37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Nikolai Volkov
“N ikolai. Nikolai, wake up.”
I groaned, rolling over to my side. My head pounded, a constant thump, thump, thump behind my eyes that made me completely disoriented.
What-how—
“Nikolai.”
I struggled to open my eyes, the grogginess in my mind making it impossible for me to get my bearings. The last thing I remembered was being in the elevator, heading up to the top floor. The doors opened and—
My eyes snapped open. Dominik .
Oh, no.
I blinked rapidly and my surroundings gradually came into view. The first thing I saw were the metal bars.
No. No, no, no.
I fought against the haze that kept trying to pull me back under and groaned as I slowly sat up, my limbs feeling like jello.
Yep. I was down in the dungeon below the Arena. I released a defeated sigh. Fuck. This isn’t good. I looked around, seeing my father in the cell to my left and, to my right—
“Aleksandr?”
My big brother was leaning against the concrete wall at the back of his cell, his head tilted up towards the ceiling and arms crossed over his chest. When he heard me say his name, his head rolled my way and he gave me a sad smile.
“I’m here too.” In the cell next to Aleksandr’s, Lukyan waved a hand.
“Me too.” Illayana poked her head around Lukyan’s body from the cell next to his, which had been blocking her from view.
They are all here?
“No,” I groaned, burying my head in my hands. “You idiots tried to rescue us when you didn’t hear from me?” It would have been a complete suicide mission. They didn’t have any of the information necessary to pull something like that off. No wonder they got caught too. They should have waited—
“No,” Aleksandr grunted and I frowned.
“You didn’t?” I looked around the room. “Then what the fuck are you all doing here?”
“I got jumped,” Aleksandr answered, his voice laced with anger.
Lukyan raised a hand. “Same.”
“Ditto,” Illayana cut in.
“Wait, you all got kidnapped? At the same time ?”
“No,” Illayana said, shaking her head. “Lukyan was first. Aleksandr second. Then me. I think that’s the timeline we worked out, hey?”
“Sounds right,” Lukyan nodded. “I was balls deep in this cute little blonde when a bunch of guys in masks came busting in and shot me with a dart.” He gave me a deadpanned look. “A fucking dart .”
“I was getting in my car after visiting a client when this van pulled up beside me.” Aleksandr gripped the bars with his hands, the metal groaning as he squeezed hard. “Fucker’s darted me too. I managed to kill a few of them before I passed out, though.”
“You did?” Lukyan frowned in confusion. “I didn’t.” I swear to God, he fucking pouted. “Whatever was in those things knocked me flat on my ass. I didn’t even have time to pull my damn pants up.”
“I got jumped while I was out for a jog.” Illayana’s face was a mask of furious anger. “They almost hit me with the van and I had to dive out of the way. Then four guys just picked me up and shoved me inside it.”
I stiffened at her words, my gaze snapping to her. “You were with Tatiana.” I didn’t phrase it like a question, because it wasn’t one. My sister didn’t jog. She kept in shape, yes. But jogging wasn’t her outlet. It was Tatiana’s.
Illayana avoided my eyes and I knew I was right. I jumped to my feet, frantically trying to look into the other cells.
Please, God. No. Don’t do this to me. It was hard enough trying to deal with the fact that my entire fucking family was there. If Tatiana was too—
“She’s not here,” Illayana said, but her words didn’t put me at ease. “They only wanted me.”
“You don’t know that.” All the other cells I could see were empty. The only people in this room were us. Talon must have moved all the other prisoners out when he’d taken us down there.
“I do. She was banging on the van trying to get me out when we took off. They left her there. Trust me, it was only me they wanted.”
“Trust you?” I hissed, moving to the right to grab the set of bars between Aleksandr and I, glaring at her. “You think I don’t know that it was your idea to go for a jog? She wouldn’t have done it unless you convinced her to do it. She promised me—”
“Are you seriously coming at me right now?” Illayana screeched incredulously. “Look around, you idiot. She isn’t here. She’s fine. Get off my fucking back.”
I growled, shaking the bars. “You’re so lucky you’re over there, otherwise I’d fucking throttle you.”
“Okay, everyone, let’s all just calm down—”
“Shut up, Lukyan!” Illayana and I yelled.
Lukyan gasped, then scowled angrily. “No! You guys shut up! I’m sick of all of you always telling me to shut up.”
Illayana kicked the bars that separated her and Lukyan. “It’s because no one wants to hear what you have to say!”
