19. Sierra
NINETEEN
Sierra
I stare down at my phone on the drive back from the hospital, seeing where Kyran has tried to call me back a grand total of twenty-seven times. He’s also sent a dozen increasingly frantic text messages, all in his shade of almost unintelligible text speak, and I bite my lip as I stare down at it.
“We’re almost home,” Nikolai says.
I glance at him, trying to ignore the way my hands suddenly get sweaty at the idea of having to see Konstantin in all of his rage again. I can’t forget what he’d said to me the night before. I can’t forget that he brought me on a double date with a human trafficker and his gentle, broken wife.
I also can’t forget that James tried to kill the baby I didn’t think I wanted until I almost lost it.
My heart hardens, and I send Kyran a text.
My bad. Nvm. All’s good.
u sure??”
At least I know Silvano isn’t typing the text for him.
Yeah. I’m fine. I’ll call you later.
There isn’t even a pause before he responds.
promise?
I don’t know why I’m telling him I’m fine. I’m not. I’m not even close to being fine. I’m not going to be fine. Konstantin is already pissed at me, and the fact that I fled to James is not going to look good for me.
My thoughts darken, and I wonder what they’ve done with him.
I hope he’s fucking dead.
Yeah.
I text back as the car slows down. “But if you don’t hear back from me in twenty-four hours, ” I begin to type, but I don’t know how to finish that. I end up erasing it.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
I’m not going to be like Vanessa Pavone, complicit and looking the other way while Konstantin traffics women. I’m just not.
So why the fuck am I here?
Nikolai parks the car by the front door. He takes the remote for the front gate with him.
I guess they aren’t making that mistake again.
I smile humorlessly. If they really think that would stop me if I wanted out, they don’t know me nearly as well as they think they do.
I still don’t know why I didn’t throw a fit at the hospital to keep Nikolai from taking me back here. I don’t know why I’m here at all, except the idea of never seeing Konstantin, Yuri, and Nikolai again isn’t easy to swallow for reasons I can’t explain.
I get out of the car and fold my arms across my belly. Yuri is sitting on the front steps, staring at us.
“Is he still acting like an asshole?” I ask coolly, even though my heart is racing and it’s all I can do not to break out into a complete sweat.
Nikolai winces, but it’s only the three of us out here. No one in his organization is around to hear me demean their leader.
“Kotya…” Yuri sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “He’s acting like something.”
My fingers clench around my phone, and I wish I had told Kyran that nothing was okay.
Yuri’s expression turns darker. “We did something. For you. But I told him you get final say.”
I don’t know what to make of that. If they did something for me… Does that mean Konstantin isn’t going to lock me away and treat me like shit? “All right,” I say cautiously, then let out a sigh.
Yuri gets up and takes my hands into his. My elbows are still bruised, and he scowls down at the darkened skin.
“Whatever happens,” Yuri says in a near whisper, “I’m with you, Sierra, okay?”
I look at him, meeting his eyes. “I’m not going to roll over for him… or any of you,” I quietly tell him. “If he sticks with this, I’m out. One way or another.”
Nikolai looks between us, but he must not catch what we’re actually saying because he doesn’t contribute to the conversation.
Yuri puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me through the house. I’m confused when he skips the stairs and instead takes me out back to Konstantin’s work shed. The doors are cracked open, and my body tenses in apprehension.
I shouldn’t have come back.
“Kotya! We’re coming in! Sierra is with me!” Yuri calls out.
“Good,” Konstantin calls back. He slides the door open a few extra inches.
My eyes widen.
Behind Konstantin, on his work bench, is James. He’s gagged and bound to the table, struggling to free himself and making muffled noises.
“What…” I begin.
Nikolai gently takes my other arm. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Konstantin slides the doors shut behind us. “Sierra. I am glad you are fine,” he says in a brusque tone. He looks over at James. “Yura and I debated on how to punish this mudak. But we decided you get to choose. He hurt you.”
“So did you,” I tell Konstantin, but my voice is shaking as I stare at James’s bound form.
Nikolai coughs. “Sierra…”
“Don’t Sierra me,” I snap at him. I don’t look at him, though. I can’t look away from my ex-boyfriend, the man who’d tried to beat this baby out of me simply because it wasn’t his.
“I…” Konstantin starts, but he shakes his head. “Tell me how you want to hurt this man. Everything else, we will discuss after.”
I want to discuss everything now , while I still have my phone and I can call for help, but… Somehow, that doesn’t seem as important as making James pay for all the shit he’d put me through.
