by Shandi Boyes
Although my first thought is to head to the sleeping quarters on the top level of the mansion, something redirects the direction of my course. I want to say it’s intuition, but since none of my actions the past six years have been driven by that, I’m not willing to use it as an excuse. It is the thump of my pulse in my ears, an experience I haven’t felt in years, and it’s there because of K. I’m certain of it.
The craziness I’ve been working like a stripper does a pole the past twenty-four hours gets a pat on the back when I find Nikolai in his office at the back of the Popov compound. He’s deep in thought. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Sometimes mix-ups are as cleansing as a bloodbath. That’s one of the reasons I stayed on with Nikolai’s crew after my recovery. I could have sought vengeance like Cole did, but honestly, where would that have gotten me? Back into the dark, hidden void I barely creep out of for more than a day a week.
Fuck that. I’d rather be dead than become anything like my brother. He killed our father because he valued the love of his life more than his sons, failing to realize the only people you can pick to be a part of your life are the ones who don’t share your blood.
Blood isn’t always thicker than water.
My placement in Nikolai’s crew is proof of this.
When I rack my knuckles against Nikolai’s office door, his eyes pop up from a heap of paperwork on his desk. His office is fancier than it was when I arrived stateside. It was nothing but shards of glass and twisted metal.
I was too merged in my own nightmare to realize Nikolai was facing just as many demons. Only weeks earlier, he had lost the only man he classed as his brother. Little did he know, his life would go full circle only three short years later.
I’m beginning to wonder if I am about to face the same set of circumstances. A particular sensation is bristling in the air. It is similar to the crackling of energy that zapped through me when I followed India into the butler’s pantry. Greatness was set to happen that night. I just had no clue it would be quickly chased by hatred so black, evilness would thrive off it.
I can only hope today’s sensation ends differently.
When Nikolai arches a brow, prompting me I’m the one interrupting him, not the other way around, I recall the reason for my visit. “We’ve got a problem at Clarks.”
“Handle it,” he replies, more than aware his crew is capable of tackling any dilemma thrown at us.
Although I agree with him, this isn’t something I can do alone. “Can’t.”
Nikolai dumps his pen onto a stack of paperwork before slouching low in his chair. He looks tired. It isn’t just his girl keeping him awake at all hours of the night, though. Vladimir’s fuck-ups will take months to clear away, if not years. He ran a tight ship that amassed a substantial amount of wealth the past fifty-plus years, but his operation was a fucking mess.
With enemies willing to do anything to see his kingdom fall, he was the most hated man in the country. That hate has now been passed to Nikolai. If that doesn’t keep him on his toes, his wish to keep his girl away from additional harm sure will.
“Why can’t you handle it?”
When his question is asked with a ton of jeering, my Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Because we need you... and your girl.” When he straight-up shakes his head, denying my request, I speak faster, “Justine is the only one who can understand these women. They have demands we can’t meet. Unless you want to break your promise to Justine that they’ll remain untouched, we need her help.” I’m low-balling using his girl against him, but when you’re clutching at straws, you better hold on tight. “It’ll take barely a minute. I cross my fucking heart and hope to die.”
My analogy is lost on him, but it does get his ass moving out of his seat. “She is supposed to be resting.”
I smirk at the unease in his tone. Nikolai doesn’t get ruffled about anything, so I’m aware his panic has nothing to do with his girl catching up on sleep and everything to do with him knowing he’ll want her the instant he locks eyes with her. If I’m stopping that from happening, he’s fighting not to kill me as I’d hoped he would have three years ago.
Do I still want to die? If you exclude last night when I hurt K, no, I don’t. Although having her around is doubling my wish to reclaim who I was. I’m living a life most men would cream their pants to experience, yet I don’t believe I’m truly living until my heart thumps in my ears.
K makes that happen.
Why? I have no fucking clue, but I’m eager to find out.
Impatient to make sure Nero kept his word, I nudge my head in the direction Clarks sits. “I’ll meet you at Clarks.”
