17. Dimitri
17
DIMITRI
M inutes before sunrise, Malorie Thorne steps foot on my island.
I didn’t want to bring her here, but I didn’t have much of a choice. And besides, it’s not like Briar’s evil mother will ever be leaving this island. Not alive, anyway.
“Let me go,” she screams, shaking her head like a madwoman. I catch a hint of an Australian accent. Interesting.
“You can drop the act, Malorie,” I say. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” she says, thrashing her arms and legs. She’s no match for my men’s strength, though. They drag her toward the stables.
“All of your mistakes are about to catch up with you,” I say, walking alongside her.
“Please.” She’s sobbing now. “Let me go.”
It’s uncharacteristic, the begging. You’d think that an evil woman like her would have more pride.
But I know things about her. She’s a master manipulator.She’s good at fooling people. All of my men have been warned about this as well.
But it still catches me by surprise. She really is quite the actress, trembling like she has no clue why she’s here.
“I can explain everything,” she says. “Just please don’t hurt me.”
“That’s why you’re here,” I say. “It’s about time someone made you confess your sins for all to hear.”
“That’s just the thing, I’m not?—”
“Pavel, I don’t want to hear another lie from her mouth,” I say.
A piece of duct tape is placed over her mouth.
Her eyes lock with mine. They’re round with fear, giving me an Oscar-worthy performance.
My men bind her to a chair.
The sunrise adds some color to the sky—streaks of red, purple, and orange. Now that there’s more light to see by, I can see her face more clearly. I’ve seen pictures of her, so I already knew she would look very similar to Briar. I was prepared for that.
What I wasn’t prepared for is the tug in my belly, telling me to protect this woman.
“Boss, what do you want to start with?” Pavel asks, spreading the usual metal devices out on a tray before me.
Malorie is crying now. Endless tears stream down her face. And the sight of it is so heartbreaking that I lose track of every other thought in my head.
“Give her the truth serum,” I say.
Pavel hesitates for a moment. We usually save the truth serum for special circumstances, considering how expensive it is.But then he picks up the vial and the injection.
She starts screaming when Pavel advances toward her. She keeps glancing over at me, like she knows I have a weakness for her daughter who’s the spitting image of her.
He’s about to sink the needle into her arm.
“Wait,” I say.
He glances back at me. The needle tip hovers above her skin.
“Don’t give it to her just yet. I want to talk to her without the serum,” I say.
If Pavel is surprised by my order, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he removes the tape from over the woman’s mouth and steps aside.
“I’m not who you think I am,” she says, sobbing now. She’s hunched over, and her slender shoulders are shaking. “I’m not her.”
“You do understand that it’s too late to play the insanity card, don’t you?” I say. “The only power you have left now is to decide how much pain you want to endure before your final moment.”
“I’m not Jennifer,” she says.
“Who’s Jennifer?” I ask.
“You’re looking for the woman who looks like me, aren’t you?” she asks. “I don’t know who you are, but did you really think it would be so easy to catch her?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She starts hyperventilating. “If I tell you anything, she’ll come for me. She’s going to come for all of us.”
She looks like she’s on the verge of a panic attack. I would normally think she’s under the influence of some drug, but she’s been under surveillance for hours.
I pick out a pair of pliers, making sure she can see me shift it from one hand to another.
“You have beautiful teeth,” I say. “If you want all of them to remain attached to your gums, you’re going to start talking. Now.”
“Please,” she says, crying big fat crocodile tears.
Her glassy violet eyes take me back to a memory I’d rather forget. I shove it deep down inside because now is not the time to deal with it.
I grip her jaw in my hand.
Everything about this feels wrong. I’m not a man who second-guesses himself like this. I’m not a man who’s easily fooled. I never had to hurt a woman before, but this feels like it’s much more than that.
“Look at me,” she says. “I know I look like Jennifer, but I’m not her. I’m?—”
Before she can finish that sentence, her head jerks to the side. There’s a hole in her skull, and bright red blood drips down her neck in heavy rivulets. Her eyes are open in unregistered shock. I follow the path of the bullet to the man holding the gun. Before I can do or say anything, he lifts the gun to his own temple and presses the trigger.
Every thought in my head comes to a halt.
My temples start pounding. One of my own men just killed our prisoner and then killed himself.
I glance around at the rest of the men gathered around me, wondering who else is untrustworthy. I thought I could trust my brothers, but apparently not.
Eventually, I look back at the woman slumped on the chair.
We found her in Australia only two days ago. Since her capture, she was able to infiltrate my Bratva and select one of the weaker links to control her own destiny. I don’t know how she pulled it off.
I return my gaze to the man on the ground.
Mikhail was one of our tech guys in charge of security. I wonder if he leaked the location of this island, too. My eyes trail down his body.
“He’s holding something in his hand,” I say, glancing at the piece of paper in his clenched fist.
Pavel goes over to pick it up. He unfolds it as he walks toward me. His brows furrow in concentration. “It’s a suicide note. It says that they captured his pregnant wife and his mother. He was sent a video of them being held hostage, along with instructions of what they wanted him to do.”
Pavel hands the letter to me. I read it over carefully before folding it and putting it in my pocket.
I look at the dead woman.
Something doesn’t add up.
Why would she go through all that trouble to capture one of my men’s families only to be killed in the end?
I feel like I’m staring at a puzzle. I have all of the pieces except for one. And without that last piece, the picture is incomplete.
“What do you want me to do, Boss?” Pavel says, looking at me.
“Take care of Mikhail’s family,” I reply.
I give him a look that lasts a nanosecond, but he understands exactly what I mean by it. Mikhail was clearly forced to do something he wanted no part of. And he killed himself in shame, not because he was instructed to.
His family won’t be punished for it. Instead, they’ll enter a sort of witness protection program where they’ll start over with new names and identities. But I can’t let my men think that it’s okay to betray me in any capacity.
And then I turn to Oleg, one of my high-ranking brigadiers. “Oleg, start an investigation into this. I need a full report on any further security threats we may have.”
“ Da, Pakhan ,” Oleg says.
The sun is higher in the sky now, shining more light on the disappointment that just unfolded before us.
Everything about this morning feels like a strange dream.
Her tears. The way she begged me with her eyes. The unexpected sympathy I felt for her.
My men untie her from the chair, about to take her away from the crime scene.
She kept saying that she wasn’t Jennifer.Who the fuck is Jennifer?
“Wait a second,” I say, holding up my hand. I walk toward the woman. I pause for a second before I crouch down. I lift her shirt to inspect her abdomen.
I suck in a breath when I see that it’s unmarred.
Not a single blemish to be seen.
Chloe said that she stabbed her stepmother. I know from experience that stabbing wounds take time to heal. And even if she went to a surgeon, they don’t place skin grafts until the wound is fully healed.
Unless Chloe was lying, I'm missing something here.
“Malorie Thorne was stabbed only a few weeks ago,” I say. “She’s supposed to have a scar.”
One by one, I see other things about her that I had missed before.
Malorie Thorne was obsessed with beauty and youth. The woman in front of me is undeniably beautiful, but she also shows signs of graceful aging—laugh lines, sun-kissed freckles, and a couple of gray hairs. Her face looks natural. It doesn’t look like she spends thousands of dollars on treatments, cosmetics, and doctors. And I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I don’t think she has any Botox or fillers either.
It dawns on me for the first time that this woman might have been telling the truth all along.
She might not be who I thought she was. She might not be Malorie Thorne.
And only one person can confirm my suspicion.