Trey

by Shandi Boyes

  “We roll out in thirty,” Nikolai tells the men frozen and gawking. His wording couldn’t be more perfect. Not only does it lessen the heat of their wrath on Justine, but it also gets their heads back into game mode. Alexei is a moron, but it doesn’t take much more than that to fire a gun.

  After inconspicuously requesting for me to join them, Nikolai strays his eyes to Justine. “Ahren—”

  “What’s going on?” she interrupts, almost sobbing.

  Shock rains down on me when Nikolai picks honesty over deceit. It’s a rarity for him when he’s dealing with the opposite sex. “The Popov compound is moments from being stormed.”

  “By whom? If it’s the authorities, I can help. They need a warrant and don’t even get me started on the number of books I’ll throw at them if they don’t have one.”

  I smile right along with Nikolai. Justine’s offer was sweet, but nothing is ever done here with a book. “We’re not being raided by police, Ahren. It’s a rival of ours, unhappy with the consequences of joining a war he didn't belong in.”

  Justine’s lack of knowledge about this lifestyle is seen on her face when she asks, “What do you mean? What war?”

  When Eight bursts into Clarks, out of breath and with an ashen face, Nikolai signals for his men to move. Eight can’t get a word out since he’s so out of shape, but his facial expression makes it obvious as to what he wants to say. Hell has come knocking.

  While Eight struggles to fill his lungs with air, Nikolai continues wooing Justine with straight-up honesty. “Vladimir sought help with your kidnapping. My men couldn't get to Roman without taking down members of their crew. A man lost his son; now he is coming to get answers.”

  Well, mostly truthful. I still haven’t given him the full recollection of events that occurred that morning between K and… K. I haven’t had the time. That’s why I can’t let my fuck-up be placed entirely on Nikolai’s shoulders. I messed up, so I should pay the price for my error.

  “Let me come, Nikolai. Let me speak to Alexei. He just wants to bury his son.” That was the only term he was interested in negotiating with Vladimir two years ago when his middle son’s switch in enemies resulted in his death.

  “No.” Nikolai’s denial snaps out of his mouth like the crack of a whip. After mounting the ATV he arrived at Clarks on, he strays his eyes to mine. “He will kill you, then he’ll bury his son. You were acting on my orders, Trey, so the blame for Tristan's death is on my shoulders, not yours.”

  Hearing the unease in Nikolai’s tone as readily as me, Justine begs, “Please don’t go. Please.”

  Forever a leader, Nikolai replies, “I have to, Ahren. These are my men. That makes them my responsibility.”

  “What about me?” Justine fights back. “I'm your responsibility too. You promised to keep me safe. You can't do that if you’re dead.”

  When the sound of gunfire breaks through the eerie silence, Nikolai kicks over his ATV before locking his eyes with mine. “Keep her safe, Trey. That’s your only job. Keep my Ahren safe."

  I barely dip my chin half an inch when he yanks back on the throttle.

  “Nikolai, please!” I band my arm around Justine’s waist before she can take off after him on foot. “Don’t leave me! I love you!” She kicks, wails, thrusts, and grunts for the next several minutes, her fight only lessening when Nikolai’s ATV disappears into the darkness of the night. “Let me go.” She stabs her nails into my arm like K did when she woke from a nightmare before jabbing the heels of her shoes into my shins. “Nikolai!”

  Her frustrated wails are soon echoed by the women in the dormitory. They call out just as loud, and their cries are just as anguish-filled. When I nudge my head to the corridor where their room is located, Eight jerks up his chin, hearing my silent request for him to go check on them. My room is on the other side of the compound, but they’re so loud, they could wake K.

  With Eight’s wariness as high as mine, he removes a gun from the back of his jeans when he reaches the opening. When he disappears from view, I set Justine back onto her feet. A florally scent smacks me in the face a mere second before Justine’s fist does. Her gall both frustrates and excites me. Not because I’m a brain-dead idiot who enjoys being hit, it’s because she socked me with the same amount of intensity K did only two days ago. Justine’s hit reveals how strong K is. She may look frail and scrawny, but she’s far from it. Even at her weakest, she gives it her all.