Although unhappy about my request, Nikolai dips his chin in agreement. I don’t see him being keen to agree to future requests when he discovers the environment I’m about to step his girl into. I’ll risk it, though. It isn’t the first time he’s stuck his neck out for me. Don’t see it being the last.
Twelve
Sales Docket Number 12574
“Calm down. We’re not going to hurt you,” a man I was introduced to last night assures when I grasp the shard of glass so firmly, blood dribbles off my arm to puddle around my bare feet. “But you need to know, this won’t help anyone.”
That’s easy for him to say. He wasn’t dragged down the corridor by a man double his weight and height. If I didn’t use all the strength I gathered last night from tussling with Trey and winning, I’d be holed up with him like Ana is, most likely fighting for my life.
I don’t speak a word of English, but I have no trouble understanding it. The things he said he was going to do to me was the reason I fought so hard.
I won.
Ana didn’t.
Her screams were still echoing in my ears when I raced toward the kitchen to seek help. I thought Trey would protect us, he pledged exactly that only mere hours before, so you can imagine my surprise when my quest for help had me stumbling onto him assaulting a man while issuing the threat of rape as if it’s a game.
That’s when I realized I had to take matters in my own hands. I want to be free, but only now am I realizing the only person who can free me is me—and perhaps Trey. He killed a member of his crew for me without a single snip of hesitation crossing his features. I was shocked, and it had me replaying how he tossed me out of the line of fire on repeat in my head, but since it wasn’t the time to sit down and work through my confusion, I got my head back into game mode.
As I do again now.
“He took her,” I repeat in Czech. “She was right there. He snatched her away.” Sick of the horrifying life I’ve been forced to live the past six years, I dig the tip of the glass in deeper to the vein in my neck that won’t quit pumping out its own tune. It’s been that way since I unearthed Trey’s true identity last night. “If he kills her, I will die. Do you understand? I’ll be dead.” Tears prick my eyes when a wish to live overwhelms me. They’ve been so far and few between the past six years, even I’m shocked by my mumbled confirmation. “I don’t want to die. I’ve barely lived. It’s not time for me yet. Please help me. That’s all I’m asking. I just need some help.”
Nero ensures his gun is pointed at my heart before he steps closer to me. “Don’t,” he pleads when his closeness has me piercing the glass in further to my vein. “I’m trying to help you. You want my help, don’t you?” When I nod, he inches closer. “Then put the glass down.” I stop shaking my head when he asks, “Is it your sister? Is she who you’re after?”
It takes me a few seconds to click on to who he’s referencing, but when I do, my heart launches into my throat. It isn’t a good launch. It reminds me how Achim never strays from his preferred choice—blonde hair, blue eyes, and a slender frame. Even his wife has the same features, so it’s understandable Nero is mistaking Ana as my sister. We often used our likeness to our advantage when the pain of Achim’s demands became too much to bear.
Even knowing Nero won’t understand a word I’m speaking, I can’t help but reply. “I need her back. If I return
her to Achim, I’ll be free. He’s sending men to collect her. He knows she’s here.”
Before Nero can reply, Trey returns to the room. He isn’t alone. The man and woman who freed me from captivity only twenty-four hours ago follows him into the room. “What the fuck, Trey?” the dark-haired man grinds out when he spots the glass piercing my neck.
When Trey notices the droplets of blood coating my feet, his response is barely legible since it’s chopped up by the anger clutching his throat. “She doesn’t speak English, and your girl speaks multiple languages, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to know what her demands are.”
The rattle of his vocal cords reveals how close to the edge he is. He’s on the brink, ready to explode at any moment, which both terrifies and excites me. I snuck out of his room last night because the burden of my freedom doesn’t belong on his shoulders. I walked through the gates of hell hoping to be freed, so I have to deal with the blisters my walk caused alone.
Just like I’ll be the one who falls on the knife when Trey realizes how I deceived him.