Lukyan lunged, his hands reaching for her neck through the bars. Illayana managed to jump back just in time. “Come over here and say that to my face!”
“What if Tatiana is lying on the side of the road, injured? How could you be so fucking stupid—”
“Don’t call me, stupid!” Illayana snapped.
“Why not?” Lukyan cut in. “You are.”
We all started screaming at each other. Me at Illayana.
Illayana at Lukyan. Lukyan at Illayana and me.
All three of us yelled over one another, not letting anyone get a word in.
We switched between English and Russian as the fight started to mutate, issues from the past rushing to the surface that had absolutely nothing to do with what we were arguing about, but just added fuel to the fire.
“I know it was you who ate that last brownie!” Lukyan screamed at Illayana.
“You know what? I did! And it was fucking delicious!” Illayana screamed back. Her gaze snapped to me. “And you! Are there any other friends of mine who you’d like to fuck?!”
I threw my hands up in the air. “What friends?! You only have one, because people can’t stand you,” I hissed.
Illayana gasped in outrage. “You—” She looked at Aleksandr. “You just gonna stand there and let him talk to me like that?”
“This doesn’t involve me,” he grunted.
“Oh, don’t go running to Aleksandr to save you,” I said, shaking my head. “Fight your own battles.”
“You wait until I get out of here,” she growled. “I’m going to fuck you up—”
“Right. Because that worked out so well the last time, huh? Tell me, how’s your arm?”
Lukyan laughed, pointing at Illayana. “Ha, ha, he kicked your ass.”
“I’m gonna kick your ass!”
“TIKHIY!” QUIET! my father roared.
All of us snapped our mouths shut at his command, that one word so powerful that we could do nothing but listen.
I turned around to face him. It was the first time I heard him say anything since I woke up.
To be honest, I’d completely forgotten that he was in the room.
My fear and anger over Tatiana had consumed me so entirely, I lashed out without thinking.
The silence that followed after so much yelling and screaming was totally jarring.
Autumn coughed awkwardly, the sound ringing out through the room. “Well—”
Father spun on her and pointed a finger. “Not one word out of you.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “Aye-aye, Mr Grouchy.”
Lukyan snickered, his hand flying to his mouth to try and cover the laugh.
Just like that, the tension in the air disappeared and everything went back to normal. Illayana and I looked at each other.
“Sorry,” we both grumbled at the same time.
“Ahem,” Lukyan pointed at his chest. “Where’s my sorry?”
Illayana and I rolled our eyes but both offered him an apology as well.
“Alright,” Father began, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now, we need to come up with a plan—”
The huge metal door at the end of the room swung open and we all snapped to attention as Dominik walked in.
Whatever differences we had a moment ago were gone.
We presented a united front, each of us moving to the front of the bars and glaring at the man responsible for putting us in there.
I gripped the bars so tight that my knuckles turned white, imagining they where his fucking neck.
He looked exactly like Father, but he didn’t at the same time.
They were identical twins, so they had the same facial features.
But where Father looked strong, tough and in shape, Dominik looked weak, slightly pudgy and pasty.
He didn’t have the same terrifying aura that my father exuded, the instant respect people felt a man like Dimitri deserved.
I think that had always been one of the contributing factors to the hatred Dominik felt towards my father. He hated that he could never measure up to him.
“My family.” Dominik smiled, his arms spread wide as if he was preparing to embrace us in a hug. “It is so nice to see you all again. It’s been so long since we’ve all been together like this.”
“You mean since you blew up my wedding?” Illayana snarked, arching an eyebrow.
Dominik waved that off. “Oh, that little thing? That was just a little fun.”
Illayana smiled, a truly dark and evil kind of smile that made Dominik stiffen despite being separated by thick, metal bars. “So was disembowelling your daughter.”
His eyes narrowed but then he just shrugged.
That was one of the big differences between my father and Dominik.
Father loved all of his children with every cell in his body.
He’d die to protect us. Dominik, however, couldn’t care less.
He used Rayna as his pawn to accomplish whatever plan he had and then just tossed her aside when she was no longer of any use to him.
“If she wasn’t such a fucking disappointment, I might actually care,” Dominik chuckled.
He let loose a self-satisfied sigh, walking up and down our row of cells with admiring eyes, like he was so happy to be seeing what he was seeing.
He stopped in front of Aleksandr’s cell and tilted his head.
“You remember our last conversation, don’t you?
I bet you’re wishing right now that you took my offer. ”