“I don’t—” I begin, then cut myself off. “I thought he’d be dead already, honestly.”
“Me too,” Nikolai says. “But Kotya and Yura want you to have a say in how it happens.”
Oh.
Now I understand what Yuri had meant.
“Yura took how many lashes for accidentally hurting me?” I ask, and my voice is oddly distant. “This fucker tried to kill my baby. If you hadn’t interrupted, he could’ve killed me, too.”
Konstantin’s fists clench. “Yes.” He walks over to James and wraps his hand around James’s neck. James cries out, the sound muffled from the gag, and his face turns red.
“You are going to die,” he says to James. “How much it hurts depends on how kind Sierra feels.”
I don’t feel kind at all.
I’m angry and frustrated, and I hurt all over, and there’s no remedy for that. Once again, I can’t even take anything good for the pain because it might hurt the child that’s growing inside of me.
The child that almost died the night before.
My resolve hardens. Maybe some of my fury is misplaced because I’m still absolutely livid with Konstantin, because I feel helpless, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“What are you going to do with his body?” I ask, staring at the handsome face that had utterly taken me in.
“It will be disposed of,” Konstantin says. “In pieces, after we’ve done with it what we need to do.”
A strange sense of calm comes over me, and I slowly let out a breath. “Let’s skip to that part, then,” I say, locking eyes with James. “The pieces.”
“You don’t want us to do anything to him?” Nikolai asks, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Zaya?—”
“I didn’t say that,” I interrupt him. “I didn’t say to kill him before you cut him up.”
I can’t believe I said that.
Moreover, I can’t believe I mean it.
The men are all silent—except James, who starts struggling even harder and shaking his head.
“We can do that,” Konstantin says. He glances over at his table saw. “I won’t mind cleaning the blood from my tools.”
I expect to feel familiar panic from the idea of blood, so much fucking blood, but it doesn’t happen. I’m numb. Maybe I’ll have nightmares after. Maybe I’ll regret it.
I touch my stomach, thinking about how terrified I’d been while he kicked me over and over, trying to extinguish the life from my body.
“Okay,” I say, finally looking away from James to take in the storm clouds of Konstantin’s expression. “I guess that’s that, then.”
I keep thinking about how this should feel: wrong, fucked-up, terrible, disgusting, nausea-inducing. But just as much, I keep thinking about how it had felt when I’d thought I was going to die.
I guess it’s fair that I return the favor.
“You should probably be glad,” I tell James without looking at him. “They’d do worse than cut you up if I wasn’t here.”
Yuri goes up to James and grabs one of his arms. “Should we start with his arm? His leg?”
“He’s going to bleed out pretty fast once you start taking off major limbs,” I say.
The muffled sounds James is trying to make only steel my resolve even more.
They remind me of my own cries of pain, the way I’d begged him to stop as he’d rained blows down on me.
I take a deep breath, forcing myself to look back at James. It would be cowardly not to watch, but I’m not sure I can. It will remind me so much of Neil, of the way he and his family had looked on the blood-soaked floor after they’d been murdered.
It will remind me, too, of the way Yuri had taken that whipping for me.
But I’d handled that, and I can handle this, too.
I think.
“Zaya?” Nikolai says from right next to me, squeezing my arm. “Are you ready?”
I nod, steeling myself.
Konstantin meets my gaze. I remain steady, and whatever he sees, he’s satisfied. He nods and turns the table saw on, then he pushes it down.
James bucks and makes even more noise.
It doesn’t help him.
It doesn’t prevent the saw from tearing through his flesh. Blood splatters out, landing on Konstantin and Yuri.
James’s screams get louder, even through the gag.
I swallow down the bile that threatens to rise. Being pregnant and seeing blood isn’t the best combination, with the metallic stench of it heavy on the air, but I have to stay strong. I hadn’t thrown up when Yuri had been whipped, and this?
This is actually deserved.
Nikolai wraps his arm around me. “You’re doing so well, zaya,” he murmurs against my ear.
James’s arm drops to the floor. Blood gushes out of the severed stump.
“Only three left to go,” Konstantin says with a vicious smirk. He lightly taps James’s jaw, smearing the blood. “No sleeping. You must feel all of it.”
My stomach lurches again, and even though I want to continue to watch, I can’t. I turn away, and Nikolai lets me. He shushes me when I try to apologize, and the muffled screaming continues for several horrible minutes that should not feel nearly as satisfying as they do.
Fuck.
What is wrong with me?
I sob once, burying my face against Nikolai’s chest, but I catch myself before I can break into all-out tears. “I’m fine,” I manage before he can say anything. “I’m fine. Just blood. So much blood.”