My fear takes on an entirely new meaning when the dark-haired man growls, “We don’t negotiate with whores. We tell them what to do, and they either listen or die.”
“We’re not whores,” I fight back in Czech. “We’re mothers, sisters, and daughters. Women who deserve to be treated better than we’ve been.” I shift my eyes from the dark-haired man to the woman he calls his Ahren when I recall what Trey said earlier. She may understand me. “My sister. He took my sister. I need her back. Please.”
It takes me repeating myself another three times before she whispers something into the dark-haired man’s ear. I can’t hear anything she says through the thump of my pulse in my ears, but I’m reasonably sure she’s the only woman in this compound capable of helping me. She has control of the dark-haired man’s heart—just like Ana does Achim. That’s why his wife sent her away. She knew it would be only a matter of time before he gave her crown to Ana. Since she didn’t want that to occur, she sold his favorite whore like the commodity she is.
My grip on the glass loosens when the pretty redhead recites what I tell her to the man using his body as a barricade to keep her safe, “Her sister was here last night but vanished this morning. She wants to know where she went.”
“Her sister was here last night?” the man double-checks after swallowing harshly.
“Spala vedle mě, ale když jsem se probudil, byla pryč.“
She struggles to understand me, but she gets the gist of what I’m saying. “She’s adamant her sister was sleeping next to her last night, but when she woke this morning, she was gone.”
When Trey left with my orange, I laid down next to Ana, hoping to rest through the hunger pains ripping through me. My head had barely hit the pillow when my arm was suddenly clutched, and I was dragged out of the room.
Once again, no one came to my aid.
Ana didn’t even budge an inch.
I had barely escaped the man’s vicious clutch when he shifted his focus to Ana. I tried to hold onto her. I gripped her to the death, shredding my nails through her arm as well as the man’s grubby ones had done to mine, but my fight wasn’t enough. He disappeared down the corridor with a half-asleep Ana faster than I could snap my fingers.
That’s when I ran to the kitchen, unaware I was wasting precious seconds.
Tears burn my eyes when the dark-haired man shifts on his feet to face Trey. “Where’s her sister?” I told you the redhead owned the key to his heart.
Trey shrugs, truly unsure. “I don’t know. We’ve got nearly every nationality covered in this room, but none of the girls speak English.”
“How many women did you bring here last night?”
“Seventeen,” Trey answers him after a quick mental calculation. “Six each in the first two SUVs and four in the last.”
“That’s sixteen,” the man roars, startling me so much I jump.
The possessiveness in Trey’s tone can’t be missed when he confesses, “One rode with me.” The blue-eyed man appears as shocked as I felt when Trey separated me from the pack. I was scared by his attention, but if I’m honest, that wasn’t the only emotion I experienced. I was also excited. Not once since the night in the butler’s pantry have I been chosen first, so once again, my wailing confidence craved his attention.
Unease melds through my veins when Trey mutters, “She reminded me of India.”
If I were missing any pieces of the massive puzzle in my head, I’m not anymore. India isn’t a common name like Ana and Sarah, but it grew more popular when India Dvořák married aristocratic royalty, Achim Novak, in a lavish, multi-million-dollar ceremony six years ago. Citizens of Czech have a weird fascination for naming their children after important members of society—even ones that cheat, rape, and steal for everything they have.
My mind jumps from the past to the present when the dark-haired stranger shouts, “I told you not to move until I said so!”
“I did,” Trey replies, nodding. “I told Rory to sit on them until you gave us word on what you want done with them.”
His confession is like a whack to the stomach. I knew I had seen that man before. “That’s him,” I garble in Czech. “That’s the man who took Ana. Rory. He has her somewhere here. Can you find her?”
A hope the dark-haired man can understand me crashes into me when he demands Trey to watch Justine before he commences searching the compound.
With everyone’s focus devoted on him, I drop the shard of glass from my neck before bending in half to suck in the air my lungs failed to accept the past three minutes.
