puppy dog fence, this is designed to keep the men in until there is bloodshed. “Ion is here to see you,”
I wave my hand in the air to let him know that I’ve heard him as I walk around the cage, heading to where I hope Fredrig has Ion waiting for me.
“Interesting set up you have here,” he comments. “I have to say, I wanted to see what you had developed here back when you and Rhys were being married, but there is a time and a place for everything. That was not the time.”
I smile, seeing that the Romanian King has an inkling for the darker side of the line I walk. “Well you are here to see now, and that is all that matters.”
He nods, bringing his hand across his face. “You are not like the other Clan wives, Vera, and your value is obvious,”
I stay silent as I wait for what seems like forever before he continues.
Ion makes his way around the grounds, looking at every aspect of the club. “We try to stay on the right side of things in everything we do, but there are times where this isn’t possible. I understand this more than my wife, Mariana, does. Now, more than ever I need to ensure I have a soldier who will get the job done no matter what it is I need. I believe you are a woman of the future, Vera, and I’m asking you to speak up at every Clan meeting. Do not let the old values hold you back from what you truly believe. You may have been an outsider who joined our world, but you are one of us now, and I need you to help us create change, especially now.”
I crease my brows together and search his face for answers, but I don’t find any. “Why is it so important to create change now?”
“Mariana and I have been blessed with the news of having a child, our first child, in fact.” At his words I am confused. They already have a little girl, a daughter named Bianca. “Bianca is my daughter, but I am not her biological father.” I want to ask so many questions, but I stay quiet, needing to know what else Ion is about to say. “Mariana and I have made the decision that the baby she is pregnant with will not reign the Clans when it will come of age. Bianca will, and with that, we will have a ton of backlash. Many will argue that it is not Bianca’s right to lead because she is a woman, and because she is not my blood.”
“Bastards,” I hiss out.
I receive a slight nod from Ion, showing me he feels the same. “I believe The Clans forget that Mariana’s bloodline is more powerful than mine, and without her, I would be just as the rest of them a
re. I would be no King to them without her by my side. So, why would our beautiful daughter not be their Queen?”
“She has every right to the throne as your new child does,” I firmly state. I hope that by doing this he sees I follow his cause and will support him in it.
“Thank you for that. I knew that you would understand. I believe that you and Rhys will share the same beliefs.” He pauses for a moment, the stare he’s giving me makes me realize that even if Rhys doesn’t agree, I’ll have to ensure he does.
“He will understand that change is coming,” I respond.
“Good, I am glad that you understand. There will come a time and a place where this will come to a vote, as this is the old way. I take it that we have your support.”
“Yes, I can assure you that the Albu Clan will speak in your favor when the day comes,” I say, this making me feel like I’m the most respected than I’ve ever been.
“Thank you. I appreciate your understanding. I will admit, I am amazed at what you have done here in the Ukraine, Vera. If anyone can make the world a better place for the people, it is you.” Ion flips his wrist to look at his watch. “I’m afraid that I must go. I have another plane to catch and should be on my way. Please extend what I’ve explained to you along to Rhys.”
“Rest assured, it will be done.” As Ion walks away from me I feel like there is nothing better than this. I finally feel like I am shown the respect that I’ve always searched for. I feel like nothing in this world will tear Rhys or I apart or break us down. But I know better. It will happen. I am just wondering when the ball will drop because nothing in life is ever this easy.
Anguish Page 53