The screaming has stopped by the time I gather myself, but I hear the plop of something landing in liquid. Another limb, I guess, but James is probably dead by now.
I tell myself that he was going to die anyway, that this was actually more merciful than hours of torture, but I know it’s a lie.
But my baby could’ve died. The doctor had been surprised it hadn’t, for all that she’d tried to hide it.
I didn’t even tell Konstantin and Yuri that part.
Nikolai knows, though, and his arms tighten around me.
The buzz of the table saw stops.
“He didn’t make it through all four limbs,” Konstantin complains.
Yuri laughs. “Maybe the saw blade can still be salvaged, at least?”
The idea of Konstantin using that saw blade to cut wood… What the fuck is wrong with me, to where I’m not actually throwing up? My stomach isn’t that strong.
But here we are.
“Sorry for maybe ruining a saw blade,” I manage to say, though I sway on my feet. I’m no hardened mafia man—woman, I guess—to handle this with grace, though I sure as hell have no plans on staggering out of here before I regain control of myself.
I can’t let Konstantin’s men think I’m weak.
Konstantin’s men.
Reality snaps into place around the haze I’ve been in, and I remember that I have more reasons to worry than this.
“It was not you who ruined it,” Konstantin says. He walks over to the sink in the corner and washes his hands, as if it’s sawdust and not rivers of blood that stain him. Yuri joins him, leaning against the cabinet and waiting his turn.
I glance at James. His body is missing both arms and one leg. His eyes are open wide, like he’s still attempting to scream. His blood is pooling on the tarp on the floor, where his severed limbs lie.
I swallow down vomit again, but I force myself to look. This is because of me.
No.
This is because of him , because he’d chosen to hurt me when I’d begged him for help.
But is what Konstantin is doing to other people any better?
I want to say something about it, something clever and sharp, but I can’t make any sounds.
“Do you need to go inside?” Nikolai asks me, his voice gentle but cautious.
“No!” I snap at him. “We…” I swallow hard against the nausea. “No. We have to… to talk before the three of you decide to lock me away.”
Again.
The three of them look between each other. I brace myself for arguments, but Yuri nods.
“Yes. Talk to us,” Yuri says.
“I shouldn’t have come back,” I say with a self-deprecating laugh. “Don’t make me regret it, Konstantin .” I stare at him, daring him to come back at me with something that will make me wish I’d told Kyran the truth instead of assuring him I was fine.
“You should have,” Konstantin argues back. “You were safer at our side.” He glances pointedly at James.
“But am I safe from you?” I ask as steadily as I can manage. “Because I swear to fucking god I will not stay if you decide to continue doing what you are.”
How I’ll get out of this, I have no idea, but I refuse to stick around while he traffics innocent women.
“I am doing nothing!” Konstantin says. “I don’t know what you think is going on?—”
I glare at him. “You introduced Giulio Pavone as a business partner. The three of you have been acting guilty as hell. You freaked out when I challenged you. You must think I’m really stupid if you thought I wasn’t going to catch on.”
Nikolai is still holding me, and I feel him tense at my back.
Yuri starts laughing. “So this is your fault, Kotya.”
Konstantin shoots him a murderous look. “I didn’t expect her to know who Giulio Pavone is.”
It’s my turn to laugh, bitter as it is. “Yeah, well. Even if I didn’t, you’re the one who put it as… Hmm, let’s see. You’ve been too soft on your mistress . I will obey you like the fifty-something-whatever men who jump to your command, and you’ll make me regret it if I don’t. Is any of this ringing a bell?”
Nikolai lets out a choked sound. “You said what ?”
Yuri takes several steps away from Konstantin. “What the fuck?”
Nice to see that neither of them knew about that part, at least. Konstantin must know that he fucked up.
Konstantin lets out a frustrated noise. “I didn’t—It wasn’t like that. But Sierra was talking about leaving. ”
“And that makes it okay for you to change on me?” I demand. “To act like some hurt manchild because I called you out on trafficking women ? I have stayed with you, I have defended you, and I even made damn sure Pavone had no reason to lash out at you over me leaving even though I had every right to storm out of there and call my brother. But no. I chose to trust you, and you—” I shake my head. “I don’t even know why I came back,” I say, sounding every bit as tired as I feel. “Because you terrify me.”
“Called me out on—I don’t know what that means,” Konstantin answers.
Yuri says something in Russian, and Konstantin’s expression stutters. Yuri then looks toward me. “If the problem is Kotya, then you and I can get on a bike and disappear.”