I’ve barely filled my lungs halfway when Trey kicks the glass I was clutching to the far corner of the room before he raises my hand to check it for damage. I thought he’d be mad about me putting his crew in danger, so you can imagine my surprise when he seems more concerned about me than anyone.
He has no reason to fret. Although the slash mark across my hand is throbbing, the scratches down my arm hurt more than my self-inflicted wound. It may be an emotional pain more than a physical one, but still, it’s there, nonetheless.
“Why are you scratched?” Trey sounds angry, but it’s scarcely noticeable through his frustration.
He’s still on a cliff edge, but instead of coercing him away from it, I join him there instead. “Rory.”
“Rory attacked you?” Justine interrogates on Trey’s behalf, speaking in my native tongue. When I timidly nod, the worry on his face augments. “Why?”
“Pokusil se mě vzít místo Ana. Bojoval jsem s ním.” Guilt transcends when I mutter, “Ana nebyla dost silná na to, aby ho odradila.”
“What is she saying?” Trey’s voice isn’t as stern as it was earlier, but it is fortified with anger.
After taking a few moments to gauge how he’ll respond, Justine tells him what I said. “She said Rory scratched her when she fought him off her.” The sorrow in her eyes matches mine when she mutters, “Ana wasn’t strong enough to do the same.”
“He tried to take K first.” Although Trey sounds like he’s asking a question, he isn’t. He’s summarizing. The tick in his jaw announces this, much less the tight clench of his fists. “If she hadn’t fought him off, he would have…” He can’t work the rest of his words out of his mouth. His jaw is too firm.
From his response, anyone would think this is the first time I’ve been sexually assaulted. I wish it were, but that’s far from the truth.
Does that mean what I think it does? Did he order for me to become a whore like Achim said? Or was that another lie on a long list of many?
I was never told the identity of the man in the butler’s pantry, only that he was so angry about my deceit, I was the cause of the carnage that occurred the following morning. Our night together had tainted him so perversely, I poisoned his mind. India said that’s why he turned his gun on his family and killed his father. He was so sickened about what I had done, he wanted to die.
I wasn’t aware he had surviv
ed the six bullet wounds I counted on his torso when he laid across from me lifeless on the dining room floor. I was shipped away to face the consequences of my actions where I remained the past six years, and where I most likely will stay since I’ve once again failed.
Justine’s unique colored eyes pop open as wide as mine when Trey suddenly spins on his heels and storms out of the room. He knows the direction to take in an instant. The roar sounding down the hall is like a beacon for deranged, psychotic men determined to get vengeance. “You not only disrespected me, you disrespected my Ahren! Disrespecting her warrants the punishment of death.”
My eyes drop to the floor when my race down a lengthened corridor has me stumbling onto the dark-haired man beating the living hell out of Rory. He has him pinned to the wall with one hand while his other smashes into Rory’s face on repeat.
I can’t see anything but several pairs of feet, but the crack of the man’s fists to Rory’s cheek spells out every sickening detail on what’s occurring. Even if Trey wants in on Rory’s punishment, the stranger won’t allow it. He’ll kill Rory before he will ever permit him to leave this room breathing. I guarantee it.
My theory loses steam when the faintest voice whispers, “Enough, Nikolai.” It doesn’t belong to a man. It’s the owner of Nikolai’s heart—his Ahren.
After floating my eyes up from my feet, I watch Justine enter the death-scented room with only the slightest quiver to her stride. “You taught him a lesson. He won’t defy you again.”
Confirmation she can get through to him like no one else is proven without a doubt when Nikolai’s next two hits aren’t as bone-crunching as his earlier strikes. He still pounds Rory’s face to within an inch of recognition, but even I can tell his focus is shifting, and we’re strangers. She’s calling him to her, gravitating him nearer as I instinctively navigate myself closer to Trey. Even though I’m scared as to how he’ll respond when he discovers who I am, I need answers, and he’s the only man who can give them to me.