  After returning my head front and center where it was before I was punched in the face, I mutter, “I deserve that… and so much more.” My brothers are fighting for my honor while I hide out like a coward. A throbbing jaw isn’t close to what I deserve.

  I realize the universe works in mysterious ways when Eight’s grunted request for help sounds through my ears. He’s carrying a lifeless woman in his arms—my lifeless woman.

  Seventeen

  Kristina

  “Come on, K.”

  The heat of a hand being slapped across my face rouses me from the darkness long enough for me to realize I’m in the shower. The same shirt and tiny pair of knickers I’ve been wearing the past twenty-four-plus hours clings to my body. I’m drenched head to toe, and the contents of my stomach are being forcefully removed by two thick fingers ramming down my throat.

  “Bring them up for me, K. You’re not going down like this. You are too fucking strong to let them win.”

  I soundlessly cry through the pain tearing up my throat when the fingers pierce through my gag reflex so forcefully, my stomach has no reason not to protest. I cough and splatter through pain medication I must have swallowed whole since they ping off the floor like they’re made from the same material as the studs in Trey’s cock.

  “Yes, that’s it. Bring them all up,” says a growly British voice not as pained as it was minutes ago before he once again shoves his fingers down my throat.

  This time, it is Trey’s clutch around my waist that causes me to hurl. He squashes my stomach so brutally, I’ll never be convinced my insides have organs.

  Once my second bout of vomiting is over, Trey commands for someone to count the pills in my vomit, wanting to ensure not a single one remains in my stomach. I don’t know who he’s talking to. I can’t see anything through the film coating my eyes. I’m not even sure we’re in the shower in his bathroom. Everything is a blur.

  While the black bob near the lower half of my body rummages through my stomach’s contents, Trey slips his hand under my chin to raise my heavy head. “Stay awake, K. Don’t you go passing out on me again. If you pass out, I will hurt you. I’ll hurt you so fucking bad, you’ll get back the will to live because you’ll hate me so much, you’ll want to kill me. You can’t kill me if you’re dead, K, so you need to fight to stay alive.”

  He pushes my hair out of my face when I slant my head back so the icy-cold water drenching my waist-length hair can remove the blobs of spew gripping my chin. “That’s it, K. Come back to me. Show me how strong you are.” When my head careens toward his chest, the pressurized water too strong for the emaciated muscles in my neck to handle, Trey wrenches it back. His clutch on my hair hurts, but it’s nothing close to the first time Achim tried to assault me. “Don’t you go falling asleep, K. Stay with me. I’ll get you warm soon, I promise. I just need to make sure you’ve brought up all the pills first, then I’ll never leave your side. You’ll never be left alone again. Do you hear me? I’ll always be there for you when you wake up from the dark. I won’t leave your side. I should’ve never left you to begin with.” His last sentence is barely a whisper, and it breaks my heart.

  When the guilt highlighting his solemn tone becomes too much to bear, I whisper, “Omlouvám se. Nezasloužím si tvou korunu. Nic si nezasloužím. Je mi to moc líto.”

  My blurry eyes drift to the right when a soft female voice whispers, “I’m sorry. I don’t deserve your crown. I don’t deserve anything. I’m so sorry.” Although my vision is still hazy, I know who she is. She just translated what I said word for
word. Only one person has done that in this country. Justine.

  “You said you’d go to war for me,” she tells Trey on my behalf. “But the war had already started. It will never end.”

  After blinking in rapid succession, I raise my eyes to Trey’s face, desperately needing to gauge his reaction when I quote, “I’ll give you the crown you’re craving, Duchess. It just won’t be pronged with jewels.”

  Since he has to wait for Justine to translate what I’m saying, it takes a few seconds longer for shock to wash over his face than I am anticipating, but it arrives, nonetheless.

  “You were in the pantry?”

  When I nod, Justine stops interpreting his question for me, clueing on that I have no trouble understanding English.