“The problem is what Kotya is doing,” I say bitterly. “If the problem was him, I wouldn’t have come back to try to…” I make a frustrated sound. “Salvage this, I guess.”
Nikolai’s arms tighten around me. “You and Yuri aren’t going anywhere without me. Because you know I think this is fucked-up, Kotya. You want to lose everything for a little bit of extra cash?” He says something in rapid Russian.
Konstantin runs his hands through his hair. “It is not so simple. My father?—”
“Fuck him,” Yuri interrupts. “He isn’t here. He isn’t the one I’m following. I don’t want to do what your Papa says.”
“And neither do you,” Nikolai says. “Do you really want to lose everything because of him ?”
I stay silent as the pieces continue to fall into place. Money and pressure from his father… I guess I can understand the desire to please your family, but not at this cost. I thought better of Konstantin than this, but at the same time…
Is my family really so much better?
“If I defy him…” Konstantin trails off, and for a split second, there’s something vulnerable in his eyes. “He will not be happy. I already had Petrov giving me orders. Andronov has met with Roman. I cannot simply change plans.”
“Tell them…” I try to think. “Tell them there’s already enough of a presence here, or some shit. I don’t know. They have to know you met with Pavone by now.”
Nikolai shakes his head. “We can’t lie and say Pavone refused to let us operate here,” he says slowly. “And it’s not like we can ask him to lie.”
Yuri tilts his head. “He might. It would benefit him, right? And one of the guys I met in jail, he used to work for Pavone. He said Pavone often did shit for fun.”
“For fun,” I repeat, shaking my head. “He’s fucking disgusting. He stopped just shy of outright threatening my family and smiled while he did it.”
“He did not threaten your family,” Konstantin says, scowling. “He wanted me to know that he is aware of who you are, and that he does his research.”
“Yeah, well,” I mutter. “He didn’t need to comment on them.”
“Either way,” Nikolai interrupts. “Maybe he doesn’t want you in his territory selling women. Maybe he was fucking with you by having that meeting, or whatever it was.”
“I think he wanted me to like his wife,” I say abruptly, thinking back to Vanessa Pavone’s sad eyes. I let out an aggrieved sound. “Not that I’m going to be friends with her. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
“Why not?” Yuri asks. “Be friends with her, ask her to ask her husband to play along with… everything. If nothing else, we can stall for time while we figure out what to do.”
I grimace. “Because if I’m friends with her, it means I have to look the other way, too. It means I have to ignore the fact that she’s complicit in all of this—and don’t try to tell me she’s not.”
“You think Vanessa Pavone would be able to stop her husband?” Konstantin asks. “Would he listen to her?”
My shoulders slump, and I lean heavily against Nikolai. “No,” I admit. “And she has the babies.” I can’t help but snort. “Pandora, and Ares, and Kratos .”
“He named his kids that?” Nikolai asks, sounding bewildered.
I nod. “I’m naming my own child, thank you very much. I don’t care how drugged up I am when the time comes.”
“Our child will have a good Russian name,” Konstantin says, then he sighs. “I do not like this line of business either. We will talk with the Pavones. But we need to be even more careful. We need more leverage. My father won’t be appeased for long.”
“I’ll make friends with Vanessa,” I say reluctantly. “She’s nice enough, I guess, and she covered for me.” I force a smile. “And she knows about babies, so maybe that’d be nice.”
“Talk to Pavone, then,” Nikolai says. He brushes his lips against the top of my head. “And we’ll… figure the rest out.” He sounds relieved, and I realize that he and Yuri aren’t acting when they say they didn’t want to do this. “We’re with you, Kotya. You know that.”
I rest my head against Nikolai’s shoulder, and my eyes land on James’s severed limbs. I can’t help myself: I burst out laughing.
“What?” Yuri asks.
I point at James. “No. Just… us. Having this conversation. Here, with James’s parts.”
Konstantin glances at the body. “At least it is only his parts. I would not tolerate his screaming.”
I snort. “Yeah.” I take a deep breath, grimacing as the stench of his blood invades my senses. “You need a shower. And I need to rest. I’m fucking exhausted.” I look directly at Konstantin. “No locking me away. No reducing me to your mistress. I’m in this as deep as you are now.”
Konstantin nods. “All right. We will get through this. Together.”
“Together,” I agree.
Things are about to get a hell of a lot more dangerous, but I can’t help but feel… relieved.
And I’m really, really glad I don’t have that skeptical part of me telling me, “I told you so.”