  After many seconds of painful silence, Trey asks, “Did I fire at you?” Not waiting for me to respond, he pulls back the tangled hair draped down the front of my shoulders, sucking in sharply when he spots the familiar circular singe of a bullet wound. “I hurt you.”

  I shake my head. “You didn’t shoot me. You pushed me out of the way.”

  Justine is only halfway through interpreting what I said when a gruff, accented voice interrupts, “I’m only finding four pills.” Although I can’t one hundred percent testify it is Eight speaking, I’m reasonably sure it is. He has quite a twang to his tone considering he lives in the city. “There are only four pills. Are you sure she’s overdosing on codeine?”

  “I assumed that’s what she took since it was what Dok prescribed. Did you find anything near her when you found her?” When Eight shakes his head, Trey lowers his eyes to mine. The panic in them has me wanting to fold in two. “What did you take, K? Was it pills? Coke? Did you shoot up?”

  Even knowing there won’t be any, he checks my arms for puncture wounds. It isn’t that he trusts me, he just knows I wouldn’t take anything that would make me more vulnerable than I already am. Drugs would do that.

  When he fails to find the cause for my near-comatose state, Trey requests for Eight to reach out to Dok. “If she’s OD’ing on heroine, pumping her stomach won’t be enough.”

  While Eight rushes off to do as ordered, Trey pulls me out of one of the shower stalls across from the dorm where the other women are. When I shudder through the toxins wreaking havoc with my senses, he requests for Justine to fetch some towels from a linen closet partway down the hall. When she darts out of the bathroom, I wrack my brain as to what’s happening. I’m so confused. The last thing I remember is waking up in Trey’s bed screaming, but that’s on the other side of the compound, so how did I get here?

  As panic drudges through me, my eyes pop open. I’m not just scared about the horrifying memories slowly filtering into my woozy head. I’m petrified Trey’s wet shirt is amplifying the zap of electricity surging through his body from him being tasered.

  The charge of electricity buckles his knees in an instant and has him slumping to the floor as if he’s dead. If that isn’t already terrifying, with a mocking grin, a monster from my nightmares steps out from the shower stall next to the one Trey and I just exited.

  With his head slanted to the side like a naughty dog, Achim says, “That was more fun than I thought it would be… even with his sickening display of chivalry. He has quite the fascination for you, doesn’t he? Come back to me, K. Fight for me.” He gags like he’s physically repulsed before he steps over Trey’s lifeless form. “Doesn’t he know he can buy you for a couple of nickels and a stick of gum?”

  Determination spirals through me when he has the nerve to laugh. Those are the objects he tossed at me the first time he forced me to give him head. I took the gum willingly, needing anything to remove the putrid taste of his cum from my mouth.

  When I say that to Achim, he backhands me so fiercely, the crunch of my neck isn’t natural. “Don’t you dare speak down to me. You’re nothing but the help.”

  Something inside me snaps. I don’t know if it’s grit or pure hate, but whatever it is, it roars so loudly, the force of its rumble shunts Achim back almost as much as my hands.

  When Achim trips over Trey’s still legs, his gun skitters away from him. I’m tempted to snatch it up, but he recognizes my game plan in an instant, and just as quickly, he pulls a second pistol out of the breast pocket of his jacket.

  With my heart in my throat, I sprint out of the bathroom, praying Achim will be so angry about my disobedience, he will take his frustration out on me instead of Trey.

  Mercifully, my plan works. A bullet pierces the drywall next to my head a mere second before I burst into the corridor.

  With Justine being hogtied by a man with icy blue eyes and black hair on my right and Eight gargling blood and clutching his stomach on my left, I head straight, praying the shard of glass Trey kicked away from me yesterday is still in the corner of the large space. It might not be as powerful as a gun, but more times than not, battles like this are mind over matter.

  Since my head is still woozy, I miscalculate my landing. I skid more than necessary across the highly polished concrete floors, only stopping when my head colliding with the solid wall almost knocks me out.

  While dabbing my head with my hand, praying the large bump under a mess of blonde curls doesn’t burst open, I clutch the shard of glass in my hand then twist to face the door.

  The jagged edge of the mirror digs into the skin Dok glued together yesterday, when my wooziness clears enough, I see the sickening image confronting me. A second man is standing next to Achim. He’s holding Trey off the ground by a fierce clutch of his hair. Blood is dripping off Trey’s chin. I can’t see where it’s coming from, but there’s enough for me to be concerned my endeavor to protect him has come too late.

  “No!” I shout in Czech when the man clutching Trey’s hair strikes him over the head with a tire wrench, causing a large crack to both Trey’s skull and my heart.

  My voice is so loud, the women huddled in the corner of the room break into a painful sob. It’s the same whimpered response they produced when they spotted Achim sneaking me past them so he could place me in a spot I’d be easily found.

  This was a set-up. My overdose. The takeover bid that emptied Clarks within minutes. Achim’s apparent annoyance about Trey’s protectiveness. It was all a set-up. The only thing I can’t work out is why. What benefit does Achim get from this?

  My stomach rolls when the truth smacks into me.

  This isn’t about Ana or me.

  It’s about Trey.

  It has always been about Trey.

  “What did he ever do to you to deserve this?” I shout at Achim in Czech. “It was India who couldn’t say no to the Corbyn men. She’s the one you should be angry at!”

  “What about you!” he roars back, his veins bulging. “You deceived me by giving your virginity to him…” he spits out ‘him’ like it arrived with a fresh batch of vomit, “… a lowlife thug who thinks he’s better than he is.” When a grin tugs on his abhorrent face, the color drains from my cheeks. “I thought a few years in a dungeon would have taught him his place.” He shakes his head in a demoralizing way. “Some people never learn.” His comment is for both Trey and me. He hates that he found me in Trey’s bed just as much as he hates how fiercely I’m fighting for Trey. I’ve never shown him the grit I’m displaying now. “There’s only one solution for disobedience. Death.”

  The reasoning behind him speaking his last word in English comes to light when the dark-haired man next to him raises his tire wrench for the second time.

  With a roar of a woman with nothing to lose, I spring to my feet, ready and willing to send Achim to hell before he can amass another undeserving victim.

  I’m halfway to the door when Achim commences closing it. Its vault-like locks clicking into place are as heartbreaking as Justine’s scream when the whack of a tire wrench fracturing a skull booms through the door only a second later.

  Although panicked about what I may see, I bob down to peer out the keyhole. Blood is oozing out of Trey’s head,
but the tiniest flutter of a pulse can be seen in its ripples. When they commence dragging him down the hall, unaware of my watch, I strain my eyes to the furthest point before seeking another way to spy on them.

  The wall across from me takes up most of the view, but since it’s dark, the industrial lighting wired throughout the compound bounces shadows off the stark white paint. They reveal they enter a room a few doors down from the one I’m trapped in. I can’t tell exactly how many, but I am assuming five or six spots down.

  When a terrifying scream rips through my ears not long later, breaking my heart further, I search the room for another exit point. My head is thumping so fiercely it feels like my brain is about to drain from my ears, and I’m unbelievably dizzy, but I can’t give in like I have so many times the past six years.

  It’s time for me to show my strengths.

  Within minutes, my only-just-gathered determination gets squashed. A large window spans one wall of the dormitory, but it’s barred up and locked like a maximum-security prison, the bathrooms are across the hall, and the walls are made out of concrete, so they’re too durable for me to break through.

  There’s only one way in and out of this room. I don’t want to go near it again. The keyhole is tiny, but the noises that seeped through it during my hunt for another exit are messing with my head so much, blackness is creeping forward, begging for me to merge myself into it, to free myself from the torture I’m reasonably sure Trey is being put through.

  I want to go, I want the pain to stop, but if I do that, Trey will die. That isn’t a possibility. It’s a fact.

  “Argh!” I scream out loud, my voice brittle and scorned.

  I smack myself in the head three times before spinning to face the women still huddled in the corner of the room. They stare at me like I’m crazy when in reality, they’re the ones who are deranged.